What did I think of Revenge?

Epic.

The prequel trilogy comes of age, and it's terrifying, because it is so much like life. Anakin, poor Anakin--who you pity not because he didn't deserve everything that happened to him, but because he is the one to whom it all happened. The sufferer, the monster, the chosen one. Was it his fate or was it his choice? Folks will argue until the nerfs come home.

Anakin was never well with himself, never happy with his inability to express or manifest what he felt was a fundamental part of himself. "I'm not the Jedi I should be. I want more." Can we deny Anakin his right to become who he truly feels he is?

Easy for us to say yes. We know the twisted man Anakin will become. Easy for Obi-Wan to say, control your arrogance and your pride!, for Obi-Wan never had to endure the inhuman pains that Anakin did: life as a slave, the death of his mother, the understanding that he has the potential to save his wife and his child...and the potential to become the most powerful Jedi ever. Easy for Obi-Wan, who does not feel things as deeply as Anakin, who called Jar Jar Binks a "pathetic life form" and would have abandoned the Gungan to his death. Rigid rules are easy to abide by when you're insensitive.

"Only Sith deal in absolutes!" Obi-Wan says. One wonders if he understood he was screaming an absolute himself.

Anakin's blessing and burden is the range of choice he has. It's easy for someone who doesn't like the taste of meat to become a vegetarian. Anakin did the right thing every step of the way, because he was being true to himself. All anyone ever quests after is happiness, consciously or otherwise, and we see the misery inherent in those who have betrayed themselves and compromised their dreams.

"I want more."

For this, we must applaud Anakin.

But we must understand, then, that there is a price. Time is the great equalizer, that most crippling of factors to nearly every argument in support of following the quick and easy path of selfishness in pursuit of happiness. It is this, for his lack of patience, that most would like to blame Anakin. And they may--but not with any justification, unless said blamers have been slaves, have watched their mothers die before their eyes, and have felt within themselves the true stirrings of unlimited power. "Ridiculous!" cries a Blamer. "What you say suggests the destruction of objectivity, of coherence, and of order."

Indeed, the Blamer is right! Though his picture is incomplete. Justification or justice, ultimately, cannot be the central issue, though the issue often masquerades as justice. It is interconnectedness and the preservation of society. Anakin has every right to pursue his happiness to the fullest extent, but the moment his pursuit comes into conflict with the well-being of another, in this case of society itself, he must understand that the other will resolutely impede his agenda, and understandably so.

An example from that other big sci-fi franchise is perhaps appropriate here. In Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn, a self-sacrificing Mr. Spock challenges us with this question: do not the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, of the one? If compassion were made mathematical, the point would seem hard to argue. However, compassion is not mathematical, and an entire sequel, The Search for Spock, is predicated on the premise that the exact opposite of this maxim is true. The intrepid Captain Kirk sacrifices his beloved ship the Enterprise, his career, and the life of his son, for the life of his friend Spock. Why? Because, Kirk says with a Han Solo-esque grin, the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.

Can we deny Anakin his right to the pursuit of fulfillment? The right to the pursuit of happiness entails a covenant, a tellingly unspoken covenant that one may pursue his or her agenda whole-heartedly as long as he or she does not trample on others along the way. Upon verbalizing this concept, one must already feel the tension of brimming paradox. For this covenant goes unspoken precisely because it is also generally understood that along this all-important journey of self-fulfillment a person will inevitably come across a situation, in fact many situations, in which another person's comfort or well-being emerges as an obstacle to one's progress. And the sojourner will face a choice: do I humble myself before this person/obstacle at the risk of everything I might have, or do I impose my will on him/her and proceed undaunted toward my goal? In such a moment of choice, one feels the staggering weight of the unnatural convergence of improbabilities that has led to this very moment, feels eternity nest within his very womb. I want to do the right thing, one says, but not at the expense of myself. Not at the expense of myself! What guarantee do I have that if I pass up this opportunity to seize my destiny -- yes, at the expense of this other -- that such an opportunity will come again? That I will not have betrayed myself forever?

Alas, we may now mourn together. Because, there is no guarantee.

And that, called alternately the annihilation of the self and the faith that hope lives forever, is what it is to be a Jedi.

Obi-Wan failed. He admitted it to Anakin, to his son Luke, and to himself. In another lifetime, one in which he trained someone more like himself, we would say he was not a bad teacher but a great one, for his Padawan would have become an exceptional Jedi in Obi-Wan's own image. But we, and he, understand that in the reality of the galaxy far, far away, Obi-Wan-dimensional was unprepared for the burden of teaching Anakin and sorely misjudged his student. In his immaturity, Obi-Wan tried turning a youth more impetuous, more powerful, and more emotional than himself into another obedient Obi-Wan, when Anakin was in fact clearly meant to be a Jedi in the mold of that man who first had the compassion to recognize the boy's talent, Master Qui-Gon Jinn. Not a Jedi in the mold of Kenobi who resented the little boy for earning his Master Qui-Gon's esteem, or who only trained that little boy he resented because of a promise he made to that same Master whose approval he so desperately needed.

"You are lost!" Obi-Wan tells Anakin when the young man explains to his once-master that, from his "point of view," the Jedi appear evil. And recognizing his student is lost, Obi-Wan opts to butcher him. Here is the familiar "compassion" of young Obi-Wan, sentencer of Gungans.

What other option did he have? the Blamer asks. The answer is obvious and provided by Obi-Wan himself, twenty years later aboard the Death Star.

To die.

Death is the ultimate act of humility. This then is the true failing of Anakin and of all the Sith, like Darth Plagueis the Wise and Darth Sidious, who in seeking carnal immortality in fact have as their ultimate goal the abolition of all humility. Of ever losing again. Of ever falling, or even tripping. Of ever dropping ice cream on yourself. Of ever not having a comeback. Of ever having someone laugh at you. Of ever laughing at yourself.

Spurred by despair, the ultimate goal of the Dark Side is the abolition of empathy and the annihilation of all humanity.

Anakin must become Darth Vader, but society's cost for embracing his destiny, his utterly inhuman destiny, is that he also must die. And die violently. For the unconscionable seeker of immortality, nothing less may redeem him. For some, perhaps not even death is enough. ~ Abel G. Peņa

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