I've been watching the saga again in chronological order and a few weeks back I finished reading the prequel books along with The Rise of Darth Vader book and I feel like something is missing in the story arc of Vader.

We see Anakin have emotional conflicts from TPM through RotS and then his eventual downfall into joining the Sith with Palpatine's help. Anakin follows his instructions and kills the younglings, anyone else in his path in the Jedi Temple, and the Trade Federation leaders out on Mustafar; he is well on his way to becoming the ultimate feared killing machine in the galaxy, and the Obi-Wan cuts him down to size and he finds out Padme dies...his mind is a mess and he has to get used to his new armored suit. In the book his emotional conflicts about what happened with Padme, is Palpatine messing with him or trying to make him stronger, and will he ever have the power he once thought he could have shows that he overconfidence isn't what it once was.

Nearer the end of the book he's tapped into the Dark Side to help wipe out the Jedi who were opposing him...but in my opinion from how I read the book it seemed as though that was the last of the Jedi that were around trying to cause problems for the new Empire. If this is the case, I feel that Vader is lacking some motivation or events to turn him into the feared person that he becomes or is portrayed as in A New Hope.

When the audience first glimpses Vader in ANH his image exudes fear and something evil...but if one doesn't read the Rise of Vader then perhaps imagination can help fill the void for what the Dark Lord did during the gap between films, but even then when I watch the movies I feel like I'm missing something in the rise of this feared killer. He took out a few Jedi who tried banding together, but General Grievous to me would have been a more feared villain because of the amount of Jedi he himself took out during his reign of terror.

Watching through A New Hope there is implied fear of Vader, but it seems as though he himself is content with this perceived image of himself even bowing down to orders from Tarkin and having to justify himself to the likes of Admiral Motti. Of course, at the end of the film when he his foiled in his attempt to save the Death Star he gets pissed off and then again brings out his anger in Empire Strikes Back. He takes over a city, puts Han in carbonite, and chops off his own son's hand - he clearly was put in a sour mood over having the Death Star destroyed on his watch. Then, during Return of the Jedi he seems to have calmed down again and through his son realized that what he was doing was wrong and there was still good in him - though in my opinion he showed more good in the original trilogy (save for his bad mood in ESB & torturing his daughter in ANH) than he did bad.