I Can Feel Your Anger...Anger and the Skywalker Men

Originally posted on September 15, 2006

I can feel your anger. It gives you focus...makes you stronger. Palpatine to Anakin, ROTS

I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the Dark Side will be complete. Palpatine, to Luke, ROTJ

I noticed something while watching ROTJ and ROTS a few nights back that I had never noticed before...Palpatine used the line, *I can feel your anger...* with both Anakin and Luke when tempting them with the power of the Dark Side. We all know that anger, fear, and aggression are the traits of the Dark Side...but we also know that these are normal human emotions. What is it about these emotions that make them so wrong, so Dark? Palpatine "feeds" off of these emotions...this is where he gains his strength, his power. But why do the Jedi see the experience of these emotions as so wrong?

We all know that Anakin was full of fear, anger, and aggression...primarily stemming from his days as a slave and his inability to prevent his mother's death ten yeas after leaving her. I am sure he was angry with the Jedi for not allowing him to experience these feelings as he once was able to...and equally angry for them not helping him the way he needed to be helped. If the Jedi had been able to help Anakin work through these feelings rather than telling him they were "forbidden," things may have turned out differently. I am sure other Jedi experienced these feelings, these emotions, but were able to control, to suppress, them. When Anakin came along, he had such emotional baggage, that not helping him to work through these feelings and not helping him to control them, IMO, was detrimental to him and to the Order. Only when Palpatine promised the power to prevent death did Anakin realize that there was more than what the Jedi had to offer. Palpatine gave Anakin permission to act upon his anger, his fear, and his aggressive feelings. With this came power even Anakin did not know how to control...and he succumbed to his Dark feelings to become Darth Vader.

Now, Luke had every right to be full of anger...he was raised by his Aunt and Uncle on Tatooine, knew little of his parents, and was being prevented from enlisting in the Academy. Yoda even said *there is much anger in him* when speaking with Obi-Wan's spirit. What Luke had most of, IMO, was impatience...much like his father's impatience. Luke also had much emotional baggage when he began his Jedi training...but he was helped along in controlling these feelings by both Yoda and Obi-Wan that he was able to not let these emotions to get the better of him. He learned *control* of these feelings, and was able to face his worst fears with the knowledge that controlling one's fear, one's anger would help with focusing on the task at hand. Luke almost gave in to these feelings when Palpatine was tempting him...but, after realizing what had happened to his father, he regained control over his anger and hate, gave himself over to the will of the Force, and saved his father in the process.

Now, the difference between Anakin and Luke here is that of *control*. They both possessed anger, the both possessed fear, but Anakin was unable to control these where Luke was able to learn control. As I said above, had the Jedi helped Anakin work through his anger, his fear, his hate and helped him to learn how to control these feelings, things may have turned out differently. Luke gained mastery over these feelings and learned to control them...although in the "heat of the moment" aboard the second Death Star, he almost gave into temptation. Anger is a human emotion, one we all experience at one time or another. Just imagine if we let our anger control our feelings, our lives...we would live in a totally different world, one where anger and fear would rule. It is just ironic to me that Palpatine could pinpoint and feel this emotion in both Anakin and Luke, father and son, but have two completely different results...one gave in to the temptation while the other did not.


As always comments are welcome.
May the Force Be With You All