At this point, we do not "know" that Anakin and Darth are one in
the same, and nothing would suggest this to be the case. Kenobi hesitates for a
second before telling Luke about what happened to his father. Lucas would have
us believe that it was at this point that Kenobi invented the lie, but let's
say that he wasn't lying, or at least in the original movie, it was not Lucas's
intention that Kenobi was lying, but that he was just revisiting a painful
memory. Darth Vader would have been his real name, not an assumed identity
after the fact. He was a young knight, younger than Kenobi, and also his pupil.
It is normal for older knights to train younger ones, so we would naturally
assume that Darth Vader was younger than Kenobi. Kenobi might have been
training him as a squire.
In episodes V and VI, Darth Vader is a kind of overlord of the empire, the
enforcer who works directly with the Emperor, the right-hand man. However, in
Star Wars, he is just a kind of heavy. He works within the constraints of the
other officers, who regard him with both fear and disrespect. He takes orders
from Tarkin. It is clear that he is not at the top of the hierarchy, but is a
sort of black sheep within the hierarchy. The Empire is a kind of New Order,
dedicated (in part) to stamping out all spirituality, the Jedi included. So
Darth Vader is a traitor to his order because he works so closely with the
Empire. He is only tolerated by the Empire because he is useful to it, and
though he wield some power, he is treated with disrespect and disdain because
he's a holdover from the old order (which is being eradicated) and a traitor.
Traitors are universally despised in Western culture, no matter which side
you're on.
History does have examples of evil knights. The most appropriate example, I
think, is Mordred from the Arthurian legends. There are some clear parallels
between the characters. Mordred was a nephew of Arthur, and was jealous of
Arthur's kingship and his wife. Arthur put Mordred in charge of his kingdom while
he went away on some holy quest and in that time Mordred attempted to crown
himself king and have his way with his wife. The age is about right, putting
Darth as younger than Arthur, but older than Luke. Darth Vader would be a sort
of avuncular figure to Luke. Now, making Darth into Mordred, that would make
Anakin into Arthur and Kenobi into Merlin. Most of this fits, except that
Anakin was no king. What would Darth Vader, then have wanted? What would have
tempted Vader into embracing the dark side? He was "seduced" by the
dark side.
These parallels with the Arthurian legend might not be what Lucas had in
mind, but they suggest something, a kind of psychological determinism: We've
seen this sort of thing before, and so we expect history to repeat itself.
What if (and this is all conjecture without any evidence from the movies)
Darth Vader was envious of Anakin's wife? What if Vader was actually Anakin's
nephew? That would make Darth Vader Owen's son and Luke's cousin.
I would have guessed that Vader was between Luke's age and Kenobi's. Kenobi
trained Vader in the ways of the Force, but Vader was seduced by the dark side.
A couple of possibilities exist here. One, he was seduced by a woman (Anakin's
wife?) and so betrayed Anakin in order to get her. He would have in some ways
already have renounced his knighthood
at this point, as he was using his power for evil instead of righteousness. He
might have had his way with Anakin's wife, in which case, Vader might actually
have been Luke's father. Anakin would have found this out later and abandoned
Luke to Owen and Beru to avoid having to look at the product of Vader's
betrayal. Anakin, therefore, would have sought revenge against Vader, and Vader
would have killed him. I think this would actually have been a much better
story, and would also have allowed the whole "I am your father"
business to have had its play, but the truth would have been much darker than
what eventually became canon. We might imagine that Luke's mother, therefore,
died in childbirth, which would further make a villain out of Vader, and give
Anakin much more reason to seek justice.
Perhaps Anakin would have gotten his friend, Kenobi, to help him seek
justice against Vader. Vader, seeing that his actions had the consequence of
uniting some Jedi against him, might have decided at that point that he had
burned the Jedi bridge behind him, and therefore joined the Empire as a traitor
knight in order to use the Empire as a way to protect himself from the Jedi.
Another possibility is that Vader killed Anakin first, to steal his wife after
the fact, again siring Luke. Luke's mother, again, might have died in
childbirth, so Vader might have left Luke with Owen and Beru out of guilt
before going off to join the Empire.
In any case, had the prequels told this story, I think
the movies would have been awesome, and not the dismal failures that they
turned out to be.
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