We all love this Vader the most. The one who ruthlessly asphyxiates colleagues, keeps cutting Lando’s deal short and lobbing machinery at an already exhausted Luke (which felt like a pretty low blow as far as fair fights go).

The entire Vader arc (Episodes 1 to 6) doesn’t do him justice. In fact, it’s kind of hard to figure the whole Anakin/Vader character out. He ultimately (and sadly) comes off as moronic, gullible and inconsistent. It also muddles what exact influence the Dark Side of the Force has on a person: Does it possess them? Give them a cosmic cocaine high? Wipe their entire personality out of them? It’s a bit hard to swallow that Anakin would swear unswerving obedience to Palpatine (a man who has been lying to him his entire life) especially when he’s just seen him toss the last apprentice (Dooku) under the bus with nothing more than a shrug. Especially when the very thing he hinged his allegiance on (Padme’s safety) was thrown out the window mere hours after the vow was made. It’s not like Anakin gives two-shits about vows to begin with: he made a pledge to the Jedi Order and honored it by butchering a bunch of kids.

It would’ve made more sense to have Anakin less torn between right and wrong to begin with, more obsessed with power and the Emperor as someone who had a real bond with him instead of someone he flipped a coin to follow at the 11th Hour. In essence, to be more Macbeth than Hamlet. But what do I know? I’m just another idiot who derides George’s choices one moment and then wets his pants when I see new action figures at Toys ‘R Us the next.

Darth Vader: “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV2DLkDPwM8