Anakin Skywalker–Palpatine relationship

The Anakin Skywalker–Palpatine relationship in Revenge of the Sith is a bond of political manipulation that culminates in Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader. Palpatine becomes Anakin’s new master, but the book’s central criticism is that the film does not make their relationship tragic enough: it shows Anakin yielding to the temptation of power instead of becoming evil through an excessive, misguided commitment to good and to those he loves.

Palpatine’s Manipulation

Palpatine’s influence takes hold when he reveals to Anakin that he is the Sith Master and intends to establish an empire. He exploits Anakin’s fear and other weaknesses, playing on the young Jedi’s ego and arrogance. He portrays the Jedi as corrupt and ineffective, and as responsible for Anakin’s suffering. The relationship thus develops through a calculated reframing of Anakin’s grievances: Palpatine offers a way to act against the order Anakin has come to distrust, while drawing him toward the power of the Dark Side.

A Fall the Film Leaves Underdeveloped

The book distinguishes between the fall the film depicts and the tragic arc it believes the story should have achieved. In the film, Anakin appears as an indecisive warrior who gradually slides into evil by giving in to the temptation of power and falling prey to the Emperor. The author argues that this makes his reversal into Darth Vader—described as the saga’s pivotal moment—lack tragic grandeur.

The more compelling version, in the book’s reading, would make Anakin’s own excessive attachment to the good the cause of his fall. His desire to intervene, do good, and go to any length for those he loves, especially Padmé, would become the very path by which he turns toward evil. Palpatine’s manipulation would then work not simply by offering power, but by redirecting Anakin’s drive to fight evil until that drive itself becomes destructive. The book sees this as the parallel the film proposes between the Republic becoming an Empire and Anakin becoming Darth Vader, but does not fully realize.

From Anakin to Vader

After Anakin learns that Padmé helped Obi-Wan find him, he attacks her, lifting and choking her with the Force before throwing her against a wall. Following his duel with Obi-Wan, Palpatine tells him that he has killed Padmé. Anakin answers with a destructive storm of rage: the walls buckle, medical droids are thrown about, and Palpatine has to shield himself. The book treats these two outbursts—first fury at Padmé, then rage and remorse over her apparent death—as evidence that the film makes Anakin oscillate between “bad” and “good” positions, rather than showing how his excessive love for her leads him into evil.

The duel with Obi-Wan ends with Anakin falling into a molten pit and suffering horrific burns and injuries. Palpatine’s henchmen rescue him and bring him to a medical facility, where he is kept alive in healing liquid, limbless and deformed. Imperial medical droids encase him in the armor that makes him Darth Vader. He then leaves the facility and joins his new master, Darth Sidious, aboard a Star Destroyer, where they look out at the Death Star, whose construction has begun. The relationship’s political outcome is stark: Palpatine’s manipulation has remade Anakin into the armored servant of the new Empire, now more machine than man.