After being defeated by Obi-Wan Kenobi on Mustafar and firmly falling under the grasph
of Darth Sidious, Darth Vader was forcibly placed into a horribly painful suit of black
armor.
This was done mainly to keep Vader alive, but it also held him back in many ways, like
force powers, lightsaber combat and basic connection to the dark side.
So why did Darth Vader Never upgrade his suit?
Well there are a few reasons for this, and some of them might shock you.
So before we get started, hit the sith subscribe button down below and lets get into it.
In the days following Vader being entombed in his new suit, the Sith Lord quickly realized
that life was never going to be the same.
Vader was forced to endure everlasting pain which seared and burned for every waking moment
of his life.
He would never again feel the joy of eating a Mon Calamari soup, or a Colo Claw Fish dinner
from the oceans of Naboo.
On top of that, he had wires and tubes protruding through every organ in his body, providing
him the nutrients and energy needed to operate.
Vader even had his entire throat replaced with a droid like vocoder, to restore his
voice and allow him to give commands.
Most devastating of all was that he had to modify his extremely powerful lightsaber combat
style to something more refined and stilted.
Obviously he didn’t posses the same range of motion as Anakin Skywalker did, outside
of the suit.
He wasn’t able to use the singular ability that most Sith revere and use to great effect,
Sith Lightning.
Vader couldn’t even get a proper night’s sleep because of the fluids constantly pumping
around his body and the excruciatingly loud sounds of his respirator every time he took
a breath.
For the man who was once the chosen one, it was almost like he never left the hellscape
of Mustafar.
Only now, he had absolutely nothing left.
Now these horrendous conditions within Vader’s suit were no accident.
Palpatine specifically designed the suit to both make Vader feel pain, so he could channel
the darkside, but also to limit his power.
If Vader was able to access his full potential and immerse himself completely in the force,
he would have no trouble overthrowing Palpatine...
So for that reason, Vader’s suit kept him in a constant state of weakness, but also
brought his his full range of anger and pain.
The suit did nothing more than absolutely necessary and was purposefully misaligned
so that it’s metal innards would scrape and tear at Vader’s already charred Skin...
If that wasn’t enough, Palpatine also made sure that the suit had a horrible weight distribution,
with extremely heavy plating in the Boots, basically rooting the dark lord to the floor
and a misaligned spine, permanently tilting Vader slightly forward.
This made it so that his lightsaber strikes packed less of a punch and always put him
at the risk of toppling over, which did happen many times in the comics.
In the following years, Sidious gave his apprentice audio sensors because his ear drums were melted
by the lava on Mustafar.
The problem is that these audio sensors couldn’t tell the difference between ambient noise,
nearby noise or far away sounds, making them all blur together.
This was a constant dampener on Vader’s mind and he often recounted feeling like he
was trying to talk under water.
So now that you get the picture of how horrific and soul crushing Darth Vader’s suit really
was, that leaves us with one major question that we’re all asking.
Why in the name of Mon Cala did he never attempt to upgrade or get a new suit.
Well there are multiple reasons and they’re all connected.
In fact Vader did actually do some minor upgrades on his suit, such as tightening his cyberntic
arms for better weight distribution and realigning his legs to increase his movement speed, but
other than that he simply refused to do any more upgrade.
Reason number 1 was because it was simply too dangerous.
Surprisingly, Vader was handed the opportunity to upgrade his suit in a major way.
This happened in the days right after the Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the
Death Star By Luke Skywalker.
Palpatine was as you can guess, absolutely furious at Vader for being unable to defend
the orbital battle station, and was beginning to wonder if he was even strong enough to
serve as his enforcer.
At that point, Palpatine thought he might have gone too far in weakening his apprentice.
The Sith Master and apprentice of course had no clue that it was actually Skywalker’s
son behind the destruction of the Death Star, but regardless, something had to change.
So, Palpatine decided it was time to unleash Vader’s full potential.
Or so he hoped.
The new suit would turn him into the literal embodiment of a killing machine, giving him
the ability to finally control force lightning, making him many times faster and giving him
the agility of a Nexu.
In fact this new suit that Vader was offered would restore his movement and abilities back
to nearly the same level as his Anakin Skywalker form, before Mustafar.
The new suit was fully built and ready to transfer the Sith Lord into, but he refused
once he heard the risks of the process.
He was told that there was a very large chance of him dying while his breathing system was
being switched over.
On top of that, Vader would have to be completely rewired with everything from his lungs, to
his ears, to his arms being switched over at the exact same time.
Such a shock to the system was too high of a risk to take for the new Sith Lord, despite
the agility and strength it might restore to him.
In a way, Vader was too scared to attempt the upgrade for fearing of dying.
Reason number two is that Palpatine would simply never allow him to gain such a powerful
upgrade.
When Anakin Skywalker was chopped to bits by Obi-Wan Kenobi on Mustafar, Palpatine was
both irate and furious but also sort of relieved.
He was angry that his chosen apprentice, the man he literally shelved Count Dooku and Maul
for was now nothing but a stump, but also happy that he wouldn’t pose a threat.
If Vader had taken the new suit, Palpatine feared that he may become an unstoppable war
machine with no limit to his power.
Now reason number 3 is honestly pretty sad and touching, but it involved his connection
to Padme and what he had done in his previous life as Anakin Skywalker.
Vader took his suit as a consistent reminder of what he had done to get this point and
how deep into the darkside he went.
He viewed the suit almost as a sacrifice he must make in the pursuit of brining Padme
back from the dead.
If she had to die, then he had to suffer for every living, breathing moment of his life
until he managed to bring her back...
He literally scoured every possible corner of the galaxy for old jedi, sith and even
grey artefacts, looking for the key to save her.
He even tore up his own planet of Mustfar to gain access to an ancient artefact known
as the brightstar, which he believed was the key to immortality, and bringing Padme back.
For him to accept an upgrade to his suit, would be a horrible betrayal of Padme in his
eyes.
Vader believed that it was Anakin Skywalker who had failed Padme and that Darth Vader
was the one to bring her back.
As a result of this, he couldn’t allow any inkling of his old self to creep back in.
Any easing of the pain and suffering would bring him closer to the light and closer to
his old self.
This could not be allowed because it would bring back the guilt and shame of his biggest
failure.
He was of course wrong about all of this, but at the time, his mind couldn’t come
to any other conclusion...
The Story of Anakin Skywalker truly is one of the saddest descents.
Let me know in the comments how you think the Star Wars galaxy would be changed if Vader
decided to accept the upgrade and increase his power by untold amounts.
Would he overthrow Palpatine to become emperor, or would he serve as the unshakably loyal
attack dog of Sidious.
Both options are equally as scary.
Now the fourth and final reason that Vader didn’t upgrade his suit is another somber
one.
For the first five years or so inside of the metal sarcophagus, Vader absolutely hated
every second of his existence.
Every part of his body was a hindrance to him and every action he wanted to take was
blocked in some way by the suit.
But as the years went on, something changed within the Dark Lord.
He began to feel attachment to the suit and it become sentimental to him.
He also enjoyed being inside of the suit, almost as a refuge from the outside world.
He was able to turn off all of his outside receptors and completely cuthimself off from
everything but his own thoughts, and the dark side of the force.
This allowed him to enter intense Dark Side meditation and truly bring out the strongest
powers he could conjure.
In a way, it turned from only a physical defence from lightsabers and the outside world, to
more of a mental one.
It shielded him from the immense emotion pain that the real world bombarded him with every
day.
Anakin is truly the most tragic character to walk the face of the Galaxy...
From young Knight sitting on the prestigious Jedi council to a mechanical beast roaming
the galaxy in pain, sorrow and regret...
When you look at it, there were so many individual moments where things could have gone differently.
So many times where the Jedi order pushed Anakin further than he ever should have gone.
So that is the full story behind why Darth Vader never upgraded his suit.
Do you think he made the right decision or was he blinded by his rage and fury.
I’ll pass that one off to you.
Thanks so much for watching guys, really hope you enjoyed the video.
Cheers guys, hope to see you in the next one!