(Electronic music)
- (Michael) What’s up, Wisecrack? Michael again. So I'm just going to come out and say
it: Sometimes I pine for my awkward teen years in the early 2000’s. It was a simpler time,
if you will. A time when frosted tips were cool, a cough wouldn’t kill you, and the
words “murder” and “hornet” never appeared in a sentence together. And perhaps
most importantly, it was a time before Disney and J.J. Abrams got their hands on Star Wars.
Now that’s not to say George Lucas hit it out of the park 100% of the time. Because,
well, he didn’t.
- (Young Anakin) Now this is podracing!
- (Michael) But despite the constant prequel-bashing, I have a certain fondness for Episode 3. Sure,
it’s not perfect. But it truly strove for greatness. Like Greek drama greatness complete
with larger-than-life characters, ancient prophecies, and a lot of severed hands - just
in a galaxy far far away. And while the film is certainly no masterpiece, it can actually
teach us a lot about one of literature’s most demanding genres: tragedy.
So join me for this Wisecrack Edition on Star Wars Episode 3: Crafting a Tragedy. And spoilers
ahead
Before we dive deeper into Star Wars, I wanted to let you guys know that if you are itching
for more Wisecrack content, we have two podcasts that currently run all-year long! First, every
other Friday you have Show Me the Meaning, hosted by your favorite red-head, where the
crew discusses the philosophy and deeper meaning of all your fav films. They’ve covered everything
from the Matrix and Django Unchained, to Mean Girls, and Cats. Then, every other Wednesday,
Wisecrack Writer Alec and Wisecrack researcher Surbhi join me in exploring the weird depths
of the internet and society in Culture binge. You can find links to our shows in the video
description. To make things even easier you can watch the video version of the streams
on our youtube channel, youtube.com/wisecasts. Check them out and leave a comment, you may
just end up on the pod! Now back to the show.
But first, a quick refresher. After a separatist movement leaves the Galactic Republic embroiled
in war, Chancellor Palpatine – the de-facto head of the Republic and a not-so-secret Sith
Lord – gets faux-captured by General Greivous and the separatists. Obi-Wan and Anakin make
a desperate bid to free the Chancellor, which leads to more severed hands and one murdered
Count. When they return home, Anakin receives a hero’s welcome, learns that his wife – is
pregnant, and then gets appointed to the Jedi Council. All’s well that ends well, right?
Not quite.
As the Clone Wars draw to a close, Chancellor Palpatine solidifies his power in the Senate
and the Jedi Council grows distrustful of Anakin’s friendship with him. Worse, Anakin
is plagued by prophetic dreams of Padme dying, dreams that Palpatine exploits.
- (Palpatine) He had such a knowledge of the dark side. He could even keep the ones he
cared about from dying.
- (Michael) While Anakin initially snitches on the Chancellor for being a Sith, the young
Skywalker eventually betrays the Jedi Council in hopes of saving Padme. Palpatine then executes
the infamous Order 66 to exterminate all the Jedi:
- (Palpatine) Execute Order 66
- (Michael) And turns the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire, bestowing upon us
one of our all-time favorite memes.
- (Padme) So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause.
- (Michael) The film concludes with Anakin spiraling into darkness, killing innocent
children and force-choking Padme, before facing Obi-Wan in one final, epic fight. The rest
is history. Anakin is defeated, Padme dies in childbirth, and Darth Vader as we know
him is born.
- (Darth Vader) Nooo!
- (Michael) In order to understand how George Lucas crafted a modern tragedy out of Episode
3 – and how it fell just short of greatness – we first have to look at the genre itself.
In his book, Poetics, Aristotle defines a “tragedy” as a story about one great individual
who experiences a reversal of fortune, thereby evoking pity or fear in the audience. And
yes, Episode 3, checks all these boxes. Anakin, thought to be the child of prophecy and destined
for greatness, falls to the dark side and destroys everything he loved. We feel bad
for him. It’s not subtle:
- (Obi-Wan) You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not
join them!
- (Michael) But if we want to get into the real nuts and bolts of the tragedy, we need
a more structural definition of the term. Literary critic, Christopher Booker, offers
this definition of tragedy in his absolute brick of a text, The Seven Basic Plots:
A tragedy is the story of a hero “being tempted or impelled into a course of action
which is in some way dark or forbidden. For a time, as the hero embarks on a course, he
enjoys almost unbelievable, dreamlike success. But somehow… The original dream has soured
into a nightmare where everything is going more and more wrong. This eventually culminates
in the hero's violent destruction.”
To Booker, this arc from temptation to destruction spans five simple steps. Importantly, we see
Anakin’s arc in Episode 3 match this structure step for step.
We start with Stage 1, The Anticipation Stage: This is the start of our journey, where we
find our tragic hero unfulfilled and dreaming of greater things. As Booker is quick to point
out, this isn’t all that different from how our traditional, non-tragic heroes start
their stories.
In non-tragic Episode 4, for example, we open with a simple farmhand dreaming of adventure.
In Episode 3, we open with a dissatisfied hero who feels stifled by his superiors. As
a result, he’s pathologically reckless.
(Spaceship whirring)
- (Michael) In the first battle, he disobeys orders and tries to shoot off the drones swarming
Obi-Wan’s ship. Then, in a true “hold my spotchka” moment, Anakin tries to use
his own ship to scoop them off. Of course, we will learn that Anakin only takes such
dumb-dumb risks in order to save his loved ones.
But there’s a darker component to this. Anakin has ambition; he wants power. We see
this in his showdown with Count Dooku:
- (Dooku) I sense great fear in you, Skywalker. You have hate. You have anger. But you don’t
use them.
- (Michael) And this is what sets the tragic hero apart from our traditional hero. Instead
of answering your typical call to adventure, like Luke answering Leia’s distress signal,
the tragic hero answers a different call: the call to temptation. We see Anakin answer
this call when he listens to Chancellor Palpatine and kills Count Dooku:
- (Palpatine) Good Anakin, good! Kill him.
- (Michael) It fills us with dread. This is the first step in Anakin’s fall: he’s
given in to his desire for power. Here, the temptations of the Sith trump the teachings
of the Jedi.
That brings us to Stage Two: The Dream Stage: Booker defines the Dream Stage as the point
where the tragic hero “becomes in some way committed to his course of action... and for
a while things go almost improbably well for the hero. He is winning the gratification
he had dreamed of, and seems to be 'getting away with it'.” For Anakin, this means getting
exactly what he wants. He’s become a hero, his new bestie Palpatine is back in power,
and he scores a seat on the Jedi Council. Of course, not everyone is happy with these
developments, particularly Anakin’s fellow Jedi. But our young Skywalker just doesn’t
care, so long as he can save Padme. Booker might call these events typical Dream Stage
fare. The tragic hero remains “reckless” in their pursuit of their goal, and is blinded
enough by their subsequent success -- so much so that they don’t realize they’re sowing
the seeds of their own destruction. This is doubly the case for Anakin, who is so blinded
by the power Palpatine offers him that he doesn’t realize he’s slipping towards
the dark side – and ironically, dooming both Padme and himself.
Next up is stage three: The Frustration Stage, when the tide begins to shift against our
tragic hero. At this point in the journey, Booker says the tragic hero “begins to experience
a sense of frustration, and in order to secure his position may feel compelled to further
'dark acts' which lock him into his course of action even more irrevocably.” In Episode
3, Anakin becomes increasingly frustrated with the limitations of his newfound success.
While he might sit on the Jedi Council, his fellow Jedi will neither grant him the rank
of master, nor help him save Padme. And when Anakin sees another vision of Padme dying
– this time with Obi-Wan by her side – his frustration hits its peak.
Fed up with the Jedi, and tempted by Palpatine, Anakin opts to save the Chancellor at the
last minute. In a fit of desperation, he lops off hand number three, while Mace Windu is
force lightning-ed out the window. In saving Palpatine, Anakin finally commits that “irrevocable
act” – the one which seals his fate. As if to underscore this point, Palpatine tells
Anakin:
- (Palpatine) When the Jedi find out what has transpired here, they will kill us.
- (Michael) And those foreboding words bring us to stage 4: The Nightmare Stage, in which
the tragic hero finds himself alone with the forces of opposition arrayed firmly against
him. That’s exactly where Anakin lands after he betrays the Jedi Order and murders the
last of the Separatists in the Mustafar system, only for Padme to confront him. In what amounts
to a truly unhinged rant, Anakin admits to killing children and separatists alike, all
for Padme’s sake.
- (Anakin) Don’t you see? We don’t have to run away anymore. I have brought peace
to the Republic. I am more powerful than the Chancellor. I can overthrow him. And together
we can rule the galaxy. Make things the way we want to be!
- (Michael) In doing so, Anakin pushes away his last and closest ally – and any real
hope of redemption. When Obi-Wan steps out of the ship, Anakin misconstrues this all
as an elaborate plot to kill him. In a desperate bid for control of the situation, he breaks
out his soon to be signature move: the force choke. The only problem? It’s on his wife.
This bleakly transitions us into stage 5: The Destruction or Death Wish Stage, in which
our tragic hero will finally destroy himself. Isolated from all his friends and family,
the end is now in sight for Anakin. After a heated lightsaber duel with Obi-Wan, the
two stare each other down over a lava river. That’s when this iconic exchange goes down:
- (Obi-Wan) It’s over Anakin. I have the high ground!
- (Anakin) You underestimate my power! - (Obi-Wan) Don’t try it.
- (Michael) Remember the pride and ambition that led Anakin to kill Count Dooku and court
Palpatine’s friendship? Here, it leads him to believe that he can finally take down his
former master, even with a fatal disadvantage. So how does that go for him? Yeah, Anakin?
More like Ana-Can’t. And sure, Anakin doesn’t experience a literal death here. But, as he
burns on the lava shores of Mustafar, cursing his old master, it’s hard not to feel that
the boy we met in Episode 1 is, metaphorically, dead. Fittingly in the closing scene of the
film, he’s reborn as the most iconic villain in cinema history.
But here’s the question, Wisecrack: if Episode 3 stuck so closely to Booker’s five-part
structure, why does it still seem like it’s messing up this whole tragedy thing?? Now
maybe this is a lot to ask of the only decent film in a trilogy otherwise mired by mediocrity
and... sand.
- (Anakin) I don’t like sand.
- (Michael) But in all seriousness, we think the film fails in two key components of tragedy,
1. the dramatic flaw and 2. destiny, and how they both interact with this five part structure.
The concept of the tragic flaw also comes from - you guessed it - Aristotle. Which,
translated into its original Greek, hamartia, the word means to “miss the mark”, “fall
short”, or “err”. In Aristotle’s conception of the term, hamartia is the mistake in judgment
that sets our tragic hero on their path and ultimately dooms them. In Oedipus Rex, it’s
Oedipus’ incessant desire for knowledge. At first, this desire brings him results – he
solves the riddle of the Sphinx, saves Thebes, and becomes king. But this desire also guarantees
his downfall. When the play starts, Oedipus is searching for the murderer of the previous
king so he can stop a plague from ravaging his city. Except in this relentless quest
for knowledge, he misses the mark. By which we mean Oedipus realizes that he killed the
king/his father, banged the queen/ his mother, and is truly and literally blind to the cosmic
truth of the world. Importantly, this tragic flaw orders the action of the story; all of
the character’s mistakes are born out of this deficiency. As they emotionally spiral
into despair, this flaw only skyrockets in intensity – which is how we get our tragic
arc.
The problem with Episode 3, though, is that this tragic flaw is a lot harder to pin down.
Simply put, Anakin doesn’t merely miss the mark in one way. He’s angry, he’s proud,
he’s ambitious, and sometimes he’s just an all around dick. And in the philosophy
of the Force, it’s all kind of a packaged deal. And yes, before you smash that dislike
button, I know the film goes to great lengths to explain all these disparate flaws as the
outgrowth of one underpinning flaw: fear. We can see this in both Yoda’s warnings
- (Yoda) Careful you must be when sensing the future, Anakin. The fear of loss is a
path to the dark side.
- (Michael) As well as in Dooku’s ramblings:
- (Dooku) I sense great fear in you, Skywalker.
- (Michael) Whether it’s the Jedi or the Sith, it seems like everyone agrees that fear
is the gateway drug to a lot of bad emotions. Except, when we sit down to analyze the film,
fear alone doesn’t really motivate a lot of Anakin’s mistakes, at least not in the
same way Oedipus’ desire for knowledge motivates his mistakes. As a result, Anakin’s emotional
journey reads a bit uneven at times.
To see what I mean, let’s revisit Booker’s five part structure, and see how Anakin’s
tragic flaw swings back and forth between these steps. In the Anticipation Stage, we
identified a lust for power and ambition as the tragic flaw that made Anakin kill Count
Dooku. But then there’s this line:
- (Palpatine) He cut off your arm, and you wanted revenge.”
- (Michael) Okay so, you’re probably thinking, Anakin’s lust for power with a side of revenge
is his tragic flaw. But THEN, in the Dream stage, most of the conflict centers around
Anakin’s moral discomfort over playing spy for the Jedi.
- (Anakin) You’re asking me to do something against the Jedi Code. Against the Republic.
Against a mentor and a friend – that’s what’s out of place here.
- (Michael) In other words, his misplaced loyalty is what drives the plot here, not
his desire for power. In the ensuing Frustration Stage, this misplaced loyalty is further tested,
until eventually Anakin chooses Palpatine. But remember, Palpatine is a traitor, so it’s
not loyalty motivating this decision. Instead, Anakin chooses the dark side because he fears
losing Padme. - which really has nothing to do with his ambition. So far, his tragic flaw
has gone from lust for power to misplaced loyalty to fear of losing his boo. Of course,
this fear seems pretty short lived, though, because Anakin has no problem choking Padme
in the Nightmare Stage. Yeah, we’re back to power-lust again, complete now with ramblings
about ruling an empire. This flaw carries on to the Destruction Stage, and then, credits.
I should note here - each of these flaws individually makes plenty of logical sense - Anakin’s
shittiness has been foreshadowed and explained throughout the trilogy. He has a bad temper,
doesn’t like sand, obsesses over losing his loved ones, and does a war crime in episode
2. But it doesn’t entirely work in the narrative sense - it feels more sloppy than complex.
Because the tragic flaw changes so drastically throughout the film, we as the audience are
left with a bit of an emotional whiplash. Take for example, the Nightmare Stage, in
which Anakin is all about that power, so much so, that he actually slaughters a bunch of
Jedi children just so he can get more of it. To a lot of moviegoers at the time, this off-screen
revelation was a shocker, and not in a good way. It just seemed so far out of character
from the Anakin we knew up to this point. The padawan losing his temper? Sure. Acting
in revenge? Fine. Vainly seeking glory? Yeah. Going too far to defend those he cares about?
Definitely. Murdering kids to get a promotion? Uh, what? But that’s because the tragic
flaw motivating this action wasn’t consistent in the buildup. Anakin’s fear was played
up in the last stage, and his misplaced loyalty in the stage before. But imagine how powerful
this scene would be if every stage of Anakin’s journey was motivated by one flaw, say the
fear of loss. Imagine if he had killed Count Dooku in order to save Obi-Wan, if he had
sided against the Council out fear that their plans would cost more lives, if killing Mace
Windu directly and immediately saved Padme… which is to say, imagine if all of these tragic
stages expounded upon the same flaw. If Anakin’s visions of a dying Padme involved her house
burning down from a Youngling’s flaming-bag-of-doorstep-poop-prank-gone-wrong, then maybe the outrageous step of hurting
children in the Nightmare Stage wouldn’t seem so outrageous. The message being that:
If you’re willing to go to any length to save the ones you love no matter what, you
risk becoming a monster.
According to Booker, this inevitable slide from good to bad – from the light side to
the dark side – is the key component of the tragic hero’s personality. They are
a “divided self, one part of their personality striving against another.” And their downfall
amounts to the “the process whereby a human being may be transformed into a 'monster'.”
But it’s not enough for Anakin to simply become a monster. He has to become one of
the greatest villains of cinematic history. While his lack of a consistent tragic flaw
makes for a less satisfying one-off tragedy, there would also be a problem if his tragic
flaw WAS consistent: specifically, it’s possible we might relate or even empathize
too heavily with him, diluting the power of the monster we know he becomes. Because Anakin
can’t just be a good guy who happened to go down the wrong path. He has to be extra
bad.
- (Spongebob) This isn’t your average everyday darkness. This is... advanced darkness.
- (Michael) That brings us to our final, and in this case, complicated component of tragedy:
fate. Anakin, in more sense than one, was fated to be bad. This is consistent with classic
tragedy, where a pervasive sense of inevitability hangs above heroes. Whether it’s Oedipus
or Macbeth, characters are not only doomed by prophecies, but often by their very nature
– the flaws that force these prophecies to come true. But for Anakin, as we discussed,
this dreaded inevitability doesn’t come from a single tragic flaw that renders him
sympathetic. Instead, our dread comes primarily from the fact that we the audience already
know his fate. Because while the Greeks might have believed in the literal spinners of fate
controlling destiny, in the Star Wars fandom, we believe in an even greater god: the holy
trinity of Episodes 4, 5 and 6.
That’s where Episode 3’s missteps become more forgivable. See, above all else, Lucas
had to preserve the integrity of this sacrosanct trilogy, even if it came at the cost of the
Anakin’s character arc in Episode 3. If the film HAD doubled down on Anakin’s fear
of loss for his tragic flaw, he might have joined the pantheon of other great tragic
heroes in pop culture, from Michael Corleone to Walter White. As with our other family-men-turned-crime-bosses,
our hearts would break even more when we see Anakin go past the point of no return, and
in doing so we’d experience the ultimate aim of tragedy: emotional release, or catharsis.
But making Anakin a full tragic hero would inherently ruin a more important character:
Darth Vader, our OG villain. A tragic hero we pity; a villain we-love-to-hate-and maybe-eventually-learn-to-love
when he redeems himself. And Anakin, by virtue of episodes 4-6, was doomed to start off as
a very hateable villain.
So what do you think, Wisecrack? Does the overwhelming sailience of Darth Vader the
villain doom Anakin the tragic hero? Or are we being too hard on this ambitious film?
Let us know what you think in the comments. Many many thanks to our rad patrons for supporting
us. Thanks for watching guys, later!