In my now obligatory post on Star Wars Day (which happens in a week that contains Ed Balls Day and May Day), I want to talk about the most Starwarsian thing of all, Darth Vader.
He is the principal character around whom six films are dedicated and he spends just over half of the time, as a man in a mask.
Episode I is a film which tried to build the world; which is fine but it fails as a film. I have no idea what Episode II was trying to do and it has left so little of an impression upon me that I have no idea what it was about now. Episode III is a love story with an unhappy ending; which dovetails into Episode IV, where the man has become machine monster. Episodes IV, V and VI are basically a long redemption arc; which resolves itself in an ending where we are all supposed to be happy that Mr Vader finally did something heroic.
The six arc story is Wagnerian in its approach and properly lives up to the title of epic space opera but for that central character of Darth Vader, it is an awful existence.
He spends his childhood growing up as a glorified slave, he then gets trained in a weird religion with space laser swords, then he falls into a volcano, loses his legs, is progressively radicalised, and becomes a machine monster whose only redemption arc appears to be death. We the audience are mostly fine with this because characters as device within fictional narratives, don't necessarily have to have nice things happen to them. Because characters are puppets who exist and dance purely for the entertainment of the audience, whatever happens to them ultimately isn't real.
The visual look of the design of Vader is undeniably cool. He's got an expressionless mask and a long cowl. Would you really want to inhabit the space inside the black expressionless machine monster? Unconditionally, no.
Not only does he have no legs as the result of being burned in a volcano, it is unclear whether or not he needs help to breathe. It is unclear what he eats, or how he eats, or even if he eats anything. For all we know, his whole diet might be piped in through a straw or perhaps directly intravenously. We also have no idea how or if he goes to the toilet. I imagine that he would still need to poop and pee but how that is connected is a mystery. I imagine that living inside the machine monster would be deeply unpleasant.
On top of that, throw in the complications of being a moody 22 year old when he lost both his legs and his wife. I have no idea how force sensitivity works in the Star Wars universe but setting that aside, not knowing what happened to your children when you were 22, is troubling and traumatising.
Also, what does Vader do when he is not at work? Even hardened criminals need some kind of down time and the very worst of dictators still need relaxation. We have no idea what Vader does when he is not in charge of armies. I do not think that you would see Mr Vader down at the pub on the Defence Sphere (Death Star). I doubt that he'd be at the movies. I also very much doubt given what else we know about the Star Wars universe that he'd be watching Emmerdale on BBC 1. I do not think that he would be allowed to play sport because of his obvious mechanical advantages and I do not see him engaging in playing cards or board games.
Apart from Emperor Palpatine, it is unclear who Vader's friends are, or if indeed he has any. The last people who would have been his friends are Padme who is dead, Jar-Jar Binks who is dead, and maybe Obi Wan Kenobi who may as well be dead to him. Being the man inside the machine monster strikes me as being a very lonely existence however, quite literally nobody seems to want to pursue anything approaching friendship with him.
Vader appears to be a character with no outside support and a deeply unpleasant inner life. His physical circumstances appear constantly uncomfortable and his job is one of deep mistrust and complete lack of familial connection. Unlike Emperor Palpatine who looks like he has all kinds of knavish and nefarious fun, Vader appears to have power without benefit. His access to technology and medical care prolong his existence but they don't really seem to do much for the quality of his life.
Quite literally everyone else in the universe has philos, telos, pathos, storge, agape, and even eros but none of this is open to Vader once he becomes the machine monster. He is forced to be imprisoned within a body that doesn't work, in a cosmos that doesn't work, with a strange set of inputs coming back to his senses.
I would not want to be Darth Vader. I do not think that Darth Vader wants to be Darth Vader. I do not think that the cosmos even remotely cares an iota about what it is like to be Darth Vader. Darth Vader apart from being one of the most famous and iconic villains ever to appear in cinema, probably also lives one of the most prolonged and unpleasant experiences as a character in cinema.
Darth Vader lies at the other end of the spectrum of the paradox of asking a masked man who he is because as far as I can tell, literally nobody seems to bother or to care about asking the question. Nobody knows what it is like to be the bad man, to be the sad man, behind expressionless machine monster eyes.
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