Somebody else asked for Anakin Skywalker over at dw, so here's that. I can do a more Vader-centric one if you want, though - I thought quite a bit about that for one of my longfics.
(1) Anakin was a slave, then brought up in a severe monastic order. (2) Anakin's attachments don't just accompany his morality. They pretty much are his morality. (3) Anakin does not want to personally dictate order to the galaxy, he wants to expedite someone else doing so. (4) But he's still powerfully focused on the need for order. (5) Anakin's personal nightmare is separation from the people he loves, with death as the ultimate separation. He lived this nightmare for most of his adult life, believing all the while that it was his own fault. (6) Anakin has nerves of steel coupled with a reckless, impulsive temperament. The combination is explosive and gives the impression that he's both fearless and inexorable. Neither are true, but the impression is what matters, especially as Vader. (7) He's an idealist and a dreamer, naturally, which is where a lot of his restlessness comes from; beyond personal attachment, that's what mostly drives him through his life. (8) Anakin is a raging Gryffindor, and spawned two more, but he tends to form his closest ties to people who are either Hufflepuffs (Padmé, Threepio) or Slytherins under a Hufflepuff-like exterior (Obi-Wan, Palpatine). (9) He has extremely black and white thinking. (This probably helps him deal with the war, but otherwise serves him very, very badly in sorting through the tangle of loyalties and duties in his life, and choices that can only come down to wrong and less-wrong.) (10) He doesn't give up, ever.
(1) Anakin was a slave, then brought up in a severe monastic order.
(2) Anakin's attachments don't just accompany his morality. They pretty much are his morality.
(3) Anakin does not want to personally dictate order to the galaxy, he wants to expedite someone else doing so.
(4) But he's still powerfully focused on the need for order.
(5) Anakin's personal nightmare is separation from the people he loves, with death as the ultimate separation. He lived this nightmare for most of his adult life, believing all the while that it was his own fault.
(6) Anakin has nerves of steel coupled with a reckless, impulsive temperament. The combination is explosive and gives the impression that he's both fearless and inexorable. Neither are true, but the impression is what matters, especially as Vader.
(7) He's an idealist and a dreamer, naturally, which is where a lot of his restlessness comes from; beyond personal attachment, that's what mostly drives him through his life.
(8) Anakin is a raging Gryffindor, and spawned two more, but he tends to form his closest ties to people who are either Hufflepuffs (Padmé, Threepio) or Slytherins under a Hufflepuff-like exterior (Obi-Wan, Palpatine).
(9) He has extremely black and white thinking. (This probably helps him deal with the war, but otherwise serves him very, very badly in sorting through the tangle of loyalties and duties in his life, and choices that can only come down to wrong and less-wrong.)
(10) He doesn't give up, ever.
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