I lost a lifetime thinking of it
So I've written numerous stories in which Force ghost!Anakin appears and I'm working on one now where he's the annoying backseat passenger on Rey and Finn's Epic Space Road Trip (and Finn is not at all happy about this development, for obvious reasons), and thinking about how to characterize him. Because he chooses to appear as 22 year old Anakin Skywalker - listen, I don't much care for the change in RotJ either, but of all of the changes made to the OT, it's the one that bothers me least (despite the color of his robes being wrong). And also, he's a ghost, so I figure he can choose how he appears, especially when he's going to be hanging out with the young people, and especially the young people (i.e., Finn and Rey) who didn't know him as Darth Vader at all. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't still have those experiences and the knowledge and maturity that came with them (I mean, in this story, he explicitly says he's still hanging around because he left a mess and he's got to help clean it up, and probably also he keeps hoping that Leia will stop freezing him out if he waits long enough), and the self-loathing has been mitigated by hope (and the fact that Luke - and Obi-Wan - still cares for him), and also it's probably more difficult to get too emotional when you're dead and part of the Force (if not yet one with it).
I dunno. The metaphysics of it don't interest me as much as the characterization parts, and trying to mesh the two together - it's not as clear cut as Angel/Angelus, but ghost!Anakin is not Darth Vader anymore, though he once was him, so the guilt and shame etc. are all still there, but his pre-Vader personality is more prevalent, or at least he's been performing it long enough by this point (i.e., 30 years after his return to the light and his death) that it is his personality now, but informed by all the things he learned and was during his time as Vader. (I mean, thanks to TCW and the recent comics, I do see a continuity of characterization from Anakin to Vader, which I found more difficult with only the PT and the OT to go by.)
I've also been thinking about whether droids can see Force ghosts, and I've decided in this case Artoo probably can? It's all energy, right, and Anakin was his BFF, and anyway, Artoo has seen a lot. Artoo would have the droid equivalent of a thousand yard stare if he had, you know, eyes instead of optic receptors or whatever it is they're called. Artoo is that crusty veteran in every war movie, the one who's seen things and lived to not tell about them, the cynic with the good heart and the crazy plan that just might get everyone out alive. (BB-8, of course, is the fresh young rookie who makes it through to the end, older and wiser and not unscathed.)
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This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/886089.html.
people have commented there.
I dunno. The metaphysics of it don't interest me as much as the characterization parts, and trying to mesh the two together - it's not as clear cut as Angel/Angelus, but ghost!Anakin is not Darth Vader anymore, though he once was him, so the guilt and shame etc. are all still there, but his pre-Vader personality is more prevalent, or at least he's been performing it long enough by this point (i.e., 30 years after his return to the light and his death) that it is his personality now, but informed by all the things he learned and was during his time as Vader. (I mean, thanks to TCW and the recent comics, I do see a continuity of characterization from Anakin to Vader, which I found more difficult with only the PT and the OT to go by.)
I've also been thinking about whether droids can see Force ghosts, and I've decided in this case Artoo probably can? It's all energy, right, and Anakin was his BFF, and anyway, Artoo has seen a lot. Artoo would have the droid equivalent of a thousand yard stare if he had, you know, eyes instead of optic receptors or whatever it is they're called. Artoo is that crusty veteran in every war movie, the one who's seen things and lived to not tell about them, the cynic with the good heart and the crazy plan that just might get everyone out alive. (BB-8, of course, is the fresh young rookie who makes it through to the end, older and wiser and not unscathed.)
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/886089.html.
people have commented there.