Anakin Skywalker was always torn between his duties as a Jedi and his love for Padmé Amidala, but a newly published Star Wars book reveals why he just didn’t up and leave the Order for good.
Obi-Wan initiated the Chosen One into the sect at the age of nine, an oddity in itself, since most children above five couldn’t hope to begin their training at such a late age. Still, despite all odds and Grand Master Yoda’s reluctance, Anakin became a youngling and began his learning, quickly climbing the ranks of the Order until the Council knighted him at the beginning of the Clone Wars.
In the years following that, the young Skywalker served as general in the Grand Army of the Republic, fighting against the Separatist alliance in many regions across the galaxy. But unbeknownst to his new family, Anakin lived another life with his wife Padmé in secret, one that essentially perpetrated a duality in his character, and a sense of dubious allegiance that more often than not led him astray.
Of course, some Star Wars fans have always wondered why the Force prodigy didn’t just leave the Order as Ahsoka did. Well, Lucasfilm has recently published a canon biography of the Skywalkers, titled Skywalker: A Family At War, which goes out of its way to explain the character’s motivations in-depth.
“The Jedi Order had been his life,” the book notes. “The Jedi had freed him from slavery and offered him a home. Despite all the reasons he had to follow Ahsoka, abandoning the Jedi felt like a terrible mistake. He owed them too much.”
In a sense, the Order was all Anakin had for a time. And it would appear that he did care for them, after all. But ultimately, his love for Padmé and this inherent fear, as Yoda warned, blinded him to reality and he, quite tragically, ended up losing both sides to the Dark Side.
