Star Wars‘ Jedi Order could have used a couple of emotional support counselors on staff. In the prequel trilogy, we were repeatedly told that Jedi should suppress their emotions, cut all ties with their families, and avoid romance at all costs. These rules make sense for real-world monks, but then real-world monks aren’t at risk of becoming all-powerful galactic conquerors.
Their most notable failure was Anakin Skywalker. The Jedi removed him from his mother Shmi (leaving her enslaved on Tatooine), assigned him to protect a woman he was clearly besotted with, and repeatedly told him that he was “the chosen one”. All that’s going to mess with anyone’s head, and left him extremely vulnerable to being manipulated by Darth Sidious.
The future Emperor’s schemes for galactic domination were complex and long-running, but one important piece fell right into his lap when Shmi was captured, tortured, and killed by Tusken Raiders. Anakin wreaked bloody revenge upon them in a moment that gave him an important taste of the power of the Dark Side. But what would Palpatine have done if this hadn’t happened?
Fans are on the case:
One posits that Shmi was such an obvious opportunity to expose Anakin’s emotions, Palpatine would have gotten around to her eventually, though perhaps he’d have saved her to show he was better than the Jedi:
Others say that Palpatine had correctly identified Padme as a way to turn Anakin, so used her as an emotional fulcrum:
One Star Wars fan imagines something deliciously cruel, that Palpatine could have started dating Shmi and cemented himself as the father figure Anakin never had:
But Shmi was a good person and seems like she’d see through Palpatine’s plans fairly quickly, and a relationship would have kept her a bit too close:
All this shows that while Anakin ultimately bears responsibility for his own actions, the Jedi Order also bears a lot of blame. If they’d saved Shmi and openly and honestly dealt with Anakin’s feelings for Padme, Sidious would have been left with fewer opportunities to get under his skin.
We’d love to see some Star Wars ‘What If…?’ stories that explore some of this stuff, as there are so many ways Anakin’s story could have had a happier ending.