answered:
- Here is how
it does not happen: Anakin Skywalker dies. Fluid mouldering in his
lungs, internal organs collapsing into puddles of useless rancid
slurry, blood thickening with toxins – but he dies at peace, he
dies with his eyes wide open, he dies with his son (his beloved and
only boy) crouched over him and he wakes on the other side with
softness and light gracing his unscarred brow, his wife at his side,
flowers twisted in the starlit curls of her hair.
- This is how
it does not happen: the ghost of Anakin Skywalker is a thin, flimsy
thing, coming to life here and there, always bright blue, always
smiling, offering paternal advice to those who would listen.
- This is
another thing that does not happen: Rey sees a strange man cresting
the red dunes and she never sees his face, only the brightness of
his eyes, and she is comforted – for she does not know his name,
only that he is a kindly force, only that even in the feral iron
heart of Jakku she is watched over.
- Here is
something that does happen: “Listen to me, you bastard, you
bastard, you have to listen –” and Kylo Ren does not hear.
Rather: he chooses not to hear. He is meditating. Sunmatter dances
around him, catching on the flick-curl of his blackened cape. Well.
He thinks that it is sunmatter; this is what Snoke has told him it
is; and so this is what he believes; and of course it is not
sunmatter but the fire-bright venom of Anakin Skywalker’s ghost.
He’s not white-blue and delicate. He is burning.
- Of
course he burns:
he’s full of fury and everything I died for you are
unmaking and if you
want I will tell you how it feels to die drowning in your blood I
will tell you and if
you lay a hand – a finger – on my
children, my darlings, then grandson or not I will show
you –
- “You
tore down every I built!” Padme
screamed, when she saw him for the first time. His mouth
half-cooked. His body spectral and quivering. And his lovely wife –
no longer delicate and pale as a shivering lily but quicksilver and
burning, bright as Alderaan falling into dust. Livid spots of colour
on her cheeks. “You burned my diplomacy! I loved you but Maker
above – I loved the council just as much – my sweet children
were torn from my arms – I loved you so much and you destroyed
everything I loved –”
- My darling –
- I love you –
- You were everything good in my world; the only good thing in my world –
- Skywalker, Skywalker, she had said, that is the – that was the problem –
- So here is the boy Anakin Skywalker, skin full of fire, and his
afterlife is anything but easy.
- You
wouldn’t,
his son says to him, slack-jawed with horror, he’s
your grandson, he’s –
- He’s
destroying everything I built. You know I once knew a good woman.
And she watched as someone she loved burn all she loved down. And
she let him live. And I won’t make her mistake. Do you understand?
- You’re
not Vader anymore; you don’t have to be so ruthless,
Luke says, fretful and old and when did he become so old? Why does
he look so much like Kenobi, bent-backed against the assault of the
Force?
- “This isn’t Vader,” says Anakin Skywalker, “this is all me.”
And it is true. He is a soldier. He is the saviour of the known and
unknown world. He was torn from his mother’s arms and given a sword
to hold instead of a hand. How else could he grow up? How else could
he die?
- Listen
to me listen to me listen to me he
snarls in Kylo Ren’s ear and with each day the boy listens less and
Anakin tries less. He is dead and he is furious and perhaps this is
hell; this irony. He tore down Padme’s love and her lifework and now
he must watch a sickly imitation of Vader do the same to his love,
to his life.
- Kylo
Ren will, one day, lift his lightsabre against his mother – or his
uncle. The blow will never fall. Anakin will pour his fury and fire
and limitless power into the boy’s skull and burn him from the
inside out. One day, the Knight of Ren will attempt to fufill what
he thinks is Vader’s legacy. One day, he will learn – too late –
that Vader is nothing, nothing, nothing compared to the anger of
Anakin Skywalker.