Anakin Skywalker

Anakin Skywalker, a Force-sensitive human male, was a Jedi Knight of the Galactic Republic and the Chosen One of the Force. During the Clone Wars, his accomplishments as a battlefield commander earned him the Hero With No Fear moniker. After turning to the dark side of the Force, he became known as Darth Vader, a Dark Lord of the Sith apprenticed to Emperor Palpatine. As a Sith Lord, Vader turned against his former comrades and hunted the surviving Jedi into near extinction. He became an enforcer of the Galactic Empire, working to crush the Alliance to Restore the Republic for opposing his Sith Master's will. Yet despite his actions as Darth Vader, a glimmer of the light side of the Force remained within the former Anakin Skywalker.
Skywalker was born in the year 41 BBY before moving to the Outer Rim planet Tatooine during the Age of the Republic. Although he had a mother, the slave Shmi Skywalker, the truth about his parentage was that Skywalker had no father — leading Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn to suspect that Skywalker's conception was the work of the midi-chlorians. Recognizing the boy's unprecedented connection to the Force, Jinn was determined to see Skywalker trained as a member of the Jedi Order, the task of which ultimately fell to his Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi following Jinn's death in 32 BBY.
Over the next decade, Skywalker rose to become one of the strongest Jedi in galactic history. While he was both caring and compassionate, his fear of loss was ultimately the catalyst for his downfall. During the Clone Wars, Skywalker trained a Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, who ultimately left the Jedi Order after she was framed for the bombing of the Jedi Temple. The loss of Tano affected Skywalker on a personal level, causing him to feel more isolated and bitter towards the Jedi High Council. Skywalker also became good friends with his former master's new apprentice, Jarik Shan, who he felt he could relate with due to Shan's own bitterness and frustrations with the Council. Despite their friendship, however, Skywalker succumbed to the temptations of the dark side near the end of the Clone Wars, believing the Sith had the power to save the life of Senator Padmé Amidala, his secret wife. Dubbed "Darth Vader" by his new master, Darth Sidious, the newly minted Sith Lord assaulted the Coruscant Jedi Temple, killing fully trained Jedi and novice younglings alike.
After assassinating the leaders of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, Vader was confronted on Mustafar by his former friends, resulting in a lightsaber duel that left Vader burned and mutilated—meanwhile, Shan fought the fallen Jedi, Barriss Offee. As a consequence of his defeat, Vader was rebuilt as a cyborg and encased in a life-sustaining suit of armor, further distancing the persona of Vader from that of Anakin Skywalker. In addition, Amidala's death in childbirth broke the fallen Jedi Knight's heart, leaving him more machine than man mentally as well as physically.
Throughout the Imperial Era, the former Anakin Skywalker brought fear to the galaxy in his capacity as the Emperor's dark enforcer. As Shan rose to become one of the greatest threats to the Empire, Vader held a personal vendetta against him and strove to exact his revenge on the Jedi Knight, no matter the cost. However, in spite of his deep immersion in darkness, Vader never succeeded in fully killing the side of himself that was Skywalker. His confrontation with his son, the aspiring Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, during the Galactic Civil War awoke the compassion within the Sith Lord, causing Vader to renounce his allegiance to the Sith in order to save Luke from the Emperor's wrath. By killing his master, however, Vader sustained critical damage to his armor, making death inevitable. Resigned to his fate, his dying wish was to see his son with his own eyes for the first and final time.
In the end, he died not as Darth Vader but as Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One who brought balance to the Force by destroying the Sith. His destiny fulfilled, Skywalker's consciousness was able to endure beyond death due to his sacrifice and redemption, allowing him to live on in spirit alongside his deceased Jedi mentors, such as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Grand Master Yoda.
==Personality and traits==
As a child, Anakin Skywalker showed kindness and generosity, as exemplified by his willingness to risk his life in a podrace to help Qui-Gon Jinn and Padmé Amidala depart Tatooine at a time of need, and he was not shy to express how he felt. He also showed reluctance to leave those he loved behind; he had a deep-seated fear of loss, especially in regards to his mother, which Jedi Master Yoda sensed when he was being tested by the Jedi Council. This fear of loss would follow Skywalker throughout his life and eventually led him down the path of the dark side, particularly after his mother died, carrying sadness, anger and guilt in his heart for years to come. Similarly, his experiences as a slave would leave him with a deep resentment towards slavers. Skywalker would mostly keep these feelings to himself, very rarely talking about them, even with those he trusted, as he struggled to put his past behind him, making an effort not to think about it.
As he grew older, Skywalker became cocky, reckless, impatient, willful, and cavalier, despite Obi-Wan Kenobi's efforts to train him as best as he could. With a penchant to show off, Skywalker was a something of a maverick, though not in the same way as Jinn, known among the Jedi for being passionate and impulsive. Most of his peers trusted him, and his ingenuity, although some Jedi did consider him to have a simplistic approach to logic. The 501st Legion and its captain, Rex, considered his tactics reckless and unorthodox, but appreciated the fact that he would never risk their lives without risking his as well. Skywalker also showed eagerness and dedication to ending the Clone Wars, which he believed, by their final days, were destroying the principles of the Galactic Republic.
Though he was committed to the Jedi Order ever since he joined, Skywalker was deeply conflicted about it, wanting to walk away from the Order at several points before and during the Clone Wars, particularly because of his love and secret marriage to Padmé Amidala, whom he believed he couldn't live without. Overprotective and prone to jealousy, Skywalker's affection for her was suspected by some of his peers and, at least, Kenobi, his Padawan Ahsoka Tano, Kenobi's Padawan Jarik Shan, and Rush Clovis knew for certain that he was attracted to her. Another source of conflict was his dwindling trust and increasing resentment toward the Jedi High Council, which he felt distrusted him and was not treating him with enough respect; Jarik Shan, Kenobi's second apprentice during the Clone Wars and one of Anakin's close friends, was someone who he felt he could relate to and confide in on occasion, as Shan was also distrusted by some members of the Council. However, Skywalker's fears and resentments were further fomented by Chancellor Palpatine's manipulations, and some of the Council's decisions, as well as his friendship with the Chancellor, of whom the Council was wary and kept secrets from.
Skywalker struggled to keep his emotions in check—especially his anger. He cared deeply about his friends and, according to Tano, "looked out for them until the end." Loyal to a fault, Skywalker was willing to do anything to protect those he cared about, often resorting to the dark side to do so. Throughout the Clone Wars, Skywalker's anger would push him ever closer to the dark side, but his fall was ultimately triggered by his fear of loss after experiencing visions of Amidala dying in childbirth and his desire to obtain enough power to save his loved ones. He would justify his immoral and ruthless actions as all being necessary to bring peace, justice and order to the galaxy.
Following his turn to the dark side and subsequent defeat at Kenobi's hands, Vader developed a more hardened and disciplined persona. He became utterly ruthless, virtually devoid of mercy, and was known to occasionally kill his own officers for their failures. Eventually, the identity of Vader in the Empire had arisen tales of a dark armored humanoid who served as the Emperor's most trusted enforcer and was considered to be the most feared individual in the Empire. 
Having lost all that he had turned to the dark side to preserve, and having no other path, he fully embraced the dark side and became, in Palpatine's words, a "true Sith." Vader also sought furiously to to find Kenobi and Shan, as he blamed them more than anyone else for the events which led to him losing everything. Not only that, Vader typically lashed out at anything or anyone who reminded him of his past, such as when he killed Jedi Master Shaak Ti―and attempted to kill the Bendu―during the Battle of Atollon. Consequently, he devoted himself fully to furthering the development of his relationship to the Force, and the expansion of his power. Both due to what Palpatine taught him about the relationship between Sith master and apprentice and his own personal tendencies, Vader in his early apprenticeship was completely devoted to the Emperor. However, as his power grew, and particularly after learning of his son's existence, this devotion dwindled considerably. 
==Appearances==
===Non-canon appearances===
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==Sources and copyrights==
Information on this page came from Anakin Skywalker on Wookieepedia. The related topic of this article is the property of Lucasfilm Ltd.
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