Pain and Regret

Darth Vader has committed several horrible atrocities, but I still find him to be a truly tragic, almost sympathetic figure. Anakin Skywalker was the greatest of the Jedi, had a loving wife and a baby (babies actually but they didn’t know that yet) on the way. Anakin had such potential… then he ruined it all due to his own fears of losing those he loved… only to lose the one he loved most due to his actions. Darth Vader believes, as Palpatine told him, that he killed Padme instead of saving her. Talk about painful irony. There’s a scene from a comic where someone asks, “What could you possibly hate so much to give you such Dark Side power?” and Vader answers “Myself.” He believes he has lost everything due to his Dark Side actions. It’s no wonder why, when he found out his son had survived, he returned to the Light to save Luke. Then again, his fear of losing those he loved may have fueled his return to the Light Side just as much as it had led him to the Dark Side years earlier.