Many people upon first meeting me often only see my many tattoos.  Especially my hand pieces.  Many people instantly say to me “you must really love Star Wars”.  Well… yeah I do but this is not a Star Wars tattoo.  It is a Darth Vader tattoo and I got it partly due to his rise to the top tier of villainy, even though I haven’t looked at him that way since the birth of my first child.  I personally see his story as one of the most tragic hero stories in all of movies and  I will walk you through my process and explain my reasoning for having my homage to him.

Before diving into the Star Wars lore I would like to let you know a small bit about myself.  I was born in the city of Chicago in the 80’s and was raised by a strong family man who was also a single father.  He raised me very old school.  To always put family first and to sacrifice more then life should ever ask of you to support your family.  I watched him live by these words until the day he died.  This will all come into play later.  So as I tell the story of Vader I would like readers to strip away all the Star Wars context and picture the simplest form of the life of a future Jedi.

We are introduced to Anakin as a slave boy genius, born from immaculate conception to a slave woman.  He has only known this life.  Through his short life he has always felt powerful and knew he was special.  He is offered an escape from the horrible life he was born into but he must leave his mother.  With aspirations of rejoining her in the future with the intent on liberation, he leaves to fulfill a prophecy.  Through this journey he is trained in an ancient religion and also finds forbidden love.  As his power grows he is plagued with visions of the future.  The first being his mother dying in slavery.  Imagine the torment this would cause a young and already scarred adolescent.  He is finally compelled by these visions to seek out his mother to save her only to find he is just in time to witness her death. Which further torments a powerful young adult.  He understandably loses control and seeks the vengeance many of us would crave.  This series of events only confirms his power in premonition and will soon be manipulated by the true villain of the story.

We pick up later with him being now a young adult in love.  A powerful man now with multiple interests in his future.  He soon starts receiving visions of his bride dying in child birth with his children’s future unknown.  This is where my pity and understanding come in and many of you may not agree or understand the sentiment.  He is soon promised to be taught to harness enough power to save his family and not fail a second time to save a woman he loves dearly. Now please excuse my savagery.  I have now a 3 year old daughter and another on the way. If either of my daughters lives hung in the balance and I was promised a way to save her there is literally nothing I would not do to save her.  And yes, slaughtering a room full of Padawan is on that list. The galaxy would be doomed if that’s what it took to save her. The amount of pain and conflict he must of had prior to coming to terms with his options would drive any father over the edge. I sympathize and pity this man and yet fully understand and agree with his decision.

He is now all in on the savagery he must perform to gain the power to save his family.  Much to the dismay of his closest allies.  He is confronted by his mentor and pseudo brother and told he must let go of his family.  Agreeing with his position is not expected but it should at least be understood, and he is met with utter contempt.  Again, to only fail to save his family, and be maimed for life.  He will spend the next almost 2 decades as a figurative and literal broken man and do the bidding of whom he believed is the only man who was on his side.  Later in life he is met with a shocking confrontation where he will soon learn his twin son and daughter survived.  He spends 2 movies struggling with his life decisions and the realization that he did not fail his family in the moments of an epic battle, but in the blind trust of a truly evil man.  By the 3rd movie he is seeking redemption and soon saves not only his son and daughter, but the possible future of the galaxy becoming the hero he was told he was destined to be.

I totally understand that this is not a popular perspective to have.  I really never had it until having children.  Watching these movies with my beautiful daughter by my side changed my whole view of this mans tragic life.  And I soon realized that all of us Dads have a little Vader inside us too.