All of this debate concerning Vader's death and how it was linked to
the death of the Emperor and his power of the Dark Side of the
Force,intrigued something I've always wanted to discuss with people:
Does anyone else notice how Vader's character "weakens" as the movies
progress?  I mean, in SW...he was presented as being VERY powerful,
and undefeatable, to a point.  Then in TESB, we are introduced to the
EMperor, and suddenly we see Vader as weak, and submissive, and he is
even wounded in a duel with Luke.  Then in ROTJ, Vader is totally
restricted. Everything done,is carried out on the Emperor's orders,
and Vader, to me, comes off as a lackey (sp.?).  Here Luke defeats
him, and he dies. It was just disappointing to watch probably the best
villain created weaken and die.  It wasn't even an admirable
death...the Emperor would have died in the explosion of the DS (Luke
would have lasted long enough to divert the Emperor's concentration).
Any comments?

Vader's character certainly changes over the course of the films;
whether it "weakens" or not is up to the individual.  Personally, I
saw Vader as being at his most evil in ESB, simply because he opposes
the heroes (particularly Luke) in a more personal way.  In ANH, he
mostly hangs around the Death Star and gives orders and blows up
planets--menacing, but also distant.  He doesn't appear to view Han
and the rest as anything more than anonymous and irritating Rebel
pests.

But then, in ESB, Vader gets personal--and a lot more scary.  He's got
an entire fleet (and several bounty hunters) looking exculsively for
Luke and his pals.  He's not interested in merely killing Luke and
Han-- he wants to corrupt Luke to the Dark Side and deliver Han to
Jabba...  fates worse than death.  And lest it appear that Vader comes
across as submissive to the Emperor, we learn from his dialogue with
Luke that he hopes one day to overthrow his former master and sieze
the Empire for himself (and his beloved son, natch).  The revelation
that Vader is Luke's dad is just the icing on the cake.  The ESB Vader
isn't just Rebel-hunting this time; he's trying to ruin the heroes'
lives but good.  It's in-your-face villainy, and IMHO it's Vader at
his best.

In ROTJ, Vader as the villain softens a bit and reveals some chinks in
his psychological armor; this is necessary so that his change in
allegiance makes sense.  Moreover, the occasional revalation of
conflict in Vader's mind through his dialogue lets the reader know
that there *is* some chance that he can be swayed from the Dark Side,
and that Luke isn't just wasting his time trying to get his father to
turn.

I liked the bad-guy Vader a lot (who didn't?), but I liked him even
more after he redeemed himself.  Vader made a great villain, but
having him stay that way up to the very end would have gotten dull,
IMHO.  Without his weakness for his son and his internal conflict,
we'd have been missing that insight into Vader's inner workings that
kept him from being just a stereotypical (though menacing and
well-played) villain.  Vader's change in allegiance may have meant
that he weakened as a bad guy, but I feel that at the same time it
strengthened him as a character in general.

                              --Steve Stelter
                                sjs28257@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu

	I agree almost totally. Once upon a time I thought that
Vader's character had been cheapened by turning good, perhaps even by
being Luke's father. But then I read "Splinter of the Mind's Eye".
	"Splinter" was a novel that Lucas permitted Alan Dean Foster
to write after Star Wars but before Empire. It was a good view of what
Vader could have been, had his character not developed. Believe me,
Vader would have gotten pretty dull if ESB hadn't added new
information. It was fun to see the old Vader for a few chapters of a
book, but wouldn't have made two more good movies.
	Looking back on how Vader changed, it might seem that Lucas
reinvented him after SW in kind of an ad hoc way. The SW novel
(actually written by Foster, at least in part) shows him as
power-hungry, with a silent grip on the imperial government. He even
seems to make light of the Emperor's authority: he says "as the
Emperor wills it, so will it be done" after the governors decide for
themselves what to do. His remark is taken as sarcastic, but it need
not be. He may have been taking appropriate liscence in representing
the Emperor. Also, one of the Imperial honchos complains about Vader's
involvement with the Death Star being urged on them by the Emperor.
	It seems to me that Lucas had to make it look like the war was
pretty much over in SW, but left room to expand his story. Thus if
there hadn't been any sequels, we'd just figure the Emperor was a
puppet; but since the full story was used, we saw him as a powerful
sorcerer. It could be that that the image of a weak and controlled
despot seen in SW was an image he allowed to continue, preferring to
let Vader run the show and to subtly control his officers with the
Force. Then in the later movies we see what's really going on behind
the scenes.
	As for Vader, he was clearly loyal to the Emperor throughout,
but secretly wanted to replace him; Luke provided him with a possible
means.  I don't think Vader was really a lackey in RotJ. If you read
the novel you won't get this impression at all. Vader was very
powerful, but still had difficulty challenging the Emperor when he was
right there. I think Zahn went too far when he suggested ol' Palpatine
knew about Vader's offer to Luke on Bespin. In short, Vader had the
will but not the means to oppose the Emperor.
	Regarding his death: do we know for a fact that all Jedi
disappear?  Vader seemed surprised to see Obi-Wan do this. Yoda was
just about the best Jedi ever. . . maybe a last-minute convert "goes
to heaven" (or, more in the movies' mindset, Valhalla) but doesn't
disappear. Truth is, if Anakin hadn't appeared at the end, we'd never
have known if his conversion was sincere . . .  an interesting idea,
but Lucas needed to get the whole thing over with. I think it's really
better that he didn't vanish, but Luke had to burn his corpse (kind of
symbolic) in traditional Jedi manner.
	One last note: one article I read suggested that Anakin had
killed the real Darth Vader and taken on his identity. This idea seems
better to me than him making up a name and appearing out of nowhere.
It explains how Luke's father could be a famous Jedi, yet only a few
people know he became Darth. It would also let the original Vader
appear in SW I-III. . . If Anakin (already evil) dueled the old Darth,
maybe most people think Darth won. Then Anakin took on the old Vader's
role . . .or maybe not.  Opinions? Anyone?

                   Nathan Hill (nnhill@david.wheaton.edu)