We return to Mustafar, the duel already in progress.
Early on, with his robotic hand having been essentially blown up by Mace's use of Shatterpoint, Anakin is on the back foot. However, while he's on the defense pretty much from the word go, he is putting put a really good one. Remember, Anakin is not only younger than both Obi-Wan and Mace, but also well-trained and exceptionally powerful on his own. He's almost mindful of Padmé still being involved in events, feeling the need to protect her from the two Jedi.
Or so he believes from...a certain point of view.
Padmé herself is paralyzed with fear. She had said herself that Anakin had changed and she can see plainly what Obi-Wan and Mace were trying to tell her as he glares at both the Masters during the duel. Her belief in her husband is greatly shaken, seeing just how far into the darkness he's gone. A small hope still remains in her, a belief that some good still exists in him, yet it is quickly getting smothered by the darkness she's seen within her husband's heart.
The two Masters, however, aren't having it at the moment. Anakin's retreating leads them into the former command center for the Separatist leadership, their bodies still littering the floor where they fell upon their deaths. The three Force Users end up destroying most of the Command Center. As they fight, Mace keeps up his use of Vaapad to cycle Anakin's darkness right back at him, letting it pass through him without an effect on his own being. Much like his fight with Palpatine, Anakin doesn't seem to be slowing down. If anything, as he becomes more comfortable with his handicap of a broken hand, he's getting more destructive and aggressive. Mace returns the darkness Anakin's way, and it just seems to multiple stronger and stronger.Hate, fear, sorrow, and rage - especially rage - float through him like water in a river. Eventually, Mace realizes, the sheer ferocity will overpower his attack.
In those moments, Obi-Wan still tries to reach Anakin again and gets repeatedly smacked away - both literally and metaphorically. One such slap comes in the form of a Force Push that knocks him back as Anakin and Mace make their way into the conference room. Anakin seals the doors, making it clear to the Jedi Master that he intends to take his time with him as recompense for the years of being ostracized and belittled by the Council. Less space to maneuver around in is a determent to both combatants, more so Mace than Anakin given their age gap. From outside, all that can be seeing is whirring bars of blue and yellow striking against each other again and again.
And yes, by the way, Obi-Wan is trying to make his way into the conference room by hacking the doors. He's not just sitting idle or being rendered unconscious again.
As they fight, Mace reflects on the path that brought him here. Choosing to go and arrest Palpatine while most of the Council was gone, refusing Anakin's help, giving Palpatine exactly what he wanted by giving him an excuse to execute Order 66.
It sinks in, finally, that this is his fault...and that it began in that Jedi Council Chamber long ago, when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had brought the nine year old Anakin before the Council.
Fear had ruled their decision, had ruled them for so long, and it had all ended up here. He could not blame Anakin, could not even really blame Palpatine. This was entirely on their hands, the hands of a Jedi Order that had been unable and unwilling to change. All of this hits him in a fraction of a second, Mace processing all of it. He has seen the Shatterpoint around this moment, one that could tip the scales of their struggle one way or another. One path saw him being cut down, then and there, by the full rage of the one called Darth Vader, cementing the man's fate for the rest of time. The other, however...
The saffron blade of his saber sinks back into it's hilt. The hilt falls to the ground with a loud clunk.
Anakin is caught completely off-guard by this, a swing stopping mid-stroke in the air as he regards the Jedi Master suspiciously. He demands that Mace pick up his saber and fight him, and the Jedi Master refuses. He demands to know what Mace thinks he's doing. When Anakin shouts that he will strike him down, Mace calmly stands there and looks the former Jedi Knight dead in the eye with an intensity that catches the newly-minted Sith Lord off-guard.
"I failed you. I failed all of us, Anakin. If I had listened, if I had seen...if any of us had seen...none of this would have happened. Our family, our friends, the Republic, it would all be alive. Fine. We were deceived, all of us. I cannot change what has happened, but if taking my life will give you what you want, then take it. When you go from here, just know that I am sorry. I'm sorry that I failed you, Anakin. I'm sorry that I failed us all."Anakin is stunned by this, watching wide-eyed as Mace calmly stands before him. In a stark contrast to the earlier scene of Anakin discovering Palpatine's true status as a Sith Lord, Mace doesn't turn his back to him, but stands before him without so much as a semblance of defense. Like Qui-Gon before his death at the hands of Darth Maul on Naboo, he is the very picture of passivity. Needless to say, Obi-Wan is having a little PTSD in the moment. For what seems like an eternity, the entire galaxy seems to freeze around them, around this moment in time...and the path that is taken is one of those that Mace foresaw.
Anakin's lightsaber falls from his hand and deactivates with a low hiss. The Sith apprentice's knees follow a moment later, as he collapses to the ground and against one of the destroyed chairs. His eyes burn with exhausted and frustrated tears...eyes that have faded back into their blue hues once again, the grip of the Dark Side having faded, or at the very least having lessened. After a moment, Mace's hand comes to rest on the younger man's shoulder as if trying to give some sort of support, something that would have been unheard of from Mace Windu even a few days previously.
Obi-Wan enters to find the pair, his own saber deactivating. The battle is done. It's over. The healing, however...it will be quite some time.
The trio somberly make their way back to Padmé's ship, where they are greeted by a rather panicked C-3PO. It seems that Padmé has gone into labor from the stress and he only just managed to get her back aboard the ship. Anakin goes to be by her side, absolutely devastated. At first, she is understandably terrified of him, but a glimmer of the man she married remains and she relents and allows him to stay with her.
Obi-Wan and Mace take to the cockpit and set a course for the facility at Polis Massa.
Long story short, they do reach Polis Massa and Padmé actually manages to give birth with no complications despite all of Anakin's fears. She survives, and gives birth to the twins Luke and Leia are born. No dying in childbirth, no terrible pain of her dying in Obi-Wan's company on some desolate rock in the middle of nowhere space.
...well, all but that last part, anyway.
After this, Obi-Wan and Mace once more confer with Yoda and with Senator Organa. Yoda, as in the original movie, was unable to defeat Sidious in battle. Palpatine remains the Emperor. The four discuss what to do about the situation, and with the addition of Anakin adding a whole new wild card to the situation...provided Anakin is prepared for such a harrowing task. Obi-Wan expresses some doubts. Yoda, on the other hand, believes that they may have no choice.
Mace believes that they should press the advantage they have. With the three Jedi Masters and the Chosen One against him, Palpatine won't stand a chance. Obi-Wan understandably express some worry with this course of action, given Anakin's mental state and the fact that he has yet to answer for the deaths of the Jedi at the Temple. Mace, however, has a retort.
"I was the one who made the decision to march on Palpatine's office. I was the one who gave him what he needed to wipe us all out. If I hadn't, perhaps Anakin could have been spared that pain, and those who fell to him would still be alive. If anyone is to pay for that sin, it should be me. Their blood is on my hands."Both Obi-Wan and Yoda are stunned, but have no good counterargument. Eventually, the decision to rehabilitate Anakin rather than have him arrested and tried, keeping it as a Jedi matter. Darth Vader committed those murders and, with Padmé safely out of childbirth, Palpatine has no way to bring back the Sith Lord into his service seeing as that had been Anakin's only reason for turning to the Dark Side. While Anakin cannot go back and change what he has done, defeating Palpatine and restoring peace to the galaxy would do much to help him return to the Light.
This decision is brought to Anakin and Padmé, who are doting over their newborn children. The Masters tell Anakin that they cannot overlook what has happened, but they wish to help him return to the Light rather than condemn him for his actions. Anakin accepts the judgement of the Masters and agrees to help them in defeating Palpatine despite the risk....Padmé expressing some of her own concerns regarding all of this. She was just starting to get her husband back, their children seeming to bring out more of the man she had known, and now she ran the ultimate risk of losing him again...this time in body as well as mind.
It is also around this time that Yoda and Mace reveal their visits from Qui-Gon, and Yoda agrees to begin teaching Mace, Obi-Wan, and Anakin how to speak to him once this is all over.
There's a bit more of a spring in the step of our protagonists as we exit Part 3 - even as some have reservations about jumping the gun so soon and attacking the Emperor. Next time, the four Jedi will go off in pursuit of Palpatine to end this once and for all. Will this fight go better than the last two, now that Palpatine's trump card has been lost to him? Let me know what you think in the comments below, or tag me on Twitter with them.
Until next time - may the Force be with you, always!
Star Wars belongs to Disney and Lucasfilm, unfortunately.
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