Meta: The Psychology of Anakin Skywalker
Basically, I did a podcast on this way back, after some inspiring discussion with fialleril and patientalien . But, due to reasons involving a faulty LJ post (no, really), my awful podcast recordings and hosting problems on the site, I decided to type it out, in the hope it would be easier for people to understand.
Oh, and, of course, the discussion. There must always be more discussion.
This is not a transcript of the podcast, for the simple reason that I doubt that you lot want to read about my swearing, my arguments with my father and my war on the fucking MSN bleeps. What it is is a summary of and expansion on the main points I mentioned in the podcast. So, in short, this one is better. Good? Good.
Also, this is my first try at actually writing anything serious, so I apologise for its suckiness.
So, without further ado, let’s discuss Anakin Skywalker and psychology.fialleril’s absolutely amazing meta on the subject. (Also, my thumbs are playing up already, and I still have half of the meta to get through.)
So, moving on …
How would this trauma manifest itself?
So, we have the three main reasons why Anakin Skywalker is fucked up: childhood, upbringing, war. And I believe that the trauma led to him suffering from three main psychological disorders:
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
- Phantom pain [re: injuries]
- Nightmares and flashbacks
Let’s begin with PTSD. For those few of you who might not know what PTSD is, Wikipedia summarises it as:
“[…] an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to one or more traumatic events that threatened or caused great physical harm […] It is a severe and ongoing emotional reaction to an extreme psychological trauma.”
And, as we have already discussed, Anakin has enough psychological trauma to write a textbook on. Wikipedia even goes on to list possible sources of trauma:
- encountering or witnessing childhood or adult physical, emotional or sexual abuse
- encountering or witnessing an event perceived as life-threatening, such as physical assault, adult experiences of sexual assault, accidents, drug addiction, illnesses, medical complications, or employment in occupations exposed to war or disaster
- violent assault
- kidnapping
- sexual assault
- torture
- being a hostage
- prisoner of war or concentration camp victim
- experiencing a disaster
- violent accidents
(The bolded ones are the ones that I know are canon.)
I think Anakin Skywalker, at the age of twenty-three, can tick most of, if not all of, those boxes.
In addition, Wiki also states that “individuals who are more likely to dissociate during a traumatic event are considerably more likely to develop chronic PTSD.”
Um, hello? Release it into the Force, anyone?
And so, let’s look at the main symptoms of PTSD, and how they are relevant to Anakin Skywalker.
Flashbacks and nightmares: well, obviously. We all know about Anakin Skywalker’s nightmares, which I’ll be discussing in greater detail later (they even have their own little section, see?). But, suffice it to say, he would have had flashbacks of his experiences, and not just those related to the war. And of course, knowing the Jedi, he would have been told to repress them. Another point about the flashbacks is that on a thread on one of my fics, fialleril and patientalien and I were discussing the likelihood of Anakin having what we termed “Macbeth Syndrome”, where, for example he’d still see the blood on his hands after he’d killed someone. It ... wouldn't be nice.
Difficulty falling or staying asleep: well, we don’t know how canon that is, but come on. The man looked awful by the end of ROTS. Like he hadn’t slept in weeks.
The thing is, he probably hadn’t.
Anger: Does this really need a justification of how it affects Anakin? The whole PT is about how he fails to control all the anger that he has been repressing throughout his life! And also, he was described at being full of anger and fear at the age of nine, well before the war started. Obviously, his life as a slave had given him enough to deal with. God, the Jedi … were fucking idiots. (See? I’m being polite and restraining myself.)
These are the main symptoms of PTSD -- and I’m sure you can see by now how they relate to Anakin. If you’re fighting a war for four years at an insanely young age (19-23), if you’re a General, if you lead the strikes, if you see your men die in front of you … it will affect you. And especially given Anakin’s fear of loss, of losing those he cares about … it will affect him. He will lose Ahsoka, he has almost lost Obi-Wan, he lost his friends, other Jedi. He's not going to be healthy.
A further point about PTSD -- it’s difficult to cure. It’s not a one-shot thing. Wikipedia says that
“Per definition, the symptoms last more than six months and cause significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.”
So, if someone is diagnosed with PTSD, they’ll need years of counselling, and maybe even some form of medication to heal psychologically. Fantards: you can’t just say, it’s peacetime now, therefore, Anakin will be magically cured by his love for Padmé. For fuck’s sake, Padmé’s magical love isn’t the cure to everything! I mean, come on, if you had been fighting a war, if you had seen such awful things, and your wife, who knows nothing of what you have experienced, who would never experience what you have experienced, just said, “oh, I love you, feel better” -- well, you wouldn’t, would you? You might, even, (shock horror) resent the person who said such things to you, because they didn't understand. Also, people with these issues often don't believe they need help, as they believe that they're perfectly fine and that there is nothing wrong with them. Nine times out of ten, they refuse to get help, no matter how much sex they're having, because, as far as they're concerned, they're really all right.
The way to treat such things is therapy, over time. Magical healing sex solves nothing. Nothing.
Another thing I’ll discuss is his injuries. As I’m sticking to the PT for this, I’m mostly going to discuss the loss of his arm.
So, we all know that Anakin lost his arm on Geonosis. Now, according to my research, this meant that he would, in all likelihood, be suffering from something known as phantom pain. For those of you who may not know what phantom pain is, Wikipedia defines it as:
“[…]perceptions that an individual experiences relating to a limb or an organ that is not physically part of the body. Limb loss is a result of either removal by amputation or congenital limb deficiency. However, phantom limb sensations can also occur following nerve avulsion or spinal cord injury. Sensations are recorded most frequently following the amputation of an arm or a leg, but may also occur following the removal of a breast or an internal organ. Phantom limb pain is the feeling of pain in an absent limb or a portion of a limb. The pain sensation varies from individual to individual.”
Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d certainly say that Dooku, er, amputated Anakin’s arm for him, wouldn’t you? And Wikipedia further goes on to say that you need counselling to be cured of these symptoms … and do you think Anakin got it? In a war zone? From Jedi who are convinced that acknowledging emotions are wrong and evil and lead to the Dark Side? Hmm. No. Don’t think so.
And you could argue that yes, he got prosthetic limbs. But -- and here’s the thing -- the limb itself doesn’t really feel anything; it’s, I assume, connected to the nerves remaining on the original arm. Stover makes a reference to this, when he describes how Anakin felt pain in his right arm, even though he had had no pain receptors installed. And I don’t know about you, but that smacks of phantom pain to me.
And finally, onto the third symptom: nightmares and visions.
I will begin by saying this -- and, hang on, I’ll bold it and underline it and italicise it and put it in huge font, just so that you can grasp just how much of a pet peeve of mine this is:
NOT EVERY NIGHTMARE IS A VISION, DAMN IT!
A Jedi can -- most Jedi do, even -- have a nightmare that doesn’t herald the future. In fact, being able to see the future isn’t something that all Jedi can do. Yes, Anakin could. But, not every nightmare he suffered was a vision. A side effect of PTSD is nightmares and flashbacks. And, it would make a lot of sense for him to dream of events in the war that affected him, as opposed to potential futures. I mean, there’s what, three, four years between his dreams of his mother and his dreams of Padmé in canon, isn’t there? So, yes. Please to be realising that not every one of Anakin’s dreams are visions.
So, what is the point of this ramble? Well, it's mostly just a summary of how I see the causes and effects of Anakin’s psychological trauma throughout the PT. I realise I’ve probably got it all wrong and messed up, so don’t hesitate to correct me!
And if you read this far, may the Force be with you!
Disclaimer: In this meta, I will be discussing, amongst other things, slavery, abuse, trauma, war and anxiety disorders. If it bothers you, proceed with caution.