Becoming More Powerful
In Revenge of the Sith, after Anakin Skywalker turns to the dark side, he faces his former master Obi-Wan Kenobi on the lava planet Mustafar. In A New Hope, Obi-Wan once again faces his former pupil, now Darth Vader, on the Death Star. These are not only physical contests; the dialogue around the duels reveals Anakin and Obi-Wan's competing beliefs on how one attains power.
In Revenge of the Sith, shortly before dueling Obi-Wan, Anakin tells Padmé Amidala, "I am becoming more powerful than any Jedi has ever dreamed of, and I'm doing it for you. To protect you." The Sith have seduced him with the belief that he can become more powerful by mastering death – a power that is supposedly beyond anything "any Jedi has ever dreamed of."
In A New Hope, while dueling Vader, Obi-Wan tells him, "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." Whereas Anakin thought he could become powerful enough to make death submit to him, Obi-Wan holds to the paradoxical Jedi belief that he can become more powerful than death by submitting to death.
Obi-Wan is proven right. After Vader strikes him down, his disembodied spirit speaks to Luke and guides him to defeat the Death Star, which the Imperial Admiral Motti claimed to be "the ultimate power in the universe." Anakin's attempts to control death, on the other hand, ultimately make him weak. After Obi-Wan strikes him down, he fails to save Padmé and becomes a slave to the Sith, clinging to the technology that keeps his maimed body alive – all because the Jedi way to power is beyond his imagination.
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Characters: Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader / Obi-Wan Kenobi
Films: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith / Episode IV: A New Hope
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Concepts: death / power and weakness
Interpretive Tools: Ring Theory
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