Any true mythic hero's journey tale is populated with archetypical characters, and the Star Wars saga is no exception. Archetypes are constantly recurring types of characters in mythic tales1. Sometimes they represent a facet (repressed or otherwise) of the hero's personality, or a quality the hero must come to possess. Sometimes the character stays as one archetype throughout the tale, but more often they represent different archetypes at different phases of their development, which is the case with most of the characters of Star Wars, particularly its central figure, Anakin Skywalker. There are seven common classically defined archetypes2; at various points throughout his tale Anakin has represented all of them. Perhaps his most crucial archetypical role in the Star Wars story, though, is his function as the Trickster.
If one word sums up the role of the Trickster in mythology, it is change. The Trickster makes the audience or other characters in the story aware of key flaws in themselves and the world around them; he brings about "healthy change and transformation, often by drawing attention to the imbalance or absurdity of a stagnant situation."3 Anakin shows this both by direct dialogue exposition ("I don't think the system works") and by the effects of the decaying Galactic Republic and Jedi Order institutions on his character that facilitate his eventual turn to the Dark Side of the Force. His own descent to the Dark Side, itself an illustration of the flaws that lead an individual to darkness, highlights the flaws that will also be the downfall of the Jedi and the Republic. He is instrumental in bringing down both systems, and later on the dictatorial Empire that rises in the Republic's place as well, making room for the rise of a new order of Jedi in the form of his son Luke. He institutes more drastic, large-scale change to the events of the saga than any other character, both irrevocably affecting and being affected by every person and institution he forms a relationship with.
From the very beginning of Star Wars continuity it is shown that the Republic in its final years had been steadily degenerating, a process which apparently went long unnoticed: "Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic rotted from within, though the danger was not visible from the outside,"4 says the prologue of the 1976 A New Hope novelization. The plot of The Phantom Menace significantly focuses on illustrating the symptoms and effects of this degeneration. Before its opening crawl has even finished, Menace shows the Republic has gotten to a state where one of its worlds -- Naboo -- can be invaded and its people imprisoned with hardly a word from its governing body, and even the Republic's Chancellor has become politically powerless to take any action except in secret, dispatching two Jedi to Naboo to investigate the situation.
Before he even becomes a Jedi, Anakin himself witnesses clear examples of how the Republic and Jedi fail the people of the galaxy. He and his mother lived for years in a life of slavery on Tatooine, a system the Republic is aware of yet apparently makes little or no attempt to bring down; many in the Republic seem to not even be aware that slavery still exists in the galaxy. On his first trip to Coruscant Anakin sees an even more direct failure of the Republic, when his friend and crush Padmé Amidala confides to him the severity of Naboo's plight and her fears that the Senate may not intervene, and later the Senate's bureaucratic red tape and the Chancellor's political impotence prove her fears grounded when the Senate refuses to even acknowledge there is a crisis on Naboo.
In one of their scenes together in Attack of the Clones, Anakin tells Padmé about his qualms with the Republic and politicians in general, that he doesn't believe the current system works, and shares just exactly what kind of system he thinks would work for the Republic. Since in the current situation politicians and people alike seem incapable of coming to agreements on matters of governance, of what's best for the people being governed; Anakin believes "someone wise" should make them. By itself, this exchange with Padmé almost completely encapsulates the key function of a Trickster: he has pointed out what he sees as a flaw in the Republic, and already has thought of a way to fix it..
Over the course of the prequels the audience is shown the stagnation of the Jedi Order as well. The Jedi, having had little reason to change their ways in a thousand years, have long grown complacent and feel no need to adapt those ways even when faced with the possibility of drastic change from outside. The Jedi Council convenes in the very top of a tall white tower, high above and seemingly disconnected from the problems affecting the world around them. Several members immediately dismiss the idea that the long-believed-extinct Sith have returned, simply because it is hard to believe the Sith could have returned without their knowing. Clones continues this display of insular arrogance when Obi-Wan Kenobi surmises the Jedi Temple's archives are incomplete after being unable to locate the planet Kamino in them and is smugly informed by the Jedi's head archivist that an item does not exist if it is not in the archives. This overconfidence in their existing system and unwillingness to adapt it, when applied to their handling of Anakin, are what will ultimately result in their downfall.
For over a thousand generations the Order has applied the same expectations of adherence to the Jedi Code to each student, and for those thousand years it has by and large worked; there doesn't appear to be an epidemic of Jedi leaving the Order to turn rogue or to the Dark Side. (Though it certainly has happened prior to Anakin, as the existence of Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus proves.) But Anakin, who unlike his fellow Jedi has spent years growing up in an affectionate family setting, presents a unique status that in the end the existing confines of the Code simply are not equipped to accomodate. Anakin leaves a loving relationship with his mother and is immediately forced into the same severe mold that the rest of the Jedi have had their entire lives to grow into, and because of his potential prophecy-boy status and record-high midi-chlorian count has even higher expectations placed on him, the combined pressures of which over time take a severe toll on Anakin.
Anakin, as one who's always felt passionately and for whom those strong feelings have always been an asset, is suddenly constantly admonished to keep a tighter control on them. The Order, citing the Code tenet forbidding attachment to anyone outside the Order itself, also allows Anakin no contact with his mother, which makes the abrupt transition to a life without emotional attachment even more difficult. Had Anakin been allowed some contact with her, some information on her well-being and whereabouts in their ten years of separation, he would likely not have reacted as extremely as he did to her sudden death, prompting his first significant delving into the Dark Side.
Anakin gets stability from empathizing and connecting with other people. But he is forbidden from being in contact with those he has already formed genuine emotional connections with, his mother and Padmé, and by nature there really is no one in the Order he can form an equally strong bond with. He tries with his Jedi master Obi-Wan, but Obi-Wan is so unaccustomed to someone as passionate as Anakin he has no idea how or if he should reciprocate, much to Anakin's frustration. As a result, Anakin seeks understanding elsewhere, unfortunately in the form of Chancellor Palpatine. Palpatine seems to empathize with Anakin's concerns and frustrations about the Jedi, even encouraging him to do what Anakin thinks he should do anyway: "You don't need guidance, Anakin. Soon you will learn to trust your feelings -- then, you will be invincible." The circumstances of his growing up a slave and later a Padawan, always with his life in control of someone else, fuels Anakin's desire to be in a position where he can finally affect change in his own life, a desire Palpatine encourages and exploits to its ultimate potential. So the Order, in their inability or unwillingness to acknowledge the need for certain adaptations in their method of training for Anakin, ends up unwittingly pushing Anakin toward the most dangerous man possible, who will manipulate him into inflicting the greatest destruction possible to the Jedi.
The traditional Trickster generally brings about change by being a comic relief of sorts, and is an agent of mischief, often seeming to bring about that mischief just for the purpose of being mischievous.5 The increasingly darkening nature of the prequels leaves little room for genuine comic relief in Episodes II and III, though much of what little there is in Clones (where Anakin's journey truly begins to flesh out) does come from the banter/bickering between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Anakin certainly is the most deliberately mischievous character in the prequels, finding loopholes in the rules and forever testing the limits of their flexibility, often finding amusement in Obi-Wan's resulting frustration. Anakin even indirectly admits this tendency to Padmé during a dinner where he is using humor and his Force talents to woo her. "If Master Obi-Wan caught me doing this, he'd be very grumpy," he quips in an overly-serious tone, floating a piece of fruit to her waiting mouth and flashing a grin.
The most clear example of change coming about directly from Anakin's deliberately mischievous nature is in the melting of the "ice queen" exterior of Padmé, a transformation that will effect her own single greatest contribution to the future of the galaxy, and one of Anakin's as well, in the form of their children. Anakin is seen at his most mischievous, most humorous, when he is courting Padmé. Despite his half-hearted protest to the contrary ("I'd be much too frightened to tease a Senator"), Anakin delights in teasing his love on multiple occasions. His attempts do succeed, as shown at the end of Clones: she finally accepts her own love for Anakin, embracing the long-denied woman within her, and becomes his wife.
From the beginning Anakin's unwillingness to conform to expected boundaries is an instrument of change, although that tendency is not always deliberately mischievous; it will in fact grow less deliberately mischievous the more Anakin slips toward his transformation to Darth Vader, though flashes of it will occasionally appear in a much darker form, such as Vader's thinly veiled threats to Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back. (Interestingly, in the new revised version of the end of Return of the Jedi, the very first glimpse the audience sees of the restored Anakin is an impish grin straight from his adolescence6, the death of the Vader persona seeming to restore what was lost.)
One of the most famous embodiments of the Trickster archetype, and most similar in story function to Anakin, is Loki, the Norse god of trickery and deceit7, conceived by giants and one of the biggest energies of change in Norse mythology. Loki is often painted as a "beautiful but evil god, quick-witted and well-versed in cunning," and whose first impression, as with Anakin as Vader in the original films, appears to be one of unadulterated evil, an impression that upon closer examining reveals a more complex character.8 Beautiful but evil certainly describes certain images of Anakin from Episode III where, despite his physical beauty, he is clearly tainted by a darker power. By Episode III he will also have become the "cunning warrior" we first heard Obi-Wan speak of him as in A New Hope.
In the myth, Loki is accepted into the high council of the gods by swearing a blood oath with the all-wise god Odin, after which he begins plotting against the other gods and striking out at them, resulting in his underworld imprisonment.9 By Episode III, Anakin has become one of the most famous and respected members of the Jedi Order. It's not outside the realm of possibility that this respect may have even landed him a position on the Jedi Council, becoming part of the Order's innermost circle, all the while keeping counsel with Palpatine, under whose influence he will still ultimately betray them. Anakin duels with Obi-Wan in attempt to kill him, after which Anakin becomes literally imprisoned in his monstrous life-support suit. In the second trilogy he has become the right hand man to Palpatine, perhaps his most trusted counsel -- and here again Vader's plotting, this time against Palpatine, secretly planning to overthrow him after realizing the Empire has not become what he had hoped it would be under Palpatine's leaders and that if Palpatine does not die, then Vader's son Luke certainly will.
Loki fights on the side of the giants -- his kin -- against his fellow gods in the final apocalyptic battle of Norse myth.10 Again, Anakin does this in both trilogies, turning against his comrades to ally with what he sees as a kindred force. In Revenge of the Sith, the final and most brutal act of the prequel trilogy, he will side with the seemingly sympathetic Palpatine against the Jedi, who he feels have betrayed him. In the original trilogy, he continues to fight against the establishment he once served as a leader in the Empire's military confrontations with the Rebel Alliance, whose specific aim is "to restore the Old Republic."11 In Return of the Jedi, he will turn against Palpatine to save his kin.
(It's perhaps also of note in comparing these two Tricksters that Loki was also infamous as a shapeshifter12, and Anakin's transformation from slave to Jedi to Sith Lord and then eventually back to Anakin again is a shapeshifting if ever there was one. The release of the original trilogy on DVD takes the shapeshifting one step further, having Anakin's final spectral image at the end of Jedi as restored to his youthful self13 instead of the maimed, middle-aged self he died as.)
Anakin is the ultimate Trickster of the saga as a whole, its greatest energy and instrument of change. His role is not without a measure of irony, however, as this is the very same character who protests at the beginning of his journey, upon his decision to leave his mother and become a Jedi, "I don't want things to change." Almost as ironic is his mother's response to that protest, "but you can't stop the change."
Works Cited:
1. Vogler, Christopher. The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. (Michael Wiese Productions, Studio City, CA, USA.) Second edition, 1998. Pg. 29.
2. The seven most common archetypes are Hero, Mentor, Threshold Guardian, Herald, Shapeshifter, Shadow, and Trickster. Vogler, pg. 32-80.
3. The word "imbalance" in the above definition is also of note in Anakin's Trickster function, as the culmination of his life's journey is, as specifically mentioned in the Chosen One prophecy believed to be about Anakin, restoring balance to the long-imbalanced Force when he destroys the Sith Lord Palpatine in Return of the Jedi and saves the life of the last Jedi, Luke. Vogler, pg. 77.
4. Lucas, George. Star Wars: A New Hope (From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker.) (Ballantine Publishing Group, New York, NY, USA.) From the story and screenplay by George Lucas. Mass market paperback edition, 1993. Pg. 3.
5. Blackwell, Christopher W. and Amy Blackwell. Mythology for Dummies. (Hungry Minds Inc., New York, NY, USA.) First edition, 2002. pg. 193.
6. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. Special Edition DVD release, 2004. Directed by Richard Marquand, produced by George Lucas.
7. Vogler, pg. 78.
8. "Although many of Loki's actions appear evil at first glance, when viewed symbolically they take on a different meaning. Loki must be considered within the old Norse concept of the world, where good and evil were not the polarized absolutes they have come to seem." Loki also could not have been wholly evil, if the wise and powerful Odin was willing to undergo a blood oath with him. Karlsdottir, Alice. "Loki: Father of Strife." Loki: A Paean in Progress. (http://loki.ragnarokr.com/pipakgno.htm)
9. Karlsdottir.
10. Karlsdottir.
11. Lucas, pg. 4.
12. Wikipedia. "Loki." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki)
13. Return of the Jedi.
