“The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than
anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.”
- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
From the earliest scripts George Lucas has consistently pulled political issues – both modern and historical – into the fictional Star Wars universe. This fact makes it extremely unlikely that his use of slavery as a plot device is accidental throughout the saga. This paper will examine the way slavery is depicted in the galaxy far, far away, and it will examine the possible roles it plays when considered in relation to the central character of Anakin Skywalker.
Slavery in the real world has existed in some form or fashion throughout all of human history. It is one of mankind’s oldest and most heinous institutions. Mark Thornton, in a daily article for the Ludwig Von Mises Instutute, writes that slavery can easily contribute to a young person following the wrong path. He sums slavery up this way: “Slavery is the antithesis of humanity, depriving man materially, socially, and spiritually and contributes especially to the fragility of family bonds. Even in its most platonic form, it leaves scars of resentment, detachment and fear that can last for generations.”1 Certainly real human history bears this out.
The similarities between slavery in the real world and the way it is depicted in the Star Wars galaxy are numerous. Take, for example, slavery on Tatooine. Here, the ownership of sentient beings to provide service is an issue of economics. Slaves are very numerous, requiring housing that takes up an entire section of the city of Mos Espa.2 By their very number we are led to assume that they are a primary source of labor. We are shown in Episode I that entire families can belong to one master, that they live in assigned “slave quarters,” that their money is scarce and their food stores are meager. It can’t help but bring to mind slavery in America’s antebellum south.
In fact, on Tatooine, the number of slaves a master owns is indicative of their wealth and status, just as it was in the pre-civil war southern states. This point is brought home when Qui-Gon explains the reason he couldn’t free Shmi as well as Anakin. “Watto wouldn’t have it. Slaves give status and lend prestige to their owners here on Tatooine.”3 At the same time we are told that the Hutts on Tatooine, who rule much like royalty, own many slaves. Specifically, they control “the bulk of the trafficking in illegal goods, piracy and slavery” that generates most of Tatooine’s wealth.4
The examples of slavery we are shown on Tatooine appear similar in many ways to modern forms of slavery. Though we have no idea how people become slaves on Tatooine, we assume it is in the same ways as the real world. Trafficking victims are enslaved by many means, including deception, fraud, intimidation, force, indebtedness and threats. Its victims are primarily women and children and their most common destination is the sex trade. It is now estimated that there are over 27 million enslaved persons worldwide, with those numbers growing constantly.5
Even the Star Wars universe is not immune to depictions of the sex slave trade. Just before the Boonta Eve race in The Phantom Menace novelization we see “A line of slave girls of varying species came last, chained together there for the amusement of those who had chosen freely to attend.”6 We are also shown a glimpse of Anakin’s nemesis Sebulba as he prepares for a race with the assistance of two beautiful Twi’lek slave girls. Even in the original trilogy women are shown in bondage, for example, in Return of the Jedi the Twi’lek called Oola dances for Jabba on the end of a chain leash. Our own heroine, Princess Leia, is likewise forced to wear revealing slave clothing and submit to the Hutt overlord’s disgusting advances.
It is unfortunate, but women sold into sexual slavery have little or no value both in the real world and in the Star Wars universe. The insignificance of their lives is brought home when Oola refuses to submit to Jabba’s demands. He responds with fury and drops her into the Rancor pit to be food for his monster pet. In the real world this same type of disposal happens all the time as slave women are drugged, used and then discarded.
It is worth mentioning that not all slave life on Tatooine is held in such low regard. Consider the way Anakin and Shmi were valued by Watto. Slaves are clearly worth more than a racing pod, as Watto refuses to bet his two slaves against one racing pod, even though Qui-Gon claims it is the fastest ever built. He will, however, wager the life of his one small boy slave against that same racing pod. Others recognize the value of someone else’s slave property as well. Even Sebulba, Anakin’s podracing nemesis, tells Anakin “If you weren’t a slave, I’d squash you here and now!”7 Anakin himself drives the point home with his reply: “Yeah, it’d be a pity if you had to pay for me.” Even with this nod to the slave’s value, we can recognize that they are not prized as living beings, but rather as a financial investment.
Perhaps the most startling similarity between our modern world and George Lucas’s fictional universe is the remarkably similar way the governments view slavery. When Padmé discovers that Anakin is a slave she cannot hide her shock. Seeing her dismay, Anakin is quick to insist he is a person, underscoring the age-old problem of slavery – the perception that a slave is no more than unthinking, unfeeling property.8 The conversation between Padmé and Shmi tells us all we need to know about the Republic’s views on slavery. “I can’t believe slavery is still permitted in the galaxy. The Republic’s anti-slavery laws should –“ “The Republic doesn’t exist out here…. We must survive on our own.”9
In our enlightened society it is startling to realize that our world governments have ignored slavery and human trafficking the same way the Republic did. They prefer to overlook that it exists outside the boundaries they can easily enforce. What surprises us even more than Padmé’s shocked reaction is Qui-Gon Jinn’s stoic insistence that he is not on Tatooine to free slaves. The Jedi, chosen protectors of the galaxy, do not seem interested in righting something that is clearly very wrong because it falls outside of their assigned mandate. Qui-Gon very pointedly comments that “I didn’t come here to free slaves.”10 Even after he realized Anakin’s great potential, even after he feels the boy may have a role to play in the fate of the galaxy, he still doesn’t take on the burden of freeing a slave until the opportunity presents itself into his mission.
Many people in the modern world would be just as astounded as Padmé was to know how solid an institution slavery is, and how few laws are enforced to regulate it in the current day and age. "Although there is no longer any state which legally recognizes, or which will enforce, a claim by a person to a right of property over another, the abolition of slavery does not mean that it ceased to exist. There are millions of people throughout the world — mainly children — in conditions of virtual slavery, as well as in various forms of servitude which are in many respects similar to slavery."11
Until recent years, the United States had no real laws about human trafficking aside from the peonage laws enacted circa 1880 which enabled a person to liquidate a debt through labor.12 It wasn’t until the mid 1990s that the first US policy on trafficking was created, and this was done in response to a high profile case involving women imported from Mexico and forced to work in a Florida brothel under inhuman conditions.13
The United Nations has had established laws on slavery since December 10, 1948 when they adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 4 of which states “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.") However, the first real global initiative on human trafficking didn’t happen until the year 2000, when the US passed a policy known as the Victims of Trafficking & Violence Protection Act. It was this policy which ultimately led to the first real global initiative in the form of the UN Protocol to Prevent Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Women and Children.
So, with all of this said, we come to the most important question. What, exactly, was Lucas’s point in making Anakin Skywalker come from the most humble origins imaginable… that of a slave?
I believe it is his extremely humble origins that make his fall to the dark side more believable and his redemption even more significant. He came from the worst possible place a human being can exist in. The choices he makes in his life reflect the values he learned there and his desire to escape. Although Anakin escaped the bonds of slavery on Tatooine, it is clear that his origins haunted him.
When we meet Anakin Skywalker he is a nine year old boy and already stoical about being a slave. Even as when enduring discipline from his master we see “He did not cringe or bow his head in submission; he stood his ground and took his scolding unflinchingly. He was a slave and Watto was his master. Scoldings were a part of life.”14
This mantle of acceptance comes from being born into slavery – a place where he must accept de facto the idea that humans can be – and that he is – owned. It was so firmly engrained that when Qui-Gon presents him with the truth of his own freedom, he easily accepts that his mother must stay behind and remain a slave.
Anakin had always believed he was destined for greater things than a life of slavery and this belief was confirmed by those around him. The old spacer he met in town who told him he wouldn’t be surprised at all if Anakin Skywalker became something more than a slave.15 Shmi, who told Qui-Gon that Anakin deserves better than a slave’s life surely must have recounted that to her son endlessly during the course of his young life.
Even as a child Anakin dreamed of freedom for himself and his mother.16 He survived despite his slavery background. “..he was young and brave at heart, and he had lived his life pretty much on his own terms because to live it any other way would have broken him long ago. It hadn’t been easy doing so, especially as a slave. He had survived mostly because he had been able to find small victories in difficult situations and because he had always believed that one day he would find a way to overcome the circumstances of his birth.”17
The great irony of Anakin’s existence is that he believes he is leaving slavery on Tatooine for a life of freedom with the Jedi. He doesn’t see that he is basically exchanging a life of restriction for another life of restriction. Whether coincidence or by design, the fact that the Jedi refer to elders of their Order as “master” contains echoes of servitude and obedience, the basic foundations of slavery. From their very first days in the Order the Jedi are trained to obey. Theirs is a life of service and discipline, of subjugating their own will to their “masters” and to the Force.
It is only in the last seconds of The Phantom Menace that we see Anakin just beginning to realize that life with the Jedi is not necessarily a life of freedom. His new master Obi- Wan Kenobi tells him that someday he will see his mother again, but by then he will be a Jedi Knight. Unspoken is that there will be no freedom to see her in the meanwhile. Even so, Anakin accepts that he must give up something he loves for this new life of duty.
The Episode 2 novelization begins with Anakin dreaming he is back with his mother, who is no longer a slave. The dream quickly turns to a nightmare where he realizes he has failed her as she turns into glass and shatters. This vision haunts Anakin, but he is bound by duty and his commitment to the Jedi and he does not leave to go ensure his mother’s safety. It isn’t until a new mission brings him into contact with the second love in his life that he begins to question his devotion to duty.
When he visits Padmé’s family home on Naboo Anakin can’t help but recall his childhood as a slave.18 He notes that Padmé doesn’t want her family to worry for her safety and, in light of leaving his mother behind as a slave on Tatooine, he can understand that. Seeing Padmé’s family life, he thinks how much he wishes he could free his mother and bring her there… to live the life she deserved.19 Padmé herself points out the differences in their origins to Anakin. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a slave, Anakin.”20 even Padmé couldn’t imagine… “It’s worse to know that your mother is one.”21 She is the first one to talk about Anakin’s life as a Jedi and how they aren’t free to do the things they want or be with the people they love. She is the first one to make that connection – that perhaps as a Jedi Anakin still is not truly free.
Despite her inability to empathize with Anakin’s past and present, she does have a great deal of sympathy for Anakin’s situation and even goes so far as to place her self at great risk so he can return to Tatooine and discover the source of his unsettling visions about his mother. From the moment Anakin arrives on Tatooine his thoughts return to the time he was a slave and we begin to see just how his origins will shape his future.
We begin by seeing that he is unsure how he will react to seeing Watto, his former master, after all this time. He recalls his life on Tatooine and thinks “Not all of the memories were bad, he had to admit, but the good ones did not overcome the reality that he had been a slave. Watto’s slave.”22 Still, he remembers that Watto treated him better than most slaves in Mos Espa are treated and hadn’t beaten him too often but even this doesn’t soften the fact that Watto wouldn’t release his mother too. Upon finding Watto he is surprised to find that his mother is no longer a slave, that she is, in fact, a free woman now. Of course, by the time Anakin does manage to find her at the Tusken encampment he has arrived too late. She dies in Anakin’s arms and his world falls apart.
His first irrational conclusion in the moments following his mother’s death is that he never should have left her alone on Tatooine. His immense guilt feeds the fury he feels towards the Tuskens as he massacred them. Yes, he was angry at them for their role in her death, but we get the sense that he was also angry at himself for, as he sees it, abandoning his mother to her fate.
The loss of his mother is a huge blow to Anakin’s faith in all he believes in. Despite this fact, and despite blaming the Jedi at least on some level for taking him away from his mother, he remains loyal and bound in service to the Jedi Order. He subjugates the anger he feels to be obedient and loyal to the very Order he blames for the fact that he didn’t return to Tatooine in time to save her. This illogical phenomenon is much the same as the way slaves serve their masters even in the face of great anger over their conditions. W.H. Auden sums this up when he says “Slavery is so intolerable a condition that the slave can hardly escape deluding himself into thinking that he is choosing to obey his master's commands when, in fact, he is obliged to.”23
Though on the surface he remains bound by duty, Anakin does not remain totally subservient. In response to this loss Anakin commits the ultimate act of rebellion against the Jedi Order. He follows his heart and marries Padmé in secret. In a sense, it could be said he traded the old attachment the Jedi had forbidden him to his mother for a new forbidden bond with his wife.
Some might question Obi-Wan Kenobi’s place in Anakin’s life, arguing that Anakin loved him both as a brother and a father. No matter how we consider the affection in their relationship, it never quite dissolves the bonds of duty, of Master to apprentice. Bonds that would be, at least to Anakin, reminiscent of those between a master and a slave. If and when it came down to a choice of whose will would be done, Anakin would bow to Obi-Wan. We even see from their conversation on board the Invisible Hand that, despite becoming a Jedi Knight in his own right, Anakin has trouble referring to Obi-Wan as anything but “master.” This, more than anything, serves as proof that their master/servant relationship still existed. In fact, even twenty years later it seems to define their relationship, as we see when Vader and Obi-Wan are reunited on the Death Star. Vader specifically tells him that he is no longer the learner, but is now the master.
As a Sith Lord, there is great irony in the fact that Vader serves Palpatine loyally and faithfully, even through decades of watching his master enslave others for his own gain. Many Star Wars fans have a theory that Anakin, by pledging allegiance to the Emperor, has returned to his bonds of servitude – perhaps to atone for leaving his mother to die on Tatooine or for failing Padmé or even for failing himself. This explanation is as good as any and better than most. An additional possibility that I don’t personally subscribe to is that over time Vader became resigned to his position of servitude. Author Stanley Elkins portrays this phenomenon in slaves as being like the Jews in the concentration camps – that they became docile in order to survive.24 Jean Jacques Rousseau says it better: “Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them.”25
Whatever the reason, Vader – whether consciously or subconsciously – appears to have forsaken all hope of happiness. He seems to serve without the desire for materialistic rewards, or so we gather from the brief glimpse into his sparse quarters that we see in The Empire Strikes Back. He appears to exist solely to do his master’s bidding, content to serve for the greater glory of Palpatine and the Empire. It could almost be said that, having failed both his mother and Padmé, he has chosen to return to the life of a slave. He remains in this enforced servitude until he finds the last of the loves that would not enslave him… that of a father for his son.
It is no stretch to believe that Luke’s unwavering faith in his father’s goodness could help Anakin find the strength to step away from his self-imposed bondage. As a child, Anakin dreamt of returning to Tatooine to liberate the slaves there. Perhaps this dream was more prophetic than literal. If we take things a step further it isn’t hard to see that dream as an allegory for the fact that Vader did, in a sense, liberate the entire galaxy once they had become slaves to the Empire. In destroying the Emperor Vader did more than take the first great step in restoring the galaxy to freedom. He freed Anakin Skywalker from the shadow of slavery that had haunted him his entire life.
Works Cited
1 Thornton, Mark. “What is the Dark Side and why do some people choose it?” Ludwig Von Mises Instutute, Alabama. 2005. Accessed 4/1/08. http://www.mises.org/story/1818
2 Star Wars Databank. Accessed 4/1/08. http://www.starwars.com/databank/location/mosespa/
3 Brooks, Terry. Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Ballantine Publishing Group, New York. 1999. p 188
4 Brooks. p 108
5 Dodson, Howard. “Slavery in the Twenty-First Century.” UN Chronicle Online Edition. 2005. Accessed 4/1/08. http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2005/issue3/0305p28.html
6 Brooks. p 162
7 Brooks. p 118
8 Brooks. p 112
9 Brooks. p 129
10 Brooks. p 145
11 “Does Slavery Still Exist?.” Anti-Slavery Society. 2003. Accessed 4/1/08. http://www.anti-slaverysociety.org/slavery.htm
12 DeStefano, Anthony M. The War on Human Trafficking: U.S. Policy Assessed. Rutgers University Press. New Brunswick, NJ. 2007. p xvi
13 DeStefano. p xix
14 Brooks. p 13
15 Brooks. p 20
16 Brooks. p 153
17 Brooks. p 277
18 Brooks. p 216
19 Salvatore, R. A. Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Ballantine Publishing Group. New York. 2002. p 171-2
20 Salvatore. p179
21 Salvatore. p 229
22 Salvatore. p 230
23 Salvatore. p 228
24 Auden, W. H. (1907-1973). Accessed 4/1/08. http://www.mrbauld.com/audenwr.html
25 Elkins, Stanley. “Slavery: a problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life.” 1959. p. xiii
26 Rousseau, Jean Jacques. (1712-1778) Swiss political philosopher and essayist
