There are several issues with the old Expanded Universe that I was hopeful would be addressed in the new Star Wars canon, and chief among them is how much the general public knew about Darth Vader and his connection to the Skywalkers.
When the EU started in earnest in the early ’90s, Vader’s identity as Anakin Skywalker and his relation to Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa was still a secret: It’s actually a huge plot point throughout Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy. But as the EU, um, expanded, it became less and less so, until it was just public knowledge not only that Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker, but that both Luke and Leia were his kids. It doesn’t seem like it was ever planned or addressed: It just happened, and the full implications were almost never addressed. Such were the early days of continuity. But with the old EU now set aside as Legends, how much does the galaxy actually know?
We might already have an answer.
We were focused on Ahsoka at the time, but in his interview with StarWars.com about the Rebels season finale, Dave Filoni says it right out:
There’s a popular thought among fans that people all know who this guy is. Why would they? I don’t think people on Coruscant really care or know that Palpatine is a Sith Lord. A lot of them wouldn’t really know what that means. Many of them would say, “Well, the trains are running on time.” Everyone’s doing well. That’s in his favor.
Vader is a known person to some, but to very few, I think. He’s known of in whispers. The Imperials know about him, but a lot of them haven’t met him. He’s not military. He’s more the fanatical wing of the Empire. One reason I believe he’s not well known is the fact that if you encounter him, you usually don’t survive.
Anakin Skywalker was the war hero, the poster boy. Anakin Skywalker was famous. Anakin Skywalker is going to be the one that your average citizen will compare Luke to. (Assuming Luke becomes a public figure himself, because: Who knows?) Anakin Skywalker may very well be remembered as ‘the last good Jedi.’ (Matthew Stover had a great take that I hope makes it to canon in some form.)
But Darth Vader? He’s a shadow.
If Vader isn’t well known among the general public, if word just doesn’t get out, if very few people actually survive an encounter with him – that’s a huge change.
Another brick in the wall, from the Aftermath blurb:
The Emperor and his powerful enforcer, Darth Vader, are rumored to be dead. The Galactic Empire is in chaos. Across the galaxy, some systems celebrate, while in others Imperial factions tighten their grip.
Rumors of the Emperor’s death. Obviously the galaxy knows who Palpatine is, but how often is he seen in those final years, after the Senate is dissolved? I’m not going to hang my hat on marketing copy, because of course Star Wars marketing copy is going to mention Vader – but just the word ‘rumors’ suggests quite a bit about how public exactly the Sith were.
Another one of my issues, the lack of attention paid to Alderaan and Alderaani survivors, is already being addressed in the Princess Leia comics. Both of them open up lots of new possibilities, but the implications with Vader are particularly is super intriguing to me. It’s a whole new galaxy after Return of the Jedi, after all.
In HTTJ, Nakari’s mother is disappeared for writing a song mocking Vader, so he’s relatively known. Seems like Filoni should have a chat with the Story Group about this,
Well, perhaps HttJ’s extreme forgetability will work for them in that.
There’s also the fact that it was written for the old continuity rather than the new, right? So it’s probably not the best indicator of the direction they’re planning to take. I doubt that the tradition of some canon being more canon than others is going to go anywhere, in terms of Rebels contradicts a novel = Rebels wins.
I see Vader in the beginning of IV as a likely guide, here. The high-ranking imperial officers know who he is, but one of them is perfectly content mouthing off to him, and another one gives him orders. They don’t treat him as if he’s been invested with the Emperor’s direct authority, the way he’s treated in VI. Since we know now that he was, in fact, the Emperor’s right hand the whole time, that suggests to me that maybe the Emperor didn’t take him on press tours.
I do wonder if Tarkin knows who’s under the mask, since he and Anakin establish a working relationship in The Clone Wars. I suspect Rebels will answer that soon enough.
HttJ was ANNOUNCED before Legends, but I think that’s less of a factor than people think it is. They knew they were going to be doing Legends long before they announced it; Pablo and Leland were talking about the core concepts of it ages before anything became official to us. Internally, they knew.
It could just be an error, though it’s not exactly the hardest ever thing to retcon, particularly if Nakari’s family had Rebel connections.
In Luceno’s Tarkin, Tarkin suspects that Vader is Anakin, but he never directly talks to anyone about it. The way Tarkin speaks of the Jedi in ANH leads me to believe he is later more open about it, but yeah, it would be cool to see it more fully addressed in Rebels.
Vader speaks of Kenobi as his “old master” when talking to Tarkin in ANH. That would seem to make his history as Anakin Skywalker a pretty open thing, at least between the two of them since Clone Wars established that Tarkin was familiar with Kenobi and Skywalker.
A few individuals knowing Anakin = Vader is one thing – and Tarkin is certainly in a position to figure it out – but my point here isn’t that. Simply that most people didn’t know about Vader at all.
“Tarkin” was only a few years after RotS, so it’s not unreasonable to think that by ANH he has done more to confirm his theory.
Don’t forget, Filoni’s Rebels takes place before HttJ, so it still works.
I like the Vader of the OT more than the EU or the PT. That Vader isn’t an all powerful ruler as much as he is a fanatical agent of the emperor. His rank seems to be kind of amorphous–the Imperial military can command him and send him on missions, but because of his connection to the Emperor, he also gets his own fleet in Empire. I think my larger issue with Vader is that the PT didn’t earn him. Nothing set up with Anakin in the PT connects to the character we meet in IV. The Clone Wars gets him a little closer, but it’s still a stretch. He should have been older, and I would have loved him to have an accent similar to Vader’s. I guess they can fix all this when they remake the entire series in ten years :)
I hope they cover this in one of the books/comics soon, at least Luke/Leia’s reactions to it becoming public knowledge. Even though there was a fake TV script circulating last year (can’t find the link at the moment) I was intrigued by Leia covering up her paternity.