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Two decades ago, when Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith premiered, we all watched in horror as Anakin Skywalker descended into darkness. Another sad casualty of the dark side's alluring pull, manipulation, and fear.
But now that the Skywalker saga has been fully unfolded, we must face a terrible prospect: What if Anakin's change into Vader was required by the Force? What if its worst monster was supposed to become its golden hero?
The prophecy that shaped much of the Star Wars lore spoke of a Chosen One, someone supposed to restore balance to the Force. For years, both Jedi and fans believed that meant the Sith would be defeated and the Jedi would rise once again.
However, by its very nature, balance is not one-sided. And as the Jedi became more rigid, political and blind to their own contradictions, perhaps the Force sought equilibrium through destruction rather than preservation.
Anakin didn’t preserve the old ways. Instead, he burned them down. And in so doing, he may have fulfilled the prophecy in the only way balance could ever be achieved: through darkness, not light.
The prophecy of the Chosen One
Long before Anakin Skywalker drew his first breath, the Jedi were already waiting for someone like him. Vague, old, and perilously open to interpretation, the prophecy of the Chosen One spoke of someone meant to restore balance to the Force.
Still, like many stories handed down through time, The Prophecy was more a mirror than a clear road, reflecting the dreams and anxieties of those who called it forth.
Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is the first Jedi in the saga to openly think Anakin was the one prophesied. His conviction isn’t based solely on the boy’s strength in the Force, but on his circumstances: born without a father, conceived by midi-chlorians, and capable of feats far beyond his age. To Qui-Gon, this wasn’t coincidence at all: it was destiny. Yet, the very idea of destiny becomes suspect in a galaxy where power is politicized and prophecy is treated as doctrine.
By the time Anakin is accepted into Jedi training, the prophecy has already taken root. He isn’t raised as a child. Instead, he’s groomed as a savior. Every decision made around him is shadowed by what he is supposed to become. And there is when the tragedy begins: in that expectation. Because no one ever stopped to ask what balance truly meant. Not the Council, or Obi-Wan for that matter. Not even Anakin himself. And nobody asked him if he wanted to be the Chosen One either.
The rise of Anakin Skywalker and the weight of destiny
Anakin Skywalker never had the chance to just be a boy. From the moment he entered the Jedi Temple, he was already more myth than human, a weapon in waiting, a prophecy wrapped in the skin of a child. Raised with caution instead of compassion, trained in restraint, not in freedom, who and what he became was the very product of a system that both feared and needed him.
The Jedi Order taught him to suppress emotion, yet demanded obedience built on trust. They warned against attachment, yet denied him the stability of true mentorship. Obi-Wan Kenobi cared for him but never truly understood him. The Council accepted him but never fully trusted him. And Palpatine, watching from the shadows, offered Anakin the one thing the others withheld: validation.
Every step of Anakin’s rise is marked by contradiction. He’s a hero in war but distrusted in peace. He’s a prodigy but not a Master. He wins battles but loses his sense of self. The more he tries to become what the prophecy demands, the more he fractures, and that happens because the prophecy doesn’t give him purpose. In fact, it strips him of agency. He doesn't choose. He's chosen, but he’s not chosen to decide. He’s chosen to fulfill. And the galaxy pays the price for that burden.
Balance through darkness: How Darth Vader out an end to the Jedi era to restore the Force
The Jedi believed they were the light while the Sith believed they were power. Both clung to extremes that kept the Force in constant imbalance. The prophecy never promised salvation for the Jedi, it promised balance. And balance, as Anakin Skywalker’s story proves, sometimes requires the collapse of what came before.
Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader was not only a fall from grace; i t marked the end of an era. The destruction of the Jedi Temple, the execution of Order 66, the purge of everything the Order had built? These were not acts of mindless rage. They were a reckoning. Through Anakin, the Force stripped the galaxy of its corrupted guardians and manipulative tyrants alike. Not immediately and not cleanly. However, inevitably.
What followed was pain, subjugation, terror. Yet, even in that darkness, the Force was not silent. It recalibrated. It waited. Because in destroying both Jedi idealism and Sith ambition, Darth Vader created space for something new. Not a return to the old ways, but the fragile possibility of a future less defined by doctrine and more attuned to the living Force.
Redemption in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
By the time we reach Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Anakin Skywalker is all but a ghost, buried beneath years of violence, regret and mechanical breath. Darth Vader stands as the Empire’s unshakable enforcer, a symbol of fear and obedience. However, a different path begins to emerge through Luke Skywalker. Not one of revenge or rebellion, but of recognition of the man that still exists beneath the armor.
Luke refuses to see Vader as a monster. He sees his father, lost but not gone. And in that refusal, the prophecy finds its final thread. Anakin was not meant to destroy the Sith through strength, strategy or war. He was meant to choose. To act freely. To break the cycle not by preserving the Jedi Code, but by protecting something real. Someone real.
When he lifts the Emperor and casts him into the reactor core, it is not the act of a Sith Lord. It's the act of a father saving his son. It's a man returning to the Force on his terms. And in that moment the prophecy is fulfilled. Not through power, but through love. Not through light, but through choice.
Echoes in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and beyond
The death of the Emperor didn’t bring peace and the fall of the Empire didn’t erase the darkness. Even after Anakin Skywalker fulfilled the prophecy, the Force remained in flux. And why so? Because balance is not an end point. It’s a cycle. And every generation must face the echoes of what came before.
In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we meet Kylo Ren, a descendant of Anakin’s bloodline and legacy, haunted by the same pull between light and dark.
Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Last Jedi turns into the very thing he once battled: a disillusioned Jedi challenging the legends he was brought up to support.
Rey is made to negotiate a universe in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker where prophecy and power have once more turned into tools of manipulation.
Anakin’s actions brought balance for a moment, but the Force never stops moving. The prophecy wasn’t a solution. It was a reckoning, a reminder that the Force is not static, and neither is destiny. What Anakin gave the galaxy was not eternal harmony, but the freedom to start over.
Was the prophecy wrong? Or did Anakin Skywalker really fulfil it?
False, the prophecy never was. Blind, the readers were.
Anakin Skywalker did bring balance to the Force, and not by preserving a broken Order or vanquishing evil in some glorious battle between light and dark. He fulfilled the prophecy not as a Jedi, not as a Sith, but as a father reclaiming his soul.
The Jedi misread the prophecy because they were looking for a savior who would validate their beliefs. What they got was a force of disruption that exposed their flaws and shattered their illusions. Anakin didn’t save them. He did the opposite. And maybe that was the only way to save the Force itself.
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In the end, the Chosen One was never meant to fit within the dogma of light or dark. He was meant to burn through it. And in doing so, he reminded us that balance is not synonymous with peace. Balance is truth. Balance is pain, transformation, and rebirth.
And like the Force, it’s always in motion.
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