Who Was Darth Vader’s Real Father? Was It Palpatine?

While we all know that Darth Vader was a boy named Anakin, who was born with the highest potential in the Force and was supposedly the Chosen One, one of the things that made the circumstances of his birth so incredible was the fact that his mother claimed that there was no father and that she got pregnant all of a sudden. But there have been recent developments that suggest that there was a “father.” So, who was Darth Vader’s father?

Darth Vader was born without a father, which means we can assume that he was born out of the will of the Force. Contrary to popular belief, Palpatine never influenced the Force to make Anakin’s mother pregnant. Anakin only viewed him as a father figure.

One of the biggest reasons why Anakin was so easy to manipulate for Palpatine was the fact that he never had a father figure his entire life, and that was how Vader viewed Palpatine during the reign of the Empire. He always saw Palpatine as the father he never had, which was one reason why he was reluctant to go against him before falling to the dark side. Let’s look at who Anakin’s father was and why he wasn’t Palpatine’s son.

Palpatine was not his father but only a father figure

Throughout the entire storyline of Star Wars, one of the biggest mysteries of the Force was Anakin’s conception. That’s because, as revealed in ‘Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace,’ Anakin was born without a father. Shmi, his mother, revealed to Qui-Gon Jinn that she didn’t have anyone and that Anakin had no father because she just seemingly got pregnant out of nowhere. This only made Qui-Gon believe that Anakin was the Chosen One.

Of course, in the Legends storyline of Star Wars, there was a point in the past wherein Darth Sidious (Palpatine) and his master, Darth Plagueis, tried to influence the Force to create life. This was something that Palpatine told Anakin during one of their conversations in ‘Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,’ wherein he said that his master was so powerful that he could influence the Midi-chlorians to create life.

So, in the novel regarding Plagueis and Sidious, what happened was that there was a Force rebound that prevented them from creating life. As a result, the Force created Anakin out of revenge for the unnatural thing the Sith Lords attempted to do. But this storyline is no longer canon.

However, in one of the Darth Vader comic books canon, Darth Vader had a vision regarding what happened in the past. In that vision, he saw Palpatine seemingly manipulating Anakin’s creation. This led fans to believe that Lucasfilm had already confirmed that Palpatine was responsible for creating Anakin.

But this was proven false by the writer of that comic book. He explained that this event was merely happening in Anakin’s head and was not a true Force vision that revealed past events. In that regard, Anakin merely imagined things as they thought they were. And that is why fans often misinterpreted this comic book scene.

On top of that, that scene also allowed us to see how Anakin saw Palpatine. The scene featured Shmi, Anakin’s mother, and Palpatine, who was always the person that he viewed as his father. This means that Palpatine was never Anakin’s father but was someone he saw as a father figure. After all, Anakin never had a father figure growing up.

He did have a lot of influence in his life. For example, Obi-Wan Kenobi was the person responsible for raising Anakin. But he was more of an older brother than an actual father figure. And Anakin hated that Obi-Wan always scolded him for the reckless things he did when he was younger.

On the other hand, Palpatine played the role of a father figure extremely well because he understood that the younger Anakin Skywalker needed a much older person that could act as some sort of a father figure to him. Palpatine stepped in and tried to win Anakin over by acting like a father in the sense that he supported Anakin’s decisions and made him feel like acting out of emotion was never wrong.

So, because Palpatine was a father figure to Anakin, it became easier for him to manipulate him over to the dark side as he understood Anakin’s emotional state. Palpatine manipulates Anakin’s emotional side to his advantage and makes him feel he truly cares for him. But the fact of the matter was that Palpatine never really cared for Anakin and was only using him for his own benefit, just like how he manipulated everyone around him to his benefit.

Anakin was the result of an immaculate conception

Now that we have clarified that Palpatine was never Anakin’s father but was someone he saw as a father figure, that would mean that the mystery surrounding Anakin’s birth remains a mystery. This is where we conclude that Anakin resulted from immaculate conception through the Force.

As they say, the Force acts in mysterious ways, so we aren’t sure why it allowed Shmi to become pregnant with Anakin. But we know that this prophecy had already been foretold in the past and that a Chosen One born out of the Force was supposed to come sometime in the future. That means the Force merely did its part in the prophecy by creating Anakin.

Of course, there’s a good chance that a future Star Wars storyline will finally clarify things and allow us to understand the true nature of how Anakin was born. But because we really don’t know how the Force works and why it allowed Anakin to be born, we are sticking with the belief that Anakin is basically space Jesus.

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