The Fork in the Road to Hell (STAR WARS SPOILER ALERT)

                                                               
I saw Star Wars: Episode III on Thursday. Yes, I saw the parallels to the Administration in power. But what struck me most viscerally was Anakin’s personal path to the Dark Side.

Anakin turns to the dark side driven by fear of losing what he has. Driven not by hatred, but by fear, he is ultimately consumed by evil — and still suffers the pain he hoped to bypass…

I have heard it said innumerable times that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but I disagree. I believe it is paved with steel forged in fear.

He fears losing Padme, his lover. Determined to find a way to avoid the pain of such a loss, Anakin allows himself to believe the lies of Palatine. He convinces himself that the Jedi are the true enemy of Good; he needs to believe it, in order to open himself to the Dark Side and acquire the kind of power he thinks will save him the loss of what he loves.

Each step Anakin takes down the path to hell is increasingly indefensible. It starts with ignoring Windu’s order to stay at the Temple. By doing so, he unwittingly aids in Palatine’s murder of the Jedi Master. Having made such an irreversible error, he gives in to the Sith Lord — by deliberately ignoring the obvious lies and rationalizing his actions, telling himself he is still on the path of righteousness.

At each point thus far, Anakin is still redeemable. Even when he accepts the assignment to slay all the Jedi Knights, the good in him is still able to believe the lie that he is doing it to save the Republic. But on every man’s road to damnation there comes that fork — the decisive moment when he must choose to turn right or left, thereby cementing his spiritual fate.

Anakin’s Rubicon comes when he kills the “Younglings” — the children in Jedi training. There is no going back after that, and some part of him knows he has turned to the Dark Side completely.

Still, he rationalizes his conversion. He allows himself to believe he has saved Padme (though his true motive was not to save her, but to spare himself the pain of losing her), that he has strengthened the Republic (though in truth he has doomed it to years of fascism).

And the man who began his journey to hell finally gives himself over to it completely when Darth Sidious informs him he has killed Padme. Fully aware for the first time that he has been the instrument of his own damnation, the newly incarnated Darth Vader succumbs utterly to his Dark Side. For him, there is literally nothing left to lose.

But we all know he redeems himself in the end, right? Even those whose actions throughout their lives, born of their fears and their willingness to embrace evil rather than bear the pain of a life lived selflessly, have a chance to renounce it in the end.

That’s the theory, anyway, that the so-called religious right must be banking on like their souls depend upon it. Last minute forgiveness for sins — what a win-win situation they’ve created for themselves, eh?

Myself, I lean strongly in  the hope of redemption. But I don’t believe in painless forgiveness. That’s where I think the Catholics may have a slight edge in the theory department (though their interpretation of penance leaves much to be desired). Surely, anyone can be forgiven, redeemed and allowed into the kingdom of heaven, even after a lifetime of dissolution and despicable deeds? I hope so.

But I have a feeling that Purgatory isn’t as simple and swift an experience that people may think it is. When I imagine what sort of penance men like Hitler, Stalin, Bush, Rove, child molesters and corporate rapists face, I always see them reincarnated as their victims. (I don’t want to delve too deeply into that, into karma — because I don’t like what a believer in this theory must infer about those who suffer here and now. Smacks of Calvinism, in a way.)