Star Wars

Anakin Skywalker Is a Great Character, Not a Great Role Model

The online right is again meme-ing its way toward a profound misunderstanding of the Star Wars protagonist.

Robby Soave | 11.2.2026 4:36 PM

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Anakin (KatieMiller/@elonmusk/X)

It's been Anakin Skywalker appreciation week on X for the last several days, and this prominent Star Wars prequel revisionist is all in favor of that. I'm glad that, 20 years later, this character—portrayed by Hayden Christensen in Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005)—is finally getting his due in an era when social media has made it easier for fan communities to challenge the critical consensus.

Still, some of these Anakin appreciation posts—which have taken on a right-wing political valence—seem to be missing the point of the character, which is definitely not that he was a good guy who was right about everything. Anakin is compelling because he is flawed and ultimately succumbs to evil, not because his malevolence was somehow justified. This is a very important distinction, and one that right-wing dudes on X should take under consideration.

The point I'm making is obvious when one considers other popular, compelling fictional protagonists who commit unspeakable evils; no serious person really thinks that Breaking Bad's murderous drug dealer Walter White and The Sopranos' even more murderous gangster Tony Soprano are great role models. Yet when it comes to Anakin, some large number of right-wing guys on X seem to earnestly think he had the right idea because they imagine that deep down, his politics matches theirs.

To be abundantly clear, I am not saying that it's problematic to make jokes about Anakin that position him as a right-wing culture warrior as opposed to liberal institutionalists like Padmé (his wife) or........

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