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By Root 394 0

an extensive robotic rebuilding of his body, Anakin now wears a full suit of black armor and a helmet with a mask covering his entire face. His senses are now all artificially mediated through technology, while he is fed through an internal tube in his helmet. Virtually everything vital has been replaced: his spine, his internal organs—his entire experience of the world is completely mediated by artifice. Even his voice is translated through a computer; while his breathing is controlled by an internal ventilator: “He’s more machine now than man. Twisted and evil.” And this new machine of a man is a terribly imposing figure, to say the least. Only later are we given a rare voyeuristic look into the layers of Vader’s enframing. In The Empire Strikes Back an Imperial officer accidentally witnesses Vader privately “dressing.” We even see his pale human skin (kept private from the light) and his awful mutilated skull—but only for a second as a quick robotic arm plunges down his helmet. Freshly closed to the world, Vader now commands the officer, only to turn away as the top of his demonic black nest closes down all around him.

Ultimately, this same process of descent into enframing happens to Luke as well, whose hand is severed by Vader and replaced with a robotic hand. And even later, Vader loses his hand again to Luke’s lightsaber. But upon cutting off Vader’s robotic hand, Luke notices his own robotic hand (covered by a black glove similar to Vader’s). Luke now understands Yoda’s earlier concern—he may yet follow the same path:

YODA: A Jedi’s strength flows from the Force. But beware of the Dark Side. Anger . . . fear . . . aggression. The Dark Side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.

LUKE: Vader. Is the Dark Side stronger?

YODA: No . . . no . . . no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.

We hear the same worry from Obi-Wan: “Vader was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force.” Indeed, the Dark Side’s powers are incredibly intense, as Vader tries to explain to Luke: “You don’t know the power of the Dark Side.” In the end, however, Luke does not succumb. And his own artificial enframing remains relatively minimal compared to Vader’s.

Only a Jedi Can Save Us: Forgetting and Recollecting

Vader’s enframing is, to be sure, all but complete. His being-in-the-world is so artificially mediated, so incredibly distorted, that he no longer fully understands what it is he’s doing—or why. No longer human, he has entirely lost touch with himself. It’s true that Vader may not have forgotten the question of being in general, as Heidegger conceives it. But clearly he has forgotten something. He has, at the very least, forgotten the man he used to be. And beyond that, in a very Heideggerian sense, he has equally forgotten his own original being-in-the-world—indeed he has even forgotten his own name. Luke makes exactly this point to Vader, when he calls him by his original name, “Anakin Skywalker.” Vader (irritated) scolds Luke: “That name no longer has any meaning for me.” But Luke persists: “It is the name of your true self. You’ve only forgotten.” And he has forgotten precisely because of his detachment from the being of the Force and his horrible descent into the darkness of enframing.

And now, at the end of the saga, it would indeed appear, with Vader’s almost complete forgetfulness, that only a god can save him.86 Only there is conspicuous absence of God or gods in the Star Wars galaxy—although “angels” apparently reside in deep space and the Ewoks mistake Threepio for a god. Nevertheless, Vader is ultimately saved by the semi-divine power of the Force and through the actions of Luke. Inspired by Luke’s dedication to him, Vader begins to remember. He returns to himself and becomes Anakin Skywalker once again. Now with his “own eyes” he vanquishes the Emperor and turns his back on the Dark Side of the Force. But while his soul is saved, his body/machine is