An Exploration of Antagonist Empathy in Star Wars
How backstory and betrayal fuel our admiration of Star Wars villains
From the very beginning, Star Wars was a story of an epic struggle between good and evil, but it’s also always been about blurring the lines between the two. A good character might not be all good, and an evil character might not be completely irredeemable. This was demonstrated when The Empire Strikes Back revealed that Darth Vader, the embodiment of evil and ruthless control in the Star Wars universe, wasn’t always that way. In fact, he was once one of the good guys who turned evil. The end of Return of the Jedi showed Vader returning to the light once again.
Let’s be clear, though, that Vader did some terrible things. He Force choked his own wife. He murdered innocent Jedi children, among many other people in the universe. He even tortured his own daughter, though he didn’t know she was at the time. If he were a real person, empathy would be the last thing we would feel for him. His actions have been largely unforgivable.
The curious case of antagonist empathy in Star Wars
And yet audiences frequently experience empathy for Vader. I don’t think this is a tacit condoning of his actions. We don’t forgive him for what he’s done, but we do…
