How Did Anakin Skywalker Get His Scar?
A mad clown once asked, “You want to know how I got these scars?” He gave a few contradictory stories, but the core meaning was the same; his scars had a story, even if he was just making it up, or misremembering. This mad clown was of course, the Joker, specifically the Dark Knight incarnation. Of course, with the many versions of the Joker out there, you never know what you’re going to get, but it tends to be somewhere on the scales of funny and evil.
If you ask any Star Wars fan who the biggest character in the mythos is, chances are they’ll say Anakin Skywalker. From a desert slave, to the hero of the Republic, to Darth Vader, the feared enforcer of the Empire, he’s had quite a story. When it was decided to make Luke’s father and Vader one and the same, the rest of the saga up until that point became about exploring why he became the Dark Lord of the Sith. The Expanded Universe and Legends also gave him plenty of focus in their works, further fleshing out his story.
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What do the Joker and Anakin Skywalker have in common? Well, you should remember the topic of scars. In Revenge of the Sith, Anakin acquired a scar sometime during the Clone Wars. Where did it come from? Out of universe, Lucas never really thought about how, stating it was merely meant to show his growth as a Jedi Knight, only offered a joking explanation that he slipped in the bathtub. That leaves the EU as the holder of our answer, but even that is complicated, as it could take some time to figure it out.
Is the answer in the Cartoon Network Star Wars: Clone Wars microseries? No, not really, it only offers us a rough time frame of when he got it, during a montage of his actions during the titular conflict. Is it in the 3D animated The Clone Wars series? No, because he already has his scar when the show begins, and besides, it’s not like it starts exactly where Attack of the Clones left off. Then where is the answer that we seek?
Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars: Republic #71 is where our answer lies. In it, Anakin crosses paths with the dark acolyte, Asajj Ventress, who was seeking to hunt down a traitor. Instead, she decides to take care of Anakin, leading to a duel. During the duel, Anakin is cut by one of her lightsabers, and is sent closer to the dark side in a fit of rage. Anakin wins the duel, but he had compromised his morality in the process, and Asajj would survive to fight again. Unfortunately, this is no longer the canon explanation, but it’s the closest thing we have, so that’s what we’re going with.
There will likely be another story that will fill in this gap, but we don’t know when we will see it, and what form it will take. However, the tale of Anakin’s scar is a key example of how Expanded Universe works can fill in gaps in the timeline of the universe, even if the gap was ultimately minor when you think about it. When all is said and done, this was an ultimately minor thing to explain, but it did expand on Anakin’s arc and helped to set up his fall to the dark side in Revenge of the Sith. For that, we’d give it a pass.
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Source(s): Screen Rant