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This was o riginally part of a post on quora asking "Was Palpatine's relationship with Anakin abusive or unhealthy even before he became Darth Vader"
Palpatine began abusing Anakin right from the word “go”, and from the moment he clapped eyes on the kid in The Phantom Menace.
(Gah, get away from that boy you CREEP)
What he did at first was known as “grooming”. Now a lot of people don't understand what grooming, or grooming for abuse specifically is, what it entails, entails, and the process of how Palpatine groomed Anakin. They seemed to think it was just about “undermining his Jedi education”.
It. wasn’t.
So what is grooming?
“Grooming is a insidious predatory tactic, utilized by abusers. Grooming is practiced by Narcissists, Antisocial predators, con-artists and sexual aggressors, who target and manipulate vulnerable people for exploitation.
This definition is from the following website, which is the source of most of my quotes on this subject, but there are other sources too.
The process of grooming is not about undermining an education. It is rather more about establishing a relationship with a person for the express intent of exploiting them or abusing them.
Child grooming is the deliberate act of establishing an emotional bond with a child, to lower the child's resistance. Child grooming can result in the minor falling victim to physical, sexual and emotional abuse,
This is exactly what Palpatine did. He established the emotional bond very early on, asking to see Anakin shortly after the events of The Phantom Menace.
The Darth Plagueis novel by James Luceno contains the following passage.
Palpatine interlinked the fingers of his hands. “I’m told that you grew up on Tatooine. I visited there, many years ago.”
Oh look, there he is trying to form a bond on the basis of a common connection, Anakin's homeworld.
Abusers who groom their victims often claim to have a special connection with the abused. The so- called connection might be emotional, intellectual, sexual, spiritual, or all of the above.
That guy wasted no time. He was putting out feelers shortly after Episode One. The rest of this exchange takes an even more revealing route.
Anakin’s eyes narrowed for the briefest moment. “I did, sir, but I’m not supposed to talk about that.”
Palpatine watched him glance up at Obi-Wan.
“And why is that?” “My mother—” “Anakin,” Obi-Wan snapped in reprimand. Palpatine reclined slightly, studying the two of them. Obi-Wan seemed not to have noticed the fury simmering in the boy, but for an instant Palpatine perceived a touch of his younger self in Skywalker. The need to challenge authority; the gift for masking his emotions. The yet-unrecognized power.
“I apologize if I’ve stirred something between you,” he said after a moment.
Clearly uncomfortable, Obi-Wan shifted in place.
“The Jedi are trained to live in the moment, Supreme Chancellor. Our upbringings have little to do with our lives in the Force.” Palpatine furrowed his brow. “Easy for an infant, I’m certain, but for a young boy …”
He interrupted himself with a negligent gesture.“Well, who am I to pass judgment on the tenets of your Order, when the Jedi have kept peace in the Republic for one thousand years.”
Obi-Wan said nothing in a definite way.
Now apart from the implication that Anakin is specifically being prevented from talking about his mother, we can see the early stages of Palpatine establishing a relationship with Anakin.
His later monologue shows Palpatine’s intent.
“It’s not for you to decide your destiny, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said. “The Force will guide you.”
Palpatine smiled inwardly. Guide you to me, young Skywalker.
Dooku had talent, and could be a powerful placeholder. But this seemingly guileless pleasant-faced boy, this Forceful boy, was the one he would take as his apprentice, and use to execute the final stage of the Grand Plan. Let Obi-Wan instruct him in the ways of the Force, and let Skywalker grow embittered over the next decade as his mother aged in slavery, the galaxy deteriorated around him, and his fellow Jedi fell to inextricable conflicts. He was too young to be trained in the ways of the Sith, in any case, but he was the perfect age to bond with a father figure who would listen to all his troubles and coax him inexorably over to the dark side.
Absolutely. textbook. grooming.
See, the basis of grooming is that if an abuser were to just openly do bad things to a person, they would leave or report them and would - wisely not want to have anything to do wit them.
So what do groomers do? They establish a relationship and a bond with thier victim. The cause their victim to love them and trust them, to feel they can confide in them.
They fill some kind of void in thier lives so that the victim is getting something from them they cannot get elsewhere, and when thier defenses are lowered, the abuse begins.
This is done so that the victim will not realize what is being done to them is bad, or rather that they become so emotionally dependant on thier abuser that they won’t leave the relationship.
That’s why this idea that Palpatine’s relationship with Anakin was good or healthy because he was nice to him is disingenious. He wasn’t being nice to him for good reasons.
He wasn’t just being kind because he wanted to help the kid, he was being nice for horrible and insidious reasons.
He was doing it to groom him.
Anakin was absolutely vulnerable to grooming, because he was a child. Children are naturally trusting.
They naturally trust grown ups, especially the ones who caregivers allow them to spend time with.
Anakin was also lonely and socially isolated, and he’s bullied.
Yeah, this poor kid is just such an easy target for any predator or abuser waiting in the wings…
Like Palpatine.
It is really no accident that Palpatine chose to strike just after witnessing an incident of Anakin being bullied.
It was proof that he was socially isolated and didn’t have many friends, so his support network was weak.
What is also notable is what Anakin was doing here.
He was trying to impress his Masters. He was trying to impress the grown ups and show off his skills, prove himself worthy.
Instead it goes wrong, the other children make it worse, and Obi Wan wan made him apologize to his tormentors, which was only going to make the problem worse.
This tells Palpatine another thing.
Anakin’s attempts to impress the other Jedi aren’t working. Instead of giving him praise and validation, they scold him. He gets into trouble.
The Jedi don’t know what to do with this kid, and they see him as trouble. As difficult.
So he pounced….and this boy who was so desperately craving validation and just someone to say a kind word to him lapped it up like a thirsty dog.
Of course he did. He’s had precious little from the Jedi.
He’s also repeating the whole process of establishing a connection with Anakin.
“I see some of myself in him. I can help him (and he did save my planet after all- we have a special conection !”
He even SAYS “special connection”. Its right there in the speech bubbles in the comic.
Its this. Again.
Abusers who groom their victims often claim to have a special connection with the abused. The so- called connection might be emotional, intellectual, sexual, spiritual, or all of the above.
I think the people who wrote that have read up on grooming in some detail.
After that now infamous incident in which Palpatine took Anakin to a seedy bar and persuaded him to use the force in a way that the Jedi woudl not approve of- to punish a corrupt Senator to make him lose at gambling, Palpatine does something which is also typical of real-life groomers.
He’s already asking Anakin to keep secrets. Not to tell the Jedi what he and Anakin have been doing. Its their secret.
In order to abuse or exploit another person without fear of discovery, a sexual predator or con artist will frequently condition their intended victim to keep secrets for them. When building this bond of trust, an abuser may share seemingly personal or private information, and then swear the victim to secrecy. The victim is made to believe that they are being trusted with something of value, before being asked to share something of value with his/her abuser.
It is no wonder that, at 19, Anakin told Palpatine about the Tusken massacre and not the Jedi.
He’s used to keeping secrets for Palpatine, and his fear and shame of getting into trouble is a major incentive not to own up.
Palpatine by turn uses those secrets against him. He’s got something on him….. he knows his darkest secrets. He could reveal them if he wanted to.
The end result of grooming is this:
Abusers use shared secrets to bind their victims to them. By degrees, the target is gradually lured in to revealing private information,permitting /engaging in inappropriate, illegal or morally ambiguous actives, or acting as a proxy for the abuser, fighting the abuser’s battles, and carrying out their will.
Or, in Anakin’s case, this.
This
and finally, this….
The victim often feels confusion, shame, guilt, remorse and disgust at his or her own participation. Equally powerful, is the panic that comes with the threat of being exposed for engaging these activities. There may also an overwhelming fear of losing the emotional bond that has been established with an abuser. The victim becomes trapped, depressed or despondent.
So yeah, basically Darth Vader in a nutshell.
Palpatine’s relationship with Anakin follows the pattern of grooming for abuse, and then finally just actual abuse from beginning to end.
It started when he was 9 years old, and basically didn’t end until he threw the bastard down a reactor shaft.
And even then, Sidious did not even have the decency to stay dead, and did the same thing over and other again to another generation of Skywalkers.
Of course, the Force kind of got the last laugh, and in a final, epic troll used Anakin’s grandson and Palpatine’s grandaughter to destroy him- again.