One year ago, Star Wars showed us the Jedi that Anakin Skywalker was always meant to be. Long before Qui-Gon Jinn came to Tatooine and discovered the young boy, Anakin had dreams of becoming a Jedi hero. However, those dreams were twisted thanks to Emperor Palpatine.

Last year was the 25th anniversary of The Phantom Menace. To celebrate, Marvel Comics released a canonical one-sH๏τ comic featuring stories set before, during, and after the first prequel movie. This includes an early story featuring Anakin and his mother, in which Anakin’s dreams reveal the idealized Jedi he was always meant to be.

Anakin Skywalker Was Always Destined To Be A Jedi

Dreaming of a life where he leaves the sands of Tatooine behind to become a Jedi Knight, young Anakin sees himself as an adult wearing never-before-seen Jedi attire while wielding a yellow-bladed lightsaber, returning to his home world to free his mother and others from slavery.

Based on the unique clothing and unstable-looking lightsaber, it’s clear that young Anakin’s dream is based on his limited knowledge of the Jedi, having never met one in person before the events of The Phantom Menace and encountering Qui-Gon Jinn.

However, it’s not hard to see these dreams as the prompting of the Force itself, given what we know about Anakin’s future, as he indeed left to become a Jedi Knight. Rather than being an idle dream, this depiction should very much be considered the ideal Jedi that Anakin was always meant to be, a genuine agent of light.

Even the yellow lightsaber is representative of that ideal, as the yellow color is ᴀssociated with the ideals of true balance. As the prophesied Chosen One said to bring balance to the Force, it’s easy to argue that a yellow lightsaber would have made perfect sense… had Anakin’s dreams and destiny not been altered in reality.

Palpatine Subverted Anakin’s True Destiny

In reality, Anakin Skywalker was still the Chosen One who brought balance to the Force. However, Palpatine twisted this through his manipulations, having seduced Anakin to the dark side in Revenge of the Sith. As such, Anakin fulfilled his destiny in a far darker way.

Likewise, Qui-Gon’s death at the end of The Phantom Menace resulted in Anakin’s dreams being tainted and clouded by darkness, as seen in the same issue with a darker version of Anakin’s envisioned return to Tatooine, red lightsaber included.

At the time, Qui-Gon was the only Jedi who had fully believed in Anakin and all he could be. The moment Qui-Gon was killed by Palpatine’s apprentice Darth Maul, the trajectory of Anakin Skywalker’s life was forever changed, pulling him away from his true destiny.

After all, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Maul’s “Duel of the Fates” specifically refers to Anakin Skywalker, as it was his fate hanging in the balance in The Phantom Menace’s final act.