...as Vader goes through a portal into the afterlife on Mustafar, he meets ghosts of old, reliving the past, present and future. He walks through life as a young Anakin again, and then journeys through meaningful and life-altering experiences as the Jedi who fell from grace. In revisiting his early days, though, he sees Shmi, and the person who’s manipulating her pregnancy is Palpatine, all with a sinister smile on his face.
Vader meets the specters of Palpatine and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the afterlife. Before Palpatine uses Force lightning to destroy Obi-Wan, a voice whispers to Vader, “I am your father,” as he looks at both men. We know Obi-Wan’s not the dad, but deep down, Vader recognizes he’s been more of a father figure to him than the villain who helped create him. It’s no coincidence they’re juxtaposed, standing next to each other, finally answering the question fans have asked for nearly two decades. He may not have been his physical dad, but Palpatine doctored events so Anakin would rise up as Vader...
Before Palpatine uses Force lightning to destroy Obi-Wa?
How can you kill a guy who is already dead?
canon?
Okay, even assuming this was a literal revelation of who Vader’s “father” is, wouldn’t it technically be Darth Plagueis who effectively is Vader’s father instead of Palpatine? He’s the one who did that experiment based on what Palpatine told Anakin. Plus, it does call into question why Palpatine would just blow up his own Empire post-mortem with his Contingency Plan, especially when him effectively creating Anakin would imply he could simply create a new body for him to reincarnate himself if he so desired, sort of like the Dalai Lama (then again, I really hated that Contingency plotline due to it making Palpatine extremely out of character. For goodness sakes, this was the same guy who literally GOADED Luke into essentially murdering him in cold blood just to get him to turn to the Dark Side, not to mention his father before him, and when dueling Yoda, he not only seemed to anticipate Vader surpassing even Palpatine himself in power, but seemed to actually look forward to it. That would make as much sense as Joker deciding to blow up the world simply because he died and can no longer cause carnage. I would expect that kind of behavior from Lord Voldemort who actually IS cowardly enough to not even try to risk his life or forfeit it unlike Palpatine who was shown twice to gamble his life in the films. Heck, I’d even expect that kind of behavior from Geldoblame from Baten Kaitos, who actually DOES come across as the micromanaging control freak type akin to Stalin in that game and obviously not the type to just let anyone kill him and take away is power over everyone.).
And personally, I’d argue that Palpatine was closer to an actual father figure to Anakin than Obi-Wan ever was, especially when Obi-Wan in AOTC largely put down Anakin many times, not even giving him due credit at the very least, something that even Misty and Brock at least did with Ash in Pokémon for example, and in ROTS, he seemed to adhere to moral relativism, that and pretty much training Luke to effectively kill Vader and lie about the latter killing his father (I’m sorry, but that bit was just low, using Vader’s own son to kill him. I don’t care if Lucas in a sense of self-serving justification for changing the title of the movie claimed Jedi don’t adhere to revenge, lying to your former friend’s son about who killed his father and telling Luke to effectively kill him [yes, he did in fact tell him to kill Vader, as did Yoda. When Luke told him he doesn’t wish to kill his father, Obi-Wan not only didn’t correct him and say defeat Vader, not necessarily kill, but he effectively implied that by refusing to kill Vader, the Emperor had won.] still comes across as adhering to revenge, oh, and also using relativism as an excuse to do so like truth is a point of view.). At least Palpatine gave Anakin encouragement, even saved his life at Mustafar. Which is a shame, as Palpatine’s supposed to be an irredeemable monster. Then again, given Lucas’s own moral issues, like claiming Bill Clinton’s a good man yet Nixon’s the epitome of evil (yeah, I’m sorry, but Nixon’s only guilt was taking the fall for his men for a third-rate burglary that he didn’t even have any prior involvement in for the sake of his country, which is absolutely nothing compared to Clinton’s various repertoire of crimes that can in fact be tied back to him), he’d probably list Jesus Christ as pure evil if he could get away with it.