Will We Ever Know How Anakin Skywalker Got His Scar?
Everyone loves our favorite sand-hating, sad boy Anakin Skywalker. The Star Wars franchise would be nothing without him and his Dark Side tendencies. As much as his story is tragic, it’s also incredibly important. There are, of course, unanswered questions time and again about Anakin or about the franchise as a whole. And while it’s not the most pressing question, did you ever wonder how Anakin Skywalker got his scar?
Well if you did, you’re not alone and no one has the answer. Why? Because there isn’t a canon explanation to the mark on his face. But, there’s still some information to ease the annoyance you might feel at not having an answer.
Anakin Skywalker’s scar used to have a backstory
Believe it or not, there used to be an explanation to the scar on his face. In the comic book “Republic #71: The Dreadnaughts of Rendili, Part 3,” Anakin’s scar can be seen for the first time on the cover, according to LiveAbout.com. The story it tells has Anakin battle Asajj Ventress, which many know from The Clone Wars. She’s a part of the Nightsisters clan from Dathomir. She was once a Jedi but then turned to the Dark Side and worked for Count Dooku as an assassin.
They fought and she strikes him across the face as a warning sign that she can do worse later on. In the end, Ventress ultimately loses, but Anakin is left with the scar. This comic came out a year or so before Revenge of the Sith, which would have worked perfectly because that’s when Hayden Christensen’s Anakin sports the scar for the first time. However, that’s not the case anymore.
George Lucas has no idea how Anakin got the scar
All Legends comics and tie-ins are no longer canon. So that explanation behind his scar isn’t how the Anakin you see on screen got the permanent mark on his face. Instead, we’re left without an answer because George Lucas never came up with a reason himself.
According to Pablo Hidalgo, a creative executive at Lucasfilm, he overheard a conversation between Lucas and John Knoll, the visual effects supervisor at the time. Lucas told Knoll that you’d have to find the answer to Anakin’s scar from Howard Roffman, who was the President of Lucas Licensing. “That’s one of those things that happens in the novels between the movies,” Lucas reportedly said. “I just put it there. [Roffman] has to explain how it got there. I think Anakin got it slipping in the bathtub, but of course, he’s not going to tell anybody that.”
There you have it: George Lucas gave Anakin the scar because of its aesthetic. If it were up to Lucas, Anakin gave it to himself on accident. CanonWars.com does write, though, that it’s more a symbol of his growth. It’s a step away from the younger, more naive man you see in Attack of the Clones and into the more mature Jedi knight who’s been on the battlefield for years.
In canon, the scar shows up between ‘Episode II’ and ‘The Clone Wars,’ the movie
Going back to the comic book explanation, it wouldn’t make sense now anyways. In canon, we see Anakin with the scar starting in the 2008 movie, The Clone Wars. This is the beginning of the acclaimed series of the same name, but the years mess up the original explanation behind the scar. The film is set in 22 BBY, three years before Episode III, and the comic was in 20 BBY, one year before Episode III.
So, you can leave it to your imagination how Ani got the permanent mark on his face. It had to have happened in the months between the Battle of Geonosis on Episode II and the battle on Christophsis in The Clone Wars. Maybe it was a slip in the shower or a rogue lightsaber while dueling at the Jedi temple. Or maybe it was something a little more impressive like a run-in with Ventress.
Whatever you decide will probably be the final answer because Lucas isn’t giving you one anytime soon (or ever).
