There is no Vader, only Zuul

I wasn't going to mention anything else about Star Wars until I had seen Episode III, but after looking at Darth Vader's blog, I couldn't help myself.

So, here is another Star Wars heresy: there is no Darth Vader.

Well, of course, there is the big walking cyborg with what was left of Annakin Skywalker stuffed inside. But what I realized is that Annakin Skywalker himself did not turn to the Dark Side. He was enslaved by the Dark Side. Darth Vader is nothing more than a puppet of the emperor with the Annakin Skywalker slave trapped inside. Essentially, the Emperor is Darth Vader. Keeping Annakin alive as a slave trapped within Vader is just the Emperor's way of making everything hurt more when Luke comes around.

This interpretation does have some evidence in its favor, although I can't rule out something horrendously contradictory in Revenge of the Sith as of yet. It certainly gives Return of the Jedi, and thus the entire Star Wars saga, a deeper sense of tragedy. It explains why Annakin's ghost shows up at the end of Return of the Jedi: since Annakin was artifically kept alive by the Emperor's power, he couldn't enter the Force as Obi Wan and Yoda did until the Emperor was dead. And I think it gives a more sinister meaning to the Emperor's classic line "Only now, at the end, do you understand..."