Well.
Damn.
Throughout the history of fiction, there have been a number of characters. No, wait. That's a complete understatement. There have been a crapload of characters. However, once in a while, you'll be reading a book, watching a show, or playing a game, and some one stands before an entire army of enemies, smiles, draws his sword for one last time, and realizes that this is the end, and that he might as well take down as many foes as he possibly can before it all comes crashing down. That, my friends, is the badass. He represents everything that is awesome either by doing awesome things, saying awesome things, or just being the personification of awesome.
Okay, I’m not going to even mention the prequel movies- in the original trilogy, Darth Vader was the most badass thing to walk on any planet. There are many things that factor into Vader’s perpetual badassery, so let’s list them off.
Imagine being a soldier on the sweet looking ship, the Tantive IV. You wake up and say to yourself, “Today is going to be a good day. The Tantive IV is totally on its way to go royally fuck up the Empire, and that’s cool. Smooth riding, right?” You’d have to say, your participation in the Rebel Alliance is working out pretty well for you. Damn those Empire bastards for killing your precious Dewback in front of your eyes when you were a kid, and all- the knowledge you are in possession of (or more appropriately, the Princess on your ship is in possession of) is totally going to get them back for killing ‘Lil Dewey. Then, not a few hours later, your ship has been Zerg-rushed by a crapload of Stormtroopers- at this point you’re pretty worried. But then, a six-foot tall, black menace appears from the smoke and lifts you- by the neck, no less- off of the ground with one hand, shouting at you in a voice so low and angry that you can’t help but shit your pants. Yeah, not such a good day after all. Darth Vader’s presence was absolutely terrifying, from the top of that shiny helmet to the bottom of those boots. He just had this aura of toughness that exuded from everything he did- if Darth Vader points at you, I can guarantee he’s got your attention. The thing is, with the whole “wearing a mask” deal, you don’t know who he’s looking at, so if he walks into a room with a lot of people, everybody makes sure they’re paying attention to the guy, just in case he might subtly trying to get your attention. And trust me, if you’re in a room with Darth Vader and you’re his center of attention- you’re probably dead meat.
Vader’s rage is another factor about him that is absolutely awesome. We’re not talking about Wolverine-style, “snikt snikt bub bub” rage, it’s that silent kind of rage where he looks at you because you’ve failed to do something important, says two or three words, and then Force-chokes the shit out of you. Vader cares not who you are- if you’re the Admiral of some fleet or a Stormtrooper or whatever, he’s going to get pissed and kill you if you fuck up. This is probably the reason Stormtroopers died so easily in the movies- it was way easier to just get shot in the chest than have to come back to Darth Vader not-having fulfilled your mission- you’ll shit your pants and then die by asphyxiation.
Vader’s skills have a lot to do with his title of badass. He Force-chokes, wields a lightsaber, throws around random machinery with the Force, and, oh, yeah… BLOCKS LASERFIRE WITH HIS HAND. Yeah, if Greedo and Vader were sitting in the Cantina discussing business, Vader would wait until Greedo shot first, block the shot with his hand, Force-choke the bastard, and whip out his lightsaber and slice him dead. And when you walk up to Vader and activate your lightsaber, you know you’re screwed- the guy killed hundreds of Jedi, his master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, AND royally fucked Luke’s shit up on Bespin. The only reason Luke beat the guy was because Vader taunted him into a Sith-like rage.
And just when you think Vader is like, some unforgivable bastard, you watch the scene at the end of Return of the Jedi and you’re like, “Oh, no… he’s not gonna… will he? WILL HE?!” And see Vader’s soulless mask look from his son and back to the Emperor before he lifts the old geezer over his head with ONE HAND and proceeds to throw him into a bottomless pit. I mean, damn. You spend three movies telling the audience about how Vader is “more man than machine” and totally unspeakably evil, and then you have him go all soft and sentimental before dying. Vader scared the crap out of us, made us hate him, proved to be one of the best villains of all time, but he also gave us one of the biggest tearjerkers in sci-fi history. It’s the characters that prove to be complex, evil and good, as well as totally skilled mofos that make it onto this list, and Darth Vader has all that and more.
Oh, and the prequels revealed to us that he puts the moves on girls by calling them angels, kills Sandpeople, and whines a lot. It’s good to know that such a stupid character would eventually become the biggest badass in the Star Wars universe- it gives all of us idiots hope.
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