this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
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I would argue that the purge of the Jedi Temple falls more on the line of hate crime than war crime. The Clone Wars are the public war between the Republic and CIS, and a quieter religious war between the Jedi Order and the Sith, both of which fit the legal definition of “religion”. Crimes committed by agents of the Republic or CIS would most likely be war crimes. Order 66 and the burning of the Temple are a grey area. Anakin/Vader never served an agent of the CIS, he pledged his fealty to the Sith, became a religious convert, and led Republic troops to slaughter other Republic forces. His motivation was driven both by his new religious belief, that hate and rage would make him powerful, and by embracing the feelings he held that he had been deceived/denied/manipulated by the Jedi. Vader killed the Jedi because of their religion and because of his new religious beliefs. By the time he kills the leaders of the CIS, that’s a war crime because the Republic had become the Empire and Vader was an agent of the Empire.
In the defense of Anakin I'm pretty sure that the purging of the Jedi Temple is a crime of passion at that point. According to the novelizations he was severely sleep deprived and basically in a mild state of panic attack through much of episode three, you stop functioning particularly well after about day three of insufficient sleep Anakin was on like day fourteen or something. Point is Anakin basically did the equivalent of not sleeping for a week only to wake up in a cult. I don't think he got proper sleep until he went off to slaughter the CIS council.
Though I guess it was still a hate crime given that he was taking orders from Palpatine and it was definitely a hate crime on his part, hell I'm pretty sure he would consider it some type of retribution for the purging of Koriban.
I’d say disarming Mace could be a crime of passion. Anakin went there to ensure Mace didn’t kill Sidious, even pointed out what Mace was about to do was illegal, then acted in a way that he knew would be the death of Mace.
But the Temple has conspiracy and premeditation. Sidious comments that once the Jedi find out what has happened to Mace they’ll swarm and kill them both, so they have to move quickly. Also promises by doing this, Anakin will gain strength in his new “religion” so he can save Padme. He might be running low on sleep but he still had time to assemble the 501st and aura farm the fuck out of his entrance.
Look Anakin post episode 2 aura farms like a motherfucker, doesn't matter if it's EU or Canon he is going in there to make everyone look bad and it scales inversely with the number of limbs he has. Regardless given how many braindead actions I've made due to sleep deprivation Anakin may have very well have shutdown after getting mace killed if Palpatine didn't give him directions. But fair enough regardless of any other factors everything can trace back to Palpatine and to an extent Mace not giving Anakin something to do in the meantime while he dealt with Palpatine. Seriously Mace should've dumped Anakin on Cin Drallig or Jocasta Nu while he went to crack open a boy with the cold ones.
Mace isn’t known for great decisions. This all good have been avoided if he’d granted Anakin the rank of master. Might even have not gotten to the standoff if Mace had taken the information “hey, the Sith Lord behind both sides of the war is the dude in charge of the Republic, and presumably ridiculously OP” and mobbed in with three dudes who’s defensive strategy was “die”. It’s noteworthy that when Mace and crew enter, only Mace is aura farming. Dooku never aura farmed; died. Maul aura farms like a motherfucker; just keeps coming back. What was Lucas telling us?
Honestly this discussion is kinda making me want to see a resurrection of the old Star Wars What if comics. Make them into books broken into EU and canon continuities, there's certainly a market for it given how many What If channels there are on YouTube focused on it.