Does Darth Vader Still Have a Penis?

In Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Luke Skywalker that Darth Vader had become “more machine now than man.” But what about Darth Vader’s manhood? Did Anakin’s battle with Obi-Wan on the planet Mustafar result in wounds even greater than the lost limbs and terrible burns that covered his body? When we consider the evidence, it seems at least possible that the only lightsaber Darth Vader can get up is the artificial one he wears outside of his black leather pants.

This question, of course, presumes that Anakin Skywalker had a humanoid shaft in the first place, which is no given. All the “humans” in Star Wars look like humans from our planet, but technically speaking, they’re all actually aliens. And so, the first real question should be, do they necessarily have the same equipment in their space-pants?

Darth Vader himself wasn’t conceived from sexual intercourse at all. Anakin’s mother Shmi Skywalker tells Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menace that “there was no father,” and that wasn’t just a diss on an absentee daddy. Qui-Gon later comes to the conclusion that it was microorganisms living in the Force that impregnated Shmi. Shim carried Anakin to term, but Qui-Gon doesn’t think this kind of virgin birth is normal or anything. All this proves is that there’s at least one precedent in Star Wars for a major character not being conceived by a sperm fertilizing an egg.

I Loved You, Master

But for the sake of this argument and our sanity, we will indeed assume that Anakin and the other humanoid men in Star Wars are endowed like earthlings. After all, he fathers twin babies, and based on his steamy relationship with Padme, we have to think they did it biologically. Plus, because Padme is pregnant at the beginning of Revenge of the Sith, which comes three years after their nuptials at the end of Attack of the Clones, it’s safe to assume they conceived a child sometime in those years.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean Padme is the only person Anakin has had sex with.

Tor.com writer Emily Asher-Perrin’s 2016 essay “Of Course Jedi Can Have Sex,” postulates that Jedi could have sex despite their strict vows. In an email exchange with Inverse, she suggested that Anakin and Obi-Wan could have potentially “indulged in the occasional friendly ‘lightsaber duel’” in between fighting battles in the Clone Wars.

So, if we accept Anakin Skywalker was a sexually active guy — both with his wife and maybe Obi-Wan — we can now ask whether his fall to the dark side cut short his fun. Is the anger and red lightsaber act just a giant over-compensation for the fact that his most vital connection to the Force was severed and/or burned-off?

Slicing and Dicing

When Obi-Wan slices that fatal slice in *Revenge of the Sith, he takes off both of Anakin’s legs and one of his arms. We aren’t told that anything else was removed, but the possibility exists thanks to the bloodless wounds inflicted by Jedi weapons. According to Wookieepedia, lightsaber wounds are generally bloodless and therefore somewhat merciful: “The energy blade cauterized the wound as it passed, and thus even a severe wound did not tend to bleed heavily.” So, Anakin could have had his Jedi Junk sliced off at this point, cleanly and medically.

Lucas originally meant for Vader’s suit to be a sort of mobile iron lung, as with all things Star Wars, the canon grew from there. According to aspects of the Matt Stover-penned 2005 Revenge of the Sith novelization, the suit also enables Vader to interact with the tactile aspects of the world. Obviously, Darth Vader can still “feel the Force” but otherwise, Stover’s book makes it seem like he can’t feel much else.

All My Kingdom for Some Bacta

If Anakin did lose his member, we then have to examine its potential interaction with the healing power of Bacta, the cure all-substance of the Star Wars galaxy. First introduced in The Empire Strikes Back, the galaxy far, far away has an almost magical healing gel that is widely used to treat serious injuries. In fact, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story depicts Vader in a Bacta Tank. Is he using this to ease the pain of his burns? Or, if he doesn’t feel much, does the gel itself help him connect with the physical world? Or maybe, is he hoping the Bacta will regrow some of his missing limbs, potentially even his disabled superlaser?

In the book The Art of Rogue One, concept artist Christian Alzman says the tank is Vader’s resting quarters, “because it’s the only place he feels comfortable.” Notice, “feel comfortable” is not the same as “re-grow severed body parts,” but perhaps he had already regrown them?

According to every single definition, from the 1996 Star Wars Encyclopedia to contemporary definitions on Wookieepedia and long discussions on Reddit, Bacta is special because of the speed at which it heals injuries. It’s not a miracle drug that magically reverses severe wounds. True, some fans think a combination of Bacta and Vader’s mastery of the Force could bring back limbs, from what we see in the films, it never happens. Even so, it’s fun to imagine that when Vader is disturbed by Orson Krennic in Rogue One, that he’s actually meditating in bacta, trying to will a missing arm, leg, or his missing Darth-stick, back into existence.

The Dark Side Also Rises

Anakin’s fall to the dark side of the Force is emotionally devastating because it shows a gifted hero becoming a villain. But the physical horror of his disfigurement is what Asher-Perrin thinks makes Darth Vader such a “tragic character.” And if we think of Darth Vader as a contemporary among other literary characters, having a severely damaged, or destroyed man-blaster has plenty of precedent.

In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the main character, Jake Barnes, insinuates that he too, had his member blown-off, calling it the “old grievance” and “a rotten way to be wounded.” Jonathan Lethem’s first novel, Gun With Occasional Music does something similar to its hard-boiled detective character, Metcalf: his nerves are altered so he can never feel a like a man again.

When Luke Skywalker redeems Darth Vader, he tells him that he knows “there’s still good in you.” And when Anakin’s ghost shimmers back into view, in the Special Edition of Return of the Jedi, George Lucas decided to get rid of the old version of Anakin and make the ghost the young and vital Anakin as played by Hayden Christensen. Maybe this means that Anakin’s Force Ghost not only got his arms and legs back in Star Wars heaven, but his personal TIE Fighter back in his robes, too. Maybe not. But, as Jake Barnes says at the end of The Sun Also Rises; isn’t it pretty to think so?