Anakin Is Technically Not A Skywalker

Cue that Eric Andre meme, “Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?”

But seriously, Anakin can’t be a Skywalker for a few reasons. The most obvious is that Star Wars has always been shown to be a patrilineal society, meaning a person’s lineage is determined by their father—at least as far as humans go. If Shmi Skywalker followed the naming conventions of the rest of Star Wars, her child should be called Anakin Plagueis or Anakin Force, depending on how you interpret his birth.

Am I being tongue-in-cheek? A bit but there is something to this line of thinking when you dig into it.

There are two schools of thought behind Anakin Skywalker’s birth: either Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious committed a vile act and manipulated the force to create life from nothing or the Force itself created Anakin—again from nothing—as a way to counteract whatever the Sith were up to.

Either way, Anakin’s creation wasn’t natural in the sense that a mommy and a daddy really love each other and–well, you get it. The only question is, was Anakin’s conception like in vitro fertilization, where the Force fertilized one of Shmi Skywalker’s eggs, or was it more like Shmi was a surrogate? Option A would at least give Anakin some genetic claim to Shmi Skywalker’s last name but option B—the more likely option in my mind—would mean that Anakin is only a Skywalker in the same way that Rey is.

Unfortunately, Star Wars canon has been reluctant to explore Anakin Skywalker’s birth in any real detail. The closest we have to an actual explanation is that midichlorians working on behalf of the Force conceived a “chosen one” to someday put an end to the Sith. That’s all we know officially–that and Anakin was not born on Tattooine but was brought there soon after his birth.

Now, I’m no biologist, but conceived through the Force, to me, sounds as if the midichlorians caused cells to grow and divide on their own using Shmi’s womb as a place to store the embryo basically. It’s true that this most likely happened via some of the midichlorians in Shmi’s own body, but since midichlorians have never been specified to have unique traits depending on who they come from it only stands to reason that the same midichlorians in Yoda’s blood also reside in Shmi’s.

What I’m trying to say is that the Force most likely caused some of the midichlorians already present in Shmi’s blood to multiply and morph into an embryo that, while residing in Shmi’s body, would not contain any of her DNA. Ergo, Anakin is not an official Skywalker.

Or, to put it another way, Anakin has as much claim to the Skywalker name as Rey in that they both adopted the name from surrogate parental figures who made a huge impact on their lives. But if Rey isn’t a “proper” Skywalker because she has no Skywalker DNA, then technically, Anakin isn’t either.

Bottom line. They’re either both Skywalkers or they’re both not. As a fan, you can choose to believe whichever outcome you want. I personally believe they’re both worthy of the Skywalker mantle, even if they don’t have Skywalker blood. But hey, that’s just me.