Darth Vader

Darth Vader, formerly known as Anakin Skywalker, is one of the major characters from the Star Wars franchise.

Darth Vader was a Sith Lord who acted as the chief enforcer and apprentice of Emperor Palpatine, and the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Military. He was tasked with hunting down surviving Jedi and rebel cells. After his duel on Mustafar with his former Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader bears no resemblance to Anakin Skywalker.

Personality
Ruthless, enigmatic, cold, staunch, tenacious, and brutal, Darth Vader is a leader who commands a frightening presence that makes virtually anyone, friend or foe, shiver at his approach. Vader is loyal to his master, the Emperor, executing his will with deadly precision and following his commands without question.

He views every action he takes as a means to an end and has no sympathy towards those oppressed by the Empire, and is utterly merciless towards his enemies. In addition, Darth Vader is infamously intolerant of failure and insurgency, and those who fail or show incompetence under his command often fear for their lives and rightly so.

Darth Vader is also more than willing to deal with threats himself if necessary as he arrived at Lothal, upon the Emperor's orders, to deal with the rebels and the Jedi leading them. He followed the rebels to their fleet and nearly destroyed them alone rather than sending a fleet, showing that he doesn't let others do what he can do himself.

Once, he was a great Jedi and war hero named Anakin Skywalker. Brave, compassionate, he was a daring warrior and defender of the innocent. He cared deeply his allies and friends, and would support them to the very end. That man is lost, buried within a pathetic, wretched shell of life-supporting armor, prosthetic limbs and a dampened spirit that has lost all hope of ever returning to the light, and so has more-or-less made peace with his lot in life. As such, Vader intends to follow the ways of the Sith, specifically the Rule of Two, and so find a worthy apprentice and one day kill his master to take his place as ruler of the galaxy.

A key factor to Vader's evil is his refusal to truly acknowledge his own sins and what his actions wrought upon both himself and the galaxy, instead shifting blame onto those he feels betrayed him, because the truth is too painful to accept. It is for this reason he had no desire to restore the bond he once shared with his former apprentice, Ahsoka Tano; she was a living memory of the man he once was, and, in his own twisted way, he was angry at her for leaving him and the Jedi Order, something he perceived later on as a form of betrayal. Thus he sought to destroy her and wipe his past away completely.

However, despite his ruthless atrocities and apparent refusal to truly acknowledge his own sins, Vader secretly carries a deep self-loathing and many regrets, as he was haunted for the rest of his life for failing to save his mother, as well as for causing the death of his wife and apparently his unborn child and as a result of these events, Vader was severely depressed. With nothing else to live for, he turned to the only one who would ever accept him out of a longing for companionship, but also to patiently wait for his chance to usurp his master and make him pay for ruining his life.

Abilities
Darth Vader is among the most powerful individuals in the galaxy, and second only to the Emperor within the Empire. Before the Republic fell, Anakin was the most powerful Jedi Knight and in the Jedi Order, the only superiors or equals being Mace Windu, Yoda, and his master, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Force Powers
Believed to have been the Chosen One, Vader possessed a powerful connection to the Force, and was a famously gifted Jedi before his fall to the Dark Side. Although his injuries and armor diminished his potential, he used his pain and hatred to amplify his connection to the Force, thus, maintaining his immense power in the Dark Side of the Force. In his duel with Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger, his very presence made them tremble, he almost killed Ezra by telekinetically pinning him to a wall and almost forcing him to cut his throat with his own lightsaber, and he easily lifted a toppled walker into the air, preventing it from crushing him, the sheer display of his power sending the Rebels running. He beheld a strong Force Sense as he felt his former padawan and determined she was still alive.

His mere presence on Lothal caused Ezra to sense the Dark Side while they were still in orbit, and it is possible he hid his presence in the Force to sneak up on the Rebels before allowing Kanan and Ezra to sense his dark presence, an ability known as Force Stealth.

Vader had the potential to be so much more and could even have easily surpassed his master in power with the Force; it was his defeat and loss of his remaining organic limbs at the hand of his former master Obi-Wan Kenobi that robbed Vader of his potential. In order to make up for his permanently stunted potential in the Force, Vader used the pain, irritation, and agony that plagued his every waking moment while encased in his life-support armor and suit to fuel his anger and hatred to augment his power through the Dark Side of the Force.

Combat Skills
Darth Vader is an almost unrivaled master lightsaber duelist, using his skills and sheer strength to overwhelm his opponents. During his duel against Kanan and Ezra, he effortlessly held the upper hand and appeared to be toying with them as they struggled, easily knocking away their attacks and almost lazily striking them both with the Force or his very hand. The duel ultimately ended as a stalemate when Kanan and Ezra used their Force powers to briefly incapacitate Vader, giving them just enough time to escape. Vader also deflected both of Sabine's blaster-fire with ease, and would have killed her had it not been for her armor and helmet. In truth, Vader wasn't really trying to kill Kanan and Ezra, having already planned to use them to lead him to the Rebel fleet.

Upon his fateful confrontation with his former padawan, Ahsoka Tano, Vader ultimately proved to be the stronger of the two, being not only able to keep up with but slowly overwhelm the younger and much faster duelist into exhaustion. Although Ahsoka managed to score a hit onto Vader, damaging his mask, he surely began to overwhelm her, and when she used her sabers to destroy the floor beneath Vader's feet he raised his saber to deliver the blow that would surely have ended her life had she not been saved by Ezra Bridger.

Additionally, to his frustration, Vader's armor greatly hampered his original style that he had to re-work it, sacrificing his original speed and acrobatics for overwhelming power and precision, making his moves somewhat robotic, but undeniably powerful. Underneath his amour are prosthetic limbs, the mechanics and metallic materials of which give Vader enhanced strength and resilience in his limbs. This allowed Vader to deal more crushing blows than he could as a Jedi. He could also easily pin down enemies and backhand them into the air with a swing of his arm. His armour allows him to be far more durable and resilient, to the point where blasters are almost useless against him and being crushed underneath a fallen walker without being damaged, as well as using the Force to lift it off. He was also able to survive a massive explosion with no notable injuries, and he survived the destruction of the Sith Temple Weapon, walking away with barely a limp.

Expert Pilot
Even before his fall to the Dark Side, Vader was praised as the most skilled star-pilot in the galaxy, a reputation he lived up to when he single-handedly almost destroyed Phoenix Squadron in a lone Tie fighter, easily out-flying their entire fleet and forcing their command to abandon ship. He would have destroyed their command ship had he not sensed his former apprentice and broke off his attack.

Leadership
Darth Vader is second only to the Emperor and he commands a frightening presence that is all but intolerant of failure, such that the Inquisitor took his own life rather than face his master's wrath, and Maketh Tua shivered in the Sith Lord's presence. Vader's past as a general makes him extremely experienced and effective as a leader. He is unafraid of fighting on the front line alongside his storm troopers, and he is a keen strategist with uncanny anticipation of his opponents' movements, such as framing the Rebels for Tua's death to encourage Lothal to turn them in and anticipating their actions, using the Ghost Crew to lead him to the Rebel fleet and deal crippling damage.

It is possible that Vader lied to Tua about her appointment with Tarkin to instill into her such fear for her own life she would reach out to the Rebels, and thus use her as bait.

Trivia

 * Vader is father in Dutch, and Darth is a corruption of dark, so Darth Vader’s name, in a way, means “dark father”, which foreshadows Darth Vader being Luke’s father.
 * Darth Vader originally appeared on Rebels in the Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion rebroadcast on ABC on October 26, 2014. Star Wars films actor James Earl Jones reprised his role for the cameo. This marks the second time Jones has voiced Vader in animated form.
 * Darth Vader's character design in Rebels is close to the original concept that was used during the early production of A New Hope.
 * When Ahsoka damaged Vader's mask during their duel, with a part of his face shown, his face does not seem to be pale nor any burned marks are seen after his duel with Obi-wan at Mustafar. However, this may only be a representation in Ahsoka's point of view how Anakin had fallen to the dark side.
 * In the hologram of Anakin seen in "Shroud of Darkness", Anakin's outfit does not resemble his Jedi robes seen in the films or in season 3-onwards of The Clone Wars. Instead of a Jedi robe, he wears a form-fitting shirt. This can be attributed to the fact that robes are more time-consuming to animate than shirts and armor.
 * It is a possibility that Vader sees some potential in Ezra, as he was telling him that Kanan had deceived him into believing he can become a Jedi, implying that he might wish to turn Ezra to the Dark Side.
 * In a hologram and an illusion in "Shroud of Darkness" and after Ahsoka slashes open Vader's helmet in "Twilight of the Apprentice", Matt Lanter reprises his role as Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
 * In an interview with the official Star Wars website, Rebels co-creator and executive producer Dave Filonistated that Vader wouldn't want a memory of Ahsoka Tano, a relationship that he considered a failure, and that he would be angry with her in a twisted way.
 * In Rebels Recon of the episode The Holocrons of Fate, Filoni reveals that he has always felt that one of the reasons for Anakin's turn to the dark side was because the Jedi had a lack of compassion for him: in their dedication to selflessness, they "almost forgot to care".
 * In an interview with SlashFilm, Filoni confirmed Darth Vader would not feature in Season 3. He explains that he does not want to "fill in every hole" in Vader's story and that Vader's major life event in Rebels was confronting his former apprentice, Ahsoka Tano.