The ONLY People In the Empire Vader Took Orders From & Why - Star Wars Explained

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Twitter: @StupendousWave

Composer: Whitesand (Martynas Lau)
Year: 2017
Title: Eternity Additional Music Terminus by: Scott Buckley
Released under CC-BY 4.0.

[KombatWmbat]

Vader and Tarkin acknowledge each other’s abilities and respected that. That’s why I feel they genuinely didn’t mind doing what the other said. They weren’t taking orders from fools but a great military mind in both.

[eamonnmaccionnaith]

It's fairly simple. Lucas was making the story up as he went along. He originally planned on Vader being just an enforcer, hence why he takes orders from Tarkin.

[legionarybooks]

I much prefer Vader's relationship with Imperial officers in the original film before they started having him kill them off in "Empire". The ones he speaks with after the attack on Tantive IV respect him, but there is no fear. They actually address him like a fellow colleague, rather than cowering before him. And unlike the rest of the series, in every scene they share, Vader is clearly subordinate to Tarkin. George completely rewrote Vader's backstory after 1977, as when the first film released he was not meant to be Anakin Skywalker. George also changed his intents for the Emperor, who only gets a "blink and you'll miss it" mention in the original.

[americanpaisareturns]

He brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to his new Empire.

[williamkious]

Giving Vader a rank would have made him more a threat to Palpatine's rule. Encouraging the hostility kept Vader from amassing any support within the command structure. Palps always knew how to play Anakin like a fiddle.

[randomdude]

Vader always knew who had authority but he never took shit from anyone

[johnwebb]

Emporer Palpatine was the only person in the Galaxy to outrank Vader. His title is Lord.

[mRibbons]

I wish we got more Tarkin post ep4. The nebulous nature of Vader's rank added captivating tension in the war room with the grand moff.

[Gamer-gvxn]

You (maybe) forgot about grand general tagge who was promoted after surviving the explosion of the first Death Star, he was brought into a position similar to tarkin and was since vader was demoted due to the Death Star thing he had to take orders from tagge.

[AdamSnyder]

Tarkin is the underboss and Vader is the consigliere and chief enforcer. Both report to the boss but have different roles.

[kennyking]

Imagine being the first person that insulted Darth Vader

[ericokonkwo]

Imagine in weird Twist that Luke Skywalker had a similar relationship like this with the Rebels. The story could be that Luke and Lando would have an uneasy relationship like Vader and Tarkin, along with other Rebel Commanders not liking him, but Leia or Ma-Moth-Ta would give the Young Jedi-Force User full authority to kill any Rebel he wants just like Sidious!

[robertagu]

Kinda begs to wonder how Vader woulda faired in the event he was thrown a curve ball by Tarkin or perhaps least temporarily pit in a position by the Emperor himself to get much needed Governor experience as a Sector governor or something how he'd do??? I can just picture a bored outta his mind an pretty annoyed Vader sitting through endless management meetings only paying some attention to whatever is being said an playing with his lightsaber with what force powers he still has..
Also wonder decades earlier if his Anakin alter ego woulda done any better when he was a Jedi?? We sorta saw how he might be as an instructor with Ashoka an we of course know he's ALWAYS been a good and competent military leader both with a Navy an a small Army but bet he'd NOT have been a much of a planetary or system/sector leader then either. Given his nature was more firey then too

[gazhevski]

I suppose after he defeated sidious in return of the Jedi, vader was very briefly defacto the supreme leader of the empire

[jawstrock]

The few times he had to work with Thrawn, he had the same dynamic as Tarkin.

[audience]

Peter Cushing was such an accomplished actor that Darth Vader held him in enough respect to let him live

[BerserkerX]

I loved seeing Tarkin appear in Rogue one. Definitely my favorite Imperial Officer. Would love to see him make a small appearance somewhere in the near future.

[UTxTheArchangel]

They grew to respect each other in Clone Wars, Vader and Tarkin that is. They might not agree with each other, and clash here and there...but they definitely respect each other. We've seen Vader choke officers in the Empire who disagreed with him or would talk back. But he would never with Tarkin out of respect and knowledge of how good at his job Tarkin was.

[MisterTutor]

The question of Vader's rank makes me wonder, what's he pulling down after taxes? :)

[StaleCrony]

I agree, the relationship between Tarkin and Vader was very complex and is still one of my favorites.