Star Wars Fans Just Discovering What Really Killed Darth Vader

The death of Darth Vader in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi remains one of the most iconic and memorable in cinema, right alongside Simba's dad Ahadi in The Lion King and Hans Gruber in the original Die Hard (Alan Rickman didn't know they were going to drop him when they did, so his reaction is genuine).

The events leading up to the great Sith's death see him turn on his former master Darth Sidious, before picking him up and throwing him down one of the Death Star's vast tubes, all while being hit by oodles of Force lightning.

So it might seem really obvious to most what eventually sent him to meet his maker, but the answer is a little more complicated than that, and many fans are finding out for the first time, all these years later.

Over on Reddit, one user asked what caused Vader's death, positing the Force lightning attack and Sidious' life energy sustaining him as potential reasons. The answer is twofold. In the first instance, the Force lightning certainly fried his suit to a point where it wasn't working properly, if at all.

Revenge of the Sith enjoyers will know that Anakin's duel with Obi-Wan on Mustafar destroyed his body and severed his limbs, with the suit serving as Palpatine's solution. It essentially functioned as a full life support system and a method of granting him mobility, both of which were heavily compromised by the suit being damaged.

On a deeper level than that, it was Anakin's return to the light side that actually did for him in the end. The dark side, nefarious as it is, is also an extremely powerful side of the Force, and without it on his side, he simply had zero way to last any longer than a few minutes.

So the OP was half right, but it's nice to see fans of the franchise discovering interesting bits of info, all these years after the originally trilogy made its debut on the silver screen.

It's certainly also true that all of the new Star Wars films, shows, books and comics have deepened the lore considerably. Though there's obviously come retconning going on here and there, it has made the galaxy George Lucas created feel much more interesting to explore in detail.

Also we should remember that death is rarely the end in Star Wars, and the same is true for Vader, who returns as a Force Ghost as his younger Anakin self once he has been redeemed.