When we leave The Phantom Menace, it feels like Anakin finally got his happy ending: he’s freed from slavery, brought to Coruscant, and accepted into the Jedi Order as Obi-Wan’s Padawan. On paper, that sounds like a miracle upgrade.
But if we look at the Legends side, especially the novel Rogue Planet, those early Temple years are actually pretty depressing, Anakin is older than everyone else, carrying trauma no one shares, and he ends up isolated, bored, and quietly miserable in a place that never really feels like home.
From Slave to “Chosen One” No One Really Understands
When we talk about Anakin’s childhood at the Temple in Legends, the first thing we have to remember is how different his starting point is from everyone else’s. Most Jedi kids don’t “join” the Order. They’re brought in as infants, raised in the crèche, and grow up in a world where the Temple is the only home they’ve ever known.
Anakin doesn’t get that clean start. By the time he’s living on Coruscant, he already has nine years of memories as a slave on Tatooine, a mother he still loves, and a lifetime of fear and survival instincts that the other younglings just don’t share. So when Masters talk about injustice and suffering in the galaxy, the rest of the class hears theory. Anakin is the only one in the room who has already lived it.
Rogue Planet leans into how badly that gap sits with him. He doesn’t like “looking inward” the way the Jedi want him to. When the Council pushes him to examine his mistakes or his emotions, he doesn’t find peace there. What he finds is pain, anger, and this feeling that something inside him is too big and too bright. He describes it like burning from the inside out and not knowing what to do with that energy. Meditation, which is supposed to help him, just plugs him straight into that feeling and overloads him. During Mace Windu’s questioning he finally blurts out, “I don’t want to… I don’t like what I see,” before admitting, “I burn like a sun inside!”
Later, when Obi-Wan asks why he avoids meditation, Anakin explains it in the simplest way he can: “It’s like I’m plugging into a supernova. Something goes blooey in me. I don’t like it.”
On top of that, he doesn’t fully trust why the Order keeps him around. In his quieter moments in the Temple, Anakin wonders if they actually want him, or if they’re just curious about his power and the prophecy attached to him. He compares himself to someone who’s rich but never sure if they have real friends, only people who want what they have. For Anakin, that “wealth” is his connection to the Force. That’s not a great mental place for a twelve-year-old to be in, especially one who’s supposed to be learning trust and serenity.
No Friends, No Challenge: The Prodigy Bored in a Gloomy Temple
The Temple itself doesn’t help much. It’s portrayed as an old, slightly tired building—impressive, but a little worn on the edges, quiet and dim inside, with a serious, studious atmosphere. For a kid like Anakin, who grew up in noisy markets, junkyards, and podrace hangars, the place can feel more like a library than a home.
Then there’s the training. Because of his insane potential in the Force, Anakin moves through lessons and exercises much faster than a normal Padawan. Where other students are still struggling to get the basics right, he’s already thinking three steps ahead. The Council, worried about spoiling him or treating him as “special,” doesn’t just let him skip the difficult parts of growing up in the Order. On paper, that makes sense. In practice, it means he spends a lot of time stuck in classes and drills that don’t really challenge him.
You can probably see where that goes: boredom, frustration, and the temptation to show off. If you’re a kid who finishes everything early and you already feel separate from your classmates, it’s easy to lean into being “the best in the room” rather than trying to blend in. That only makes him more intimidating and less relatable to the other Padawans.