Watto is a despicable character that we know from The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. He is known best for being the slaveowner of Anakin and his mother Shmi. Because of these acts, Vader enacted revenge upon Watto. From several sources, we find out that the end result was death, but it still could be just a vision.
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Watto the Junk Dealer and Slaveowner
We remember Watto as also being the junk dealer and slaveowner on Tatooine. A Toydarian, Watto dealt in droid parts but earned more money by trading slaves. As an avid podracing gambler, Watto acquired Anakin and Shmi through betting.
While enslaved under Watto, both experienced mistreatment that Anakin-Vader remembered and detested. Watto was known for beating his slaves, installing transmitter chips to control them, and, in the case of Anakin, forcing them to podrace.
We saw Anakin win his freedom, with the aid of Qui-Gon, by podracing. Shmi, however, remained enslaved under Watto until he lost her in a bet to the moisture farmer Cliegg Lars. Yet, Shmi was captured by Sand People who led a raid on Lars’s farm. We likewise saw Anakin enact revenge on those Tusken Raiders after his mother’s death.
What Cruel Revenge Did Vader Enact Upon Watto?
Anakin-Vader thus had many reasons to enact cruel revenge on Watto. The question is what kind. We know from Attack of the Clones that Anakin visited Watto to track down Shmi but not about his revenge.
According to this video, Vader’s diary indicates that he most likely tortured Watto to death. Vader wrote about “a cruel experiment” that he carried out on “Toydarian” whom we can assume was Watto. Vader used a Sith mind trick method that led to Watto’s death.
This revenge appears to line up with the book Jedi v. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force. This video recaptures how the book alludes to Vader’s torture of Watto which led to his death. It conveys Vader’s hatred for Toydarians and how one “subject” demonstrated “resistance” to his Force suggestion.
We can assume this is Watto, and that Vader inflicted so much mental agony on him that it ended his life.
The Darth Vader comics echo this conclusion but infer that Vader choked Watto to death. We see in this video (at 5:41) about the series a figure that looks like Watto who has perished beneath Vader’s raised hand.
Recently, it seemed that Disney confirmed this outcome in canon too. In the Legacy of Vader #2 comic, Kylo Ren had a vision of Vader killing Watto. However, based on this comic, Kylo made a faulty assumption, and “Vader was not the one who murdered Watto.” If we follow this arc, Watto is dead but not because of Vader.
Then again, it is a curious move to lead us in a logical direction and then turn against that conclusion. We agree with several fans here who think Vader killing Watto aligns better with Vader’s character. After all, Vader “spent decades fantasizing about killing Obi-Wan,” so going after Watto makes sense.
Moreover, Vader-Anakin had plenty of reasons to enact revenge, given Shmi and his treatment under the Toydarian junk-enslaver.
Vader’s Cruel Revenge
If we decide to go by previous sources, then we can place Watto’s death in Vader’s hands. Yet, if we prefer the recent canon comic version, Vader did not enact his revenge after all. In the end, it depends on your preferred Star Wars narrative and version of Vader.