Darth Vader, Doug, and Dark Water

I was thinking about getting back to the rest of the Orion and Sirius posts, but I couldn't conjure up the motivation today.  On Orion, I feel like I've been touching on him tangentially anyway in some of these other posts, so I might got to Sirius here next at some point, and then get back to the 2019 words which I think we can continue to make some headway on.  Some of the Sirius symbolism seems to tie very directly to words from 2019, as well as to fairly well known prophecy, as I have thought more on it.  We will see.

For today, though, I figured why not write a quick observation relating to the character of Darth Vader.  Star Wars has come up on this blog before, so why not.

Several weeks ago, I had a brief dream about Darth Vader.  I was in a duel with him, actually, though I don't remember much of the detail about the duel itself.  I vividly remember, however, how it ended.  At some point, something like a loud yell or cry starting coming from my mouth.  It just burst out of me.  It is hard to describe the sound, but it was like a thousand lions roaring - probably the closest thing I can relate it to.

As this happened, Vader turned and ran as fast as he could trying to get away.  I then proceeded to chase him, with the sound still coming out of me, which was kind of funny as this was happening.  Meaning, the imagery started to feel comical and light-hearted.  It was in the process of chasing him that I woke up.

A little bit later, I started to wonder just how Darth Vader got his name.  What did it mean?  For those who read my blog regularly, you know that this is pretty much my go-to... looking into names and word meanings.

I had always thought Vader was something like "Father", and thus an allusion to Vader's relationship with Luke ("I am your Father!").

This meaning was actually retconned by George Lucas himself many years later in an interview in, what else, Rolling Stone magazine (too funny).  In that interview, Lucas says simply that Darth is a variation of "Dark" and Vader is a variation of "Father", so it simply is "Dark Father".  Here is the quote:

How did you get the name Darth Vader?
“Darth” is a variation of dark. And “Vader” is a variation of father. So it’s basically Dark Father. All the names have history, but sometimes I make mistakes – Luke was originally going to be called Luke Starkiller, but then I realized that wan’t appropriate for the character. It was appropriate for Anakin, but not his son. I said, “Wait, we can’t weigh this down too much – he’s the one that redeems him.”

Except, of course, this is Lucas making something up to try and tie everything back and reinforce that he must have had a master plan or story from the beginning.  This is, in fact, not entirely true.

As envisioned in the beginning,  Darth Vader was not going to be anyone's father, and the role and his relationship with Luke changed during the writing and filming of the movies, even after the 1st movie.  Early drafts of Empire Strikes Back had Anakin Skywalker as a separate person than Darth Vader, even having Anakin (Luke's father) appear on Degobah and assist with Luke's training with Yoda.  I won't go into all of the details here, because it isn't important, only to say that Darth Vader was definitely not originally intended to mean Dark Father.

What is potentially important and perhaps relevant for my purposes and in understanding my dream was the first version of Darth Vader's name:  Dark Water.  In fact, most evidence suggests, and Lucas' earlier interviews confirm, that Darth Vader came about as a modified name that was a twist on or sounded like Dark Water.  Here is another quote of his from much earlier:

“[His name] sort of appeared in my head one day. I had lots of Darth this and Darth that, and Dark Lord of the Sith. The early name was actually Dark Water. Then I added lots of last names, Vaders and Wilsons and Smiths, and I just came up with the combination of Darth and Vader.”

Well, this is interesting then.  Dark Water is a name that has shown up here on this blog many times, but some of you might not recognize it in that form.

Doug is the name I have given to Daymon Smith.  I got the name from a dream sequence, and have just used it ever since.  In fact, I kind of had to force myself to write out Doug's actual name there, for no other reason than I just don't like writing or saying it.  But, I think it is appropriate to use here so there isn't any confusion as to who I am talking about.

For those who haven't noticed or looked it up earlier, the name Doug means "Dark".  But Doug is short for Douglas, which is a form of the Gaelic name Dubhglas, apparently.

What does the glas translate into, you might be wondering?  Water (and other forms of it, like stream or river).

Thus, in the name Douglas we have "Dark Water", or the original name of the character of Darth Vader.

I used to have dreams of Doug at various points, a few years ago at least, and I would always see him in a recognizable form, though as the dreams went on his appearances became more grotesque, for lack of a better word for it.  Always Bald, also, by the way.  Fortunately, it has been quite awhile since I've had a dream directly about him or seeing him in that way.

I think, however, given this Dark Water/ Darth Vader tie-in, that Doug made a return to my dream in the form of Darth Vader, after a long absence.

I typically don't look for ways to write about him too directly.  You will find, however, different references to him in various forms and names on this blog if you know what you are looking for - I've left enough clues that understanding this shouldn't be an issue, and should be fairly straightforward if you just look (with another key being provided in this post).  But, I like figuring things out and putting puzzle pieces together, and the Darth Vader-Douglas-Dark Water game was a fun one to figure out, or at least see the connection, so I thought it was worth a post.