Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
There's a very bad tendency in Star Wars media to make Jedi characters Jedi Masters rather than Jedi Knights to make them seem important. This is sufficiently bad that in the various Wookieepedia categories for Jedi Knights and Jedi Masters the Masters outnumber the Knights even though presumably less than 1 in 10 Jedi Knights even make it to the rank of Master. As a consequence there are only a handful of stories focused on heroic Jedi Knights who are not Anakin. Ironically, the most complete of those stories might be the Republic Commando novels, since Etain Tur-Murkan was knighted early in the series (the end of book one if I recall correctly).

That said, Anakin did outperform his peers and there is evidence that performance during the Clone Wars did allow for some Jedi to achieve the rank of Master at quite young ages as a result of their war experience. The best example is Aayla Secura who appears to have been promoted during the Clone Wars from knight to master and who had only been a knight for 6-7 years at the time. Anakin and Aayla share a lot of similarities in terms of resume, with Aayla also being noted as proactive, hotheaded, and somewhat reckless, but Anakin's abilities and record absolutely crush Aayla's in every way. She was also only a handful of years older than him.

Anakin, of course, knew Aayla personally - she's one of a very few characters who even plausibly qualify as one of his peers in the Order - and would have been very aware of her promotion. He no doubt thought that since he'd accomplished everything Aayla had, only about ten times over, that he obviously deserved the rank of master. He probably assumed it was merely a matter of time. Anakin is not an idiot and is fully capable of understanding arguments like 'you haven't been a knight long enough' even if he would find them infuriating.

We, the audience, know that the reason Anakin wasn't made a master had nothing to do with his accomplishments and everything to do with his emotional maturity and understanding of the Force. No doubt the Jedi Council came to such conclusions in their internal deliberations, and they weren't wrong. Where they screwed up was in personnel management. Mace Windu breaks the news to Anakin in a manner absolutely guaranteed to make him feel unjustly slighted and to set him off. You don't tell the hot-head he didn't get promoted because he's a hot-head and expect him to not get mad!

Yes, Anakin's hot-headedness is his problem, but since the Jedi Order continued to keep him within its ranks, managing that problem was also an issue for the Order, and they really screwed that up.
All his actions are added in after the fact, storytelling-wise. He already didn't become a master, and all later Clone Wars stories can have him do whatever they want, that fact will not change. It could conceivably further explore the already-present themes of why he didn't become a master despite his accomplishments, but I've seen both TCW and RotS, and neither one had much interest in introducing that theme, much less exploring it. Anakin isn't upset that hes not promoted to Master because he earned it through his works and successes. Hes upset that the incredibly prestigious position he's gifted after only three years as a Jedi Knight, in an organization of ten thousand, doesn't immediately grant him a title upgrade. Because title is all it is. A rose by any other name. He's already gifted a seat on the goddamned Jedi Council! He's one of the most elite Jedi in the galaxy, sitting on the most prestigious seats of power they have, and that's not enough. He feels spurned because he didn't get a new faceplate for his desk. That's not the Jedi insulting him or mistreating him, that's him being petty and greedy over inconsequential things.

Also, sure, you can't tell the hot-head he didn't get promoted because he's a hot-head and expect him to not get mad, but that's also the hot-head's problem. Self-introspection is the key there, which he should realize at being told that, even if it might take effort and time. Instead, he just agrees to go slaughter kindergartens. He was already incredibly troubled and in insane turmoil, sure, but you can't fault the Jedi for not helping with that when he never told them anything about it. Can't help a person who doesn't want to be helped and all.