Warning! This article contains spoilers for Star Wars: Crimson Reign #1
When Anakin Skywalker made the decision to fully embrace the dark side of the force and become Darth Vader, the most atrocious act of evil he committed was the slaughter of Jedi Younglings. Over the years since the Youngling massacre, and even sometime before, Darth Vader has regretted killing the Younglings, recognizing that it was the most terrible thing he had ever done. Moving forward from the slaughter, Darth Vader found a dark way to avoid repeating the Youngling massacre.
In Star Wars: Crimson Reign #1 by Charles Soule and Steven Cummings, the new leader of the intergalactic criminal enterprise known as the Crimson Dawn, Qi’ra, has decided that Darth Vader and the Emperor need to die for the betterment of the galaxy. As their mission is unfolding, some of the members of the Crimson Dawn discuss why they are so passionate about their mission to destroy the Empire. One woman describes a personal encounter with Darth Vader she had as a child, an encounter that reveals Darth Vader’s dark way to avoid killing children.
Darth Vader murdered the Crimson Dawn member’s parents right in front of her when she was a child, and instead of murdering her too, Darth Vader did something arguably more menacing. Darth Vader made her swear that she would never repeat what she said, and that she would pretend it didn’t happen at all. Darth Vader threatened a child with death to swear that she didn’t just witness the death of her parents, and then left her at the scene where her family’s corpses still lay. The scene described in Star Wars: Crimson Reign #1 tells fans that Darth Vader has made an increasing effort to never kill a Youngling ever again, but it isn’t the first Star Wars comic to explore his regret in killing all of those Younglings in the film Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.
In Darth Vader #7 by Greg Pak and Raffaele Iencowhich, Darth Vader is sent to Mustafar after the failure that took place in the film Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. During his time on the lava-ridden planet, Darth Vader reflected on the crimes of his past, with the most egregious one being the massacre of Younglings which weighed heavy on his mind. The events of Darth Vader take place many years after that of Star Wars: Crimson Reign, so the Sith Lord evidently implemented a dark strategy to never kill Younglings again while being haunted by it until the end of his life.
While murdering their families in front of kids then making them swear their silence for fear of being murdered themselves is a pretty dark way to avoid killing Younglings, it is at least slightly better than murdering them. Darth Vader scars the children he allows to live for the rest of their lives rather than killing them, risking that they will grow up to enact vengeance or break their word and alert enemies to his location immediately after an assault. The added risk Darth Vader takes in allowing children to live in a situation where he could have killed them proves that he regrets killing Younglings and will avoid harming any more children for the rest of his days, though intense intimidation is a dark strategy to avoid repeating his Youngling massacre.