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NOTE Per this Meta only major characters may have tags. This is not about whether or not we need the tag.

Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker (established ROTJ). is the better known of the two (248 questions) vs (73 questions). A synonym would help users find questions and avoid tag confusion (15 questions use both tags).

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    Related but not duplicate: Should clark-kent be a synonym of superman?
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Jan 6, 2020 at 18:05
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    I was almost tempted to do a "Thanks for spoiling me :(" joke, since I never watched the movies. Speaking of which, shouldn't we rename the thread? Because it's now featured on meta.
    – Clockwork
    Jan 7, 2020 at 15:37

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We shouldn't do this

Anakin being Darth Vader is a spoiler and per meta spoilers don't "age away" so we shouldn't be having our tags contain a spoiler.

It also provides quite a nice distinction between the two sides of the person. Anakin and Vader are not really the same person, from a certain point of view, and so it helps distinguish between which part you are asking about... and also which time period.

Obi-Wan: Your father was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true, from a certain point of view.

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    While tangental to the overall argument, how much of a spoiler depends on how you classify it. While I agree that general spoilers don't age away (i.e. Harry Potter spoilers), the story itself removed that spoiler with Eps 1-3, which tell you this up front. If we need a new Meta on the subject I can start one
    – Machavity
    Jan 6, 2020 at 16:55
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    @Machavity Well then it depends in the order you watch them and even then it's still really a spoiler until Ep. 3. People are always going to categorise spoilers differently but this is more of a "big" spoiler than others.
    – TheLethalCarrot Mod
    Jan 6, 2020 at 16:57
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    I upvoted because I agree w/ the second paragraph. I reject the spoiler premise though. I mean, even if you argued that someone watching from Ep1 - anyone remember the teaser poster for Ep1? Little Anakin with a shadow of Vader behind him. It's not a big secret or anything :D - filmonpaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/…
    – NKCampbell
    Jan 6, 2020 at 19:43
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    @NKCampbell well it wasn’t a secret at that point in time anyway but if you watch in release order it would be a spoiler and was. That’s sort of the point I was trying to make.
    – TheLethalCarrot Mod
    Jan 6, 2020 at 20:10
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    Not to mention that questions about Darth Vader might involve things related to the suit and mechanisms and things involved in keeping him alive, so it makes sense to keep the two separated as someone just reading about the character might not want to be inundated with the other search results.
    – user64742
    Jan 7, 2020 at 5:05
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    Who is going to type in "Anakin Skywalker" and suddenly learn that he's Darth Vader? He was barely mentioned in the original movies—I don't see how this would happen. People who purposefully look at tag synonyms, an obscure feature, for a character from a movie that literally everyone I met before I saw it spoiled will already know who Anakin is.
    – Stormblessed
    Jan 12, 2020 at 6:34
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    @Stormblessed I only learned AS = DV from this site. In any case, this answer gives a possible reason not to synonymise, and there's no particular reason to synonymise except a general desire for tidiness.
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Jan 13, 2020 at 16:40

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