In the Star Wars universe, Anakin Skywalker demonstrated keen observational skills and a willingness to help others from his introduction in The Phantom Menace. Anakin displayed intuitiveness at young age, when he first encountered Qui-Gon and Padmé. Anakin asked Qui-Gon if he is a Jedi and makes this assumption due to seeing his lightsaber. Although Anakin explained that he dreamed he was a Jedi, it’s much more likely he was having Force visions that would eventually guide him down his path.
In 1999’s Star Wars: Episode 1 – Anakin Skywalker, by Tim Truman, Steve Crespo, George Freeman and Vickie Williams, the Legends tale depicts just one of Anakin’s early Force visions. The comic tells the story of Anakin’s day prior to meeting Padmé, Qui-Gon and Jar-Jar in Watto’s shop. Anakin is working in the scrapyard on Tatooine when he notices a womp rat is caught in one of Watto’s many traps. Watto normally lets the creatures starve to death, but this young womp rat is freed by Anakin, who tells his friend that all things should live free. It should be noted that most residents of Tatooine don’t care for the womp rats; even Luke brags about blasting the creatures in A New Hope.
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Watto later sends Anakin to collect parts for a podracer from the Jawas. While wandering through Mos Espa, Anakin comes across a vendor with a broken cooling unit. He offers to help, but is told the chances of finding the parts needed are slim. Anakin winds up getting into a tussle with Sebulba, which makes him late to arrive at the Jawas, who already sold the parts Watto shows his displeasure by ordering Anakin to go and clean out more scrap.
Anakin is able to find an entire cooling unit for the vendor while in the scrapyard. This doesn’t surprise him, though, as he is always able to find what he is searching for — another example of his Force sensitivity. He notices the ship carrying Padmé and Qui-Gon fly above him as he drifts asleep in the scrapyard. While asleep, he is hit with an extreme Force vision where he sees himself as a Jedi wielding a lightsaber. His snooze is cut short as Watto yells at him to return to the shop. He is brought face-to-face with Qui-Gon and Padmé when he returns.
It’s worth noting that nobody is surprised by Anakin’s helpfulness in the story. His actions are completely normal for him, and he consistently goes out of his way to help those in need. He even tells one of his friends that he tried to help a bantha once. This is reflected even further in The Phantom Menace, where Anakin goes out of his way to provide shelter to Padmé and her friends before he even knew what their intentions were. It’s possible he simply offered because he thought Padmé was beautiful or that he believed Qui-Gon was there to free the slaves. It seems much more likely that Anakin was just doing what was second nature for him by helping those in need.
That the Jedi would not help Anakin’s mother and the other slaves on Tatooine never sat well with Anakin. It could be considered the start of his mistrust of the Jedi Order. Anakin’s lack of family became a struggling point for him as he trained to become a Jedi. This would eventually push him toward an extreme familiarity with Palpatine.
Palpatine was able to show Anakin the flaws of the Jedi and did so by pushing the slave narrative. In Kristin Baver’s new novel Skywalker: A Family st War, Palpatine tells Anakin that if the Jedi can’t fix the problems outside the temple doors on Coruscant, then they couldn’t fix bigger problems throughout the galaxy. Anakin’s humanity and desire to help the neediest inevitably pushed him away from the Jedi and towards Palpatine. The future emperor gave him a better sense of purpose and allowed him more opportunities to do what he felt was just, which the Jedi would not have allowed.
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