In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine kills Mace Windu and finally makes Anakin his new apprentice. As his new Sith Master, he then gives Anakin his first order: "Go to the Jedi Temple, do what must be done." Now, certainly this meant kill all the Jedi Knights and Masters. No argument there. But what about the younglings? Here me out;
During the Clone Wars, Palpatine had hired a bounty hunter to break into the Jedi Temple and steal a list containing the names and locations of newborn force users, with the intent of kidnapping and brainwashing them to be his assassins and spies trained in the dark side. At the time, his plan was thwarted by Anakin and Ahsoka. After becoming Emperor, however, we see that he finally managed to accomplish his scheme.
The Inquisitors, shown above, are former Jedi that were captured, tortured, and brainwashed into serving Palpatine and Vader. Now, you might be wondering how that makes sense with the Sith rule saying there can only be two Sith at a time. Basically, the loophole is that there can only be two Sith Lords, the master and the apprentice. They are then allowed to have plenty of dark side underlings serving them. It's how Count Dooku was able to justify having Ventress during the Clone Wars, it's how Palpatine has the Inquisitors during the Imperial era, and how there's an entire Sith planet with thousands of cultists and acolytes in The Rise of Skywalker.
Anyway, getting back to the point, the Inquisitor project is something Palpatine had been working on before the rise of the Empire.
So, we know that Palpatine had the Inquisitor idea planned out well before Order 66 and he specifically said that he was planning to have an army of them. Not only that, but we also know that he had no issue trying to use infants. So why, then, would he have ordered Anakin to kill all the younglings in the Jedi Temple? You'd think that children would be much easier to convert than adult Jedi, and they would take less years to be trained than infants. Killing them seems like a waste of easy Inquisitors and Sith acolytes. Not to mention, he could probably spin it as propaganda, like broadcasting all over Coruscant that the innocent children that were being brainwashed by the treasonous Jedi have been rescued and will be re-educated to serve the Empire, etc.
The theory that I've heard, and is the main argument of this thread, is that Anakin was not supposed to kill them. Rather, he did it because of what that one kid said:
Earlier in the film, we saw how Anakin was furious that he was granted a seat on the Jedi Council but not granted the rank of Master. Now when he walks into the room with the younglings, the kid happens to address him as "Master Skywalker". This pisses off Anakin, who is extremely mentally unstable right now due to all the personal shit going on for him. Hearing the kid call him a "Master" makes him remember one of his biggest wounds and reminds him of why he hated the Council and the Order. He then goes into a blind rage and decides to shish kabob some younglings.
What do you think? Did Palpatine order Anakin to kill everyone? Or was he supposed to bring back the kids so they could be trained as Inquisitors, but he got so offended by what the kid said that he couldn't help himself?
Basically, was it this kids fault that Anakin killed the younglings?
