Is consciousness independent of thoughts? Is consciousness just the light that allows us to observe our thoughts?

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No on both counts. Awareness is the word you use to describe the thing that observes thoughts. Consciousness refers to the everything involved in self-awareness and agency. It concerns decision-making, perception, memory, awareness, creativity, and yes, thought.

If you are unconscious, you are unable to form thoughts. You can be aware but still yet unconscious, how this works is that the function of awareness is present without the other functions. If you’re aware without memory, then are you really conscious?

Movies that use the plot element of amnesia invariably involve the event of the amnesiac suddenly remembering. The plot device of amnesia just doesn’t work otherwise. The Notebook simply wouldn’t have been a good story without the reveal at the end. The Bourne movies just wouldn’t work if JB just murdered his way through America’s intelligence services without a reason. Memory is crucial to our functioning as human beings and we can’t help but see people without the capacity to remember as fully present, aware, and functioning.

Consciousness is the whole works, thought is but one component of it, and awareness is what allows consciousness to reflect on the thoughts it has and adjust, without which self-development and growth wouldn’t be possible.

It all meshes together like clockwork.