Obi-wan Kenobi | Part Iii

obi-wan kenobi | part iii

tumblr text posts + obi wan & anakin edition

I get why people think star wars is just lightsabers, shooting and explosions but it's genuinely one of the most devastating stories ever written like holy shit obiwan and anakins relationship?? that's some greek-mythology-shakespearean-tragedy shit right there

I’m still not over how well Reva Sevander fits into the storyline of not just Star Wars but specifically Anakin Skywalker’s story, that she’s not just a Jedi youngling that he brutally killed her family, but that the whole point of her character was that she was on the same trajectory as he was. “You have become the very thing you have sworn to destroy,” Obi-Wan says to Anakin in Revenge of the Sith. “Have I become him?” Reva sobs to Obi-Wan in Obi-Wan Kenobi. She swore to destroy him and very nearly became the thing she herself swore to destroy.  She rationalizes it, she says she wants “Justice.” when she goes after Luke Skywalker, a youngling like herself with a family willing to die to protect this child, just as the Jedi Knights died protecting their younglings, their family.  Just as Anakin rationalized what he was doing, that he was doing this for Padme because he couldn’t live without her, this was the only way he could become strong enough to save her. Both are just excuses for their own pain and suffering and their desire for what they want, not what the people they love want.  Both come from places of understandable and deeply empathizable pain, they’re both characters that my heart aches for. But Reva stops herself, she chooses mercy at the last moment.  She honors her family, they are at peace because she chose to spare the youngling. Anakin does not stop himself, he chooses to slaughter the children every step of the way.  He loses his family, Padme and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, all of them, because he refuses to stop, to embrace mercy, even here in this show, he murders a child yet again. Reva’s story isn’t just filler for this show, she is central to the themes of Anakin’s journey, she is a reflection of what he could choose at any point, while also being a voice given to one of the Jedi younglings that he struck down.  She is absolutely VITAL to show that Anakin Skywalker chose this and continues to choose it every day.

it's crazy how few people talk about how clearly codependent anakin & obi-wan were - they were two halves of the same whole, so without anakin, obi-wan cannot exist as a complete person, and without obi-wan, anakin cannot exist as a whole person either, because in order for him to be himself he needs obi-wan as, again, they are part of eachother. their two identites are so comingled they cannot be separted and be how they were, because a huge part of who they were was eachother. obi-wan will always be anakin's and anakin will always be obi-wan's so they both had to become someone new. because jedis' relationships, on a deep level, are practically nonexitent they had to be everything for eachother, neither of them had anyone else to fill the roles of their lives. obi-wan was - had to be, wanted to be - anakin's master, his teacher, his father, his brother, his best friend. i mean, they are even potrayed as light/dark, and we both now the light cannot be without the dark, and vice versa. they even failed to excavate eachother from their focus as reformed individuals - vader obsessed over obi-wan, was only able to show glimmers of his past self when in his presence, obi-wan was so dedicated and devestated by anakin's change/fall/perceived death that he literally locked himself in a desert simply to watch over what remained of anakin (his children), thought about him 24-7, at least in the novels, and actually hallucinated him as some twisted manifestation of guilt, love, grief. obi-wan, the perfect jedi, forsaked his vow to form no attachments simply because he loved anakin too much to do otherwise, his one flaw was always and will always be anakin, and his pure, simple, unadultered love for him, despite everything. anakin latched onto obi-wan and obi-wan never found the strength to pull him off. the loss of eachother destroyed the both of them (though of course anakin was also destroyed by padme, in his mind). even before the betrayal anakin would always want obi-wan to simply stay when he had to go on missions, and obi-wan could not act the same and constently thought about anakin when away - he even in a novel offhandedly mentioned that it was super strange to not have anakin fighting with him, like he forgot he needed both hands. their bond, affection, was deep enough that even after anakin was knighted they stayed close, became closer than brothers, even after death they both sought eachother out. obi-wan gave his life and death to anakin, and anakin the same. obi-wan's death belonged to vader, as the last part of anakin that he needed to kill, and anakin's entire life was centered around obi-wan. this is PURE MADNESS.

when obi-wan said 'I won't kill anakin' and then spent the entire rest of his life following through on that. fuck everyone else obi-wan I respect you yoda should've taken you at your fucking word

'boohoo why did he walk away and not kill anakin this time either even with all the suffering he'll go on to cause if he lets him go' he's told you why very clearly you just didn't believe him I guess!! desperately not killing anakin is obi-wan's main export. it's his universal constant, his life's work, his magnum opus. he gets creative about not killing that guy. he tries to send anakin's teenage twink son to do the job for him because he simply can't. he fucking... peaces out and dies to avoid killing anakin. that's like his whole deal. whether he's right to be like this is another entirely separate conversation but it is what he is