I can’t stop thinking about that George Lucas quote, “Darth Vader is the bad father. Ben Kenobi is the good father.“ and this episode, “Are you my real father?” “I wish that I could say I was.” and how that’s Obi-Wan and Anakin’s functions in the narrative, that each of the twins was adopted by a family that loved them and raised them, but within the story, the scenes that we the audience see, the looming figure of Darth Vader is the bad father they never knew and Obi-Wan is the good father that helped them, watched over them, comforted them when they needed it, protected them.
That Obi-Wan and Anakin are entwined in each others’ lives in a very personal way, but also as a narrative function way, that Obi-Wan was the first person to hold Leia as a baby, that he’s the first person to tell her anything about the Force, that he guides her and protects her, just as he’ll do for Luke one day, that Vader will be the one to harm his children, to use the Force to hurt them, to torture Leia, to cut off Luke’s hand, to constantly hunt them down.
Darth Vader is the bad father. Ben Kenobi is the good father. NARRATIVE PARALLELS, THESE TWO ARE MIRROR IMAGES OF EACH OTHER, always inescapable from each other.
OBSESSED with the use of fire in this episode and the way it both unites and separates Obi-Wan and Vader, because it’s their past, it’s the breaking of everything they were, it’s the moment that literally and figuratively burns away any chance Anakin has at regaining the life he abandoned, and now Vader is forcing Obi-Wan through that—Vader wants Obi-Wan to suffer as he has suffered and to lose as he has lost. He wants Obi-Wan to hurt, to break, to forget what he was as Anakin has forgotten but in doing so, in using fire, Vader reveals that he hasn’t forgotten who he was. The tragedy of Mustafar is not the burning, it’s the loss. The tragedy of Mustafar is Anakin’s final rejection of everyone who loved him. When Anakin forces Obi-Wan into flame, he’s not just replicating the injury, he’s trying to replicate the result. He wants Obi-Wan to hate him. He wants Obi-Wan to reject everything he was. He wants Obi-Wan to forget the before and think only on the misery of the present. If Obi-Wan forgets, then he can forget as well. But the fire separates them! The fire saves Obi-Wan! It’s a boundary again, this time not between beforeandafter, but between Vader (who is the Empire) and Obi-Wan (who is the Jedi). It’s the same split as Mustafar, played out again in a different key. Anakin tries to break Obi-Wan, tries to finally move past that moment and what it means for what he had, and in doing so only brings them back to it again.
the way the obi-wan kenobi series is quite honestly a fever dream for obi-wan kenobi fans in the best way you’ve got depressed ptsd obi-wan you’ve got obi-wan being an awkward depressed uncle/dad figure you’ve got obi-wan having vague memories of his birth family but ultimately calling the jedi his new family you’ve got obi-wan being a socially awkward bc see: trauma you’ve got obi-wan being cute with his lil’ eopie friend you’ve got obi-wan having nightmares you’ve got obi-wan hallucinating anakin in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere and we’re only halfway through besties
