can i also just stress how much i appreciate how obi-wan’s inner core of kindness and light is so perfectly coated in dusty, spiky armor in these episodes. he lets people down, he pushes them away, and he lets them die. he’s lost confidence in himself, and the galaxy around him, and it all makes him sad, but not weepy. it’s grief,endless and boundless, and it makes his hair grey and his posture slumped from the ramrod straight way he used to swagger forward through whatever danger the galaxy threw at him, but not anymore. the past weighs so heavy on him, and the 10-year fire of trauma in his memories still burning so hot, keeping him awake at night, preventing him from communion with the force. he’s clearly so lonely, in conflict with his allies, alienated among crowds, and the vast desert is so empty around him, but he’s never truly alone, either. his memories are a fog he’s living through, and i love this brittle, prickly man who still has so much more kindness left inside
listen, there are some moments from legends that you read and you think, wow that is very dumb and silly and i love star wars but wow i’m glad this is a book and not on screen, and then there are some other moments from legends that you read and you think, i would give literally anything to see this filmed.
for me, obi-wan discovering that anakin was still alive was always the pinnacle of the second type. i wanted so very, very badly to see it. i wanted to know how ewan would deliver that performance, the dawning light of understanding in his eyes, just what it looked like when the world as he understood it was destroyed again.
i’m so happy that they decided to bring that moment from legends into canon and put it up on screen in the way that they did. we got to see the devastating, cascading realization and looming horror in his eyes and it was perfect, and then got to hear him say his name, and yeah i’ll need several business days to recover from that, thanks!
i must say tho the fucking audacity of them, like how many times are they going to ask us to re-experience order 66? how many times can they keep striking on that particular traumatic beat?? for about two seconds, i let myself think like oh this is so beautiful! are they showing us a flashback, maybe of anakin’s training? the order is so beautiful, my heart is singing, who’s coming? is it— No! NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN
fellas is it gay to bury your weapons together in a shared coffin box entombing the lives you shared while wielding those blades as complementary halves of a single warrior
“I wanted the father to be Darth Vader, but I also wanted a father figure. So I created Ben as the other half. You have one who is the light half and one who is the dark half… the positive and the negative. This sort of gave a twist to the whole story.” -George Lucas
If by TWIST you mean you CREATED SOULMATES, George!!!! Honestly this kind of quote drives me insane from an obikin perspective like ahdhjdjsajsh they’re conceived to be cumulatively one person, split into two halves with opposing but inextricably linked stories that complete each other, as the two facets of The Father???
still going mental about this, like the two lightsabers nestled in the box together and buried makes sense in this light. by digging up and bringing out the sabers, the weapons that are their lives, ben is both restoring his own sense of identity as obi-wan, but he is also releasing the possibility of the identity of anakin back into the galaxy. he’s setting the stage for anakin to return, because if there is an obi-wan, there can be an anakin too. their old identities died together on mustafar, and are reborn together in their renewed conflict. they create and define each other, and cannot exist without each other. their identities are so contextual and dependent on each other!! two halves of a whole. anakin is the father by blood, obi-wan is the father by proximity, their stories are wound and braided together so tight, and it runs directly down the spine of the movies at the heart of what star wars is. luke inherits a patrimony from them both of knowledge and skill, anakin’s talents and obi-wan’s training, and he carries their combined legacy into final victory over the sith in return of the jedi. just… ugh. anakin and obi-wan became men together, were split apart by betrayal, wandered and failed, and then returned in victory, watching their son surpass them both, just as a child should, and joining together in death, united again, and forever.
i like how it shows how much more important and present obi-wan really was in both of the twins’ life, not just luke. even in the small ways, we can see where luke got his toy fighter and that he still plays around with almost ten years later. and how leia wasn’t just sending for help of a random guy her father was friends with, but a respected man that once saved her before, even later using the line obi-wan used when she’s with han and luke.
Frick I had never thought of that…she knew that Obi-Wan would be able to help her because she knew him…
i’ve always loved the examination of the role-reversal in luke and leia taking after anakin and padmé. i think the twins start the OT very much symbolically indicative of each parent: luke and anakin- being stuck on tattooine, wanting something more for himself. a bit bratty. leia and padmé- every bit the diplomat, royalty radiating off of her.
and then as each movie passes, you see more of leia being like anakin, hot headed and stubborn and devoted to doing the right thing. and luke being so like padmé- connecting to his emotions on a deep level, self-mastery and restraint, soft-spoken and self-assured.
but my point of this was LIL LEIA WITH HER CUTE GREEN CAPE AND TRYING ON FASHIONABLE GLOVES- that’s padmé 100% right there !!! we love to see it !!
You know how obi wan goes from “you don’t need those” to buying the gloves for leia in like one second? I know for a fact that in that second he had a flashback to every time he’s had that exact argument with anakin and decided then and there it just wasn’t worth it
hey to be able to find the buried lightsabers in the desert with no geographical markers and without using the force, he had to have like. counted the seconds of the journey out to where he buried them and then away.
like accidentally too, right, because he had no intention of retrieving them ever. he just couldn’t not. because that was the final resting place of anakin—of obi-wan kenobi and anakin, Jedi, closer than brothers, etc etc etc.
so he counted the seconds there and back ten years ago and still remembered like he remembered everything else huh
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