[ID. A black and white chibi illustration of Jonathan Harker, holding a bloodied shovel. He is framed by a white circle with a string of paprika peppers and the pages of his journal fluttering away behind him. END ID.]
Alright, in light of some of the stuff I’ve seen about the kenobi trailer I’ve decided to get this out of the way before the show starts
Anakin’s fall was not obi wan’s fault
Like in no way shape or form. Anakin’s fall can be the fault of two people: Anakin and palpatine (because everything is palpatine’s fault).
Owen Lars is valid to want to protect Luke and I love Owen. Like I love him. And I find that scene incredible. But like. Obi-Wan is not to blame. Obi-Wan could not have stopped it. No other master could have stopped it.
End of rant
George Lucas has spoken many times about why Anakin’s fall is and every single time it’s because he was possessive and greedy and fearful about not wanting to let go of people he cared about.
That’s it, that’s the reason Anakin Skywalker fell.
To try to rewrite that with, “But it was Obi-Wan’s fault that Anakin fell!” or “It was the Jedi’s fault that Anakin fell!” is to try to overwrite the entire message and theme of Anakin Skywalker’s fall.
To try to make it about anything else other than Anakin’s refusal to accept Star Wars philosophy (that you need to let go of people when it’s time to let go) is to try to undo everything Lucas was explicitly saying with the movies.
Obi-Wan is allowed to have his survivor’s guilt and Owen is allowed to blame him out of his own terror of what might happen to Luke and trying to get Obi-Wan to leave, because that’s how characters within a narrative work!
But we the audience know what the themes of Star Wars are and that Anakin Skywalker’s fall is because of his own reasons and no one else could have stopped it because it has to be Anakin’s own choices that are the story. Making it someone else’s fault cores and hollows out Anakin’s character and his choices and the entire narrative.
Ok, fair, but consider the possibility that Anakin might not have turned if he’d gotten Anakin some therapy and kept him far away from Palpatine.
Just putting someone in therapy is not a magic fix, in order for therapy to work someone has to open up, and acknowledge their problems, things we see Anakin does not do
That scene in rots with Yoda? That’s basically a therapy session, the advice Yoda gives is sound, but he is limited in what counsel he can offer because Anakin is being vague and will not be open about what is troubling him
We also see this in TCW movie, Ahsoka can tell being on tatooine is bothering him, she tries to talk with him, help him work things out, but he shuts it down, and this is frequently repeated throughout TCW with Anakin
Therapy can’t work if the person refuses to participate
And “kept him away from Palpatine” ?
How?
Palpatine is Chancellor, the Jedi’s (and thus Anakin’s) boss
How exactly do you keep Mr Anakin “I do whatever I want” Skywalker from going to Palpatine of his own volition? Do you put him under house arrest? Oh yes, that will go over well, Anakin totally won’t perceive it as being told he can’t hang out with his friend, he won’t go and do that anyway
And on what grounds do you keep Anakin from Palpatine anyway? Palpatine is suspicious, but there’s no hard evidence that he’s evil, that’s the whole point, he’s covering his tracks, and when he’s with Anakin he’s not doing anything overtly evil, in fact what he’s doing is undermining any counseling Anakin would receive, Palpatine is telling Anakin “they’re wrong you’re right, you’re the greatest Jedi, you don’t need to do what they say”, he’s feeding into Anakin’s ego
But the thing is, at the end of the day, it’s Anakin who chooses to listen, because while the Jedi are telling him what he needs to hear, Palpatine is telling Anakin what he wants to hear
Pay very close attention in chapter 22, cause some VERY good points are made.
Here’s an excerpt:
I’m just saying…♂️
What?
What are you saying,
I don’t know how to explain this to you, but what you posted above…
Its fanfiction
And it still does not actually address how they go about preventing Anakin from having contact with Palpatine
1. Palpatine is Anakin’s/the Jedi’s boss
2. Anakin considers Palpatine his friend
4. Anakin hates being told what to do and has a repeated habit of defying authority to do as he pleases
Again I ask, are the Jedi supposed to put Anakin under house arrest? That totally won’t make Anakin think the Jedi are out to get him/control him, telling him he can’t hang out with someone and physically preventing him from doing so totally won’t make Anakin break out and go to Palpatine anyways
And even ignoring that the above is fanfiction, it’s still looking at what went down with Anakin in hindsight, the Jedi didn’t know what intents Palpatine had towards Anakin, they didn’t know he had any intentions toward him, they didn’t know what Palpatine said to Anakin
And also “leaving a child alone with an adult who has no guardianship of them is always wrong” ?
Luke Skywalker with a Doctor Phil-ass psych degree is fucking killing me this is classic lecture fic, what is it supposed to prove??
Like, remember when people used to make fics of all the DBZ characters sitting Chi-Chi down and telling her that she’s a bad mother? That’s literally all this is. Author sockpuppet.
My fic isn’t going to be for everyone. Nor do I want it to befor everyone. But I again, want to make this very, very clear.
Darth Vader Goes to Therapy is a crackfic. It’s a comedy.It is not meant to be some kind of comment on any kind of fandom argument, I did not ask for it to be used as “evidence” in an argument, and I don’t think anyone on this post asked for a very out of context quote to be used in their discussion (I’m SO SORRY!!).
The only real life message I wanted anyone to take away from it is that therapy is important and should be normalized instead of something to be ashamed of. Which had nothing to do with this post, but now it’s linked to this post, and now I’m upset that it’s become “that one fanfic someone used as an argument in a canon discussion” instead of the positive message I wanted it to be.
I worked hardon the therapy aspects of that story. I talked to numerous therapists throughout the process. I knew that even though my story is a comedy, I could not treat the therapy aspects as a joke. There are jokes in the therapy scenes, but I did not treat the therapy itself as a joke. Too many TV shows and movies already do that, and it unintentionally makes people who need help think something is wrong or bad with them, and I didn’t want that to ever be a takeaway by anyone who read my story. At the same time, I am not a professional myself, and I state numerous times in authors notes that I am not a professional, and there’s only so much research I can do on top of Vaderkin himself being such a complicated case. So, I’m bound to get some things wrong.
The quote that was posted is also very out of context. It’s literally from a chapter that’s like three or four chapters from the end of the story, so obviously there’s some stuff I did in the story that would lead to this moment. In this particular scene, Luke’s been kidnapped (in the middle of a therapy session for poor Piett. The kidnapper panicked and kidnapped Piett too. Whoopsie.). He’s barely had any sleep. He’s been in a prison cell for days. He’s been shot at. He’s not having a good time. He’s also been fed very biased information from multiple parties. He doesn’t have George Lucas talking in his head telling him “Yeah, that’s what you’ve been told, but actually this is what that really means.” Just like a real therapist, who only can work with the information their clients have given them. But Luke doesn’t even sit there and tell Obi-Wan he’s the worst person ever and that everything is his fault. In fact, he sympathizes with Obi-Wan, and offers him professional resources to help him, too.
But even beyond this one scene, my story features:
-The importance of maintaining healthy boundaries, and defending those boundaries when someone (aka a certain murder hobo Sith) tries to ignore them. (And Luke absolutely calls Vader out on his shit, numerous times)
-Accepting responsibility for your actions and recognizing that not everything can be fixed, and how to respect others who don’t want to reconcile (numerous times, Luke emphasizes that Vader is responsible for his actions, not others. I’m pretty sure even in that chapter, Luke tells Obi-Wan Vader made the choices, not him).
-The importance of working with professionals when changing your medications (one of the most cracky scenes in that story, and I’m not sorry for it)
-Finding more productive, healthy ways to manage your emotions (Force choking is not on the list of healthy expressions of emotion, sorry Vader).
-Even therapists have therapists!!! Poor Luke absolutely needs therapy and gets therapy!!!
-And more! Honestly, I’d argue Vader gets called on his shit far more often than anyone else does in this story.
The point is, this story isn’t a one-dimensional therapy story where I just tell one character everything is their fault because I don’t like that character (I LOVE Obi-Wan, I don’t actually think there’s any Jedi I dislike). I made some creative decisions that were best for the narrative of my story, and I’m not going to pretend they’re for everyone, and I definitely don’t think they should be used as canon discussions. I also don’t pretend that I got everything right in the therapy portions of the story, my point isn’t to therapy any of my readers, either, it’s just to remind people that hey, therapy is important, and it’s okay to get help if you need it.
So please. I’m not upset at anyone in this entire post, no one asked for my fic to be used in this whole conversation. It’s already too late to keep my fic from being “that fic someone used as an argument in their fandom conversation” but please also recognize that what’s been posted is not representative of what I created. You can disagree on my takes all you want, I’m totally fine with that, but I’d really rather you disagreed because you read what I wrote in it’s correct context. It’s also totally fine to be like “that’s not my type of fic” and not read it, that’s great, but please don’t drag me or my work through the mud in that process.
