#poor kid didnt stand a chance really
After watching episode 3 of Kenobi, I rewatched The Phantom Menace and I am feeling a certain way about things.
Little Anakin is so cute. He’s so sweet and genuine and he has such generosity of spirit. I understand why Qui-Gon believed in him. Of course he would think there’s no way this boy could grow up to be so violent, to drag someone he loved across a burning fire. How could he?
I see Obi-Wan with an arm around Anakin and turning to Anakin and promising him, promising him that he will be a Jedi. The weight of that promise being that Obi-Wan will stand with him and guide him and teach him so that he can become the best version of himself, the one that he dreams he can be. Obi-Wan promises to love him.
Before Obi-Wan makes that promise, we’re shown the seeds of Vader. They are small. Those seeds are so small. They are so tiny they haven’t even started to break from their shell. But they are there. And someone has to recognize them. Someone has to point them out and look at them and ask what they will grow into and ask if it’s really a good idea to water and fertilize the good sprouts when the bad seeds could grow along with them. Maybe it would be better to let fate take its course. Maybe on their own, the bad seeds won’t grow so large. Maybe they won’t even grow at all.
When the Council shines a light on those seeds, Qui-Gon disregards them because he sees how great the good sprout could grow. He says look at this beautiful plant I have nurtured, let me do the same for another. He’s not finished nurturing the first plant.
When the Council asks Anakin to take a look at those seeds, examine them, study them to see what they truly are, he refuses. When they ask if he is prepared to dig them out, because he is the only one who can dig them out, he refuses. He glares at them when they step back.
But the sprout is so good and full and has so much potential. There is time, he will grow, and he can learn to examine the bad seeds within. He can learn to see them for what they are and root them out so that they don’t strangle the good growth. He will not choose to let them grow. They have faith.
Qui-Gon asks his first plant to share with the new one, to guide him, to let him grow, to nurture him. And he does. Obi-Wan does all of that for Anakin and more. He allows them to become intertwined and supports Anakin as he grows but Anakin does not grow to stand on his own. Because ten years later he still refuses to examine the bad seeds and dig them out, they have grown beneath the dirt and strangle the roots of that sweet and genuine boy who helped those strangers in need. His good stems are struggling because of it.
The bad seeds breach the surface and Anakin pushes them back under the soil. He doesn’t snip them. He doesn’t pull them out by the roots. He doesn’t even dig into the dirt to study them. He buries them so that Obi-Wan won’t see. So that he won’t have to see.
They continue to grow together anyway. Until the bad seeds breach the soil again and Obi-Wan has to snip the stems because Anakin won’t do it himself. He didn’t snip them deep enough. They grew back. And now that little boy who had such generosity and so much love to give to others is dragging the man who promised to love him across a blazing fire.
Love this metaphor. I think it’s important to note also that the “bad seeds continue to grow anyway” because who keeps nourishing them? Sidious. And they didn’t necessarily begin as bad - perhaps sick, one could say, a little damaged but through no fault of their own, not yet - but rather grew to become such as the plant they sprouted rotted and festered with time. Those seeds could have just as easily flourished, grown healthy and strong instead, with compassion and love and all the heart that sweet boy came into the Order with had there not been poison in the soil the seeds were planted in. But you can take any seed and stick it in salted earth and no amount of rain or sunshine or tender coaxing will keep that plant abundant and green. The leaves will yellow and wilt, the stalks will sag, too thin and sickly to bear their weight.
