#obi wan and anakin's relationship is the foundation of love and betrayal and grief and anger and everything in between | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gffa · 4 years

Photo

P. Best Duo? There are many great duos in Star Wars and I definitely have feelings about Anakin&Ahsoka or Anakin&Artoo or Luke&Leia or Luke&Artoo or Han&Chewbacca or I could write essays on how important Luke&Obi-Wan or Luke&Yoda were to each other or how foundational Han/Leia and Anakin/Padme were to the characters or how much I love Obi-Wan/Satine, but for me I always come back to: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker What gets me about them is the sheer scope of them, how they went from uneasy with each other and thrown together because of other people, to two people who shaped each other into the person each of them became, that there’s a reason the ultimate battle of the prequels was about them, that there’s a reason why Darth Vader was still so obsessed with Obi-Wan all the way through the OT, and there’s a reason why they got to be together at the end of those movies. They weren’t perfect, they struggled to understand each other, but when it was just the two of them, they rose together, they were better together. When Palpatine’s influence was at a minimum--like in, say, the Choose Your Destiny book or the Age of Republic comic--they came to such a good place with each other.

They talk to each other, they open up and listen and are honest and connect.

Even one of the first times they’re on their own together, where it’s the two of them trying to figure out how they’re going to relate to each other, Obi-Wan reassures Anakin, even amidst his own grief, he makes sure Anakin knows security in this uncertain future:

They’re so casually affectionate with each other:

They check in on each other, they ask how the other is doing:

They give each other praise:

They have all these little moments where you can just see how much they like being around each other:

Or how they must move in sync with each other, which is a way of showing just how much time they spent together, how much they wove themselves around each other--you don’t move like that with someone that isn’t a huge part of your life, that isn’t meaningful and important to you. And, yes, they do have their difficult times, Anakin was a whiny teenager (look, I love him so much I could barf rainbows, but even George Lucas himself specifically said that Anakin was a whiny teenager) and they get on each others’ nerves.

Or Anakin blames Obi-Wan for holding him back, but I never took that as a slight against how much they meant to each other, but instead saw it as a mark of how much Anakin cared specifically about Obi-Wan. Because, when you’re angry, you blame the person that’s closest, who has been telling you what you need to hear, rather than what you want to hear. That Obi-Wan bears the brunt of that lashing out, precisely because Anakin loves him so much and he doesn’t handle that very well. Even their big, terrible breakup fight is all about how much they loved each other, it was directly designed around how Obi-Wan was trying to give Anakin space to calm down and come back, as Nick Gillard says:

After all of that, after all of the terrible things Anakin did and can’t even admit to himself that were wrong, he still knows that Obi-Wan would listen to him, hear him out, turn off his saber if Anakin came to him to ask him for help. ANAKIN, UNDERNEATH ALL OF THAT, KNEW THAT OBI-WAN TRULY LOVED HIM AND WOULD HAVE LISTENED TO HIM.

That is such a huge thing in a relationship, to have that big of a betrayal and yet Anakin still knows that Obi-Wan would stop for him? Would pause for him, if he asked? That says volumes about the strength of who they were to each other and how much they loved each other, that even all of that, all of the murder of the Jedi children and the genocide of the Jedi and their culture and the destruction of every vow Anakin had ever taken and the horrible acts he inflicted on other people-- He knew Obi-Wan Kenobi still loved him, would still have helped him. That was how big the scope of their relationship was. That’s why this moment was so painful:

Because they loved each other. Because, even when it had been decades since all those terrible events, even when they hadn’t seen each other in years, Obi-Wan still loves him:

He cannot even say Anakin’s real name because it would undo him, he would choke on the word, that’s how much Anakin means to him. On the other side of this, even when Anakin kills him on the Death Star, Yoda feels Anakin’s loneliness explode even from HALF A GALAXY AWAY:

Anakin falls into a loneliness so deep that even the grandfather of all the Jedi babies he murdered almost feels pity for him, almost wishes he could speak to him, comfort him, even after all the horror that Anakin inflicted on their children. That’s the scope of these two characters, the depths of what they went through and what they meant to each other, that not even the most horrific acts could fully break their love for each other.

#obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #meta #sw ask meme #long post #I GIVE UP

862 notes · View notes