Somewhere on the Pacific there is a Fish

Fandom:

The Text:

Qui-Gon and Yoda: "Time it is for you to speak your heart," Yoda said softly. "Past time, it is." With a heavy sigh, Qui-Gon sat on the bench next to Yoda. He did not want to unburden his heart. Yet Yoda had a right to know the facts. "He stayed," Qui-Gon said simply. "He told me he had found something on Melida/Daan that was more important than his Jedi training."

The events he's referencing from Obi-Wan's perspective: 1): "Qui-Gon, you must understand," Obi-Wan said quietly. "I've found something here. All my life, I have been told what is right, what is best. The path has been pointed out to me. That was a great gift, and I'm grateful for all I've learned. But here on this world all those abstractions I've learned suddenly fit into something concrete. Something I can see. Something real." Obi-Wan gestured back toward the headquarters of the Young. "These people feel like my people. This cause feels like my cause. It calls to me like nothing I've ever felt before." 2): Obi-Wan realized he had already chosen. He couldn't turn his back on this suffering. He couldn't turn his back on his friends. Even if it cost him everything. He would give that, and more. "I'll be back," Obi-Wan promised, and took off. Obi-Wan ran without stopping. He had to get to the ship before Qui Gon. He did not want a confrontation. If Qui-Gon tried to stop him, what would he do? He pushed aside the thought. He would just have to get there first. Tahl would slow Qui-Gon down. 3): His steps slowed as Qui-Gon caught sight of him. Obi-Wan saw the relief on his Master's face. Qui-Gon thought he was coming to return with him to the Temple. The Jedi Knight stood by the entrance ramp, waiting. Obi-Wan didn't give Qui-Gon a chance to speak. He could not bear to hear words of welcome. "I'm not here to go with you," he said. "I came for the starfighter." 4): Obi-Wan grasped the rock of his conviction and felt his confusion drop away. Here on Melida/Daan he had met a reality that was stronger than anything he'd known. "I have found something here more important than the Jedi code," Obi-Wan said slowly. "Something not only worth fighting for, but worth dying for." Obi-Wan handed his lightsaber to Qui-Gon. "You may go, Qui-Gon Jinn. But I will stay." It was as though the words hit Qui-Gon in the face, for he flinched. He stared down at Obi-Wan's lightsaber in his hand, not speaking. A great struggle seem to go on within the Jedi Knight's powerful body. Obi-Wan had hurt him. He longed to take the words back. He could not. They had been said. He had meant them. 5): Obi-Wan stood next to Nield and Cerasi. It was a historic moment. He had helped to shape it. He had no regrets about leaving the Jedi. He was home.

The Fandom:

The Text:

What happened when Qui-Gon was called to meet with the council: Qui-Gon was in his quarters when he got the message that he was to report to the Jedi Council immediately. He was most likely being called to report on what had happened with Obi-Wan. He rose with a sigh. He had returned to the Temple for peace. Instead, he was forced to relive the situation over and over. Still, a request from the Council could not be ignored. Part of being a Jedi was recognizing that one's own wisdom had limits. The Council was made up of the wisest and best of the Jedi Masters. If they wanted to hear from Qui-Gon directly, he would tell them. Qui-Gon entered the Council room. It was the highest room in one of the Temple towers, taking up the entire top story. Outside the windows that ran from floor to ceiling, the spires and towers of Coruscant hovered below. The sun was just rising, brushing the clouds with orange fire. Qui-Gon stood in the center of the room, bowed respectfully, and waited. How would they begin? Would Mace Windu, whose dark eyes could burn through you like hot coals, demand his reason for leaving a thirteen-year-old boy in the middle of a war? Would Saesee Tiin murmur that Qui-Gon's actions had always come from an impulsive but giving heart? He had been called before the Council more than most Knights. He could guess at what each would say. Yoda began the meeting. "Call you here on a matter of grave importance we have. Secret it is. A series of thefts we have discovered." Qui-Gon was startled. He had not been prepared for this.

Anyone who has ever been in a parent or caretaker role agrees that leaving the child you're responsible for to their own devices in a place where they could get killed is a failure as a parent/caretaker. But in-universe and in-Jedi way of life, the point of the Master-Padawan structure is a training relationship. Obviously the Master must make sure their apprentice stays alive, but their prerogative is to teach them through example how to embody being a Jedi in the wider galaxy. And i think thats important for three points.

1) Saying "hell no you're not" and dragging obi-wan by the collar off the planet is what any reasonable parent would do. But not what a Jedi would do. A Jedi would not assert their own desires over someone's agency and moral convictions.

2)Heavily related to point 1, but Padawans are allowed to leave the order. Even if obi wan chose the seemingly worst possible situation to do it in, its his right and his Master can't take that away from him.

3) Padawans are a weird social category that seems to transcend adulthood vs childhood for the jedi. We see that in Mace's comment. A lot of fandom (including myself) seems to reckon with this by splitting the category into Junior (child) and senior (adult) padawan, but as far as i know that's not canon at all. Whatever standard of conduct Obi-Wan is held to at 13 is the same one he is held to at 25.

"How did you blow the deflection towers?" Qui-Gon asked Nield and Cerasi curiously. It was a question that had been bothering him since he'd heard the news. "You'd have to hit them from the air. But floaters couldn't do that job. You'd need …" Qui-Gon paused. He turned to face Obi-Wan. Slowly, Obi-Wan pushed his chair back. Qui-Gon heard it scrape against the stone floor. Then he stood. He did not fidget or look away. He met Qui-Gon's gaze. "So it was you," Qui-Gon said. "You took the starfighter. You took it knowing it was our only way off the planet. You took it knowing it was the only hope for Tahl." Obi-Wan nodded. Cerasi and Nield glanced from one Jedi to the other. Cerasi began to speak, but thought better of it. The tension between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan was private. "Please come with me, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon said curtly. He led the way to an adjacent tunnel where they could talk privately. He waited a few moments to compose himself. Bitterness had no place here. Yet he felt it surge within him. Obi-Wan had broken his trust. He did not know what to say. His emotions swamped him. Qui-Gon recalled his Temple training with an effort. He would admonish his Padawan according to Jedi rules. First, he would describe the offense. It was the duty of the Master to do so without judgment. Grateful for a guide, Qui-Gon took a deep breath. "You were instructed not to take sides." "Yes," Obi-Wan responded calmly. It was the duty of a Padawan to agree to his fault without argument. "You were instructed to be available to leave at any time," he said. "Yes," Obi-Wan replied. "You were instructed that Tahl's health was your first concern. Yet you endangered that health by taking our only form of transport on a dangerous mission." "Yes," Obi-Wan agreed. Qui-Gon swallowed painfully. "By doing all this, you not only put Tahl at risk, but the peace process on Melida/Daan as well." Obi-Wan hesitated for the first time. "I aided the peace process -" "That is your interpretation," Qui-Gon interrupted. "It was not your instruction. Your Master and Jedi Master Yoda had decided that Jedi intervention at this stage could only prejudice either the Melida or Daan, thereby sabotaging the peace process. You were told this. Is that true, Obi-Wan?" "Yes," Obi-Wan admitted. "It is true." Qui-Gon paused. He gathered himself to deliver the Jedi wisdom of the Master and Padawan relationship. How the rules had evolved over thousands of years. How the Padawan's pledge of obedience had nothing to do with power, but everything to do with the gaining of wisdom and the humility of service. How he was not here to punish Obi-Wan, or even to teach him, but to aid Obi-Wan's own journey and enlightenment until the day he grew to become a Jedi Knight.

As for reconciling modern sensibilities with Star Wars' treatment of children... I'm tempted to write a full essay bc it's a thing I'm passionate about, but i don't think my brain has the power for that rn so I'll limit myself to just the highlights:

"Childhood" as we conceive of it today is a very modern construct, and one that has a lot of limitations in its practice, application, and practicability

There's some genre stuff going on here that all star wars media struggles with to some extent; Star Wars was always intended to appeal to children as well as adults, and in children's media, children tend to be the characters going on adventures and engaging with the plot. Hence a large number of teenage protagonists in the expanded universe: Obi-Wan in Jedi Apprentice, Zak and Tash in Galaxy of Fear, Anakin and friends in Jedi Quest, Ahsoka in the Clone Wars, Ezra in Rebels, etc. etc. etc.

in order for children to frontline plot in media for young audiences, adults can either 1) enable shenanigans (Dumbledore, Gobber the Belch in HtTYD, etc) or 2) be incapable of preventing shenanigans, either by ignorance (the parents in Magic Treehouse, Secrets of Droon, etc) or powerlessness (Sally Jackson, Leif's parents in Deltora Quest, etc). They cannot protect, at least not completely. I think it would be really interesting to try to write a children's adventure/saving the world series a la star wars or deltora quest or whatnot in which the adults successfully protect the children from the plot; the part of me that says nothing is totally impossible says it must be doable somehow, but I can't personally come up with anything, at least in the last 8 or so years that I've been considering such a project and revisiting it whenever I have the time to try to come up with something

I recall reading something somewhere (great at citing my sources, i know, but if I find a link I'll throw it in here) about a conversation between Lucas and Filoni where Filoni was like "Ahsoka is a child soldier! She's going to be traumatized!" and Lucas was like "Ahsoka is a padawan. She's been prepared for this, and has the skills and abilities to do what she needs to do." And I think that's a bit of tension that lives everywhere in star wars, all the time, forever

I think it's really important not to forget that padme is 14 in phantom menace. "children" have had adult roles in canon since the prequels came out and reducing their agency is not a reading that is supported by canon

I'll make a separate section here for my personal conclusions, since no one has to agree with me on them, but my personal interpretation:

People exist on a sliding scale of capability, culpability, and agency. Everyone reaches different milestones in those things at different times in their life, aided or hindered in those developmental steps by their environment and personal temperament and whole lot else.

I think it only makes sense that the Jedi Temple would be a place that emphasizes cultivating agency and capability from a young age, so that when young Jedi become apprentices (which, in JA, happens at a pretty normal age for historical apprenticeship in most fields, actually) they would be prepared to act in the roles expected of a Jedi regardless of age. Just as a printer's apprentice would have tasks he'd need to do for the rest of his life as a printer-- sweeping, cleaning, maintaining the press, inking, typesetting, etc-- Jedi apprentices are expected to complete tasks that they'll need to be able to do for the rest of their lives as Jedi: negotiation, investigation, protection of the innocent, and, importantly, moral decision-making with an expectation of having considered the possible consequences of those decisions and chosen to accept those outcomes.

With that in mind, and the understanding that children do their best to perform to the level that they are expected to meet, regardless of actual capability, I think it makes a lot of sense that Obi-Wan, over the course of the Jedi Apprentice series and especially during the Melida/Daan arc, goes through experiences in which he has to make decisions about his own moral beliefs and then enact those moral boundaries, and has to learn what is in his control and what is not, and has to deal with the fact that while he made a choice for the right reasons and was able to do a good amount on his own, there are still consequences, both unintended ones and ones that he thought he had accepted but is now actually having to deal with. There is still broken trust that "sorry" is not going to be enough to fix, even though that very real sorrow goes to the very depths of his soul.

"Motherf… Tongue!"

Like what do you mean every single year the Harkers, the suitor squad and Van Helsing are forced to relive the worst year of their life

Sure they win in the end but over and over they are forced to loose the people they love, be striped of their personhood and fight what must have seemed like an impossible battle.

And nobody is even aware of this time loop except us and we just feed into this narrative. “Oh my friend Jonathan has just sent me another letter let’s hope this goes better than last year ;)”

And from a literary analysis standpoint this whole change is inane because it frames the book in an entirely new light. There is a meta layer of horror being applied to the book that was never possible before.

Partners.

I have the best friends lol. Look at this lovely cross stitch piece a friend made me!