Youngprofesser

@jedijune Week 1 : A Choice Not Taken

Ahsoka doesn't have parents. Stop shoving Jedi into nuclear family roles. I'm so tired of it.

Jedi are raised in a community. You have a Master that guides you in the ways of the force until you're attuned enough to let it guide you on your own, and you won't need a teacher anymore. Then you let them go. This doesn't mean that you stop caring about your Master but you have thousands of Masters and you have thousands of brothers and sisters and Padawans too.

Sound familiar?

From that perspective, it's no wonder that Obi-Wan and Yoda couldn't sense the good in him. There wasn't any, by any Jedi definition. Only in the definition of "any capacity to love=good". Padme knew this much, because she knew even fallen Anakin loved her and would have done anything for her. Luke knew, because he could (truthfully) sense that Anakin Skywalker would do anything for him as long as he knew that Luke was his son.

where's the "do i really love them romantically? or did i just convince myself i do?

where's the "am i still really aromantic? what if it was just a phase? what if i'm normal, actually?"

where's the "what even is romantic love. what even is the difference being romantic love and platonic love. nothing is inherently romantic, it all depends on intent. but that can't be the only difference, can it? then people could just chose to be in love. but that's not how it works, is it?? "

where's the not being aro enough for aro spaces but being too aro for allo spaces

where's the "i keep falling for my friends and it keeps costing me friendships. help!"

where's the "what even is dating. how does that even work"

where's the not getting crushes. it's either completely fully in love or nothing

where's the being perfectly happy without a romantic partner, but also happy if you happen to have one

where's the needing unusually long to get over a relationship and detangle yourself

where's the "love at first sight is fake, it doesn't work like that"

where's the "i don't know you well enough yet to be romantically interested in you. i don't even know you well enough to know if i could be romantically interested in you"

where's the usual aro stuff. having difficulty with romantic relationships or situations without knowing why. not being able to relate when others talk about their crushes and relationships. advice always being either "talk about it" or "break up" if asked. feeling like there's something wrong with you bc you don't work like everyone else

demiromantic people are still aromantic. you can't use that as a cop out to write aro characters as if they're allo

and i know, there's all those complicated emotions because it's anakin and obi-wan but... those emotions are *not* complicated enough for obi-wan to decide that leaving him to burn slowly to death was the best choice

there's a lot of controversy about the "a jedi does not pull their weapon unless prepared to kill" line and, honestly, it feels like a really terrible way of making the point that obi-wan's "i will do what i must" line did. but, to be clearer, i'd like to frame it in the context of obi-wan and anakin's discussion about lightsaber-flails in the comics (2020):

We want our opponents to know that we use a weapon that requires intention. Training, precision, and choice. The lightsaber symbolises the care with which we approach our gifts through the Force and the care with which we wild them. It reminds others that while we could do more... we very purposefully do not. We choose a weapon with limitations – with difficulties. You cannot use a lightsaber to destroy a city or a planet. Every death or injury it inflicts must be precisely chosen. The lightsaber tells the galaxy that the Jedi are not destroyers. We are protectors.

that feels like a much better way of putting it.

a jedi always draws their lightsaber with intention. with full knowledge of what both the wielder and the weapon are capable of.

obi-wan did not go into the duel on mustafar intending to let anakin live. he knew, from the moment he drew his lightsaber – honestly, probably from the moment he saw the footage from the temple – that only one of them was going to leave that planet alive.

i'm not saying it would have been easy for him. i think drawing his lightsaber at all was probably one of the most difficult decisions he ever made.

but i still don't think he's capable of looking at a being, no matter how evil, and leaving it to suffer.

especially because it is anakin.

anakin screams that he hates obi-wan and he sounds like a petulant child. i can imagine him screaming that and then stomping off, unsuccessfully attempting to slam an electrical sliding door.

you cannot tell me obi-wan didn't hear that.

to me, i see him taking one of two routes, and neither of them are canon:

the first – and more likely imo, in the context of obi-wan's emotional state (the destruction of the order, the loss of the clones, the footage he has just seen of anakin murdering children, the fact he just saw anakin choke his own wife out) – is a mercy kill. obi-wan has won the fight. anakin is weaponless, limbless, and alone. as far as obi-wan knows, the two options for anakin now are that he burns to death – a slow, agonising death – or that obi-wan puts him out of his misery – a swift, relatively painless end.

obi-wan still loves anakin, despite everything, and that is part of what makes the idea of obi-wan killing him so difficult. but it is also exactly what makes it impossible for him to walk away while he burns. he loves him enough to kill him – to spare him pain.

the second, less likely, option is that he tries to save him.

i don't think obi-wan is at a point in rots where he would do this. by the end of the duel on mustafar, he has lost literally everything, including the hope and faith it would take to believe anakin could be saved – either from wounds that severe or from Falling.

and yet, it is still, somehow, more believable to me than him turning around and walking away.

idk i just... it irks me. they are duelling in increasingly precarious conditions on a literal lava planet. there are *so many* other ways that anakin could've obtained the injuries required for Darth Vader in the original trilogy and obi-wan still would've blamed himself regardless so we'd still get the angst potential.

If your enemies told you "Don't worry guys there's totally only two of us... you don't need to look for any more... ignore what's happening in the shadowy corner over there..." it feels like you should be a little suspicious.

Like, the Rule of Two has reasoning as to why it's there (basically just not sharing power) but there's also a lot of reasoning for people to lie to their enemies about their numbers. Enemies are not people you are generally encouraged to just take at their word.

It's just the valor of surviving Order 66, somehow, impossibly getting away, and yet still coming back into her gutted home-turned-tomb to do this excruciating, ultimate act of sacrifice. Destroying this last physical manifestation of her people's culture, identity, and her own life's work. It's such a Jedi moment: letting something deeply important go, not out of apathy or coldness, but to protect others.