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Okay it's a funny skit but I'm gonna be serious about this for a moment because I think it's interesting - the thing about this is it does actually make sense if you go back to the source material.

A lot of stuff that's considered canon in star wars is actually kind of ascended fanon. Like, if you really dig into it, it's remarkable how much of the lightsaber-juggling, movie-retreading atmosphere of pop culture/the expanded universe Lucas incorporated into the prequel trilogy, likely without realising.

Example: Strictly according to the original trilogy, does Master Yoda possess a lightsaber? I would say no. It is significant that in a film, where every shot is deliberately planned, we never see a lightsaber in relation to Yoda, and the one time he acknowledges Luke's it is dismissively; "Your weapons, you will not need them." By implication, Yoda is a Buddha to Obi-Wan's warrior monk. Yoda is a teacher and a mystic, but he is not a warrior.

Force lightning is another of these things. You go back to the original trilogy, and there's a sense that the Force and what you can do with it is very personalised. Nobody but Palpatine throws lightning, not even his apprentice, and in turn nobody but Vader chokes people to death. Luke does learn the mind trick introduced by Obi-Wan, but that's part and parcel with Luke's growth into a compassionate warrior-philosopher who tries to solve conflicts nonviolently. Force Choke is not 'a dark side force power', it is Vader's power, a manifestation of his crushing authority and smothering presence.

Likewise, Force Lightning is not 'a dark side power', and it is not generic lightning. It is the Emperor's power, characteristic of his cruelty, his sadistic delight in corrupting and hurting other people. We can see this in how it is used. Force Lightning does not split steel or blast people off their feet or blow things up, like a real bolt of lightning - it transfixes Luke in agony, sends him reeling to the floor with torturous pain until he screams for his father's help.

Force Lightning is not a power of clean, straightforward energy blasts. It's a torture power. It's the power of wielding your hate and cruelty against someone with the deliberate goal of setting fire to their nerves and killing them slowly and painfully. Shit yeah it's evil as all get out, way more than the power to convince guards to look the other way rather than have to fight them.

NOTHING WILL EVER BE FUNNIER THAN ANAKIN SKYWALKER DEAD SERIOUS SAYING THE WORDS “I’M NOT MOODY.”

"I am not moody," he said, moodily.

Boy, you are in the DICTIONARY next to the DEFINITION of "moody!" Who you trying to fool?

Recurring Theme: The Skywalkers Need a Babysitter

Read More: Star Wars (2015) #12: Storage Wars – SNARK WARS

I get that Yoda (understandably) figured that he couldn’t send Obes to go kick Sidious’ ass alone, and that’s why he sent him after Anakin but also? I dunno, little green grandpa, I know you don’t want ANOTHER grandkid summoning the Dark Side and all right now but I sort of feel like if you just tell Obi-Wan he can go slice the dude who corrupted his boyfriend into tiny ribbons he might be able to get that done for you. Or at the VERY least he could have lopped him in half and left him to go crazy on robot spider legs.

Also I’d frankly LOVE to watch Anakin’s dramatic drunk girl bullshit play out in front of YODA. 😂 Anakin may have been destroyed or instantly converted back to the Light Side from Withering Disdain and Grandfatherly Disappointment alone.

Yoda might've just bonked him over the head with his gimer stick until he gave up, you know?

I'm sure a million people have written probably-much-more-serious versions of this concept since like, Star Wars began, but my WORD I am entertained by the idea of an AU where Obi-Wan's the one who joins Sidious, and Anakin becomes the Desert Hermit. Like, sure Luke is his kid and everything but it's Too Dangerous for him to stay with Anakin, so Owen and Beru take Luke in in this version of the universe anyways. Or, better: maybe this is a Padme Lives AU and Padme, Anakin and the twins all end up stuck on Tatooine, Anakin's least-favorite place in the entire galaxy. 😄

I just...like, what if other than the whole Fell To the Dark Side thing, everything else about Obi-Wan and Anakin is exactly the same, personality-wise? I mean OK, it's funny if Obi-Wan's just like Vader in that he becomes maniacally obsessed with finding and killing Anakin. But it's far funnier to me if even Sith Obi-Wan doesn't quite have Anakin's possessive hangups to begin with, so those qualities don't get amplified when he's a Sith like Vader's did. But Anakin still has those traits, so he's like, actually very offended that Darth Kenobi hasn't dedicated his whole life to tracking Anakin down and killing him.

Bail calls Padme for a routine Top Secret Holocall, and Anakin's just butting in constantly like "So...has Darth Kenobi been mentioning me? Bringing me up for no reason all the time? Looking for me? Hiring bounty hunters to track me down? Did he mention any flashbacks or Force visions or nightmares about me?" Bail replies that "uh, no, he seems far more focused on helping the Emperor find and destroy Rebel cells? And he wants to destroy any remaining Jedi but he hasn't, like, specifically called you out or anything. Why?" and Anakin is just. Incensed. He totally spirals. If HE had gone Darksider you bet your ASS he'd be obsessed with finding Obi-Wan! What the fuck?? Is Anakin NOT the most important person in Obi-Wan's life, even now??? Was he never important to him at all??????????

This is just KILLING me. Anakin's gonna show up on the Death Star with Han Solo and the kids years later, and just sourly be like "well well well, if it isn't Mr. Too Busy With His Precious Empire To Spend His Every Waking Moment Thinking About Murdering Me. I WOULD NEVER HAVE TREATED YOU LIKE THIS, YOU KNOW."

GOD the expectations vs reality for Ahsoka must have been HILARIOUS those first few weeks/months.

“Oh my stars! Master Yoda has assigned ME to ANAKIN SKYWALKER!!! That’s intimidating but also very exciting and such an honor!!” followed shortly thereafter by Hour 607 of Anakin proposing some insane life-threatening plan while continuing to bitch-flirt/be-old-marrieds with Obi-Wan over their comms as Rex gets yeeted off a balcony and Cody chases after everyone in the background with a fire extinguisher (while also being, himself, on fire).

Hello there, and welcome to the inaugural edition of “How Married Are They?”, a post I am being peer-pressured into writing by a person whose identity I will not divulge. 

In this series, we’ll review some pictures of Obi-Wan and Anakin, and then determine How Married they are. All right, let’s get to it: 

Source: Attack of the Clones. Marriedness Level: 12/10 for Extreme Fondness and Good-Natured Teasing 

Source: The Clone Wars.  Marriedness Level: 20/10 for Caretaking, Concern and Excessive Hand-Holding 

Source: Revenge of the Sith.  Marriedness Level: 1/10 for Attempted Murder But Yet Sexual Tension Somehow 

Source: Attack of the Clones.  Marriedness Level: 50/10 for Being So Busy Staring Into Each Other’s Eyes That They Literally Forgot About Their Actual Mission For a Minute and Padme Was Nearly Murdered By a Space Centipede as a Result 

Source: Revenge of the Sith.  Marriedness Level: 400/10 for Revisiting an Old Argument and Being Absolutely About To Make Out Right There In General Grievous’ Damn Elevator

Source: Revenge of the Sith.  Marriedness Level: 1200/10 for Looking Like They Are Literally Saying Their Wedding Vows. 

Please note that the scene above coincides approximately with this bit in the novelization of this film: 

…you may kiss the groom! 

And I’m afraid that’s all we have time for today! Thank you for joining me for this edition of How Married Are They? See you next time!

All this.

The thing about Star Wars is that it's all about cycles. Geoge Lucas highlighted it when he said "it's like poetry, it rhymes". It exists on a micro and macro scale and it often gets Star Wars accused of lazy fan service (and yes, there is some of that to be sure) but when Star Wars gets it right it really gets it right.

You see it so clearly with Anakin and Obi-Wan.

They're represented by the Open Circle, a loop with two ends constantly reaching for each other. Two halves of a single warrior, as the ROTS novelization made famous.

That moment in the fight, when they used their connected hands to push and pull, it wasn't just a fight tactic, it was a metaphorical representation of Anakin trying to pull away and Obi-Wan still trying to reach out, one last time. It's their bond in the Force, which has highly implied by the series to be a dyad.

Circles are representative of unity and the whole. They were known as The Team, a dynamic fighting force. They move as one, a call and an answer. Where you find Kenobi, Skywalker is not far behind. They were shown to experience the same pain, showing implied dyad levels of oneness in the Force. Not only are they constantly reaching, but they also form a closed unit, a circuit through which they feel one another from across the galaxy. They are an orbit around each other, a binary system of two stars like those in Tatooine's sky.

But there is also discord. They do not talk to each other, not on an intimate level. The few times Obi-Wan reaches out to Anakin, Anakin rejects the emotional support. Their circle, no matter how close, has a broken circuit. It is why Obi-Wan, ultimately, is not the one who saves Darth Vader, it is Luke. Anakin cannot accept the love and support of someone who knew him from before.

Finally, circles are also a metaphor for give and take. Obi-Wan trained Anakin, teaching him everything he knew but in turn, he learns from his training of Anakin. Anyone who has been a teacher or an instructor knows, that you learn just as much from your students as you did from your own education.

But it is a broken circle, an open one, because Anakin does not listen, does not internalize Obi-Wan's lessons.

Which makes Anakin's absolving Obi-Wan's guilt at the end so poignant. It's more emotional awareness than we've seen from him in the series. And what is so crucial about this moment is that Obi-Wan responds in kind, though not right away. Obi-Wan leaves that fight, leaves their bond, and accepts that Anakin is dead and he did not kill his friend. He is free of the cycle, slipping through the open circle they represent.

But when Anakin truly does die, in RotJ, Obi-Wan absolves Anakin of his guilt and reunites with him in the Force. And the circle, their circle, which has been broken for so long, two halves constantly reaching... becomes whole.

This. Is. Everything.

I keep thinking about how so many of the stories we see between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope do all this work to show Vader as this walking nightmare, the terror of the galaxy, like the hallway scene of Rogue One or the shit your pants nightmare of Jedi: Fallen Order or how unstoppable and extra he is in the Dark Lord of the Sith comics, and now we see more of that Vader here, too, that he drags Obi-Wan through the fire, he rips starships out of the sky, he wipes the floor with Reva, he gets into a knock-down drag-out fight with Obi-Wan. And contrasting it with the Vader of the originals, where sure a lot of it is the out of universe explanation of them being movies made in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but there’s something so much more subdued about him there.  He still has drive and focus, he becomes obsessed with Luke, he’s still terrifying, but it feels lesser. Like a fire has gone out of him. There’s a tiredness to him that feels finally ready to give up the fight. I don’t think Vader could ever have come back for any of those that knew him, not Padme, not Obi-Wan, not Ahsoka.  But I also wonder if it was impossible for him to come back while they were still there for him, while they still knew him, while his love for them still twisted in on itself, turning it into a blade that stabbed inside him over and over.  While he fueled himself on rejecting their love for him, their willingness to accept him back. Padme is long dead.  Ahsoka is beyond him.  And then Obi-Wan dies in front of him, the last of the pillars of Anakin Skywalker’s life, the last person he loved so fiercely that he couldn’t bear their existence because they meant too much to him. When Obi-Wan dies, when Vader kills him, when Obi-Wan lets Vader kill him and leaves him behind, a fire goes out of Vader.

And also, ALL OF THIS.

Screaming crying throwing up that both Obi-Wan and Ahsoka sliced Vader’s helmet in half to reveal the face of Anakin Skywalker because they are the only ones left alive who can truly cut through the metaphorical shell of Darth Vader and expose the raw core of who he is inside.  Of course it’s those two, they cut Anakin Skywalker open to the bone, and we see that play out through the literal breaking of his mask as only they can, the ones who still love him.  I’m gonna fling myself into the sun.

Names between these two are fascinating, because whenever Vader is talking to him, he calls him “Obi-Wan”, whenever he’s talking to Luke in the OT, he calls him “Obi-Wan”, but when he’s with the Inquisitors or officers, he calls him “Kenobi”. At the same time, Obi-Wan knows his Sith name but cannot call him “Vader”, he can only call him Anakin, the only time he doesn’t do so is around other people, when they’re trying to get the Force-sensitives off Jabiim, he says “Vader”, but it’s not that he has come to accept that Anakin is only Vader, because he still calls him “Anakin” on the nameless rocky planet. The names between them have power and vulnerability and are a tether to each other.  “It’s about you and him.”  “Perhaps your feelings for your old Master have left you weakened.”  They call each other by their names because that bond between them is still there, no matter how twisted and painful and ugly it has become, they are still weak to each other. The way Obi-Wan says “Darth” in the final moments, when he has let Anakin go, he has freed himself from the pain they inflict on each other.  He would accept Anakin back, if he truly came back, but Obi-Wan has truly let him go. Yet Vader cannot do the same.  “Obi-Wan!!” he screams as Obi-Wan walks away from him, he cannot let go.  Sidious tries to force him to do so, threatening his place if he continues this obsession, and Vader reverts back to calling him “Kenobi”, hiding his weakness, hiding his vulnerability, but we know it’s still there.  We know that he will still call him “Obi-Wan” all throughout the original trilogy. Because Vader cannot let go of Obi-Wan, just as he cannot fully kill Anakin Skywalker within himself.  He’ll try desperately hard to, he’ll maybe even convince himself that he has, but that connection, that ember remains inside him.  Their connection and the way it’s expressed through names tells us everything about what’s between these two.

The boys hurling rocks at each other was the best.

HOW COULD ANYONE EVER MOVE ON FROM THIS PAIRING?? People who jump fandoms make absolutely no sense to me and I will never understand it.

What, you're gonna find two characters MORE obsessed with each other?? More tragic?? Funnier??? HOTTER???????? WHO??? HOW???? WHERE. THEY SET EACH OTHER ON FIRE AND THEN LATER LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER TOGETHER FOR ALL ETERNITY. They both looked like that at one point.

Who's going from that to like...what? Some characters from Marvel? A sitcom? God forbid, the CW? Please. Don't insult me. I'm driving the Ferrari of fictional pairings here, I'm not downgrading to a rusty bike with two flat tires, thanks.

like ok yes i know they’re technically fighting when they’re sparring, all bashing the glowy sticks together, but if you look past that to what their bodies are doing, the way they’re trained to move so smoothly around each other, reacting intuitively, like leading and following. it’s a dance they’re doing, if you just watch the feet, the hips, their heavy breathing and extreme focus while moving perfectly in time with each other, anticipating and matching. just the concept of these two being like “ok at noon we meet up alone in a beautiful chamber and dance around each other and make each other sweat, yes, this is a normal and non sensual and non charged activity without any connotation of intimacy as we attempt to bash each other into the floor” and we’re all supposed to be normal about it

Katas are the Jedi version of tangos and waltzes.

Hayden Christensen in The Chosen One Featurette

Look at that framing! It's like they're positioning him as a saint!