the-far-bright-center:

tragicfantasy-girl:

swprequels:

Clouded this boy’s future is.
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) dir. George Lucas

This scene. There’s nothing wrong with it in itself, there really isn’t but
what wil never stop geting on my nerves is the Kenobi stans reaction to it.

Dozens and dozens of comments grumbling about “poor” Obi Wan being treated so
badly, so hard done by because his “daddy” is throwing him over. That’s not
even going into the comments going on about how much they hate Qui Gon.

I mean what is wrong with these people. Seriously. Anakin is a CHILD. He’s a
helpless 9-year-old who has just left his mother. He has no money, no way of
getting home, he’s probably never left home before, and he’s now been carried
halfway across the Galaxy to be interrogated by a bunch of strange adults.

Any genuinely decent human would realize – SHOULD realize that the welfare
of a vulnerable 9-year-old takes priority over the hurt feels of a 25 year
old adult, which is what Obi Wan is.

But nope, all fandom tries to do is twist it to make out Obi Wan is the
victim. He’s the poor “very young” person who needs his “father figure”. Ummm,
yeah- even younger person right there ACTUAL CHILD! Who doesn’t have a father
and never has- and has now been separated from the only parent he ever knew?

This child who we saw crying in Padme’s ship a couple of scenes before and
who repeatedly says he’s cold. A child who is not getting his basic physical
needs met.

Also, Qui Gon was by no means “throwing Obi Wan over” here. He said he was
ready for the trials: that was a complement. Obi Wan agreed with it-
voluntarily saying he was ready as well.

Of course, the other distortion Obi Wan stans will resort to is saying wicked
old Qui Gon didn’t have Anakin’s interests at heart at all. Yeah, their
evidence being? What? Exactly? When Qui Gon was consistently shown being kind
to the child and comforting him.

“Oh well ObI Wan knew it was a bad idea for him to be a Jedi, ObI Wan really
had Anakin’s best interests at heart all along!” There is even less evidence in
the movie for this.

In fact, we see the total opposite in the movie. Obi Wan is consistently
shown to be dismissive, and outright mean to Anakin. He does not even afford
him the dignity of calling the kid by name. He just calls him “the boy”.

Incidentally, there was another character who referred to Anakin as “the
boy”. Watto. His literal owner. Could it be pure co-oncidence that ObI Wan
refers to Anakin the same way as Watto?

Seriously. They always say George Lucas isn’t good at subtlety, but it
doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out which character the audience are
supposed to sympathize with in The Phantom Menace- and who is cast as being
factually correct. One is the little boy called Anakin and the other is the man
who said he was The Chosen One and Maul was a Sith.

But nope. Fandom has this incessant need to twist everything to make out Obi
Wan to be the victim, the wronged party. The wise and compassionate one who was
always right.
Even if it involves imposing their own divergent interpretations which have no
basis in the evidence of what we see on screen onto the movies.

Tumblr fandom these days seems to think Obi-Wan Kenobi is the main character of Star Wars and it’s absolutely hilarious (by hilarious I mean embarrassing). This is the Skywalker saga, not the Kenobi saga, in case anyone hadn’t noticed.

I often feel that so many so-called Star Wars fans don’t truly like or care about the real story—which is Anakin’s story, no matter how much they might wish it to be otherwise—so they just pretend the story is ‘ackshually’ about something entirely different. And while Obi-Wan is certainly *one of* the main characters and protagonists in the Prequel films, his role is that of the ‘by the book’ Jedi of the Old Order, and of course, eventually, that of the failed mentor to Anakin. Bearing that in mind, it’s clear that this scene is intended to be sympathetic towards Qui-Gon and little Ani as they face the cold judgement of the Council. Yes, Obi-Wan is somewhat taken aback and hurt by the sudden turn of events, and also because he aligns with the Council in agreeing that Anakin shouldn’t be trained. But Obi-Wan’s temporarily bruised feelings (which he swiftly works through anyway) are not the actual Point™ of this scene. Rather, it is to show us something crucially important about Qui-Gon’s character—namely, the fact that he’s willing to stand up to the Council and advocate on Anakin’s behalf. (In case people have forgotten, this is something Obi-Wan is unable to do later on in the story.) The entire purpose of Qui-Gon’s character being included in the story in the first place is to be shown as the ideal teacher, mentor and father figure of Anakin Skywalker. (And by contrast, to show why Obi-Wan was not suited to that role; a fact that was already established by the Original Trilogy!)

It’s not something we necessarily realise right away at the beginning of the film, but as the course of events progress we see that Qui-Gon is the only Jedi in the Order who had the capability to train Anakin the way he ought to have been trained. The only Jedi who could have given him the emotional support and guidance in the warm, loving parental way he so desperately needed. The fact there are comments saying that this moment is somehow when the fate of the galaxy was decided, as if Anakin’s fall were all Qui-Gon’s fault simply because Qui-Gon cared about him —um, talk about completely missing the point and misinterpreting a scene solely to confirm one’s own bias! That is absolutely NOT the significance of this scene whatsoever. In this moment, Anakin’s fate is still uncertain. There was still a chance here for his story to turn out differently. It’s the Council’s fear of the unknown (not just of the Dark Side, but also of the fact that Ani was ‘too old’ and thus could not be fully controlled by them, etc.) that is clouding their own view of this innocent child. But the implication here is that as long as Qui-Gon is still around, little Ani will be ok. Qui-Gon’s intervention is meant to be seen as standing up for Ani and coming to his rescue (just as Anakin had come to his rescue on Tatooine), it’s not supposed to be seen as some horrible ‘galaxing dooming’ decision on Qui-Gon’s part. If there is any doom hanging over them all it is due to the fact that the Sith have returned (and if you recall, Maul nearly got to Anakin on Tatooine, only Qui-Gon prevented it!) but the Council has not fully accepted this fact yet, while Qui-Gon has.

Qui-Gon is Anakin’s only hope and chance of escaping his narrative-ordained fate at this stage in the story. But that’s not because Anakin is somehow a ‘bad seed’ who shouldn’t be helped. The entire movie up to that point has taken great pains to show just what a loving, caring, and helpful person little Ani is! (You know, the child had been living in slavery until only a few days prior, and who had just risked his life in a dangerous pod-race to help Qui-Gon and co. get back to Coruscant.??? Yeah, him.) The Tatooine scenes had also already established the warm, compassionate surrogate father-son dynamic between Qui-Gon and Anakin to show that Anakin’s future could have been completely different if Qui-Gon had been around. That is the whole point of ‘Duel of the Fates’ and why it is titled as such in the first place—it’s Qui-Gon’s death that is the turning point, because that is when Anakin’s ideal mentor and father figure is slain and thus allows for Sidious to seize his chance and take up that role instead.

I have nothing to contribute here, I just want to state how impressed I am that I’ve seen this argument rage for OVER TWENTY YEARS now. That sounds sarcastic but I geniunely mean it. A+ fandoming to all.