Note: This article is full of Obi-Wan Kenobi spoilers, especially “Part V”. Keep reading at your own risk.
There was a time during the early episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi that it really seemed like the show might be ready to address some deep and painful aspects of the Jedi mentor character. We know that Obi-Wan spent about 19 years spending time in Tatooine, ostensibly watching over a young Luke, planning the day when Anakin Skywalker’s children might be ready to face the emperor who corrupted the his father. In the course of time, however, it makes sense for Obi-Wan to have a few things to solve, thanks to the fact that his failure as a Jedi and teacher allowed fascist monsters to take power in the galaxy. The show started with a very interesting twist, but: Obi-Wan didn’t know that Anakin was still alive.
The idea that Obi-Wan thought he had killed his best friend in Revenge of the Sith, only to discover that, no, Anakin not only lived, but had become a twisted authoritarian monster, is fantastic to develop. if. Obi-Wan as a person. When we meet him in the original Star Wars trilogy, his attitude has adjusted to a harassed acceptance. But Obi-Wan Kenobi had a chance to explore his journey to this point, the feelings he struggled with along the way and his real mental state when he confronted his friend last time in A New Hope. There’s a lot to read about Obi-Wan’s decision to sacrifice himself to Darth Vader’s lightsaber aboard the Death Star, and Obi-Wan Kenobi could have helped explore those nuances.
The same goes for the most recent revelation in history with Reva, the brutal imperial inquisitor who persecutes Obi-Wan throughout the program. In “Part V” we learn that the Reva’s ambitious ascent through the ranks of the Inquisitors is actually a means to an end: she wants to approach Vader to kill him. Reva was one of the young Padawans of the Jedi Academy when Anakin assaulted her in Revenge of the Sith. He watched as the Jedi’s greatest war hero killed his friends. She is full of rage and seeks revenge and capturing Obi-Wan is the ladder she wants to use to get to Vader and take revenge.
Instead of telling Obi-Wan that Darth Vader survived his duel with Mustafar, the show may have withheld this information from its protagonist, making its impact much greater later.
Both twists, however, seem to have left a lot on the table as to which characters to serve. Obi-Wan only found out about Vader in the second episode, and has done almost nothing with this information, in large part because he has spent most of the rest of the show chasing Leia one way or another. Reva, on the other hand, revealed his true story in Part V, instantly recontextualizing all his actions throughout the series. But instead of giving us another angle on what Reva has tried to achieve, the revelation makes some of her past actions seem pointless and her decision to release Obi-Wan in the fifth episode really has no follow-up. .
These two twists are great ideas for both Obi-Wan and Reva, but the way they unfolded seems to undermine what could have been a powerful development of the character. In fact, its timing and location should have been reversed: we should have learned about Reva’s story earlier in the series, while Obi-Wan should have learned about Darth Vader’s survival. much later.
Instead of revealing to Obi-Wan soon that Anakin is alive, the show could have left Obi-Wan operating without knowing Vader’s existence, while the audience knows he is hiding in the shadows. and even sees him leading the Inquisitors hunting down the Jedi. That would have been a powerful dramatic irony, giving the show time to deal with Obi-Wan’s feelings about what happened in The Revenge of the Sith and culminating in Vader facing Obi-Wan in a moment. devastating. After struggling with his sadness, we suddenly have a horrified Obi-Wan facing his friend and his failure at the same time. He would even recall a similar rhythm from the original trilogy, when Vader reveals that he is Luke’s father in The Empire Strikes Back. This twist had a big impact on the public in 1980, and here, Obi-Wan Kenobi could have used a similar idea in reverse, forcing us to see Obi-Wan deal with the total impact for a moment. that we all know is approaching. .
Instead, Vader has appeared as a slasher movie villain, walking murderously through scenes while the other characters manage to escape constantly, albeit barely. And we’ve seen very little of the emotional weight his friend has on Obi-Wan, which is supposed to be the goal of this show in the first place.
Letting the audience know that Darth Vader is waiting between the wings, while keeping this information from Obi-Wan, could have made the show focus on how the character is dealing with the aftermath of The Revenge of the Sith.
While Obi-Wan Kenobi should have curbed Vader of Obi-Wan’s existence, the revelation of Reva’s past is something the show should have disclosed to the public soon. The Inquisitor’s journey to end Obi-Wan by any means necessary acquires a powerful emotional resonance when you know it is part of his lifelong revenge journey against Vader himself. It also offers the public the opportunity to see all their actions through two lenses. Reva’s personal anguish and desire for revenge have pushed her into a position of great power. The program could have added a lot to his character by showing how much his quest for revenge has cost him, as well as what he has gained from it, and how this could make it difficult for him to personally track down Vader’s murder. Do you still want to kill your evil head when serving him has earned you incredible power and authority? How do desires for revenge and power compete, and does Reva find her actions divided between serving them? These are questions from fascinating and nuanced characters that the show could have addressed, but by retaining Reva’s background story to give it a spin, the opportunity is missed.
Also, giving viewers more information about Reva could have featured something that Star Wars needs a lot: a more nuanced look at the dark side of strength. In Reva, we have a unique character in the live action annals of the history of Star Wars (and for the sake of this discussion, we will stick with movies and TV shows, as they are the content of Star Wars that most people are aware of). He is a character who has been turned to the dark side specifically as a means of revenge and killing one of the worst people in the galaxy. She is, in a very real way, a person who uses the dark side to try to do something good, and the show could have used that fact to report how Reva acts in the world and how she sees herself. It is an opportunity to delve into the ideas that were at the heart of the prequel trilogy and the character of Anakin Skywalker in general: Anakin was a man who thought that authoritarianism could be used to keep people safe, and his fall on the dark side was tried to use. the ends to justify the means.
For Reva, the goals of killing Vader justify the means to hurt anyone you have to do along the way; his revenge is total. Providing us with information about your background history allows you to present the ways in which you justify your pursuit of your goal, show how it corrupts your anger, and present possible conflicts in the way you pursue your goals. Instead, Reva has been shown primarily as a super-evil Dark Side user throughout the show, and is now a super-evil Dark Side user with a tragic history.
And if Obi-Wan and Reva’s twists and turns had been handled differently, we could have taken more advantage of Darth Vader’s character. One of the most interesting ideas from episode 5 is that when Reva plays Vader, he is ready for her. In fact, he says, he always knew that he and Reva had a past. I think this episode is a bit tricky in its presentation, but my reading of the episode is that the flashback of the duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin is intended to inform the fact that Vader was ready for Reva because of what he learned of Obi-Wan. : to avoid being decided in victory to see other possibilities and threats. The idea is that Vader has become much more cunning and terrifying than he was like Anakin; he is much more the intriguing villain and takes long visions of the original trilogy, unlike the monster of the rage of the Force we see at the end of Return of the Sith.
Letting the audience be in Reva’s plan to kill Vader might have given us a deeper look at both Reva and Vader when he revealed that he was with her all the time.
But Reva’s twist also undermined this element of Vader. If we had been watching Reva navigate the interactions with the Dark Lord of the Sith throughout the show, knowing that she was negotiating an opportunity for her revenge, Vader’s revelation that he was with her all the time would have been much more powerful. . It could be used as a means to present the fact that Vader used Reva as much as she used him. And it would give an angle on Vader that we haven’t seen much in live action material: a man who, having lost everything, has settled into a dark, calculating darkness to achieve his goals. OG Vader was always more frightening when it was unpredictable, when he was drowning the admirals without raising his voice, and that moment could have incorporated this myth.
It’s a shame, because Obi-Wan Kenobi clearly has some interesting ideas about his characters, he just doesn’t seem to have much intention of really addressing them. In the case of both twists: Obi-Wan learning about the survival of Anakin and Reva revealing that he was on a mission to kill Vader, these moments felt unfolded for a momentary emotional peak, to the detriment of the characters involved.
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