selenak: (Clone Wars by Jade Blue Eyes)
selenak ([personal profile] selenak) wrote2016-04-15 01:56 pm
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From a certain point of view

Getting back into Star Wars again has made me aware that some of my character perceptions as well as do's and don'ts have changed since 2005/2006, i.e. the last time I read great amounts of SW fanfiction.

For example: Obi-Wan Kenobi.



Now, back in the day, I was a gen only person as far as good old Ben was concerned. This was because, based solely on the six movies, the three major 'ships he was involved in either were something I couldn't believe of they didn't appeal to me. To wit: Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon, aka the which launched the slash fandom part of Star Wars on a massive basis, evoked a mixture of "nah, can't see it" and "I'm so not into mentor/protegé" in yours truly, Obi-Wan/Padmé had the problem that they had next to no on screen interaction, and in order to sell me on any relationship turning sexual, no matter whether het or slash, it needs to be interesting to me already based on what's on screen/on the page before the sex. And that's leaving out the Anakin factor. As for the third one that only really started to take off around Return of of the Sith, Obi-Wan/Anakin, back then I thought Anakin was way too obsessed with Padmé to cheat on her as an adult and Obi-Wan too conscientious to start an affair with his teenage Padawan, and that was that.

Fast forward a decade and many intervening fandom experiences later. Also: post-Clone Wars marathoning, which is a factor. New canon can change one's perceptions of a character, as well as some truly compelling fanfiction can. Incidentally, I'm not surprised the younger version of Obi-Wan Kenobi is still the one getting all the action in fanfiction, and I don't think it's solely because of universal fannish age-ism. John Le Carrré once said memorably about Alec Guinness, after praising him to the skies in all other regards as an actor: " Alec was useless as a screen lover. I don't know if you saw The Captain's Paradise, but it was an embarrassment. When Alec kissed somebody, you blushed." (The complete article is here, if you're interested.) I'm not sure whether I agree on Alec Guinness characters coming across as asexual in general, but he certainly doesn't exude carnality as an actor. Ewan McGregor can if he wants to, but doesn't do that as young Obi-Wan, either (imo, as always); still, one certainly doesn't feel like blushing when contemplating him kiss someone.

Now, as opposed to both OT and Prequel Kenobi, the one in The Clone Wars not only has a canon love interest (of sorts, more about this in a moment), but deliberate (as in, flirtatious quips being exchanged ) UST with the main female villain. When I heard about this before marathoning the show, I was very sceptical as to whether the show could pull it off without making Obi-Wan look like a hypocrite, and how it would fit with movie canon. As it turned out, it worked for me, not least because the sort-of-love interest, Satine (the name being an obvious Ewan McGregor in joke), had a role in the story that was mainly defined by her politics and not by her relationship with Obi-Wan. Said relationship was set up as a contrast to Anakin/Padmé: as the road not taken for both characters, though I would point out that Obi-Wan's admission that he would have left the Order for Satine if she had said something happens under pressure and in a situation where someone is holding her hostage who needs to be overcome, which means the show is giving itself some ambiguous room as to just how strong Obi-Wan's emotions for Satine were. Still, he clearly feels something, and just as clearly was aware he couldn't have both, being a Jedi and being with her. (Again, obvious intended contrast to Anakin/Padmé.) Incidentally, the scene that illustrated for me that Obi-Wan/Satine would have ended in a divorce if he'd been free to romance her openly was when he tries to express his support (when she's fighting a political fight in the Senate) but does so in the most patronizing way possible, complete with key mansplaining words like "hysterical" and "emotional", and not surprisingly only succeeds in making her furious at him.

The relationship with Assaj Ventress also works for me as a great example of foe yay, especially in the later seasons when Ventress has stopped being Evil Henchwoman And Plot Device and has gained backstory, personality, and her own story arc. Best of all, he doesn't patronize her and takes her seriously as an opponent and on one occasion ally of necessity.

These two relationships are only the two being main text - you can argue for Obi-Wan/other characters subtext to your liking -, but they did, together with fanfiction, contribute to shifting my idea of Obi-Wan Kenobi from "celibate all his life" to "hm, could see that and this, maybe, in those circumstances" etc. Before I go back to the three major ships starring him, revised 2016 edition, a word about a very popular fanon designed to get around the whole problem the Jedi Code poses if you're writing/reading Jedi who adher to it: lots of fanfiction proposes that official Jedi policy on sex is that it's fine between two consenting adults... as long as no actual love/attachment is involved. This fanon has the advantage of on the one hand allowing more room than treating the Jedi as sci fi Catholic priests would offer, but on the other still maintaining a taboo (always useful for angst). Plus it's screwed up enough for the Jedi Order, she says respectlessly. So, as far as reading fanfiction is concerned, it's certainly a handwaving device I can go for.

On the other hand: what I can't buy is the Order being okay with sexual Master/Apprentice relationships, no matter how old the Padawan is. Precisely because that's the one type of relationship where closeness, for a time, is actually allowed and encouraged. The possibility of power abuse is simply too great. This is one reason why Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan still doesn't work for me; as Prequel Jedi go, Qui-Gon comes across as one of the more functional and down to earth ones to me. (Yes, I've gathered via fannish osmosis that he's a ball of angst with Obi-Wan in the Jedi Apprentice novels, but I haven't read those, and they've just gotten decanonized via Disney anyway.)

On the other hand, I'm no longer in the "no way!" camp re: Obi-Wan/Padmé. The still haven't had any relationship establishing scenes in Clone Wars (though funnily enough, Padmé is arguably Satine's most important CW relationship other than Obi-Wan), but I've read fanfiction that actually bothers to build up a (non sexual) relationship between them first instead of simply going "they're both attractive, I like them better than Anakin, they should be with each other" (which is how what few Obi-Wan/Padmé stories ca. 2005 I 'd read felt to me). Those stories which do work for me usually take place in Padmé Lives! AUs and more often than not involve Anakin as well (the degree of dysfunction versus working-it-out is variable). I still have massive problems seeing it happen during the Prequel era, though.

Which brings me to No.3 of the Kenobi relationship juggernauts: Obi-Wan/Anakin. Here, The Clone Wars definitely helped because, taking its cue from the first twenty minutes of Revenge of the Sith and adding some, their relationship is far more even and team-like there. Though, paradoxically, in that combination, the dysfunction is also part of the appeal. (Because I can't believe stories where it's simply ignored.) What I mean is: I don't think Obi-Wan, even at his most optimistic and in denial, could ever kid himself about not being attached to Anakin. Or that Anakin would manage a casual friends-with-benefits relationship with, well, anyone. Plus they do have conflicting ideas about who they are to each other , which both invoke family ties, but not the same ones. "You're the closest thing I have to a father" (AotC) versus "You were my brother" (RotS) is pretty telling. I don't think Obi-Wan ever saw himself as a father figure to Anakin and in fact actively didn't want to be one (the 13 to 15 years between them - I've seen both numbers - aren't quite enough to make it a natural role, plus Obi-Wan had taken the responsibility for Anakin as the result Qui-Gon's death, not because he was looking for a student/child), but it came with the whole teacher territory. Otoh being a brother was something he was used to from being a Jedi, and this he could handle; so no wonder the relationship with Anakin is at its best once Anakin is grown up (as much as he ever is) and Obi-Wan is no longer responsible for him, but they both take similar roles in the war.

Otoh Anakin, who pre-Jedi wasn't raised as part of a group but in relationship with a single parent, was looking for a father/parent figure , not a brother. Which informs both how he sees Obi-Wan, and how he sees Palpatine (who offers himself as the alternate father figure pretty much from the start). And while Anakin comes to see Obi-Wan as more of an equal in the Clone Wars (the event and the show alike), too, I don't think the "parent figure" element ever goes completely away. (Or the need for parental approval.) Not least, just to make this even more messed up, it's also combined with the part where Anakin was raised as a slave and goes from calling Watto Master to calling Obi-Wan Master to calling Palpatine Master. (Note that when Vader informs Tarkin that Obi-Wan is on the Death Star, he refers to him as "my old Master".) And that, too, factors in, in the resentment as well as the affection.

If Anakin is all over the place emotionally re: Obi-Wan Kenobi anyway on screen, Obi-Wan is, too. There's the "I loved you" , the one time Kenobi, any form of him, uses the L word in canon, and it's spoken when he's busy cutting off Anakin's limbs and letting him burn after Anakin has committed massacres involving children and adults alike. My headcanon used to be that Old Kenobi's famous "from a certain point of view" explanation re: Vader killing Anakin to Luke was mostly because he was certain Luke would have to kill Vader and wanted to spare him the knowledge. (Based solely on the movies, nobody, either Sith or Jedi, until Luke even considers that someone who once went Dark Side could change back. ) This is another thing that has somewhat shifted by now: I think Obi-Wan absolutely needs to believe in Anakin and Vader as two different entities because that's the only way he can a) maintain his good memories of Anakin, b) forgive himself for still feeling affection for Anakin (and he does, see the way he talks about him to Luke in A New Hope ), and c) forgive himself for not simply killing Anakin/Vader on Mustafar. Seriously, I think if it had been anyone but Anakin - say, Dooku, or even Palpatine himself, assuming Obi-Wan could have bested him somehow in a duel -, Obi-Wan wouldn't have let that person burn, he would have finished the job. But he couldn't do that with Anakin, and the memory is only bearable later by telling himself that hadn't been Anakin anymore, it had been this whole new person named Vader. And he can tell himself he doesn't feel love for someone guilty of killing so many people, because that, too, is someone else.

(One big "what if": if Obi-Wan had found out about the Tuskens. Because he couldn't have told himself that hadn't really been Anakin, or that Anakin, afterwards, hadn't still been himself and capable of good things as well as bad.)

Leaving Doylist reasons like "Lucas hadn't worked out the backstory or Sith nomenclature yet in A New Hope" aside, and talking only from a Watsonian, in-universe perspective, Obi-Wan addressing Vader as "Darth" in A New Hope and insisting to Luke that Vader is "more machine than man" and that Luke needs to destroy him in Return of the Jedi also works best for me if taking this desperate need of Obi-Wan's to treat Anakin and Vader as two different people into account. And that, btw, is why most of the stories which have Force Ghost Obi-Wan immediately embrace (metaphysically or literally) Force Ghost Anakin, or does so in AUs that have Vader turn back without dying immediately after and thus present Obi-Wan (living or dead himself) with a post-Vader Anakin, feel less than satisfying to me. I don't think Obi-Wan would be that forgiving (or that he should be, I hasten to add), of either Anakin or himself. There's be massive issues to cope with, on both sides.

Back to the fanfiction shippery question in the not-just-gen sense: with all this in mind, scenarios that work for me exclude all of Anakin's Padawan years, but the Clone Wars years are more flexible, especially if the author factors in there's no way Obi-Wan wouldn't be aware this is still massively messed up. (And totally against the Code, because, see above, re: attachment, and Kenobi very aware he is attached already anyway.) But he does a couple of messed up things in this show (seriously, Obi-Wan, going undercover as your own assassin and playing seek and catch games with Anakin?), and Anakin is the type of character who can almost always be relied upon to make the emotionally-bad-for-me choice.

In conclusion: new canon leads to the Shipping Side of the Force. But then, I knew that.
musesfool: anakin's lightsaber (this is your life)

[personal profile] musesfool 2016-04-16 11:21 pm (UTC)(link)
but I don't think he ever realised how serious Obi-Wan had been about Satine.

That's what I mean! I wish Obi-Wan hadn't just pretended not to know about Anakin's relationship with Padme (which is the only explanation I can accept, given how terrible they are at keeping it a secret; I don't think Obi-Wan knew they were married, but certainly he had to know they were involved), and instead had said something about how he understood what it was like to be torn. I think it would have blown Anakin's little mind, but in a good way. Or at least in a way that might have been less deadly for everybody? (Then again, it might have just given him another reason to believe himself superior to Obi-Wan.)

Plus because they went straight from Master/Padawan to wartime team, when usually post-apprenticeship I assume Jedi Knights would have been encouraged to strike out on their own for some years, they spent more time with each other, all in all, than with any other people in their lives.

*nod nod*

And since Anakin was 9! Don't most padawans get chosen around 13-14? So that's an extra four or five years on the front end, and I don't get the impression that once he got to Coruscant that Anakin had a lot of friends his own age, but i don't have any canon to back that up.

I came across the part where he says his mistake with Anakin was to assume he'd be as good a teacher for him as Yoda. This, taking the prequels AND TCW into account, is blackly hilarious. Don't be so hard on yourself, Kenobi: not only did Yoda manage to have a Padawan of his go Dark Side first, but if Yoda HAD been Anakin's teacher, Anakin would have gone Dark Side as a teenager already.

I KNOW. I still don't understand how Yoda so completely mishandled that conversation. like, I get that he's 900 and he maybe doesn't see death the way shorter-lived people do, but that was just breathtakingly tone deaf, even for the Jedi.
musesfool: Ahsoka Tano (dynamite the dam on the flow)

[personal profile] musesfool 2016-04-25 03:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Here's an idea for a missing scene or possible AU: after Obi-Wan's faked death, Satine and Anakin talk about him. Because Satine after all thinks he's dead, too, and thus might feel free or even feel the need to say something about how much he meant to her.

Ugh, now I totally want that story! (She could even talk to Padme about it and Padme could broach it with Anakin, in a "you're not the only one who loved him" way.) You should totally write that!

You know who is canonically great at talking a Skywalker out of acting rash? Rex.

*nod nod*

I think Anakin felt responsible for Rex and the 501st and as a good leader, he was willing to listen to their input. It was definitely a different relationship than whatever he had going on with the Council.

And while of course Anakin is terrible with losing people, and there's a lot be said for not clinging and for channelling your grief into focusing on the good things people you lose have done with their lives etc., late Republic era Jedi following the Code really are a bit too fast with the whole letting go thing, not allowing for any in between stage at all.

That's exactly it! They allow no middle ground, and it's just not healthy for humans at least to experience grief (or love or anger) in that way! There's a difference between not letting one's emotions control oneself and not letting oneself actually feel the emotions! I think Obi-Wan kind of knows this? (I think Qui-Gon certainly did.) But is super bad at expressing it in any meaningful way to Anakin.
musesfool: anakin's lightsaber (this is your life)

[personal profile] musesfool 2016-04-28 04:13 pm (UTC)(link)
But the way he attempts to reach out, imo, shows he doesn't have the vocabulary to convey what he means - at least young Obi-Wan doesn't.

*nod nod*

He probably also is still trying to model what he considers appropriate Jedi behavior for Anakin (and Ahsoka).

Obi-Wan's "what the blazes is he doing on Tatooine?" exclamation later demonstrates that something as simply as let someone check on Shmi for reassurance, even if Anakin isn't allowed to do this himself, hadn't occured to him.

That's something I have never understood. That nobody even made an effort to check up on her at all ever. I can see Anakin trying and being stymied as a kid on how to do it, and then eventually giving up after the umpteenth lecture about it, but surely someone should have thought, oh maybe someone could check and reassure this kid, in whom we have a lot invested, that she's okay.

He's clearly well intentioned and aware that something like "she's gone, accept this and move on" won't work. But saying that Ahsoka by making an "emotional choice" of not returning to the Order demonstrated why she wouldn't have made a good Jedi after all and so it was for the best is just, well, head, meet desk, again.

Holy carp! I did not know that! I haven't watched the animatics or whatever they're called of those episodes, though I know Filoni et al consider them canon. I have a link somewhere but I haven't gotten around to it, but sweet christ on a cracker, Obi-Wan! What the hell!?

I guess part of it can be looked at as Obi-Wan trying to come to grips with the Council's failure to protect her, and having invested so much faith in the Order previously, he can't stop believing in it now, despite what happened, but still. It makes me want to shake him.

if Obi-Wan had said something like "I understand why she did what she did" instead of implying that Ahsoka in the end proved her unworthiness by acting on emotions", Anakin might have talked about about his doubts with him athis point was well.

Yes, definitely! I would have thought they must have! Though then again, Anakin is so *done* with Obi-Wan in RotS, so that could partly explain why, especially with Palpatine providing a sympathetic ear and Anakin running on PTSD and sleep deprivation.

It's an interesting contrast to old Obi-Wan with Luke, and I agree with the fanon that the disaster with Anakin and years in the desert have brought Obi-Wan to the conclusion that if Luke is to restart the Jedi Order, he should do so without the baggage of the Jedi Code. Old Obi-Wan does have the emotional vocabulary, though he's at times downright manipulative with it.

*nod nod*

He's always a manipulative bastard but learning how to talk to people about having emotions puts him in a master class of it, yeah. He definitely manipulates Luke, though who knows what Luke's final choice would have been had Beru and Owen not been killed.