Image: Lucasfilm
If we take a step back from Obi-Wan Kenobi, the series feels like a story. We know Kenobi’s past, we know how it ends, so where is the movement in this series? How does Obi-Wan Kenobi push the arc of the galaxy far, far to its predetermined end?
Honestly, I don’t think there’s much movement and I think it’s entirely deliberate. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s point is not to mark big battles or universe-shaking encounters between the forces of good and evil, but instead to acknowledge the importance of individual points of view and emotional arcs in a massive franchise that often seems intent on starting interstellar dogfights. every 20 minutes.
There is something quite unique in a TV series in which many viewers have a relatively complete knowledge of the character’s storyline, motivation and even emotional interruptions. This makes remarks like “Whether he dies or me, it’s over today” to Kenobi feel a little less urgent. Instead, it is a moment of tragedy. This conflict does not end today. This line, uttered by a serious and determined Kenobi, opens a new kind of storytelling, because most viewers know that this is not true. The tension from this impending conflict exists, but not because we think these characters are at risk, but because there must be something else important at the end of the episode.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is a storytelling rooted in how all the main characters change their views of themselves. The exact nature of the conflict does not matter for the longer story, because everyone who watches knows that the battle between Kenobi and Vader will be equal to the accompanying damage … but we knew we would enter! The great thing about Obi-Wan Kenobi is that the audience can watch the show about rainbows and character development, focusing on the realizations of traumatized characters as they embark on a journey to meaning in a world that has been hostile to their very existence.
This is a very non-Western, non-traditional story that emphasizes personal change before triumph through physical confrontation. This is clearly stated in the last episode, where retrospectives show Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker sparring in the Jedi Temple of Korsukant. As Skywalker attacks, he is constantly surpassed by Kenobi, not necessarily because he is not qualified enough to win, but because he wants to win because he has left his desire for triumph to surpass any chance of growth, learning, or change. This is his failure as a Jedi and as a person he is unable to change. This is repeated during Tatooine’s final confrontation. Although Skywalker is probably more powerful than Kenobi, he must earn more than he tries to understand himself. This is ultimately the reason for failure.
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Obi-Wan Kenobi struggles with Jedi knowledge in interesting ways. So much of what the Jedi believe is taken from Buddhist beliefs and practices, but delivered through cosmic sword frogs and the wanderings of monk-wizards who try to achieve justice and end up bound by contradictions and exceptions. . In this show, instead of letting go of their feelings, the Jedi are asked to really feel them. To understand them, answer them and ultimately use them to your advantage. The Sith have always done this, but what about feelings of hope, justice, love? As Vader sinks deeper into his own sense of injustice and selfishness, Kenobi accepts his pain, his fear, and ultimately his own desire to live. He does not allow these emotions to go out or move beyond them, but uses them to grow. The show is about change through conflict, not about winning conflicts. Victory doesn’t matter. To survive and grow, to understand yourself – this is important.
Darth Vader can’t change. He has become a tough man and will remain the same until he reveals himself at the end of The Return of the Jedi. He will always be afraid of losing, afraid of being rejected, and desperate for confirmation. When he says, “Anakin is gone. I’m what’s left, “says Vader, who has long since decided who he is and what’s left of him. He reinforces this reading when he tells Kenobi, “You didn’t kill Anakin Skywalker, I did.” This moment does two things: it re-emphasizes that it is a fixed point and allows Kenobi to change his understanding of Vader, and therefore his understanding of himself. And this kind of emphasis on going beyond your initial understanding is an important point. Often these revelations of “truth” are made to bring the hero to the right conflict, the righteous struggle, the real evil. In this case, each conflict is made with the explicit purpose of asking the people at the center of the conflict to develop.
Screenshot: Lucasfilm
When Reva shouts “You can’t run away from him, Obi-Wan” in episode two, she’s a harbinger. Kenobi is unable to escape from his past and future. He cannot change these conflicts, but he can change himself. The show summarizes it clearly in the sixth episode, when Rocken tells Kenobi “It’s about you and him” as they try to escape from Vader. Within these moments of realization is the cycle of understanding and character development that this whole series is about, much more so than for sword battles or kidnappings. The whole conflict leads to a movement of the character, not the plot.
In addition to Kenobi and Vader, the series further emphasizes this unconventional story with the treatment of Reva. Throughout the series, Reva is an unreliable narrator of her own feelings and motivations, contradictory and furious. But in the end, she finally accepts that she cannot change the past or overcome her own trauma by continuing a cycle of conflict. Reva has chosen to change. Even Kenobi acknowledges this as an important moment for her when she says, “Who you become now is up to you.”
The whole show is about this new beginning, this understanding that you are constantly going through moments in your life that will change you. That emotions and feelings and going through these cycles will set you free and recreate you. As for conflicts? Battles, sword matches, space battles? They are important, but in Obi-Wan Kenobi they are not in focus. They are only a means to an end, not the end itself. “The future,” Kenobi says, “will take care of itself.”
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