THIS NEEDED TO BE IT’S OWN SEPARATE POST, because, okay, here’s why I defend Obi-Wan as someone who actually does talk to Anakin, who actually does try to communicate with him. (Part one here!)
Obi-Wan and Anakin have a complicated relationship and I think it’s absolutely fair to say that they don’t fully understand each other, but that I don’t think it’s for lack of trying. When there’s minimal Palpatine interference (like in the Choose Your Destiny: An Obi-Wan & Anakin Adventure or Age of Republic: Obi-Wan Kenobi), they actually tend to end up in a really great place with each other!
I also agree that Obi-Wan doesn’t tell Anakin that he would go with him in the Obi-Wan & Anakin comic that we see, but Obi-Wan actually is the type to talk about these things with Anakin, as well as he praises him to his face several times in that comic alone:
That’s in one five-issue mini series where there’s a whole lot of other stuff going on! All of those are the ones that are while Anakin is directly right next to Anakin, even if he’s speaking to someone else, Anakin hears all of this.
Further, in each of the movies, Obi-Wan makes a point to talk to and reassure Anakin:
- When they’re at Qui-Gon’s funeral, Obi-Wan makes a point to tell Anakin, yes, I am going to train you, you will be a Jedi. - In Attack of the Clones, when Anakin is getting worked up as they’re about to see Padme, Obi-Wan makes a gentle joke about him falling into a nest of gundarks, so Anakin will snap back that, no, that was you who did that! and it works, Anakin stops panicking. George Lucas specifically put this scene in to show that they cared about each other and genuinely like each other. - In Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan asks Anakin about how he looks tired, is he still dreaming about his mother? Obi-Wan’s face is incredibly caring when he says that dreams pass in time, it’s not a dismissal, it’s a reassurance! Anakin is the one who changes the subject. - In Attack of the Clones, when Anakin is upset that Padme dismissed him, even after Anakin got up in Obi-Wan’s face about not sticking to their mandate, Obi-Wan makes a point to reassure him that he shouldn’t worry so much and she was pleased to see them. - In Revenge of the Sith, he’s trying to talk to Anakin about how it looks really bad that you’re accepting the Chancellor’s bribe, as well as later he directly praises Anakin for being strong and wise, which is said easily and warmly. Further, Obi-Wan showed up at Padme’s specifically to ask after Anakin, showing that, yeah, he took an active role in trying to reach out.
He does this in The Clone Wars as well, most notably in the Clovis arc.
He specifically seeks Anakin out to talk to him, feeling how deeply angry and wound up he’s been–which comes with the context that Anakin has been nearly losing his shit, this is the arc where he flips the fuck out over Clovis, to the point even Padme doesn’t feel safe with him.
Even in the Bad Batch arc, he’s trying to get Anakin to talk to him and eventually has to resort to needling him to even get Anakin to pause in his walking away from Obi-Wan.
He’s also consistently shown to be reaching out to Anakin in the comics–not that we have a lot of them, but of three of the main sources of info we have on them in the comics, pretty much all of them have Obi-Wan trying to talk to Anakin and praising him:
- Age of the Republic: Obi-Wan Kenobi Obi-Wan talks to Anakin twice in this oneshot (and also praises him), about how he was worried about how he couldn’t protect Qui-Gon, so how could he protect Anakin?
- Obi-Wan & Anakin (see above)
- Age of Republic: Anakin Skywalker Obi-Wan again makes a point to talk to Anakin about what he’s going through and praises him twice in the oneshot for how he handles things–both for his sticking to his morals and for giving the people of Kudo a chance to make their own choices.
All of this is a really, really consistent pattern of behavior–sometimes Anakin is the one to push him away, sometimes Anakin listens to him, but in almost every story that gets told about them, Obi-Wan reaches out to talk to him and praises Anakin.
It’s easy to slide into the idea that they didn’t talk to each other, because their issues don’t get solved, but when I actually go back and look at so many of those scenes, I see a consistent behavior emerging in the way Obi-Wan reaches out time and again.
The problem is that Anakin doesn’t always actually want to talk about his problems because he knows what the answer is going to be.
He turns away from Obi-Wan’s concern in Attack of the Clones. He doesn’t really seem to be listening in Revenge of the Sith. He lashes out at Obi-Wan and pushes him away in The Clone Wars during the Clovis scene. He gets up and storms off in Age of the Republic. He walks away from Obi-Wan in the Bad Batch. He knows Obi-Wan knows about some of his relationship with Padme, but he doesn’t acknowledge Obi-Wan’s attempts to talk to him because he knows the answer he’s going to get, especially when Obi-Wan says to Bo-Katan that he won’t let his emotions cloud his judgement.
Because Obi-Wan? Yeah, he genuinely reached out again and again to Anakin AND THAT’S WHY IT BREAKS MY HEART SO MUCH BECAUSE OBI-WAN WAS THERE. He may not have told Anakin what he wanted to hear (that his feelings made him special, that he was totally justified in flying off the handle, that he should have everything everything everything) but he was there. He was starting these conversations. He kept at it, the entire time they knew each other. OBI-WAN REALLY LOVED HIM JUST SO MUCH, YOU CAN SEE IT IN THE WAY HE NEVER GAVE UP ON ANAKIN UNTIL HE ABSOLUTELY HAD TO.
Hell, even Nick Gillard says he designed their fight on Mustafar around how Obi-Wan was trying to give Anakin time to calm down, to wear himself out before Obi-Wan could give him a cuddle, and you can see that reflected in the way Obi-Wan doesn’t attack until he has to, that even right up to that point, he’s trying to talk to Anakin, trying to get him to not do this.
OBI-WAN KENOBI WAS REALLY GREAT FOR ANAKIN, WE SEE IT OVER AND OVER AND OVER, AND IF IT WASN’T FOR PALPATINE, I 100% THINK THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE.
