PT Obi Wan's true intention on Mustafar?

THIS!! So much this! I'm sorry, but if I were dueling my best friend (who had gone evil) and managed to incapacitate him to the point where he's dying a slow, painful death...the least I can do is end his misery. This achieves two things:

#1- Defeating him so he's no longer a threat.

#2- Doing one last act of kindness for my former best friend. I wouldn't want him to suffer a slow, agonizing death. There's a difference between simply killing an unarmed opponent vs. a mercy kill. If my former best friend stood down, lowered his weapons and surrendered yet I shoot him in the face anyway...that's wrong. If, however, my friend were crushed under a pile of stones, suffering internal bleeding and his death was inevitable, then shooting him in the face would be considered a mercy kill.

It doesn't matter what the Jedi Code says, Obi-Wan has failed in a moral way. If he had truly cared for Anakin, he would've just spent those few seconds lecturing him one last time to either Force Push him into the lava or go down there and put the lightsaber through Anakin's head.

 

The intense heat wouldn't kill Anakin if he hadn't slide down the slope and caught fire. That said, it is irrelevant. Anakin catches fire and still survives it. So, he's pretty tough.

I'm not denying that Obi-wan didn't leave Anakin to die. But that is different from a mercy killing which is more direct.

Obi-wan is not a perfect person. There's a reason that he wasn't the right man for the job, but it was a good thing that it was him. The whole point is to change our perception of Obi-wan. To see him through Vader's eyes.

Our laws aren't the same as the Republic's laws. Much less the moral code of the Jedi. As to the rest, no, the point is that Obi-wan had a job to do, but he also had an obligation to uphold the Jedi's ideals. The two were in conflict with each other, which is why he went for a compromise. Leaving him to burn to death, which was different from walking down and finishing him off.

And it was good that he didn't, because Anakin winds up fulfilling his destiny. Something he couldn't do if he was dead.

 

Wrong!
The heat WILL kill Anakin, from a combination of heat stroke, hyperthermia and dehydration.
Plus given all the lava, I would imagine that a number of harmfull gases are present too.
So if Palaptine had not saved his life, Anakin would have died and it would be on Obi-Wan's hands.

And I can not see the moral of preferring to cripple your enemy and leave them to die a horrible death or how this is somehow better than a quick kill.
Jedi are trained to fight and kill if they need to.
I would imagine that they are trained to kill quickly if that is what they have to do.
That killing the enemy in slow, horrible or excessively painful ways are discouraged.

So if a Jedi has made up their mind to kill their opponent, tries but botches it and the opponent is fatally injured and will die but it will take a long time and be very painful.
That the code forbids the jedi from ending this suffering is mind boggling.
It isn't really mercy killing as the person WILL die anyway and from what the Jedi did.
It is only the Jedi taking responsibility for their botched killing and put an end to suffering.

Yeah it did that, it made him seem like a cruel and vindictive person, not the intent I am sure.

First, this sounds not unlike how the US have redefined some things such as "Torture" so they can do it and not have it be called that. Or calling enemy soldiers "Illegal combatants" so they have no legal protection.
Second, this compromise is horrible and the only way it makes sense if Obi-Wan is evil and wants Anakin to suffer.
Obi-Wan could have killed Anakin directly when he jumped over him. He didn't, instead he went for a slow, painful but no less assured kill. Make no mistake, Obi-wan dismembered Anakin, KNOWING it would kill him.
At best he might have hoped that Anakin would fall into the lava and burn quickly. But he saw that didn't happen and he could have acted. Like Force throwing Anakin into the lava, that would be quicker.

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This has no bearing on Obi-Wan's actions and if they are cruel or not. Unless you argue that Obi-Wan had read the script of RotJ and thus knew he must only cripple Anakin, not kill him.

This alters much of the story if the OT so this is a massive what-if here.
The most obvious change is that Palpatine would have to look for a new apprentice.
Luke and Leia would still be born and Padme might probably die. Unless we go with the "Palpatine cast an evil spell that drained her life to save Anakin."

So then what?
Luke and Leia will have the same lives as before.
The empire will go on mostly as before with the exception that Palpatine will have to spend time looking for and training someone to replace Vader.
ANH might be a bit different, Vader was bold enough to attack and capture Leia's ship, some other commander might not have done that.
Then Leia would have gone to Obi-Wan and asked for his help. Anything is possible here.
Owen and Beru would not have died and if Luke would have left is debatable.
Leia would take the plans to Alderaan, which would probably not have been destroyed.
Would the DS have been destroyed? Without Luke, that is doubtful.

But if we assume that Luke did go with Obi-Wan and he did blow up the DS. With no Vader, the other TIEs are much less good at shooting down the X-Wings.
So if that still happens, then Obi-Wan would not die and could train Luke. Or he sends him to Yoda.

Bottom-line, this is such a big change that it is hard to say what exactly would have happened.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

DARTH SINISTER:
Point #1: Yeah, he was tough. Too bad the hot gases basically ruined his lungs so he couldn't breathe. Look, whether Anakin died immediately or five minutes later, Obi-Wan caused his death. If I shot you in the lungs and you died an hour later, I still would've killed you. Especially if medical help doesn't get to you in time.

Point #2: What? He DID leave Anakin to die, Sinister. What do you think would've happened had Sidious not gotten there? I direct you to Point #1.

Point #3: It certainly made me hope that I never meet someone like Obi-Wan. He/she would probably leave me to die a slow, excruciating death.

Point #4: Yes, it's called a MERCY KILL. I can't believe we're having to debate why this is even an issue. If you were dying a slow, excruciating death and I was the only one present who could end it quickly, wouldn't you want me to do it? Or would you rather I just walk away and leave you to your suffering? Then again, this is a forum where some members believe it's totally OK to slaughter an entire group of people (women and children included) because a few of them did something horrible to someone they loved, so maybe I shouldn't be too surprised that some view the concept of Obi-Wan giving Anakin a mercy kill as 'un-Jedi'.

Point #5: OK, wow, you're grasping at straws here. You're expecting Obi-Wan to have foresight to know what happens 24 years from this point. Point is, Obi-Wan failed in his mission to defeat Vader, and even if he did, he managed to do it in a cruel, unmerciful way.

 

Basically, what it comes down to is Obi Wan knew if he killed Anakin, he would contradict the OT. He knew George Lucas would have to go back and redo the OT with a new villain. That is why he left him alive and dismembered on the lava banks.

 

Not really. It would be external factors and not putting him out of his misery. And the planet itself is not completely desolate. There are inhabitants and such.

A Jedi is trained to kill as a last resort and only in the defense of others. They're also trained and swore an oath to not kill a helpless person. And killing someone who is suffering is a mercy killing.

Are you sure? We don't know if it was or not. Remember, the point of ROTS is to paint a different picture of good and evil. To show how a good person could go bad. That there heroes on both sides of a war. Good is evil and evil is good.

Obi-wan doesn't have to be evil to let him burn and die from his wounds. He has to be not compassionate. Which doesn't mean evil. Nor does it mean cruelty. He's just indifferent. As to dismembering, it is possible that he didn't do it to be cruel. It is possible that he believed in disabling him and trying to help him, but saw it was pointless and instead walked away. Remember, he doesn't want to kill Anakin. He was trying to avoid that by dismembering him, instead of killing him. It's like in "The Dark Knight Returns: Hunt The Dark Knight" where Batman breaks the Joker's neck, but not enough to kill him. Just enough to stop him from killing anymore. When he caught fire, he decided to leave as it would do the job for him.

Of course not. But there is a bright spot in Obi-wan's actions. That his choice to not finish him had a long term benefit in the end. If Yoda had gone instead, Anakin would have been killed and the galaxy would have been doomed. But instead, the wrong man went and it wound up being the right thing.

He still survived when other people would have died.

He would have been found by the residents of Mustafar.

If you were evil, maybe you deserved it. Of course, maybe you would be smart enough to not make the mistake Anakin made.

Obi-wan wasn't feeling merciful, as the novelization put it.

That's not grasping at straws. See my last point to Vines.

 

So in other words, if we're fighting evil people, we should just let them suffer a slow, agonizing death? Where's our sense of our own decent humanity? How does that make us any better?

 

I didn't say that either. I'm saying that everyone is different. One person might not have a compassionate, merciful side while another does. Maybe that person sees that decency doesn't cut it. That the punishment needs to fit the crimes. I don't believe that was the case with Obi-wan. Obi-wan was in a bind and he was not going to compromise himself in order to see justice done. He found an alternate solution. Sure, it wasn't neat and clean. But it would suffice.

Obi-wan only did what he did because Anakin put himself in a vulnerable spot, which forced Obi-wan to take a drastic action. If he hadn't done that, Obi-wan might have been able to kill him in a manner similar to what happened with Maul on Naboo. But Lucas chose this method, not because he told the OT first, but because he was making a point about helpless enemies and killing them.

 

Wrong again, Anakin is DYING from what Obi-wan did to him.
I am beginning to loose patience with your attempts to narrow or alter the definition of killing.
Your argument says;
Push someone off a tall building, NOT killing.
Set fire to their house while they are asleep, NOT killing.
Poison them, NOT killing.
Seal them in a cellar and let them starve to death, NOT killing.
Etc.

Here is a real crime case from many years ago in my country.
A husband locked his wife in the sauna and turned it on. It took quite a while but she eventually DIED.
And you know what, he went to court and was sentenced to jail for MURDER!
The court would not have listen to any kind of defense like "I didn't kill her, it was external factors that killed her."

If you keep twisting words around or altering what they mean, I am not going to continue this discussion.

And you keep missing the point, a person that is DYING because of what the Jedi did does not fit this. This person WILL die whether the Jedi does anything or not and their death is 100% on the Jedi.
So it isn't KILLING, the person is already dying. It is ending a drawn out death.
Again I would have to assume that the Jedi do NOT want those they kill to suffer horribly before dying. If they do want that, then they are evil.

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Since the dismembering was deliberate and since Obi-Wan KNEW that death will result from this.
And since Obi-Wan could have killed Anakin quickly when he jumped over him.
Then it is both cruel and evil.

Evil people delight in letting people die slowly and painfully.
To again quote the late Sir Pratchett.

Obi-Wan chooses a slow death for Anakin and he stays to talk with him, seeing the suffering and not doing anything about it.
This is cruel and evil.
If you have to fight a Jedi, pray that it isn't Obi-Wan because while other Jedi will kill you quickly, he'll make you suffer.

Bye.
Old Stoneface

 

To answer the OP: Obi-Wan didn't know, hope, or expect Anakin would jump, and he wasn't trying any reverse psychology on him.


The way I see this issue is that it just sucks, and is a failure on George's part. He knew about the whole Vader/Kenobi duel on a volcano thing pretty much since the beginning, yet apparently didn't spend much time thinking about how he was going to pull that off. So what we end up with just sucks, and makes Kenobi look both stupid and terrible. Maybe that was the intention, but I doubt it, and even if it was, I still don't like it.

I see it as a blunder by Lucas, I don't really think of it as a reflection of Obi-Wan.

 

I'm not twisting and altering words. I'm making a very fine point about what Obi-wan did by leaving him to burn, versus just cutting his head off after he's caught fire. This isn't about what's in a court of law. This is how Obi-wan defines what he has done versus what the courts would. Obi-wan defines it as leaving him to die via immolation, versus a quick death. He didn't cut his limbs off to kill him. He just stopped him from trying to kill him without killing him.

I get the point, but you don't get my point. It is all about point of view. To finish Anakin off would to be kill a helpless person. To let him burn, isn't. That's how it is defined. That doesn't make Obi-wan evil for not putting him out of his misery. And as to Jedi in general, we never see Jedi in that situation. So for all we know, they don't go around putting people out of their misery. They might let someone else do it.

First off, Obi-wan didn't know what was going to happen, other than he sensed Anakin was going to jump and tried warn him off. Second, he doesn't kill him because he doesn't want to kill him. He didn't do it to be sick and cruel. He disabled him to stop the fight. As gravity pulled Anakin down the slope, Obi-wan starts forward to help him and then stops. He stops because he has to follow through on what Yoda told him to do, which is destroy him. But he cannot do that because he swore an oath to not kill a helpless person. So when he sees him start to catch fire, he turns away and then looks back, before walking away. And when he does so, he is broken. He takes no pleasure in what happened. When Obi-wan speaks to Anakin, he's venting to him. Telling him what a disappointment he is. Telling him how he screwed up. He was essentially saying good-bye to him.

And in Anakin's eyes, there was no fear. There was a surprised look at Obi-wan injuring him and then anger and hate for hurting him.

Or maybe it was intentional on his part to have it come off this way. Maybe we're meant to condemn Obi-wan, not admire him. Not every hero is squeaky clean. Nobody said you had to like it. But why is Obi-wan stupid for letting him burn to death? As far as he knows, Palpatine's dead. Very reasonable to assume that no one will come to help Anakin.

 

DARTH-SINISTER:

Point #1- If Obi-Wan didn't want to kill Anakin, then why didn't he go down there and help him after he disarmed him? The guy's in pain and has only one limb left -- what's he going to do, bite Obi-Wan's ankle? Obi-Wan's POV wouldn't fly in a court of law: he left Anakin to die. For all intents and purposes, he was KILLING Anakin. Why are you not able to see this?

Point #2- Um, yes it does. Leaving someone to burn alive without putting them out of their misery IS an evil thing to do. I don't care if that were ****ing Saddam Hussein that was on fire, the most compassionate, humane thing to do is to put him out of his misery. Don't let him suffer. To do otherwise would make you no better than he.

Point #3- Then the oath is skewed because it may be one thing to not kill someone who surrendered to you, but to not kill someone who, again IS DYING IN A HORRIFICALLY PAINFUL MANNER? That's not what I imagined the Jedi would do.

 

Ask yourself what you would do. Could you walk down that slope and kill your closest friend? Could you put them out of their misery? It would be harder than you could possibly imagine. I don't blame Obi-Wan at all. He was very visibly shaken when he left. Head in his hand. What a terrible no-win situation.

 

As hard as it would be, I'd have to do what must be done. Not only as a Jedi to eradicate the Sith, but as a friend putting Anakin Skywalker out of his misery.

 

I see this, but I also know how Obi-wan sees it. Which is that he's found a compromise. He has to kill Vader, but he doesn't want to kill Anakin. The compromise is that he lets the fire kill him, while keeping his hands clean of having to do it himself. That's why I say that Obi-wan was both the wrong man for the job and the right one. It's easy for you to say that you would do it, but it isn't that simple. This was his best friend, who was like a son to him. Someone that he cared for a lot. But he is also someone who has become the very thing he swore to destroy. To him, he cannot really separate the two.

The action is questionable, but Obi-wan himself is not evil for doing so. As noted, he wasn't feeling merciful.

Except remember that in Anakin's point of view, Palpatine was weak and helpless and even said that he was dying, yet he intervened. Not just because he wanted the knowledge that Palpatine offered him, but because to him it was also wrong to kill someone in that same situation.

And again, I should note, this is not a black and white film. This is a film about shades of gray. About how the Jedi compromise themselves in order to stop the Sith and how a Jedi betrays everything to save his loved one, as well as to bring an end to the war. About how a group of senators were willing to turn against the government that they themselves have said was a bad idea to begin with.

 

Agreed. Obi-wan had been ordered by Yoda (on Coruscant) to kill Vader/Anakin, he expressed reservations about this at the time, 'he is like my brother, I cannot do it.' He just couldn't make the killing blow himself. BBQ Vader was dying anyway, and Kenobi didn't know that Sidious was travelling to Mustafar. Obviously leaving Vader to a slow and painful death does make him a 'moral coward' of sorts, but Kenobi's actions were motivated by love for his former student and friend as opposed to any sadistic wish to torture the younger man.

 

Wow. You'd be a stronger person than me it seems.

 

To persuade Anakin to make s'mores but once he learns Anakin hates graham crackers for being too dry like Tatooine, he realizes Anakin is lost and doesn't deserve to make such a tasty treat over flowing lava.

 

I'm not saying he has to KILL Anakin, dude. I'm saying that if he wanted to, take Anakin in as a prisoner. The guy's defeated, he's only capable of crawling around with one arm now. Much like Dooku when Anakin sliced off his hands.

 

Obi-wan cannot take him prisoner. There's no place that he can be held at anymore, since the Empire has taken over and the Citadel would guarded. Obi-wan doesn't know if Yoda has succeeded or not. Anakin may be helpless, but he cannot hold him without great risk to himself and to anyone else. And his mandate was to kill Anakin, not capture him.

 

This is the best explanation. Obi-Wan was following Yoda's orders. He was traumatized by the war and the beginnings of the purge, but he kept a cool head. He clearly was not taking any pleasure in what he was doing. It's a position none of us would want to have. Obi-Wan did a good job of concealing the anguish he felt for the most part, but he felt that two wrongs don't make a right. It is useless to meet revenge with revenge. It heals nothing. That is one reason why he decided not to finish Anakin off after severing the remainder of his limbs. He did not want to go down the dark path himself. Also, the novelization points out that Obi-Wan was cognizant of Sidious' impending arrival. Thus, he elected to disembark as soon as possible.

 

SateleNovelist11 - the only issue is the GL quotes kind of contradict this, saying that obi-wan wasn't feeling merciful... i didn't really see what GL said on his face that i recall, but reading facial expressions can be tricky...

 

I respectfully disagree with GL with regard to this issue.

 

Lucas didn't say Obi-wan was not feeling merciful. The ROTS novelization states it. All Lucas said was that to Obi-wan's point of view, Ewan should treat Anakin like he's a burnt piece of toast. When we burn toast, we mostly feel frustration that it was burnt. Obi-wan was frustrated. But we also know per the film that Obi-wan feels upset at Anakin, not upset as in anger, but extreme and crushing disappointment.