Was Obi-Wan really to blame?

I've read quite a few opinions on here that Anakin's turn to the Dark Side was caused by a lack of proper instruction from Obi-Wan. The formative years of Anakin's Jedi training are never seen on film, so what could have gone so wrong as to make Anakin susceptible to the Dark Side? Was it truly a lack of teaching on Obi-Wan's part or was it something else? Who is to blame, really? I'd think there would be some sort of check and balance for all Jedi who have Padawans. Surely Obi-Wan reported to someone on Anakin's progress, yes?

(If this already has a thread, I apologize!)

 

he reported to Yoda and Mace.

No Obi-Wan is not to blame. he felt responsible for Anakin's fall because he took his eye of the ball and didn't see the turmoil his friend faced. this was caused by the war.

and Padme didn't help. Anakin slaugthered a Tusken tribe and see did nothing.
but Anakin is responsible for his downfall. he knew right from wrong. he told Padme that several times.

there is only so much a parent can teach a child, before the child must accept responsiblity for his actions.

 

The Jedi, Padme, and Palpatine all had a hand in Anakin's Downfall.

 

Anakin had dysfunctional emotions that could not be solved like some type of puzzle. Yoda, supposedly wise, did not seem to realize this.

At any rate, the short answer is no.

There are always many factors in this sort of calamity. Ever watch Seconds from disaster or Air Crash Investigation?

 

Yes. When a child who knows nothing of greed grows up to be a hotbed of neuroses, blame the guardians. The incompetence of the Jedi created a void within the boy that was unfortunately filled by Palpatine.

 

No more than Palpatine, Padme, the Jedi generally and Anakin himself.

In my opinion it was a very complicated situation, the blame for which can't really be apportioned to only one person.

 

No,many people grow up with nobody at all to help them or awful people and they turn out fine.Aankin knew that the things he was doing where wrong,I'm better then this,crying ect ect.The Jedi have been producing Jedi and defending good for thousands of years all the while losing very few students and not unleashing psychopaths on the universe.They must be doing something right,Anakin was just a dirt bag.

AOTC mentions that his abilities have made him arrogant but I wish we got to see what did it.

 

Obi-Wan definitely holds some of the blame for Anakin's fall. First off is the fact that he never really wanted to train him in the first place, but did it to fulfill Qui-Gon's dying wish. There is no way Obi-Wan was ready to take on an apprentice, least of all one so unorthodox as Anakin. Second, Obi-Wan was an enabler. He knew about Anakin's relationship with Padme and ignored it, instilling in Anakin a belief that the rules can be ignored. You can't flaunt regulations just because it makes your friend happy. I also think that Obi-Wan failed to give Anakin any positive reinforcement, but instead just piled on criticism after criticism. Anakin, of course holds the lion's share of the blame, but Obi-Wan gets some too.

 

It could be argued that a person is only as good as their upbringing, but an individual is ultimately solely responsible for their actions. No one has any more control over your actions than yourself.

While Obi-Wan, Padme, Palpatine et al all had a hand in his downfall, ultimately it's Anakin's own fault, pawn though he may have been.

 

agreed, even Anakin says a few times in the Prequels that he knows "right from wrong"

 

Anakin suffers not from a lack of conscience, but from ignoring it. That conscience is there because the Jedi taught him right from wrong. He did, after all, become a fully trained Jedi Knight before choosing to be a Sith.

The first ten years of his Jedi training were left out, completely unseen. Therefore, they don't enter into consideration. If they mattered, they would have been shown.

Obi-Wan initial dislike of Anakin is not a foreboding of a doomed relationship, or even one marked by mutual hostility. It is dramatic irony, because those of us watching the film know they are meant to be great friends. That he took on Anakin at Qui-Gon's request makes his willingness to do so no less sincere.

Obi-Wan's age is a typical one at which Jedi take on apprentices. If you do the math, (and if the ages we've been given are correct), that is about the age at which Count Dooku became mentor to a young Qui-Gon Jinn. That Anakin is the Chosen One doesn't change that. You can't train him to be the Chosen One, no matter who his teacher is. You can only train him to be a Jedi. The rest is up to him.

And as far as the development of the story goes, Vader's fall was part of the story before any blame was placed on Obi-Wan for it.

Luke went through the same training and came out of it without falling to the Dark Side. That shows the blame lies not with the teacher but the student. One student was fully trained and chose evil. The other was fully trained and made the right choice. In either case, the difference was made not in the teaching, but in the choices made afterwards.

 

well said

 

Agreed. Very well laid out.

 

I agree with Obi-Ewan.

No, Obi-Wan is not to blame. He taught Anakin right from wrong. Anakin, who was an adult at the time (22 years old I believe) chose wrong. That's not Obi-Wan's fault.

There was the initial dislike of Anakin on Obi-Wan's part, and Obi-Wan did not initially want to train Anakin, however, as far as I could tell, Obi-Wan put that resentment aside and did the best he could with Anakin. Tried to befriend him, and I would say he succeeded.

Anakin had an ego the size of the second Death Star, and Palpatine stroked it, leading Anakin to believe that Palpatine was his "real" friend and the only one who "understood" him. But really, a good parent/good friend/good teacher deflates the ego of an arrogant person, which is what Obi-Wan did.

 

There was the initial dislike of Anakin on Obi-Wan's part, and Obi-Wan did not initially want to train Anakin, however, as far as I could tell, Obi-Wan put that resentment aside and did the best he could with Anakin. Tried to befriend him, and I would say he succeeded.

It seems to me like Obi-Wan gets a lot of heat for not liking Anakin from the start, which I don't think is really fair. The elder Obi-Wan always looked back on their friendship with fond memories, but before Episodes II and III came out, the speculation was that Obi-Wan's initial dislike doomed their relationship from the start, and that Anakin would resent him for his early statements. As it came out, that wasn't how it happened. It wasn't a case of "Obi-Wan never liked him," nor one of Anakin feeling that was the case. Until of course he got his limbs chopped off, but that's a whole new ball of wax. It should be noted that, when telling Anakin the Jedi were traitors, he singled out Obi-Wan, as if Anakin might not get the message otherwise. The concern Anakin voices to Padme later on is his hope that Obi-Wan is still loyal to the Chancellor.

In the original trilogy, Luke and Leia are both rubbed the wrong way by Han. Han has to be tricked into rescuing Leia, and Luke is pissed off by his "shoot first and ask questions later" attitude. They also dislike his selfishness, in that his first instinct is to take the money and run. By ESB, Han and Luke are close friends as well. Leia still hates him, but, that's the way a romantic comedy (which is essentially what they had) works.

 

It wasn't necessary, because Obi-Wan's dismissive "Dreams pass in time" nicely encapsulates the disregard he and the Order had for Anakin's well-being. The boy would not have sought out Palpatine had there not existed a void.

Pity that sincerity and competence are not always tethered.

The differences are stark.

Luke left a stable household at the end of adolescence, and was accorded a clean-break with his family's deaths; Anakin left his mother well before adolescence, was always haunted by the bondage in which she remained, and forbidden to rescue her.

Luke's family was destroyed by soldiers, and he avenged them by destroying the Death Star, whose grave galactic threat provided a convenient framework for redemptive violence; Anakin's mother was tortured and destroyed by an isolated tribe of nomads, and he could only avenge them in a beclouded arena of women and children.

Luke lost a kindly mentor, but had a support group of warm friends; Anakin lost a kindly mentor, and was left with cold-blooded monks who discouraged attachments.

Luke was tempted by a well-defined monster; Anakin was tempted by a monster posing as a kindly grandfather figure over the span of thirteen years.

If you ask me, Luke had it pretty easy compared to his old man.

 

I think Obi-Wan was to blame but there were also other factors to Anikan's downfall to the darkside of the force. I believe that Obi-Wan wasn't ready to lose his master Qui-Gon as well as taking on his own apprentice very close to the same time and with Anikan's midi-chlorian level it just spelt Sith from the start.(I'm new to the site so if i got things wrong in that statement feel free to correct me)

 

And what of Obi-Wan's remark in ROTJ:
"I thought I could train him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong."
Clearly, Obi-Wan felt some responsibility towards Anakin's fall.

 

where in any of the movies does Obi-Wan express dislike for Anakin?

he senses danger in the boy and is hurt that Qui-Gon is so quick to push him aside when before the Coucil in favour of Anakin. watch the moment on screen, even Qui-Gon knows he has wronged Kenobi - Neeson and McGregor play the moment perfectly.
in fact Kenobi and Skywalker speak to each other only twice on screen in TPM. THERE IS NO DISLIKE IN EITHER SCENE.

As anakin_girl rightly points out it was Obi-Wan's job to instill humility in Anakin.
the Jedi forbid attachment because it was a distraction to their duties and as Yoda pointed out brings "fear of loss" leading to the dark side - AND WAS HE WRONG?

no, because it was his attachment to Padme that left him open to Palpatine's schemings.
remember Padme knew what Anakin did after his mother died? and she not only didn't speak out or tell anyone, she just dragged Anakin deeper into danger by getting further involved and telling lies to be with him - a self confessed murderer.

Kenobi might blame himself and think he failed Anakin, but how can he be responsible when two people he cared for and trusted were decieving him.
Palpatine may very easily have failed if Padme had just done the right thing.

 

I would say not even Palpatine is to blame for Anakin's conversion to the Dark Side. It was a choice Anakin freely made even though he knew full well that such was a transgression. Yet he abandoned the straight and narrow path in his pursuit of power. The fact that he later tried to rationalize and justify his actions only proves that he was self-deceiving.

Of course, Palpatine can be blamed for his own adherence to the Dark Side and his tempting others to join him in sin, but such is his own transgression and it takes none of the responsibility off Anakin. It is similar in many ways to the Serpent's temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Though God did not permit the fact that they were tempted by an outside agent to excuse their act of rebellion, he also did not tolerate Satan's actions in tempting mankind to evil either. Thus, all three were duly punished.

As for Obi-Wan, he did not actively tempt Anakin to convert to the Dark Side, nor did he ever show neglect or disinterest in training Anakin. He trained Anakin to the best of his ability. There is certainly no wrongdoing in that.

 

Yes, and also Obi-Wan to Anakin in ROTS: "I have failed you, Anakin... I have failed you."

Obi-Wan felt much responsibility and blamed himself more than he deserved, I think. There were many factors and players that contributed to Anakin's fall (including the Jedi in general), but the two that deserved the most blame were Palpatine and Anakin himself.

 

No, "Dreams pass in time" is not an ecapsulation of Obi-Wan's dismissive attitude. That he brought it up at all is in indication that he shows concern for Anakin. Anakin possibly being the Chosen One does not suddenly scream out that his dreams must be prophetic.

As for his lines in ROTJ, I've addressed those. It was not until the writing phase of ROTJ, when the writers had to square was Obi-Wan told us about Vader, and what ESB told us, that Obi-Wan was given any feelings of guilt over what happened to Anakin. It is a very late addition to the story. The question is whether the prequels bear it out, and they don't. Obi-Wan's feelings of guilt are no different than any parent feeling that he is to blame when his child goes down the wrong path in life.

Luke grew up with strict stepparents who kept him away from the Jedi life. He was denied any connection with who his parents were for the first eighteen years of his life. He was deprived of both Owen and Beru and later Obi-Wan within days of each other, leaving only Han and Leia (to whom he didn't know he was related) to serve as his family, and only his Jedi training as a way to connect with who his father was, only to find out his father chose the wrong path. He's hardly living in the lap of luxury.

 

Obi-Wan said "dreams pass in time" to comfort Anakin but he didn't understand the situation he was in. I know that when I was feeling miserable and my parents told me things will get better, that never comforted me. Obi-Wan meant well but his efforts backfired.

I would say Luke had more compelling reasons to turn to the dark side than Anakin did. Anakin turned because of a possibility that Padme could die. Luke was cornered in ESB. He had a low chance of survival when he fell off the catwalk but it shows that even early on, he would choose death over turning evil. In ROTJ, he saw the Rebel fleet getting hammered. That wasn't a vision. Yes, his background had prepared him better to handle obstacles better than Anakin's but the situations he faced were surely not any easier.

 

It's kind of funny that Luke spent his formative years on a backwater planet in the outer rim and turned out fine, Jedi-wise, while Anakin was raised by Jedi and turned out terrible. He was a bad seed from the beginning, I guess. I can't place 100% of the blame on Obi-Wan, for this very reason. I wonder how much trouble Anakin got into between ages 9 and 20 (which we never see, unfortunately). Was he always acting out? Did Obi-Wan bite off more than he could chew?

 

Do I dare suggest that Anakin's lack of a father was a factor here?

Luke may never have known his father until close to the end, but he was never lacking in terms of male role models to guide him. He's had Owen for most of his life. After that, he has Obi-Wan's guidance, and later Yoda's.

Anakin was raised solely by his mother, and later, while undergoing Jedi training, she was still his top priority, when push came to shove. With no actual father, he became the subject of a tug-of-war between Obi-Wan and Palpatine. Obi-Wan provides discipline, Palpatine permissiveness. One kept him down to earth, the other stroked his ego.

Anakin was not a bad seed from the start, but his upbringing gave him certain disadvantages.