I think I'm going to have to give your Qui-Gon/young Obi-Wan stories a proper go. You seem to be recommended a lot... so I'll make an effort to read them. Though I admit I do tend to skim-read over the ones you have published, so I've sort of put a foot in in that era... Ooo, now that I look forward to reading... you're on my author alert list on FF.Net so I always keep an eye on your stories...
Well, don't feel obliged - some things are simply a matter of taste and I take no offense. Maybe once the new CW season begins, we can all look forward to some spin-offs based on the episodes - that's always a fun read, in my opinion. And we can , um, correct any ass-kicking that gets mistakenly inserted in the TV version of the stories...
having trouble opening that.... why am I plagued by computer problems?? Computers are for droids!! Oh, wait. They are droids. Never mind...
We wouldn't have had one of the greatest Jedi ever. Who knows how many treaties might not have been settled; battles avoided without the Negotiator.
Ruth, where did you find that picture?? I love it. And too bad your punchline was a bit spoiled, but WOW, what a pic!!
Story behind picture: SO I hatched eggs in an incubator with my kids as a science project. Then began the pleas to keep the resulting chickens. I was not enthusiastic about the prospect, to say the least, and complained of it at great length. A friend of mine who loves animals (and does not have the zoological equivalent of a brown thumb, as I do) grew weary of the incessant grumbling and sent me this photo as an incentive to start liking chickens. I think it might be working. Really well. And now I'm thinking the galaxy lost out on a great farmer, Val. It's a toss up. I don't know. Some backwater planet.... where large, attractive cocks are at a premium....
thats Funny Ruth..and yes, Obi-Wan on agricorps....hmmm.. I would love to know the story behind that picture though.... He looks really young though..I wonder if it's from when he still lived in Scotland... But Ewan dirty and in a kilt...
Has anyone had a look at the "marcy killing" thread here ? The subject of debate is the ethicality of Obi Wan leaving Anakin to die a slow painful death on Mustafar... I was just thinking that perhaps he learned his lesson with Darth Maul. You finish the job too fast and they come back a dozen years later to haunt you.... But seriously, I've heard a great deal of discussion about this scene over the years, and the consensus generally seems to be that it woudl have been more merciful to just walk down there and finish Anakin off, rathe than let him suffer endlessly. Am I the only one who doesn't see it that way?
Maybe Obi-Wan had to leave in a hurry because he sensed that Sidious was coming. He had to protect Padmé and the future. That might be something he had known.
Ah, a safe venue to talk about this without being accused of Obi-Wan-defending no matter the issue. Truthfully, it WOULD have been merciful to finish Anakin off. I'm sure Obi-Wan thought Anakin was as good as dead and would be dead in mere seconds to maybe a minute - obviously, we find out he was wrong. I could try the Maul-defense here: he SHOULD have been dead but his will to survive & take revenge kept him alive (quite possible) but I'm not really going to invoke that defense. I think: 1. Obi-Wan was far too emotionally distraught and compromised and corollary to that; 2. Decided it was best to leave Anakin/Vader's fate to the Force Ruth, you wrote that wonderfully in a foreshadowing line in one of your recent stories. In this case, Obi-Wan's decision was correct, in hindsight: Anakin did eventually bring balance. Most dissenters are approaching this from a compassionate, Anakin-victim POV: he was in horrible pain and here his "so-called best friend" leaves him to suffer in agony before dying, hardly the "act of a compassionate man." To view otherwise is to continue to put Obi-Wan on a pedestal of "can do no wrong." SHOULD Obi-Wan have granted Anakin in that moment, clueless as to the future and aware only of that moment, of Anakin's suffering his "final death throes"? Well, it would have been merciful (and without doubt saved countless lives later taken by Vader) but that would mean Obi-Wan is fully logical and 100% aware of his actions and consequences. As logical as he may have been in those moments, he threw Anakin's fate to something greater than himself - such could be called the action of a desperate man, or a man of deep and abiding faith in the Force to do the right thing.
Yes, I thought this would be a rational place for discussion. I don't intend to defend Obi Wan at all costs, either. It's clear on a physcial plane that killing Anakin woudl be more merciful. But agreed, Val - the man is utterly distraught. You see more emotion in that moment than you do in the entire prequel trilogy, including Qui Gon's death. But sometimes I think people forget that these are Jedi and their "hokey religion" puts a twist on things like this. To cut Anakin down swiftly, in the throes of hatred, would end his bodily suffering and hsi life (existence) but woudl condemn him to the Dark forever. There is that need to turn the fallen back to the Light, even at the last moments of existence. Obi Wan's last words to Anakin coudl be read as a plea to turn: "You were my brother. I loved you." He chokes that out, takes a look at Anakin, and walks away, not killing him. Is that a faint, emotional hope that the real man will have a last-minute, last-second turn back to the Light before he expires? That is what happens twenty years later... Is it going to far to say that burning alive is from a Jedis' perspective less important than drowning in darkness? Obi Wan thinks he has killed Anakin. I coudl argue that by letting him linger, he is holding out that thinnest of hopes that he will turn back before he actually perishes. It's an act of love to leave him burning. Yes, I just said that.
The reason for the "Obi-Wan chose, coldly, to leave Anakin" view might possibly by the novelisation: It would be a mercy to kill him. He was not feeling merciful. He was feeling calm, and clear, and he knew that to climb down to that black beach would cost him more time than he had. Another Sith Lord approached. Though it then says: In the end, there was only one choice. It was a choice he had made many years ago, when he had passed his trials of Jedi Knighthood, and sworn himself to the Jedi forever. In the end, he was still Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he was still a Jedi, and he would not murder a helpless man. He would leave it to the will of the Force. So- the book supports both- "faith in the Force" and "he made a logical, merciless decision".
Oooh, scholarly sources, excellent. Though I would say that the performance in the RoTS movie supports the "distraught" factor as well. But none of these are truly contradictory; you can be many things, on many planes at once. You can be broken hearted, iron-willed, and intellectually detached all at once, particularly in times of extreme crisis. The human heart, mind and will can resonate in different levels at once. You could in theory simultaneously abandon the disposition of fate to the Force, calculate that you needed to get away becasue a Sith lord was coming and you must do your duty, and beg your best friend to die loving rather than hating - if you were a complicated person, anyway, one trained from infancy to compartmentalize emotion and thought and decision making. Maybe it's just too simplistic to try to decide which "one" perspective is the defining aspect of this action, or lack of action.
