PT Did Obi-Wan not finish off Anakin because "he was his friend", or so he could suffer?

In a sense, did the original trilogy happen the way it did because Obi-Wan had a momentary dark side lapse?

 

This is how the scene plays out in the novelization - there's several reasons, at least one of which was "it would be murder":

A flash of metal through the sky, and Obi-Wan felt the darkness closing in about them both. He knew that ship: the Chancellor's shuttle. Now, he supposed, the Emperor's shuttle.
Yoda had failed. He might have died.
He might have left Obi-Wan alone: the last Jedi.
Below his feet, Darth Vader burst into flame.
"I hate you," he screamed.
Obi-Wan looked down. 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 might cost him more time than he had.
Another Sith Lord approached.
In the end, there was only one choice. It was a choice he had made many years before, 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.
He turned and walked away.​

 

He did it because of story framing. That aside I think it's because Obi didn't want to kill a friend.

 

Well I agree with "the story required it." But I don't agree with the "no killing a friend".

Obi-Wan made a deliberate choice to dismember Anakin and he made an equally deliberate choice to leave him to burn. HAD Anakin died, it would have been all on Obi-Wan. He would have killed Anakin and on top of that, he would have given him a slow, painful and horrible death.
And given the situation, Obi-wan would know that Anakin will die unless he gets help. So by inaction, he condemns him to death and a terrible one at that.

Take the graphic novel "Watchmen". In it the character "Rorschach" tracks down a child murderer. He handcuffs him to a pipe and hands him a saw and tells him that he won't have time to saw through the cuffs but might have time to saw through his arm. And then he sets fire to the building. The man doesn't make it out. Rorschach 100% killed this man. It wasn't as direct as shooting him but he still killed him.

Putting Anakin out of his misery right there would not be murder as Obi-Wan had pretty much killed him by dismembering him. If you shoot a guy in each knee, both arms and twice in the stomach. And leave them to bleed to death in a desert. How is that less of a murder than shooting him in the head instead? To me the only difference is that the latter is a quick death while the former is slow and very painful. And if someone deliberately chooses the former then I would call that cruel.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

That's fine.

 

Wouldn't that be a light side insight?

If Obi-Wan kills Vader then Luke who has no chance of ever taking out Sidious by himself can't appeal to his father who decides to save him.

 

We don't know what would have happened. Maybe, without Vader, Obi-Wan and Yoda choose to raise Luke, from birth, to kill the Emperor.

 

No as far as they know at the end he is dead. They are unaware of his survival when they make their plans. They adopt the Sith way of hiding and waiting.

If you can't beat 'em then copy 'em!

 

Obi-Wan (in the PT) strikes me as someone who's very "professional" as a Jedi and not afraid to do what he knows needs to be done - whether he likes it or not. You never see him hesitate to risk his life or shy away from responsibility or confrontation. I would think Obi-Wan (recognizing that Anakin was dying - painfully) would go ahead and kill him to spare the suffering. Obviously he couldn't do that in the PT because Vader had to appear in the OT. However, I think the Obi-Wan we watched up to that point would kill off Anakin in that situation. He had to have been prepared to do that already just by showing up on Mustafar.

 

I believe that at that point Obi-Wan was too drained emotionally to be making any life altering decisions. He wasn't thinking and couldn't handle what he had done to Anakin so he ranted and ran away.

 

Chopping off limbs, in that situation, counted as "self-defence".

Once the limbs were chopped, however, there was the issue of any further strikes ceasing to be defence, and becoming attack.

 

well if we are going by one of the PT's biggest themes the simple answer as to why he didn't finish off Anakin was down simply to "it wasn't the will of the force"

Anakin had to bring balance by killing Sidious before he bit the dust so to speak.

 

For mercy and because of their friendship.

 

Obi-Wan said earlier in the film, "He is like my brother, I cannot do it." Which he was right, he could not.

Also I think Obi-Wan feared turning to the Dark Side if did kill him.

 

I think it was a combination of not being able to kill his "brother" and thinking he was going to bleed/burn to death, since he had no idea Sidious was on his way to save him. He might've also initially planned to kill him or expected him to fall to the lava, but changed his mind and thought he deserved to burn slowly.

The Chosen One prophecy says otherwise.

 

There's a strong implication in the junior RoTS novel that they believe Luke and Leia are somehow the only ones that will defeat the Sith, and that Anakin is no longer The One:

"Save them, we must. They are our last hope."

 

I really don't like this passage. I watch the movie, and it's quite clear to me that Obi-Wan simply can't bring himself to finish the job, because he loves Anakin too much. It's the exact opposite of "not feeling merciful."

That scene in the novel is a massive disservice to Obi-Wan's character, IMO. (Full disclosure. I still have not read the entire novel, largely due to excerpts like these that seem to fundamentally misread the motives of characters. I don't really believe Lucas line-edited the whole thing, at least not to the extent Stover claims.)

 

The Jedi were always unsure if Anakin really was the Chosen One, and after becoming Vader they thought the prophecy was "misread". But they were obviously wrong in thinking that Anakin was "killed" by Vader, and that he could never turn back. By proving he was the One, he confirmed what the prophecy said about only him being able to destroy the Sith and bring balance.

 

There's two reasons though.

"Might cost me more time than I have, to climb down there."
"It would be Murdering A Helpless Man"

The book emphasises that Obi-Wan has been loving Anakin for far too long and, during the duel, finally gives up that "attachment":


Obi-Wan backflipped from the conduit to a coupling nexus of the main collection plant; when Anakin flew in pursuit, Obi-Wan leapt again. They spun and whirled throughout its levels, up its stairs, and across its platforms; they battled out onto the collection panels over which the cascades of lava poured, and Obi-Wan, out on the edge of the collection panel, hunching under a curve of durasteel that splashed aside gouts of lava, deflecting Force blasts and countering strikes from this creature of rage that
had been his best friend, suddenly comprehended an unexpectedly profound truth.
The man he faced was everything Obi-Wan had devoted his life to destroying: Murderer. Traitor. Fallen Jedi. Lord of the Sith. And here, and now, despite it all...
Obi-Wan still loved him.
Yoda had said it, flat-out: Allow such attachments to pass out of one's life, a Jedi must, but Obi-Wan had never let himself understand. He had argued for Anakin, made excuses, covered for him again and again and again; all the while this attachment he denied even feeling had blinded him to the dark path his best friend walked.
Obi-Wan knew there was, in the end, only one answer for attachment...
He let it go.

 

Question:

Would you (you being anyone who cares to answer) have liked it better if this dilemma simply didn't exist via re-write?

For example, if Obi-Wan really, 100% thought he was dead and had good reason to believe he was dead on the spot, no doubt about it. So he wasn't, in any way, leaving behind a living Vader. For example, Anakin wasn't conscious when Obi-Wan left, he showed no signs of life, he looked absolutely dead. If you want, you can still have the "I hate you", and you can still have Anakin clawing, he just passes out and looks dead before Obi-Wan leaves. Or whatever, write your own scenario.

Or, Obi-Wan was leaving behind a living Vader, but only to save his own life. For example, overwhelming forces show up and prevent him from finishing Vader off. Or whatever, write your own.

Just wondering.

 

^ Agree with anakinfansince1983 here. Obi-Wan assumed Anakin would be dead and he had to assist with taking care of Padme and the twins birth.

Still, I ball whenever I watch Obi-Wan at that moment. It is a culmination of their failures, Obi-Wan in saving his friend and the completion of Anakin's fall.

 

I think the way Obi-Wan saw it, Anakin Skywalker did not deserve to die that way, but Darth Vader did.

 

That's mostly what the novelization went with - the notion that climbing down to finish the job faster is a risk, that the Emperor is already extremely close, and that he still has to look after Padme:

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.
He turned and walked away. After a moment, he began to run.
He began to run because he realized, if he was fast enough, there was one thing he still could do for Anakin. He still could do honor to the memory of the man he had loved, and to the vanished Order they both had served.
At the landing deck, C-3PO stood on the skiff's landing ramp, waving frantically. "Master Kenobi! Please hurry!"
"Where's Padme?"
"Already inside, sir, but she is badly hurt." Obi-Wan ran up the ramp to the skiff's cockpit and fired the engines.
As the Chancellor's shuttle curved in toward the landing deck, the sleek mirror-finished skiff streaked for the stars.
Obi-Wan never looked back.

 

I always read it that Obi-Wan really thought Anakin was going to die. I mean, he DID get dismembered, and burst in to flames. Anyone would have assumed the same thing. Add to that Obi-Wans friendship with Anakin, and it was enough for obi wan. Anakin surely should have died. It was only a bit later that he could tell that Anakin lived, and he realized he lost his only chance.