Obi-Wan's hesitation during the Mustafar duel

Was he trying to kill Anakin... Anakin was certainly trying to kill him. I ask because of the moment near the end where Anakin jumps onto Obi-Wan's platform and slightly loses balance. Obi-Wan half swings his saber but doesn't take the opportunity to strike. Also, after the finishing blow on the sand-bank, he reaches out to Anakin as he falls. He also looks away when Anakin is immolated. On top of all that, he takes a defensive stance for most of the duel, and at the end warns Anakin not to try it.
Thoughts?

 

I feel that Obi-Wan had a conflict in himself, I thought it to be obvious. He asked Yoda if he could face Palpatine, and Yoda face Anakin. He couldn't kill Anakin because he was his brother. Obviously Obi couldn't face Ppalpatine and was tasked with fighting Anakin.

So yes, he didn't have a defensive attitude during the duel, battling his feeling with his duty. (Similar to Anakin's internal conflict with his love towards Padme). However, as painful as it was, Obi-Wan accepted the fact that it was too late.

Evidence of Obi-Wan's hesitation was when Anakin was burning on the lava bank, Obi-Wan didn't put him out of his misery by finishing him off. He couldn't. His love for Anakin was to great to strike the final blow.

 

If leaving someone roasted alive, dismembered, humiliated and writhing in agony on the side of a lava river without so much
as a sai cha is Kenobi's way of saying, "I love you," then remind me not to tick this guy off!

 

And how did I know that the next post would be that.

Whatever, I still think Obi-Wan loved his friend, but he had a duty to the Jedi, a duty that he put above all else.

 

Most of Obi-Wan's fighting style tends to be defensive in nature. His primary form is Soresu which is o a form of almost pure defense, so he could simply appear to be defensive do to his fighting style.

That being said, his actions to avod the battle when speaking with Yoda shows he didn't want to be in the battle.

I want to know how he got back to Padme and her ship.

 

[image=http://torwars.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/anakin-burning.jpg]

Thanks for straightening that all out. I feel sooooo much better!

Sincerely,

Darth Krispy

 

Evidence of Obi-Wan's hesitation was when Anakin was burning on the lava bank, Obi-Wan didn't put him out of his misery by finishing him off. He couldn't. His love for Anakin was to great to strike the final blow.


So . . . allowing Anakin to slowly burn to death on the lava bank was supposed to be some expression of love on Obi-Wan's death? If that is Obi-Wan's idea of love, he can keep it. I think he was simply being vindictive.

 

Obi-Wan didn't want to kill Anakin, Anakin just didn't give him much choice.

If Anakin would have surrendered, asked for forgiveness, asked to "come back"...Obi-Wan would have accepted.

Perhaps they go after the Emperor together. There's a good chance they'd lose, but if they win Obi-Wan would have done everything he could to make sure Anakin had a chance....to "rehabilitate". Imo anything short of the death penalty and Anakin is getting off light, but the Jedi do believe in forgiveness so it could happen.

 

Agreed. If I had just fought my former best friend across an...um...old steel mill (best comparison I could think of) and the poor guy ended up crippled with horrid burns all over his body, guess what? I would find something, ANYTHING to put him out of his misery rather than just walk away.

At any rate, I don't think even the Jedi would forgive Anakin. I mean, Yoda said flat out to Obi that Anakin, the boy he and Obi knew was gone.

If anything, Anakin would be VERY lucky he doesn't get executed for helping to dismantle the Republic and bring down the Jedi Order.

 

Obi-Wan was conflicted enough to let the Force decide Anakin's ultimate fate - and perhaps, in the END (19 years later) it was the correct decision.

He DID hesitate - he easily could have Force-pushed or swung at Anakin on the floating platform - and didn't.

 

actually per the ROTS novel...Obi Wan didn't "finish off" Anakin because he wasn't feeling "particularly merciful"
(I believe that's the language used in the novel) at the moment and he had to hurry up and escape because darth Sidious' Shuttle was arriving...otherwise he would have probably killed him after the "you were my brother" speech

 

Obi-Wan didn't want to kill Anakin, Anakin just didn't give him much choice.

If Anakin would have surrendered, asked for forgiveness, asked to "come back"...Obi-Wan would have accepted.


So . . . in order to spare himself the trauma of quickly killing Anakin, Obi-Wan decided to allow his former apprentice to slowly burn to death? Again, I don't see this as an excuse for Obi-Wan's decision or a sign of any compassion on his part. If Obi-Wan had felt that strongly for Anakin, he would have quickly killed the latter, instead of allowing him to suffer a slow and agonizing death.


actually per the ROTS novel...Obi Wan didn't "finish off" Anakin because he wasn't feeling "particularly merciful"

For once, that novel (which I am not a fan of) hinted at something I could agree with.

 

We're not talking about the same thing. I wasn't talking about Obi-Wan walking away at all. I never even mentioned it.

I don't care that Obi-Wan let him burn. Anakin destroyed Obi-Wan's entire world, so I'm cool with Obi-Wan leaving him to his fate.

If Anakin repented, then Obi-Wan would have forgiven him. But Anakin didn't repent, he tried to kill Obi-Wan.

Anakin was a genocidal mass murderer and he betrayed Obi-Wan and all Jedi. He didn't deserve Obi-Wan's compassion, but if he had asked for it he would have gotten it. He didn't ask, so it's a moot point.

 

I doubt that Obi-Wan would care whether anyone forgave him for not putting Anakin out of his misery; he blamed himself enough already for what had happened before that point. I do think that he still loved Anakin. But it really comes down to the fact that Obi-Wan couldn't bring himself to kill Anakin during the fight, and he couldn't bring himself to kill Anakin after it (putting him out of his misery was irrelevant). He was on the defensive during the fight... he warned Anakin not to try to jump over his high ground position... Anakin did it anyway... and Obi-Wan very deliberately took Anakin out of the fight, when he saw this would just never end otherwise, without killing him (that move was definitely only intended to cut off arms and legs). After that point, all he could bring himself to do was say what he felt he needed to say and then leave Anakin's fate to the will of the Force (which he probably thought was going to let Anakin die from his lava-induced injuries very soon anyway).

 

"In every exchange, Obi Wan gave ground. It was his way. And he knew that to strike Anakin down would burn his own heart to ash."

 

There is a certain element that is being overlooked here. In high stress scenarios, people often don't think clearly and rationally. Throughout the duel, Obi-Wan is feeling a whole spectrum of emotions from sadness for his lost friend, to fear for his life, to anger against the man who betrayed his brotherhood, to self-loathing for his failure in training Anakin. In all likelihood, he just wanted out at that point he jumped to the "high ground." He wanted to stop fighting and go back to thinking rationally. Now suddenly, after a single strike of his saber in self-defense, he is faced with his friend mortally crippled. He is torn between feelings of vindiction and love towards his former friend, all while blaming himself for this horrible sequence of events. But he is still not thinking clearly. The conflicting emotions are still swirling inside him. So what does he do? He tries to run away from his feelings instead of confronting them. So he leaves without thinking it through. He is running from his failure, not wanting to deal with it any more. It very well could have been an act of cowardice. Haven't you all been in a high pressure situation then afterwards asked, "What was I thinking?"

Then again, I think it was just a poor choice to end the duel this way. If I had written it, I would have had Anakin clinging to the edge of a cliff. Obi-Wan tries to save him, but Vader refuses and willingly falls into the pit. As Vader says in ROTJ, Obi-Wan once thought Vader could be saved. It would have been nice to see that.

 

double post, sorry

 

Kenobi truly didn't want to duel with Skywalker at all. His willingness to face Sidious confirms this. Had Yoda faced Anakin and Kenobi faced Sidious, Sidious and Yoda would have ended up battling anyway because both Skywalker and Kenobi would have died as a result. Obi-Wan was on the defensive for all of the duel with Anakin which indeed indicated his unwillingness to kill him. But in the end, had Obi-Wan not dismembered Anakin when he did, Anakin would have killed him.

 

I think Obi-Wan was hoping that Anakin can change his mind or something, he also have difficulty to understand why Anakin is deeply in the dark side. Obvisouly, he struggle with the fact that he have to stop Anakin no matter what. Its possible that Obi-Wan believe the situation can turnover and Anakin give up and say im sorry for what I've done for exemple. This dual is a very emotive moment of the Prequels.

 

Of course he loved Anakin. That was why he felt so betrayed by what Anakin did. Obi-Wan wanted to punish his pupil, he wanted to see him burn and that's also the reason for the "you suck"-speech at the end. Very telling also that he mentioned duty before friendship. After that he goes on dehumanizing his friend to deal with the pain "he's more machine than man now". Obi-Wan is the kind of guy I couldn't stand in real life.

 

Didn't seem like love to me, more like: "You're getting what you deserved and it's a fiery-bitch, isn't it?"

I don't doubt that Kenobi was torn up inside, but his horror over what happened to younglings and other Jedi at the Temple obviously outweighed his familial feelings for the betrayer. Love and compassion beget mercy, and Kenobi showed none of those things when he walked away from the child murderer. And he was not right, or wrong to do so... especially when one leaves (gffa's) fate to the will of midichlorians.

 

"I can not kill Anakin."

"Anakin is like my brother. I can not do it".

I think he was both feeling vindictive AND couldn't bring himself to finish him off.

 

It was a fight that Obi-wan did not want to enter into but, once he had committed himself to it he was going to see it through to the end. Yoda and Obi-wan both subscribed to the philosophy that a Jedi cannot be redeemed once he has started down the dark path. I don't know whether this was a basic tenet of the Jedi teachings or if their view of the galaxy had been tarnished by war; either way, it was something that Luke could not - and would not - commit to. Luke was right, and his mentors were wrong.