The Usual Argument.
Not only did I pester imadra_blue into giving me the prompt, but I also pestered her into telling me setup. And how the main event might come about. And the motivations of the characters.
The pretentious hand-waving is all my own, though. XD
The usual argument is something like this: yes, Obi-Wan Kenobi was young and inexperienced when he began to train Anakin Skywalker. He was barely a Knight, let alone a Master capable of training an unusual case like Anakin. Nevertheless, the primary fault lay in his subsequent indulgence of Anakin. Even if, say, Qui-Gon had been too injured to train Anakin, if Obi-Wan had been harsher from the beginning, if he had not been so willing to overlook small transgressions, things might have been different.
In other words, if Kenobi had not loved the boy so much, Anakin Skywalker might not have gone over to the Dark Side.
...
"Master, it's cold outside."
It was the sort of statement made by Padawans through hundreds, if not thousands or tens of thousands, of generations, when their Masters failed to grasp basic meterological conditions by looking out the window or tent-flap. Yoda had changed the locations of the subject and the predicate when presenting the issue to his master, but it was, essentially, the same issue. The first Padawan had complained about this to the first Master.
"There are bits of ice coming down. The wind is blowing so hard that it looks like it is raining ice sideways."
...
The suggestion is not that Obi-Wan should not have loved Anakin at all. No, the idea is that if he hadn't loved Anakin quite so much, it would have worked out far better for the Republic. What if he had not been so guilty himself of attachment? It requires close analysis and quite a bit of ungrounded speculation from the historical facts and radical projection of the interpreter, but what if Qui-Gon had not died on Naboo? What if Obi-Wan had not felt personally responsible for the death of the man he had loved and followed since childhood?
It is easy to laugh at the idea of Jedi of the Old Republic, trained even before the ability to verbalize, being so emotionally vulnerable, but consider the idea seriously.
...
After a while, the snow stopped -- or at least thinned enough so that Anakin did not have to rely mostly on the Force to keep track of his Master ten paces ahead of him. He was beginning to think that he should have agreed to having his snow-beast tied into the trade caravan even if it meant having to stare at a snow-beast rear for another ten hours. If the snow came back, after all, he would barely be able to see anything. And the days were short at this latitude. It honestly raised the question of why anybody would have bothered to stick around the planet long enough to find the ores hidden under the ice crust.
When the caravan-leader called a stop for the mid-day break and the riders dismounted to eat, Obi-Wan stood in line for both of them, then brought back provisions to eat in the side of a snowbank.
Anakin grabbed at the protein bars, for he was a growing boy and terribly hungry, but Obi-Wan swung them out of reach. Instead, he offered a jar a little smaller, in diameter, than his gloved palm. "Put this ointment on. Or you will burn. Terribly. Your forehead is already starting to redden."
When Anakin made no movement to take the ointment and, instead, moved to take protein bars he would have complained bitterly of and scorned in almost any other circumstance, Obi-Wan sidestepped him, unscrewed the top of the ointment himself, dipped his finger into the top, and spread a wide stripe of it on Anakin's forehead. The skin there had, in fact, started to feel hot to Anakin, and the ointment was startlingly cool.
His Master's eyes were very blue against the white of the snow, and he had a certain way of smiling.
...
No, the argument is a false one. It is true that Obi-Wan was terribly vulnerable after his master died; it is further true that because Qui-Gon died in the way that he did, Obi-Wan loved Anakin far more than he would have otherwise. He was more invested emotionally in Anakin's success. Anakin was not only his route to redeeming himself after allowing his Master to face the Sith alone, but Anakin was also where all the love he would have given Qui-Gon was placed.
Still, though, consider this: three hours after dark, the caravan master calls for a halt, and in the blackness of the great ice plains, the tents and temporary shelters are set. In the middle of the night, Anakin slips into Obi-Wan's sleeping cot, presses cool fingers against Obi-Wan's hot skin, and kisses him with lips that were rough from the day's wind, but all the more insistent -- the Obi-Wan who did not watch Qui-Gon die stands an equal chance of kissing Anakin back as the one who did.
...
It is like a crystal. A crystal has many faces, and they reflect and refract light in many directions. Examine this face, and you will see an Obi-Wan who lost Qui-Gon; he is kissing Anakin. In this other face, you will see an Obi-Wan who did not lose Qui-Gon; he is making Anakin shiver by pressing his mouth against the inside of Anakin's bare thigh. A snowstorm howls outside, but neither of them hears it.
In this third face, you will see an Obi-Wan who cannot bear to kill Anakin. The fumes sting his eyes, and the heat burns his skin; he took Anakin's arms and legs, but he could not kill the boy he had loved so much. In this fourth face, he has cut off Anakin's arms and legs and is about to drive his lightsaber through Anakin's heart, but Anakin starts to laugh: this is how Qui-Gon was at the end, too. Crippled. And Anakin had gone to the Temple and gone to the room where Qui-Gon had taken residence. It is not very difficult to kill a Jedi Master when he is crippled and you can call upon the Dark Side.
Lightsabers cauterize wounds. Anakin is able to speak surprisingly clearly, and he almost seems to be smiling. "Can you do it -- Master?"
Obi-Wan looks at Anakin, and the grief and shame rise up and choke him. He cannot do it.
...
Every path leads to the burning of the Temple. Every road contains the destruction of the Jedi Order through Anakin.
...
No, the true answer to the question lies in examination of what Obi-Wan did after Mustfar.
He went to Tatooine with the baby and hid himself on the high desert plateaus. There, he waited. Yes, Obi-Wan learned the secret of living on in the Force after death. He also spent the first five years in grief and self-recrimination. It was not easy for him to set that aside; you can imagine that even if Qui-Gon came back to him, he continued to feel the deaths of the Jedi Order and the Republic keenly and personally. Obi-Wan then spent the next six years meditating on the true cause of Anakin's fell to the Dark Side and what must be done now that the Empire was in place.
As for the last seven years, he spent them trying to love again: Obi-Wan was still very much a Jedi of the Old Republic. In order to teach Luke, he must love the Force, and even for a Jedi of the Old Republic, trained to serve above all else, it is very hard to love something that has decided your kind has no place in its universe and destroyed accordingly.
Because, really, there has to be a reason why the Force keeps Obi-Wan and Yoda alive long enough only to point Luke in the right direction. The imbalance isn't only from the Dark Side - the, um, not Dark Side. The argument is that the Jedi Knights of the Old Republic are fundamentally imbalanced, what with their NO LIVES OUTSIDE THE ORDER rule. Obi-Wan and Yoda were kept alive only long enough to do their duty, then joined the rest of the Order in extinction. XD
Never mind that ending is cribbed directly from a previous fic. You WILL find the ending entirely new and astonishing and not trite even when I tried it the first time. *handwaves*
Written while listening to Arcade Fire's "My Body is a Cage" on the one-song playlist repeat. XD Your mind holds the key! The crippled Anakin/Qui-Gon body is a cage! Etc, etc.
The pretentious hand-waving is all my own, though. XD
The usual argument is something like this: yes, Obi-Wan Kenobi was young and inexperienced when he began to train Anakin Skywalker. He was barely a Knight, let alone a Master capable of training an unusual case like Anakin. Nevertheless, the primary fault lay in his subsequent indulgence of Anakin. Even if, say, Qui-Gon had been too injured to train Anakin, if Obi-Wan had been harsher from the beginning, if he had not been so willing to overlook small transgressions, things might have been different.
In other words, if Kenobi had not loved the boy so much, Anakin Skywalker might not have gone over to the Dark Side.
...
"Master, it's cold outside."
It was the sort of statement made by Padawans through hundreds, if not thousands or tens of thousands, of generations, when their Masters failed to grasp basic meterological conditions by looking out the window or tent-flap. Yoda had changed the locations of the subject and the predicate when presenting the issue to his master, but it was, essentially, the same issue. The first Padawan had complained about this to the first Master.
"There are bits of ice coming down. The wind is blowing so hard that it looks like it is raining ice sideways."
...
The suggestion is not that Obi-Wan should not have loved Anakin at all. No, the idea is that if he hadn't loved Anakin quite so much, it would have worked out far better for the Republic. What if he had not been so guilty himself of attachment? It requires close analysis and quite a bit of ungrounded speculation from the historical facts and radical projection of the interpreter, but what if Qui-Gon had not died on Naboo? What if Obi-Wan had not felt personally responsible for the death of the man he had loved and followed since childhood?
It is easy to laugh at the idea of Jedi of the Old Republic, trained even before the ability to verbalize, being so emotionally vulnerable, but consider the idea seriously.
...
After a while, the snow stopped -- or at least thinned enough so that Anakin did not have to rely mostly on the Force to keep track of his Master ten paces ahead of him. He was beginning to think that he should have agreed to having his snow-beast tied into the trade caravan even if it meant having to stare at a snow-beast rear for another ten hours. If the snow came back, after all, he would barely be able to see anything. And the days were short at this latitude. It honestly raised the question of why anybody would have bothered to stick around the planet long enough to find the ores hidden under the ice crust.
When the caravan-leader called a stop for the mid-day break and the riders dismounted to eat, Obi-Wan stood in line for both of them, then brought back provisions to eat in the side of a snowbank.
Anakin grabbed at the protein bars, for he was a growing boy and terribly hungry, but Obi-Wan swung them out of reach. Instead, he offered a jar a little smaller, in diameter, than his gloved palm. "Put this ointment on. Or you will burn. Terribly. Your forehead is already starting to redden."
When Anakin made no movement to take the ointment and, instead, moved to take protein bars he would have complained bitterly of and scorned in almost any other circumstance, Obi-Wan sidestepped him, unscrewed the top of the ointment himself, dipped his finger into the top, and spread a wide stripe of it on Anakin's forehead. The skin there had, in fact, started to feel hot to Anakin, and the ointment was startlingly cool.
His Master's eyes were very blue against the white of the snow, and he had a certain way of smiling.
...
No, the argument is a false one. It is true that Obi-Wan was terribly vulnerable after his master died; it is further true that because Qui-Gon died in the way that he did, Obi-Wan loved Anakin far more than he would have otherwise. He was more invested emotionally in Anakin's success. Anakin was not only his route to redeeming himself after allowing his Master to face the Sith alone, but Anakin was also where all the love he would have given Qui-Gon was placed.
Still, though, consider this: three hours after dark, the caravan master calls for a halt, and in the blackness of the great ice plains, the tents and temporary shelters are set. In the middle of the night, Anakin slips into Obi-Wan's sleeping cot, presses cool fingers against Obi-Wan's hot skin, and kisses him with lips that were rough from the day's wind, but all the more insistent -- the Obi-Wan who did not watch Qui-Gon die stands an equal chance of kissing Anakin back as the one who did.
...
It is like a crystal. A crystal has many faces, and they reflect and refract light in many directions. Examine this face, and you will see an Obi-Wan who lost Qui-Gon; he is kissing Anakin. In this other face, you will see an Obi-Wan who did not lose Qui-Gon; he is making Anakin shiver by pressing his mouth against the inside of Anakin's bare thigh. A snowstorm howls outside, but neither of them hears it.
In this third face, you will see an Obi-Wan who cannot bear to kill Anakin. The fumes sting his eyes, and the heat burns his skin; he took Anakin's arms and legs, but he could not kill the boy he had loved so much. In this fourth face, he has cut off Anakin's arms and legs and is about to drive his lightsaber through Anakin's heart, but Anakin starts to laugh: this is how Qui-Gon was at the end, too. Crippled. And Anakin had gone to the Temple and gone to the room where Qui-Gon had taken residence. It is not very difficult to kill a Jedi Master when he is crippled and you can call upon the Dark Side.
Lightsabers cauterize wounds. Anakin is able to speak surprisingly clearly, and he almost seems to be smiling. "Can you do it -- Master?"
Obi-Wan looks at Anakin, and the grief and shame rise up and choke him. He cannot do it.
...
Every path leads to the burning of the Temple. Every road contains the destruction of the Jedi Order through Anakin.
...
No, the true answer to the question lies in examination of what Obi-Wan did after Mustfar.
He went to Tatooine with the baby and hid himself on the high desert plateaus. There, he waited. Yes, Obi-Wan learned the secret of living on in the Force after death. He also spent the first five years in grief and self-recrimination. It was not easy for him to set that aside; you can imagine that even if Qui-Gon came back to him, he continued to feel the deaths of the Jedi Order and the Republic keenly and personally. Obi-Wan then spent the next six years meditating on the true cause of Anakin's fell to the Dark Side and what must be done now that the Empire was in place.
As for the last seven years, he spent them trying to love again: Obi-Wan was still very much a Jedi of the Old Republic. In order to teach Luke, he must love the Force, and even for a Jedi of the Old Republic, trained to serve above all else, it is very hard to love something that has decided your kind has no place in its universe and destroyed accordingly.
Because, really, there has to be a reason why the Force keeps Obi-Wan and Yoda alive long enough only to point Luke in the right direction. The imbalance isn't only from the Dark Side - the, um, not Dark Side. The argument is that the Jedi Knights of the Old Republic are fundamentally imbalanced, what with their NO LIVES OUTSIDE THE ORDER rule. Obi-Wan and Yoda were kept alive only long enough to do their duty, then joined the rest of the Order in extinction. XD
Never mind that ending is cribbed directly from a previous fic. You WILL find the ending entirely new and astonishing and not trite even when I tried it the first time. *handwaves*
Written while listening to Arcade Fire's "My Body is a Cage" on the one-song playlist repeat. XD Your mind holds the key! The crippled Anakin/Qui-Gon body is a cage! Etc, etc.