Ya know, Lucas really messed up Kenobi

Some incongruities Lucas created by changing his story along the way:

-Kenobi lying to Luke in A New Hope. Resulted from the fact that when it was written, Vader was not related to Luke, who had a different father who Lucas later planned to bring back "still alive" in the sequel to help with the Rebellion.

-Luke "hidden" on his father's home planet with the same iconic last name of Skywalker, instead of perhaps getting the last name "Lars." Also resulted from the fact that Luke was specifically unrelated to Vader when it was written.

-Kenobi stating that Yoda is the Master who trained him. Overturned by Episode 1 and Qui-Gon.

-Leia remembering her mother. Overturned by Episode 3.

Was it really such a bad thing that Lucas sold off the property?

My theory: Kenobi represents the repressive psychic "Super-Ego" concept - the moral authority that demand obedience and regulation, and Anakin represents the impulsive psychic "Id" desirous of unlimited power and possession of things. Kenobi can never accept the wild Id and can do nothing about it unless the "Ego" self can intervene to bring the Id back to order - as we know Anakin seemed well down the path of destruction and beyond the reason of the Ego self.

When Kenobi said that Vader killed Anakin, although the same person they are different personalities and represent different psychic states - the discipline of Super-Ego and the impulsiveness of Id. Anakin killed the "Father" within himself just as he rejected the "Father" in the form of Kenobi, which then allowed the Id to flourish in the form of Vader.

This was a failure to understand the impulsive nature of Anakin. Failure of Anakin to properly discipline, and failure of Anakin to self-discipline. It was dangerous to introduce Anakin to the Force but that is the legacy of the choices made.

Interestingly, we're seeing a replay of this with Kylo and his parental issues. He feels compelled to kill "the Father" or Super-Ego in the literal human authority figures like Han/Luke and even Snoke, but he will forever wrestle with the abstract Super-Ego (and his parental memories and socialisation) that he is trying to escape in his quest for power and respect from others. Luke said he will never leave him - this terrifies Kylo and frustrates his goals.

Kenobi ran away from things for a while but after the plea from Leia he hoped that Luke might help him and restore balance to the force by defeating Vader. Kenobi never left Luke.

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I really love what Lucas did with prequels. He made the Jedi Order assholes, liars and schemers. Not these devout moral knights that we took them for in the OT. Except that's actually how they thought of themselves. They basically created Darth Vader with all their jerking Anakin around. I think it's wonderfully dark, complicated, and representing many real world governments and religions and how they rule by manipulation. But this was definitely a seriously BOLD movie that pissed a ton of people off. If you take the prequels as hard cannon, old Obi-Wan is still following that twisted discipline, still making all the same mistakes he made with Anakin. It's deliciously complex, at least to me. For others it must be utter bullshit.

You make some very interesting points, Froggy. I never thought of Kenobi in that way.


:-)

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Yeah, the prequels didn't do any favors for Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon has a lot of blame for Vader as well. In Phantom Menace, Obi-Wan thought it was a bad idea to bring Anakin along and the Jedi Council said they wouldn't train the kid because he was a potential danger. Qui-Gon ignored everyone and said he would train the boy himself. The next day, Qui-Gon gets killed and Obi-Wan is essentially guilted into training Anakin. The Council basically says "Fuck it, it's gonna happen one way or another" and goes along with the whole thing. Twenty years later, the entire galaxy lives in quaking fear of Anakin.