THIS WAS REALLY INTERESTING because it sort of drew together a handful of things that I’ve thought on about this before and MAN DO I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS because there’s a lot going on here.
⇾ The one thing missing from this is a tweet from Pablo on this topic (who was not involved in the quoted discussion) about how he’d overheard George saying that Anakin “had help from the other side”–BUT THIS IS WHERE IT GETS INTERESTING.
⇾ Dave is talking about how Anakin returns to his younger self because that’s the good person that he last was, the last time that he was balanced. HELL YEAH FOR ANOTHER “BALANCED” SHOUT OUT INSTEAD OF “LIGHT-AFFILIATED”, because the Jedi are (and always have been) about balance. He also says “he has to shed that skin like everything else” and let me get another HELL YEAH for how Anakin’s final moments were about Letting Go of everything.
⇾ So, Anakin has Let Go of everything, he has shed all of those things he held onto for so long, all that rage and pain and old grudges and wounds, in a truly selfless moment to think of someone else, to leave it all behind. His appearance reflects that, that he’s returned to the form where he was last balanced.
⇾ Well, how does he even know how to do it? In the quoted conversation, it’s veering into how Yoda knew how to become a Force Ghost, that the priestesses were only testing him to see if he was worthy of it, that he still had to learn from Qui-Gon. And this is why Yoda mentions this whole prospect to Anakin in that arc–as Leeland Chee adds:
He’s planting the seed for all those years later, when Anakin finally Lets Go, when he has that truly selfless moment (as is the only way to become a Force Ghost, that’s an established rule of Force Ghosts) that he can hear the Force Ghosts who will help him from the other side.
It’s tempting to say that it might have been Qui-Gon who helped him, but here’s why I don’t think so: Qui-Gon is not in the scene with Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Yoda. And he could have been, it would not have been hard to drop him in there, had George wanted him to. Now, he hadn’t perfected being a Force Ghost yet, he was just a voice during Revenge of the Sith and it had taken him until then to be able to talk to them outside of Mortis (if it was indeed Qui-Gon on Mortis??) but From a Certain Point of View tells us that Qui-Gon was nearly able to physically manifest just before ANH, so within Disney canon he very well could have been there, but was not, meaning that it’s unlikely that he would have been the one to help Anakin.
More likely it was one of those who had done a more perfected job of it–someone who still loved Anakin even after all that he had done. Someone who wouldn’t have been able to reach Anakin (though, you cannot tell me he wouldn’t have at least looked in on him) until Anakin was ready to Let Go and remember that seed planted in his mind of how Force Ghosts were a thing. Someone Anakin would have instinctively reached for.
More likely it was Obi-Wan who went YEP I’M GONNA KEEP SPOILING THAT LITTLE SHIT BECAUSE OH HE’S ANAKIN AGAIN.
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