The Jedi Code is like an itch.
Consider who the three main characters of Obi-Wan Kenobi are.
Obi-Wan, Vader & Reva. What ties them all together?
They’re all trying really hard to NOT be Jedi… even though, deep down, that’s who they are.
Because as the Grand Inquisitor puts it: the Jedi Code is like an itch; they cannot help it.
Take Obi-Wan, for instance:
He's saying: “I’m not a Jedi anymore. That guy died the same day Anakin did. I’m just Ben.”
But it kills him that he can't help Nari, he can't help that dude who can't feed his family, he can't help those settlers on Mapuzo who were getting bullied by stormtroopers.
His character arc is the most obvious one: he is coming to terms with the idea that, yes, he still is a Jedi.
Because that’s who Leia needs him to be right now.
And it’s who Luke will need in the future.
We know Vader’s arc won’t conclude in this series.
For years, Vader is always THIS close to going back to the Light, then always stomps his foot on the ground and doubles down, going “nu-uh, I’m evil deep down inside, I swear! Dark Side all the way! Look how I’m killing this guy! See what a monster I've become Obi-Wan?!”
He keeps rejecting the Light and rationalizes his actions by saying the Jedi betrayed him, but deep down, he’s rejecting the Light because he thinks he deserves the pain that the Dark gives him. He’s a monster and he is where he belongs: in Hell.
But we know that, eventually, he lets go of the guilt, the anger, the fear, and does become that Jedi again, which George Lucas once described as “ultimate father figures”.
Because that’s what Luke needed when the Emperor was killing him: his father, the Jedi.
She's saying: “I’m not a Jedi. The Jedi abandoned me. I hate them and I’m gonna have my revenge!”
That whole speech she gives in Part I?
She’s not saying that to the Tatooine randos (who the Jedi never protected in the first place because they had no jurisdiction in the Outer Rim). She’s repeating that to herself.
Clearly, she was a youngling when Order 66 happened, she got taken in and made into a monster. But not really, right? ’Cause the other Inquisitors? Now those guys are full-on psychopaths. She’s cute compared to them. They tell her as much.
She’s not as broken inside as they are.
And deep down, she knows it too. Which is why she screams, she pouts, she’s overly arrogant, reckless, mean and insistent, she’s overdoing it, she’s overcompensating.
“Look at my flips! Look at how I parkour! Would a Jedi be so badass?!”
She’s doing exactly what Vader is doing.
Only she’s doing it louder, because the good in her isn’t buried as deeply as it is with him. She’s stomping her foot and doubling down and insisting that “no, I’m bad, I swear”.
Because the alternative is accepting that - unlike Vader who made his own choices - deep within Reva lies the truth that what happened to her wasn’t her fault. She’s a victim of a galaxy-wide genocide. And it's not her her fault. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people, and it's unfair.
Which is why Haja takes her by surprise.
Why would this guy WILLINGLY say he's a Jedi? Is he crazy? Doesn't he realize what that comes with? The target it puts on your back?
Seeing him do that clearly hits her where it hurts.
Now, I don’t know if she eventually arcs and manages to become that Jedi once again… or if she’ll die trying… or if she does like Vader and rejects it for good.
There’s a reason Reva and Moses Ingram are positioned in the middle in all promotional pictures featuring the trio:
My guess is that, aside from just aesthetic reasons, it's partially because while Kenobi is coming around to following the Way of the Jedi again, and Vader is just blazing trails in the opposite direction… Reva’s fate is unclear.
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