Obi-wan and Padme as willfully obtuse rivals
Saw this Take on reddit the other day (I know) but I thought it was so perfectly written and captured exactly the dynamic I always felt Obi-wan and Padme to have. I never saw them as friends (and frankly I don't think the on-screen text supports them as friends). They certainly aren't enemies! They share a friend, they share traits, they even share respect for one another - but they are not in league with one another, and importantly they share a subtle current of mistrust for each one another.
Obi-wan outright states he does not trust politicians, Senators in particular. Padme willingly marries a Jedi which is against the Order and Senate's codes of conduct, and blatantly lies to Obi-wan for years. Obi-wan never confronts Padme about his concern for Anakin despite his growing observation of Anakin's instability. They both prefer, in a way, to pretend the other does not exist. Compartmentalized.
Padme and Obi-wan represent, thematically, a dual influence on Anakin - one he must famously choose between Jedi or Senate (spoiler alert: he ends up choosing himself, Sith). It is worthy to note that they hardly ever interact themselves - this is done on purpose.
It is essential for the tragedy narrative that Obi-wan and Padme do not collide and rarely interact with one another. It is their own personalities which ensure this. Years of subtle feigned ignorance between them and purported respect coupled with disinterested avoidance.
The two are almost eerily similar in their delusions (Padme is naive, Obi-wan is arrogant - yet neither believe they are), they overlap almost constantly in Anakin's life, but on their own they rarely interact together. They stubbornly refuse, both knowingly and unknowingly, to ever truly confront one another about this dangerous tug-of-war they are engaged in with Anakin as, for lack of better term, the object of their desire. Yet they are not, emphatically, a love triangle. Anakin is the prize. The Jedi and the Senate are competitors.
These negative aspects to their characterizations propels the Tragedy Narrative with Anakin/The Chosen One as the McGuffin forward. Neither the Jedi nor the Senate are willing to see the truth about Anakin, and both keep their intentions with him secret. Like Padme and Obi-wan, the Jedi & Senate never wanted to admit Anakin's fate might be multifaceted and linked to many different power structures, so instead they seek to direct him on their own.
Anakin as the Chosen One was essentially the harbinger of a message: the Order and Senate need to be dismantled and refurbished. They were corrupt - the same as Padme and Obi-wan (as figures in a Tragedy). But neither side could admit that.
Padme marries Anakin secretly and intends to take him away from a life of service (when she knows he is deeply conflicted about this, & she marries him when he is struck with unstable grief over Shmi), and Obi-wan is seemingly very aware the Council does not trust Anakin and is keeping him on the outside because of fear of his abilities (when he knows Anakin desperately wants to know the truth) - both of these things intend to direct Anakin, unknowingly. Anakin isn't getting what he needs in either direction, nor is he providing it. Nor is the Force - stuck in limbo between these two forces of "good" which are shutting out Skywalker from himself and each other.
Neither Obi-wan or Padme ever consider confiding in one another about this for years, nor does the Jedi & the Senate. It's because they do not want to. It's because deep down they do not trust each other, and importantly, they do not trust each other with Anakin. Despite pleasantries with one another, that mistrust is always there implied in the narrative. The only place Anakin overlaps in this realm is the War.
The war ending is almost unfathomable - because who will "win" Anakin? Anakin enjoys being a general in the War because he can fight for both the Jedi and the Senate, beside Obi-wan who is, ultimately, his true friend despite the struggle, and for Padme as a princess ideal on a distant planet. With the Jedi who he desperately wants to be (though they shut him out) and for the ideal of the Senate (but not truly having to deal with its realities). He is his happiest during the war - though it is an temporary balm, an illusion of inner peace.
Obi-wan and Padme orbit Anakin, each with their own gravitational pull -- Anakin is obsessed with and bound to Padme because of his trauma regarding Shmi (not, arguably, because of genuine selfless romantic love), and Anakin is duty-bound and desperate for Obi-wan's approval (despite, truthfully, having ideas and aspirations way outside the Jedi Code and Order). His fate with both of them is on a collision course for destruction from the get-go.
In the story, neither Obi-wan nor Padme end up being the final keeper of Anakin (Luke and Leia). Padme's death can be looked at as a narrative choice to show that Anakin's and Padme's relationship was founded on unstable principles (Shmi). Yet, he could not leave his soul in the hands of the Jedi (Obi-wan) either, and so destroyed them. Anakin's soul, the Chosen One, ends up in the hands of Bail Organa of Alderaan and the Lars family of Tatooine.
In the end, the children need protection from Vader. Vader of course represents the instability in both systems of Good (Senate and Jedi) and the Sith taking advantage of that. How the powers of Good can easily fall to the powers of Evil when they are divided, secretive, and especially when they seek to control for their own self-gain. I.e. Padme marrying Anakin, and Obi-wan being unable to admit Anakin's mistrust of the Jedi was founded.
Obi-wan and Padme are forced to finally confront one another upon Anakin's destruction. They are forced, in a way, to admit they played a part in it - specifically. The fact that Obi-wan essentially becomes the twins' defacto parent becomes all the more poignant because of this. Obi-wan and Padme, for lack of a better term, become one another's problem at last.
Obi-wan and Padme's dynamic is extremely interesting, and they do see one another as intellectual equals, even admire one another for their skill, but this admiration falls very quickly to their subtle mistrust of one another.
In the end, in OWK, it's obvious Obi-wan fondly recalls Padme with more than a little regret. He recalls a woman, who like him lost everything (and more, her own life!). In the kids, Luke and Leia, he sees hope for a better government (Leia) and a better Jedi order (Luke) - an answer to the mistakes of two parallel but unconnected people - Padme and himself.
The fact that the children are twins is a hopeful sign the future of the galaxy will be in harmony, not opposed to one another, as with the symbolism of he and Padme.
Leia and Luke are miraculously, as per the Force, a chance to redo both the Senate and the Jedi - a gift that could only be possible as the children of the Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker.
The person they both loved wrong and lost.
jacobvanloon
dededos
dailybridgerton
baratheonpilled
