THIS FUCKING BROKE ME, because Obi-Wan isnât prone to hallucinations, like okay maybe he has finally so stressed that he cracked under the pressure, but I donât think so, because we donât really see any other indications of it, but instead we do see that these two sense each other through the Force, that the MINUTE Obi-Wan uses the Force again, Vaderâs eyes snap open and they feel each other. We see later in this episode, Obi-Wan is hit with a tidal wave of a psychic onslaught when he sense Vader.
The camera tilts and wobbles and the music vibrates in a way that makes you feel underwater in both scenes. They feel the same.
These two people are connected through the Force, we know they always will be, that Vader will sense Obi-Wan on the Death Star, and I think heâs sensing Obi-Wan here as well, just as Obi-Wan is seeing him.
But what is destroying me is that Obi-Wan sees him as he knows Anakin, the unburned version, the one who stands with his arms wrapped tightly around his middle, in almost a vulnerable sort of way. The one whose cloak is almost too big for his frame, the one who would fiddle with the giant sleeves of his robes when he was nervous, the one who huddles in them like a shield. The way Obi-Wan remembers him. The way that some core part of Darth Vader still remembers himself as, especially when connecting with Obi-Wan.
Heâs so full of hate and rage that he cannot admit to this part of himself, whatever good is in him at when he feels Obi-Wan, he canât admit to it because Obi-Wan is the part of himself that he wants to kill off, Hayden has said that probably half a dozen times in interviews, that he wants to destroy Obi-Wan because he wants to destroy that part of himself.
And this is what he wants to destroy.
The part of himself that is vulnerable and lonely and not the terrifying murder cyborg, the part that Obi-Wan Kenobi sees, the part that Anakin will always remember so long as Obi-Wan is alive and has hope. Anakin cannot admit to what heâs done, he cannot go back after all of this, Obi-Wan will always know him and what he did, itâs only Luke that can offer him a future that he can accept, because Luke is only the future, not the past, Luke will never see him like this.
But this is still the core of who Anakin Skywalker is, the one that Obi-Wan Kenobi sees.
