Does Obi-Wan Kenobi Thinking Vader Is Dead Conflict With ‘Star Wars’ Canon?
With the Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi series filling in yet another gap in the Star Wars timeline, it was inevitable that fans would be left wondering how certain aspects lined up with details from other stories. One of the biggest points of confusion, at this point, has been the reveal that Obi-Wan didn’t know Anakin had survived their battle on Mustafar for years after the fact. Some fans think Obi-Wan should have known Darth Vader was alive because of what Ben said to Luke in the original trilogy, among other things, but can anyone really say he definitely knew?
Well … no. There was also a hint that the answer lies in Revenge of the Sith, but again, no. Nothing in Revenge of the Sith is contradicted by Obi-Wan Kenobi. I would know. I’ve seen Revenge of the Sith over 60 times.
Some recent fuel for this fight is the fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi writer Joby Harold talked to The Wrap about the reveal that Obi-Wan didn’t know that Anakin was alive. “That was actually not something I pitched originally,” Harold told The Wrap. “That was something I discovered along the way, and sort of had to confirm with Pablo [Hidalgo] and really think, ‘Hold on a second, what does he actually know? Does he know the moniker Vader? What would that mean? Can he associate the two? What was he cognizant of? How isolated is he? Where’s Vader at that time? Where’s his reputation and how well known is he?’ and all those pieces of the puzzle.”
Clearly, Harold is just talking about the thought process of figuring out what Obi-Wan knew. So yes, the answer is that he did know the “moniker,” but would he “associate the two?” That’s certainly a worthwhile question, since it depends on whether we’re talking about “Darth Vader” and Anakin—in which case, the answer is yes—or “Darth Vader” and some dude in a black helmet that Obi-Wan has never seen before. It’s good that the writers pondered specific questions like this in order to inform how Obi-Wan reacts to his own evolving knowledge of his former apprentice and make the story compelling.
What we knew, as the audience, is that Obi-Wan heard Palpatine call Anakin “Lord Vader” in the footage Yoda warned him about, and Yoda told him Anakin had been “consumed by Darth Vader,” but other than that, that’s all that we know. It doesn’t mean Obi-Wan knew that Anakin was alive after Revenge of the Sith, and you could even argue that Ben talking to Luke in Return of the Jedi and telling him that he was separated from his sister because of Vader was him talking about hiding them from the Sith at the time, which, at the time of RotJ, he knows to have included Vader, even if he didn’t at the time.
What this all boils down to is that the show is not ruining the canon of Star Wars. What it is doing is angering bad faith “fans” who just want to hate whatever it is Disney and company does with the franchise. They’re also definitely the same fans who hated the prequels before and suddenly are upholding them as the canon they wouldn’t dare change.
When is enough enough?
With each new Star Wars property comes a waves of “fans” trying to pick it all apart. Why? Because they’re sad and want everyone else to also be sad, I guess. This argument doesn’t have any backing because in Revenge of the Sith, all that Ben learns is that Anakin is Lord Vader. He doesn’t know that he’s alive and, in fact, when Yoda, Bail, and Obi-Wan are talking about separating the twins, they say they’re doing it to protect them from the Sith. There is no specific confirmation that Obi-Wan knows Vader is alive at this point—only conjecture based on lines that have simple alternate explanations.
With Ben’s moment with Luke, he’s talking after the fact. So it is completely possible that he just said “Darth Vader” to him rather than the Sith and cut out the explanation of everything that happened. Sure, we know, as the audience, that the real reason is just the order in which the stories were told, but it’s really quite simple to see how it all still fits together just fine—unless you don’t want it to. And in that scene, Obi-Wan says that what he told to Luke about his father was the truth “from a certain point of view,” so we know that Obi-Wan is willing to bend what he’s saying to make it as simple as possible. Obi-Wan practically invented finding convenient explanations for seemingly mismatched lines in the franchise way back in Return of the Jedi. This is nothing new for him or harmful to the story.
Right this moment, nothing is contradicted and nothing is ruined. Those saying that the show is breaking canon? They’re just trying to find something to pick at, and that’s different from having a valid criticism of the program.
(featured image: Lucasfilm)
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