#obi-wan kenobi slander is not accepted here

[fellthemarvelous]

I want to talk about Obi-Wan and Maul

This might end up being kind of long so bear with me, and my thoughts are kind of all over the place and possibly slightly incoherent.

Maul and Obi-Wan had a rivalry that was insanely brutal. (More under the cut.)

Maul survived being cut in half by Obi-Wan and ended up going insane, no longer connected to reality and living in the sewers for many years. Once Savage took him back to Dathomir and the Nightsisters "fixed" him, he found clarity again and became wholly fixated on Obi-Wan, the only person he had any connection to from his past. He hated all Jedi, but there was no one he hated more than Kenobi.

Obi-Wan, for his part, was horrified to learn that Maul had survived considering Obi-Wan had cut him in half.

Their rivalry is probably one of my favorites in all of Star Wars.

Maul was bloodthirsty, vengeful, and full of rage.

Obi-Wan was the opposite. He was kind, compassionate, took no pleasure from killing others, and loved unconditionally.

And one thing Obi-Wan eventually came to understand about Maul was that Maul had not had a good life. He recognized that Maul was raised to be the person he was because of the cruelty of Darth Sidious.

The Nightsisters handed baby Maul over to Darth Sidious to be trained in the ways of the Sith. Darth Sidious, who is famously cruel and diabolical. Darth Sidious, who raised Maul to be expendable because Maul was just a means to an end for Sidious.

Maul who never grew up experiencing love. He never experienced kindness or compassion. He was raised to be an assassin, a cold-blooded killer, doing anything and everything Sidious asked of him.

And he eventually understood that he had been nothing more than a tool for Sidious.

So he was angry. Alone. Full of hate. And wanted revenge.

And his anger at Obi-Wan was more than just him losing his legs. Obi-Wan caused him to lose the only life he knew. He had no guidance once Sidious was finished with him.

The only life he knew was one of cruelty. He'd never bonded with anyone until he met Savage.

And when Sidious killed Savage, Maul was alone again. (Ironically, Sidious killed Savage the same way Maul had killed Satine like five minutes prior.)

He had no one on his side again.

He tried to connect with Ahsoka, and then with Ezra years later.

But still, more than anything, he wanted to break Obi-Wan the same way that he himself was broken. He wanted to see Obi-Wan lose control and become like him. He was almost successful when he forced Obi-Wan to watch him kill Satine.

But Obi-Wan proved to be unbreakable even in that moment, and Maul's obsession only became stronger, along with his rage.

Maul was unable to comprehend love, and it drove him crazy that Obi-Wan had actually tried to connect with him in the moments leading up to Satine's death. Obi-Wan had tried to show Maul compassion and it infuriated Maul. He hated that Obi-Wan was trying to be kind to him.

Maul was a monster in every way, but he was also a victim raised under the cruelty of Darth Sidious and only knew how to be what Sidious had molded him into.

And on the other side we have Obi-Wan Kenobi. Despite his sass and sharp wit, he is kind and loving. He loved being a Jedi and devoted his life to living by the Jedi code. And he may not have always gotten it right, but he never strayed from the core principles.

(And always be as dramatic as possible.)

I've seen some bizarre criticisms of Obi-Wan that have me scratching my head. His attachment to Anakin, for one, like there isn't a rich and complicated history behind their relationship in the first place.

He's criticized for not killing Anakin so clearly Vader's reign of terror is somehow Obi-Wan's fault.

Let's examine all of this a bit closer.

We often joke about the fact that Obi-Wan has a vast collection of dismembered body parts, but Obi-Wan does not like killing others. He kills when he has no other option.

He prefers to disarm his opponents, quite literally. He cut off Zam Wessell's hand instead of killing her even though she was about to kill him. He just wanted answers. She had no real way of fighting back because he had injured her.

He disarmed the man who was threatening Luke in the cantina in A New Hope. He didn't kill him though. It's not like he was a major threat.

And on Mustafar, he couldn't bring himself to kill Anakin. He cut off one of Anakin's arms and both of his legs, an action that tore him apart because he loved Anakin so much. Anakin was defenseless at that point, and he was also completely on fire thanks to the lava. No part of him imagined that Anakin could have survived being burned alive, and he spent the next ten years hating himself for leaving Anakin to die until he learned that Anakin not only survived but was incredibly angry with him and wanted to kill him.

Just like Maul.

Obi-Wan did not like the idea of killing. At all.

And perhaps it was his attachment to Anakin Skywalker that brought the galaxy to its knees, but that attachment was because he and Anakin had always had a confusing relationship.

Let's take into consideration the fact that Obi-Wan, at the end of The Phantom Menace and only 25-years-old, had just watched his Master die at the hands of Darth Maul, subsequently killed Darth Maul (but not as much as he thought he had), been given the title of Jedi Knight, and taken on nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker (almost immediately after being knighted), a boy who had just been freed from slavery and had to leave his mother behind to pursue a life as a Jedi because being a Jedi had always been his dream.

Then maybe take into account the fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi was grieving the loss of Qui-Gon while Anakin struggled with being away from Shmi for the first time in his life. Obi-Wan didn't just train Anakin in the ways of the Jedi, he raised Anakin. He treated Anakin like a brother while Anakin said Obi-Wan was the closest thing he ever had to a father. Obi-Wan has always been good with children, and it's only natural that he would take on a parental type of role despite the fact he was only 16 years older than Anakin. He loved Anakin the way a brother would, and it did blind him to some of Anakin's more concerning habits, but Anakin also kept his biggest sins a secret because he was ashamed of himself, and he never wanted to know what it felt like to have Obi-Wan be disappointed in him.

Their relationship was messy because they were attached to each other, but Obi-Wan still did his best to teach Anakin. It had been Qui-Gon's final wish for him to train the boy, and Obi-Wan trusted his master.

So it was his attachment to Anakin that prevented him from killing Anakin aka Darth Vader, but it was very in character for him to choose not to do so. He always believed there were other ways to fight back.

And in the end, not killing Anakin had been the right choice. Anakin is the one who defeated Sidious (at the cost of his own life too) in an act of love for his son Luke and returned balance to the Force.

Obi-Wan didn't want to kill Maul either, but Maul gave him no choice. Maul was now a threat to Luke.

Maul lived a tormented, lonely life because he was never able to come to terms with the pain and anguish he'd experienced as a child that turned him into the monster he was throughout the rest of his life.

Obi-Wan (Ben) was able to rise above the suffering he'd endured and made peace with what had happened during and after the Clone Wars. He was so very much connected to the Force by this point because he had finally been able to let go of the tragedies of his past.

When he defeated Maul, he didn't treat it as a victory. He cradled Maul in his arms the same way he had held Qui-Gon and Satine when they died by Maul's hand.

He offered compassion to Maul despite Maul's atrocities, and in doing so, allowed Maul to experience peace for the first time in his long life.

In his final moments, he was treated with the dignity he had never given any of his victims.

And I think, in the end, Maul finally understood what he had been deprived of his entire life.

Obi-Wan was a true Jedi. He might have made a few errors along his journey, like everyone else does. He proved he was a master not by his skills with a lightsaber but by his ability to show compassion to those who don't necessarily deserve it because they are the ones who usually need it the most.

Star Wars Rebels gave us such beautiful closure to a rivalry that spanned decades.

[dotthings]

Oh. I'm having a lot of feelings on a lot of things!!! Going to talk about Sol first.

We had a good run, Sol Patrol. *cries* We might see him again someday in flashbacks. There's more mysteries about him, why he was so frantic to protect the girls, I think there's more to it than his worries about the vergence. He was personally driven. And we know nothing about his childhood.

He didn't go dark side, he wasn't evil, he was basically good, but he lost his judgment. Believing he was doing what was right, and necessary. The vergence, the twins who were actually one person split apart, he was afraid. As I've said, fear is one of the biggest vulnerabilities for the Jedi. Fear is how they fall apart. It's how the darkness gets in. Something Yoda warned about.

Sol accepted and faced up for what he'd done, to Mae, to Osha. He was finally free of the lies...and then slandered in his death, even if he's spoken about honorably. The murders get assigned to him, for whatever purposes and reasons Vernestra has, moving her chess pieces to cover Mae's tracks. And all the different factors in play at Brendok, the wild cards, the individuality and fallibility of the Jedi on Indara's team, Mother Koril and her instigations to violence, gets simplified down for politicians. There's something here about how history gets distorted and details and truths get lost.

There's something very tragic about Sol.

This was also giving Obi Wan Kenobi parallels again. Different outcomes--but Osha's feelings of betrayal and why didn't you tell me and the secrets Jedis will keep because they believe it's what's best to protect a child. I saw echoes of Luke and Obi Wan.

[tessiete]

hii so idrk if u take reqs but can we have some korkie and obi-wan on fathers day?

Well, I have no concept of time, BUT I have finally completed this prompt! Hope you find it, anon, and I hope it lives up to your desires! Featuring cameos from Anakin, and Satine! Buituur = Parent's Day (It's become a full week, at this point!) Ijaat'ilor = Honour Meal Amalios = August(ish) (Basic) Haa'Tabguri = February(ish) (Mando'a) Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum = I love you. Alright, I think that's all the preamble! HERE WE GO!!

Master Kenobi has never missed a single Buituur Festival - not in all the seven years that Kiorkicek has been on Coruscant. Every year, with careful diligence, his master has marked off the dates on the little chronocalendar posted just at the door of Korkie’s room. It is always one standard week, but it always changes.

“It is based on the cycle of the moons,” his master says. “And there are two to keep track of, you know.”

“Yes!” Korkie agrees, eager to display the quality of his education. “Concordia, for eternal friendship, and Amity, for change.”

“Very good, Kiorkicek,” says his master, as he uses his stylus to draw a thick line across five days near the end of Amalios, which Korkie knows will be sometime in Haa’Tabguri on Mandalore.

“And will we go again this year?” he asks, bouncing on his seat. The thin pallet of his bed doesn’t rebound with the same elasticity as the one on Mandalore, but that’s alright - his enthusiasm is buoyant enough.

“Of course,” says his master, just as he knew he would, and Korkie grins.

“Thank you, Bebu! Thank you!”

His father understands, and his father would never miss it.

--

But the turn of the stars serves no single man’s purpose, and events conspire to grind promises to ash. Four years later, they are somewhere else, somewhere far away when Buituur Festival comes, and they cannot make it.

“You promised,” he says, cloak drawn tight to his body as he slides down the co-pilot seat, propping his feet on the dash. “You said we would be back in plenty of time.”

“I know what I said, Kiorkicek, but I was wrong.”

His master flicks a switch, calculating a sedate and altogether conservative flightplan back to Coruscant. Korkie watches the numbers scroll, and scoffs. Anakin would laugh at such a course. Anakin would die of shame if Obi-Wan were his master.

“So you lied,” Korkie says, toeing at one of the atmocontrols with his boot.

“Feet off, please,” says Obi-Wan. “I didn’t lie. I miscalculated.”

Korkie swings his legs to the floor, and stands with all the indignant wrath of a sullen fifteen year old. “Same thing,” he sneers, then he sweeps out the door to find his bunk.

--

The ship is too small for true privacy, and he’s compelled to share the narrow quarters with his father, but he’s not feeling particularly generous right now, so he shuts the door, and locks it behind him. Master Kenobi can sleep in the cockpit for all he cares.

He flops onto his bed, and throws his boots aside, unpolished. His cloak he drops in an untidy pile beside his bed. Let it crease, he thinks, as he pulls his tabards loose and flings his belt to the floor to join them. Let them wrinkle. I hope I lose them all. From the depths of his rucksack, still splattered with mud from their uncivilised flight, and hasty departure, he digs out a battered Temple issued comlink. Beneath his feet, he feels the rumble of engines drop to something subaural, and his stomach bottoms out to follow. For a moment, he feels weightless, like he sits at the top of a huge fall, but then he comes back to himself, and he flings himself backward over his bed. They’ve entered hyperspace.

No matter. It won’t get them anywhere fast enough to turn back time. Forget Anakin’s embarrassment - if it takes them sixteen years to return to Coruscant Korkie couldn’t care less. It’d still be too late.

He flicks through his comdeck to find Anakin’s number, and pings him.

“What?”

Anakin’s voice fills the room, staticky with distance and movement. There’s no image, so Korkie assumes he’s in the middle of something.

“Hello to you, too.”

“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” says Anakin, confirming Korkie’s hypothesis.

Korkie runs his hand through his hair in distress. “Well, I’m absolutely in the middle of nowhere,” he bemoans. “You should see the course my father set for this trip. I think Master Yaddle is a braver pilot than he is.”

“That sounds like Obi-Wan,” says Anakin. “One sec.”

There is the shuffle of fabric over the amplifier, and then muffled voices in the background. He thinks he hears Master Qui-Gon, and maybe distant blaster fire. A typical mission for the Jinn-Skywalker team. At least they have some excitement.

“You still there?” asks Anakin, a few minutes later.

“Nowhere else to be,” Korkie sighs.

“What’s wrong with your dad?” he asks, and Korkie frowns.

“Nothing,” he replies. “Why would you ask?”

“I dunno,” replies Anakin. He can hear the distraction in his voice. “Why else would you be calling me?”

Korkie sighs, making sure it is extravagant enough to be heard over the com. “Because I’m suffering,” he says.

Anakin’s tone hardly changes. Still that distracted disinterest. “Okay, well, tell him to call Master Jinn when he can. Something about remembering to bring back some nadashaap leaves from Sundari, or something.”

“We’re not going to Sundari.”

“Mandalore,” says Anakin. “Wherever. Look, I’ve really got to go. I - yes, master! I see them!” A lightsaber hums. “Korkie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got to go.”

“May the Force be with you,” he says, but Anakin’s already signed off.

He ought to call his mother, and explain. She answers almost immediately, and he feels guilty - had she been waiting?

“Korkie, my love!” Her face appears, tinted blue and blurred with the flickering light of a hologram, but it is her, and Korkie aches to see her smile. “How are you, darling?”

“Fine,” he says, but he cannot smile in return.

“Are you keeping up with your studies?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Your father says you have top marks in Core History, and Outer Rim Politics of the Colonial Age, but that you failed your last assignment in Pollinators and Pests in Basic Agriculture.”

Korkie frowns. “Well, if you already know that, then why did you ask?”

“Korkie?” she says. Her voice turns inquisitive, and he hates the fragile note of hurt in the tone. He wishes now there were no hologram, and that he hadn’t called at all.

“Sorry, Belli,” he says, bowing his head, and picking at his fingers so that she can’t see the shame burn across his cheeks.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, all hurt transformed to concern, and that is almost worse.

“Nothing,” he says.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Is your father -”

“Master Kenobi is fine,” he says. “Why does everybody ask?”

His mother recoils. Her image flickers as her expression shifts, and she lifts a brow in suspicion.

“Master Kenobi?” she repeats. “Not Bebu? Not father? What’s wrong?”

He lets out a groan, knowing that he cannot hide any longer. “It’s Buituur week,” he says.

“And?”

“And, perhaps it is nothing to you, but you may have noticed we are not there!”

“I had noticed, cyar’ika,” she says, calm and soothing even in the face of his simmering upset. She speaks as though it is not the betrayal he knows it is. “Your father called me before you left Parvis to tell me you wouldn’t be back.”

“Oh.”

“Did he not warn you?” she asks.

“No,” he replies. “He did.” He is angry, but he cannot lie. He will not slander his father with falsehoods, but neither will he defend him. “But he promised. He said - every year we would always go home for Buituur. Always.”

“And you have,” she says. “This is the first year that hasn’t been possible.”

“So he lied.”

His mother is taking none of this. He turns away so that he cannot see her lips press into a frown, and her brows draw together in displeasure.

“He didn’t lie, Kiorkicek,” she says, with the dreaded use of his full name. His mother never uses his full name. His father never shortens it. “He didn’t know you would be stuck in weeks of negotiations.”

“Then he shouldn’t have accepted an assignment so far away!” he retorts, some of the heat in his cheeks moving to his stomach to stoke those banked fires of indignation.

“It is his duty,” the Duchess reminds him. “And yours. Or do you think yourself above your vows?”

He rolls his eyes, and flicks his braid. “No,” he says.

“Excuse me?” his mother asks, a warning in her tone.

“No, ma’am,” he replies, just as testily.

His mother tuts, and Korkie tightens his jaw, biting back his resentment. For a moment, there is a strained silence between them, like the elasti-band tension between two armies before the first shot is fired. But some of his father must have rubbed off on him, because Korkie relents first, the rigidity of his spine softening, and he wilts into loose limbed resignation.

“I’m just...disappointed,” he says. “I miss you.”

“Oh, my love,” Satine says. “I miss you, too. Always. But I will see you soon, yes? Your leave will just be a bit later this year.”

“But we’ll have missed the festival.”

“Do you miss me, or do you miss the festival?” his mother demands, with a playful lilt, intent now on jollying him out of his gloom.

“You, of course,” he says, tucking a reluctant smile away before she catches him at it.

“Then it doesn’t matter when I see you,” she says. “The festival is only meant to be a reminder: honour your parents, and celebrate them.”

“I know,” he says. “That’s what I wanted to do. Honour you.”

“You know, Korkie, you have two parents.”

He cocks his head, and looks up at her sharply. “Well, yes!” he says. “But I’m always with bebu.”

“So?”

“So I wanted this week to be about you.”

“But we have decided that is impossible,” she says. “So how else might you celebrate it?”

--

He finds his father slumped over a datapad in the tiny galley, a cup of tea at his elbow. Korkie touches it as he sits down across from Master Kenobi, and feels that the ceramplast has grown cold with time, the liquid in it only half drunk. Obi-Wan looks up, blinking away the blur of distraction at his arrival.

“Kiorkicek -”

“I just wanted to apologise,” Korkie says, not waiting for his father to speak. Perhaps that might be considered impolite, but he knows that he is in the wrong, and he doesn’t want his father to excuse him before he can express his regret. “I’m sorry that I blamed you for the delay in Parvis, and I’m sorry that I was so unkind to you. I know that you couldn’t have foreseen that we would miss Buituur Festival, and that it was unfair to accuse you of lying. I was disappointed, but that is no excuse for my behaviour, and I promise it won’t happen again.”

His father is nonplussed. “Well…” he says, slipping his hands into the folds of his cloak. “Well, thank you. And I apologise for being unable to -”

“- To command time?” Korkie cracks a smile. “It wasn’t your fault, bebu. Don’t apologise.”

“Bebu?” says Obi-Wan, eyes sparkling. “Now I know I am forgiven.”

Korkie leans over the table to bring his father close, and pulls his hand from out his sleeve. He holds it between his own, and draws it to his lips leaving a delicate, reverential kiss upon the knuckles.

“Always,” Korkie vows. “And just because we can’t be home for Buituur Week doesn’t mean we cannot celebrate it.”

“Oh?”

“Yes!” Korkie says. He releases his father’s hand, and leaps to his feet. “Now, I know that we are rather limited in our supplies, but I am not limited in my creativity, and I have a plan. Belli says that one of the most important traditions of Buituur is the Ijaat’ilor.”

“The honour meal.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I am certain that we might come up with something suitable enough, and arrange a holocall with your mother so that you might dine together -”

“No, not with belli, alor,” says Korkie. “With you.”

“Me?”

“Are you not also my buir?”

“I am,” says Obi-Wan.

“Then I would honour you,” says Korkie.

He shifts away to search the stores and cupboards, seeking something moderately edible, something that may be reconstituted into a feast fit to exalt his master suitably enough, but in the hollow, ascetic reserves of their tiny ship there is nothing to match his desire. He gathers what he can, combining this packet with that tin, and adding the few spices that he knows his father can tolerate. He is done in minutes, thanks to the dull efficiency of ready-pack meals, and he sets a steaming plate of instant noodles, and nutricubes before him. As a last minute touch, he boils a little more of their precious water reserves and steeps a fresh cup of tea for his father.

Then, he sits, and together they lift their grub-sticks to sample his work.

His father chews, swallows, and sips at his tea, wincing slightly at the heat. Korkie grimaces in distaste.

“Well,” says Obi-Wan. “At least it’s hot.”

Korkie shoves his plate away, his heart sinking down to his scuffed up boots.

“I’m sorry, bebu,” he says. “I did try.”

“I know you did, my one. It is not your fault. There is nothing to be salvaged from ration packs.”

“But I wanted to please you,” Korkie protests. “I wanted to show you how I admire you. I wanted to honour you for Buituur Week.”

Obi-Wan pushes his plate to join Korkie’s at the side, and stands. With a single step, he is around the edge of the table, and kneeling at his son’s feet. Korkie doesn’t resist when his father tugs him to the end of the bench, turning him to face him where he waits, and taking his hands in his.

“You always please me,” his father says. “You always honour me. Kiorkicek, I do not need Ijaat’ilor, I do not need Buituur Week. You honour me every day, just by being you, and it is my admiration I must express. I am so proud of you, my son. So proud. And I am honoured to be your father.”

“Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum, bebu,” Korkie says, throwing his arms around his father’s neck.

His father wraps his own around him in turn, and holds him close. “Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum, Kiorkicek Kryze. Always.”