I’ve Got Star Wars On The Brain, And I’m Going To Make It Everyone Else’s Problem.

I’ve got Star Wars on the brain, and I’m going to make it everyone else’s problem.

Now, shall we?

Okay, but what if Obi-wan had to haunt himself as a baby?

Mister low-self-esteem seeing himself as a baby that still had value?

Obi-wan seeing that he was just a little fellow, basking in the light, deserving good things? (“Luminous beings, we are” Yoda had said, and that meant him too.)

Obi-wan coming to realize that he wasn’t just made to suffer for no reason, that there was a destiny in store, and that he didn’t fail?

Obi-wan learning that the little boy he used to be was horribly funny and desperately sad, and that he actually did make the best of every situation?

That once upon a time he had been just a little boy learning how to be a person for the very first time? (Just like Anakin, once upon a time, and Obi-wan had loved that little boy so much.)

Obi-wan understanding that he was the reason Qui-gon had to repair himself, to make himself better? To be the man worthy of teaching this incredible little boy?

What if Obi-wan saw that he was a little boy just as beloved as Anakin?

That he was meant for the crucible in the way that gold ore is? That his life wasn’t meant to destroy him, but to refine him into something splendid? That all the pain would have meant nothing had he not lived the way he chose to?

He can’t talk to the young Obi-wan and tell him it will all be worth it in the end. He can’t help. He can’t change anything. Except he knows now that infinite suffering did indeed bring infinite gain to the galaxy.

He knows that this little boy he once was will suffer, and that the decisions he made were in service to the light. That his life was good. Significant. Worthy.

Obi-wan, long dead now, comes to understand that the weight of the galaxy was not his to bear. That it was not his choices that brought darkness. That he did his best with what he knew and could do at the time.

It was not his failure.

Obi-wan simply (with great difficulty at times) made his choices in service to the light.

Not everyone else did, and that’s on them. Not him.