Obidala

Obidala

Obidala gives me brainworms and now I have to explain why. Let's see if I can. It's not just that I think they're hot together (which they are), it's the context of them in the canon that makes them chewy and good.

Part of it is because, logically, they SHOULD be together. They are the same, they have the same values, they are both idealistic and devoted to service. In a different life they WOULD be together. They would be soulmates.

But they're not. It's like they... missed. Like destiny had planned on them but then Obi-Wan was a devoted Jedi Knight and Padmé met Anakin and fell in love with him instead...

But there was still this unspoken connection hiding beneath the surface, this subconscious tension.

@wallisjewellie wrote an extensive post (lots of good posts actually) arguing that in earlier iterations of the story, Obi-Wan and Padmé were in fact actually going to have an affair. And if that's true, then they quite literally WERE meant to be together, but missed. And there's something about that missed potential... like... I just want to bring them together to realize it.

But then there's breadcrumbs of this deleted love affair left in the narrative: Anakin's jealousy, deleted scenes, details from the RotS novelization about how Padme trusted Obi-Wan more than her own husband, etc. It's just enough to suggest that there is a canonical latent attraction between them.

Layer on top of that the fact that they do both, genuinely, love and care for Anakin so much it becomes part of their identities, it makes everything so complicated. Like, there's a connection between them, and Anakin suspects it and it drives him insane, but they would never acknowledge it much less act on it because they are both so principled and love Anakin so much, it would break them if they did anything. But he punishes them for it anyways.

It's so melodramatic.

Then there's the fact that this not-quite-love triangle is only implied, in a story where everything else is so explicit and everyone says what they're thinking, it adds this sense that it's a secret, or that maybe it's not actually real and you are going crazy and seeing something that's not there.

Obidala exists and it doesn't. Obi-Wan and Padmé should be together but they can't, they would break. It's the contradictions.

I guess my brutally honest opinion of Obidala is that it's good and more people should ship it.