gffa:
I can’t stop thinking about that George Lucas quote, “Darth Vader is the bad father. Ben Kenobi is the good father.“ and this episode, “Are you my real father?” “I wish that I could say I was.” and how that’s Obi-Wan and Anakin’s functions in the narrative, that each of the twins was adopted by a family that loved them and raised them, but within the story, the scenes that we the audience see, the looming figure of Darth Vader is the bad father they never knew and Obi-Wan is the good father that helped them, watched over them, comforted them when they needed it, protected them.
That Obi-Wan and Anakin are entwined in each others’ lives in a very personal way, but also as a narrative function way, that Obi-Wan was the first person to hold Leia as a baby, that he’s the first person to tell her anything about the Force, that he guides her and protects her, just as he’ll do for Luke one day, that Vader will be the one to harm his children, to use the Force to hurt them, to torture Leia, to cut off Luke’s hand, to constantly hunt them down.
Darth Vader is the bad father. Ben Kenobi is the good father. NARRATIVE PARALLELS, THESE TWO ARE MIRROR IMAGES OF EACH OTHER, always inescapable from each other.