We already knew that the final battle in Obi-Wan Kenobi between the titular Jedi Master and his former Padawan would be grand, bone-chilling, and utterly epic to experience, but no one was expecting the series to dazzle their minds and break their hearts at the same time.
As it happened, Obi-Wan and Vader fought with the ferocity that comes with a decade of held-up emotions. After coming to terms with what he had to do again, Ben masterfully danced around his opponent’s aggressive fighting style and managed to land a couple of fatal hits. The last one took off a chunk of Vader’s helmet, exposing Anakin’s burned face to Obi-Wan for the first time in 10 years.
Obi-Wan immediately withdraws, apologizing to Anakin and holding back tears. Anakin, on the other hand, manages to break through the villainous apparatus of Vader for a brief while, telling his old master that Anakin’s fall to the dark side wasn’t his fault. “I am not your failure, Obi-Wan. You didn’t kill Anakin Skywalker. I did.”
Was it him just stating a fact and taking responsibility for his actions? Was it Anakin sparing Obi-Wan from a lifetime of guilt in those few moments of lucidity? Whatever it was, the interaction has left Star Wars fans with a sense of emotional anguish that they hadn’t felt in a long while.
Maybe we love Obi-Wan too much as a character, but him breaking down again was really difficult to watch for a lot of people.
There may be no recovering from this devastating scene.
“Then my friend is truly dead,” says Obi-Wan, truly burying Anakin inside his mind. [Tries to not sob uncontrollably.]
As if that final fight scene in Revenge of the Sith wasn’t heartbreaking enough, we’ll now have the Obi-Wan Kenobi finale to haunt us as well.