Can we talk about how this one panel tears down the idea that Vader hated Obi-Wan beyond all others? Yes, that is certainly a statement that could be taken as scornful, though I read it as at least somewhat wistful. No matter what tone he says it in, and surely it would be with relish and anger, he had to think it first. He does not call Obi-Wan an old fool, nor does he call him a dangerous renegade. He levies no insults at Obi-Wan at all. He’s an old man who thought he could help gifted children.
He recognizes that Obi-Wan wanted to help him. And rather than blaming Obi-Wan for fucking him up, he essentially shoulders the blame as that gifted child for being impossible to help. He actually blames Obi-Wan only for optimism. His destiny, after all, was predetermined. Obi-Wan thought otherwise, but that is not a crime worthy of hatred.
And I kind of get on about this because I think there is literally no canon evidence that Vader directed hatred or energy toward killing Obi-Wan between their duels. Rewind from their pitiful duel on the Death Star, and what do you have? Twenty years of Obi-Wan living in peaceful exile. The EU conjures up reasons for why Vader personally did not hunt down all the Jedi, both creating Inquisitors for us and at times having Palpatine personally counsel against it as a detriment to Vader’s growth as a Sith. But the point remains that Vader did not focus pursuit on Obi-Wan. Rewind further to the duel on Mustafar. Amid Anakin’s ranting, he tells Obi-Wan “Don’t make me kill you.” He waits for a solid declaration of intent from Obi-Wan that a fight must commence. That is not obsession and it is not drive to see Obi-Wan’s death. While they both prepare for the duel they know is inevitable, on both sides, they require that last push to make them fight. It is not an uneven assault where only Anakin pursues combat because he specifically wishes for Obi-Wan to die.
Back to their final, pitiful duel. I know that people like to characterize it as murder since, well, murder and heavy breathing are pretty much what Vader does best. It only barely fits the criteria, since Obi-Wan not only lowers his weapon, but outright declares that when Vader strikes him down, he will become more powerful. He intends for it to happen. Vader is the instrument of his suicide.
How does Vader react? With fury that Obi-Wan denies him even his vengeance? No. Obi-Wan is an old man who thought he could help gifted children. He was mistaken. Now, Vader is well and truly abandoned for Obi-Wan has given up on him and living in a world that has him in it.
This is, in many ways, a sadder interpretation than the more prevalent idea that Vader obsessed over vengeance every hour of the day.
SO GUESS I’M GOING TO BE CRYING ALL THROUGH VADER’S BITCHY REVENGE FANTASY STILL INCLUDES OBI-WAN TELLING HIM HE LOVED HIM
FIRST: GOOD, SHARE MY PAIN
SECOND: We’re crying because of exactly that–Anakin is still obsessed with Obi-Wan. This comic is set relatively soon (within a few years) after the events of Revenge of the Sith, but it’s part of a bigger pattern. Listening to the behind the scenes talk about the latest Rebels episodes, Dave Filoni re-confirms that Obi-Wan is the #1 person he wants to find and kill, to destroy that last link to his past.
We see in previous issues of this very comic that the kyber crystal Vader was corrupting shows him a vision of how it’s still possible for him to go back, to find Obi-Wan and beg for forgiveness/death from him.
But here we’re seeing the other half of how Anakin feels about Obi-Wan–the obsession and the anger and the hate, that he keeps fusing into himself, down to his very bones. That his base of operations is his castle on Mustafar, looking over the very spot that Obi-Wan fought him and he lost. He’s still there all the way to Rogue One, which is ~18-19 years after all of this.
We see in A New Hope that Vader still recognizes Obi-Wan’s presence pretty much instantly and immediately rushes off to find him.
This is just part of the bigger picture: That Anakin Skywalker is obsessed with Obi-Wan Kenobi the entire goddamned time. He’s not the only one, of course, Anakin is still obsessed with Padme, still uses her memory to torture himself, he becomes obsessed with Luke and tries to corrupt Luke to the dark side, but absolutely Obi-Wan is part of the small group of people that Anakin was never able to let go of, that he used to torment himself, used to stoke the fires of his rage and hate, because underneath that was still love.
The whole point is that Vader’s trying to hurt himself here, because the dark side feeds on pain, because it hurts more to hear Obi-Wan yell that he loved him, to dig into the wounds of Anakin Skywalker’s love for him and twist that into hate. Because it hurts more when you love and hate someone at the same time.
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