Kanan The Last Padawan #2 Obi-Wan Kenobi makes an appearance. Was crying from page 1 of this issue but THIS oh THIS made me cry harder
oh no, oh no, oh no, oh NOOO.
I remember seeing the clip of this recording from Rebels, and I still think this is one of the most important Obi-Wan moments I’ve ever seen.
In Revenge of the Sith, I always figured Obi-Wan just changed the beacon broadcasting out of the Temple from “come home” to “stay away,” like a simple coded signal that Jedi would recognize, a string of…beeps, or Morse code, devoid of details or any real context.
But instead, it was this. And this is everything. This is why I see Obi-Wan as a teacher, a consummate teacher, a teacher at heart, a teacher to the bone. Because yes, this message is meant for any surviving Jedi, but it’s phrased for the children, for the ones who can’t take care of themselves and don’t know what to do next. Look at it - Caleb is just a child, and Obi-Wan’s message is structured for people like him. Adults would know what to do regardless, would recognize immediately the need to disappear, to stay hidden. Adults would be disciplined enough to heed even a simple string of “stay away” beeps.
But children - children, confronted with the total and utter disintegration of everything they know, and most likely the elimination of the person who is supposed to take care of them - children who heard a simple and unexplained “stay away” would never listen and obey. They couldn’t. They would try to come home. They wouldn’t know what else to do.
Obi-Wan knows that. That is what teachers do; they anticipate what their children need, what their children are going to do next. That’s why he says what he does, that’s why he’s so explicit, that’s why he shows them his face and tells them exactly what to do next, that’s why he steps in where their fallen teachers can longer provide direction. He knows those children know his face. For all he knows, he may be the last adult figure those children have to look to. And so he gives them their last assignment, in terms they can understand; he gives them a last benediction, a last breath of familiarity, he gives them one last utterance of the short string of words that probably mean more to Jedi children than anything else in the world.
His message tells them he knows they are out there. His message tells them he still believes in them. His message tells them to have faith, and reminds them - they, the decimated people - that their teachers have not forgotten them. That someone is still thinking of them first, that there is an adult out there who remembers them, who knows that they need direction. His message tells them that they are not alone, no matter how dark the coming years will be.
I just…I’m imagining how important that would be. For any Jedi, but for the children especially. For the horrified and shell-shocked Caleb Dume’s of the world. That holoplate is a lifeline, and of course Obi-Wan is the one who threw it, because Obi-Wan is a teacher first, last, and every bit of himself in between. His life is for the Jedi, and their children, and while he, like any teacher, knows he can’t save all his people’s youth singlehandedly, he knows he can at least give them a fighting chance.
