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Entry tags:	books, harry potter, mentors, movies, star wars

Obi-Wan & Albus: From a Certain Point of View
Let's talk about flawed mentors for a bit.



When I first saw Obi-Wan Kenobi, it was in the first-filmed Star Wars movie, Episode 4, "A New Hope." The movie takes place over a few days at most, but during this short time Obi-Wan takes a major role in shaping Luke Skywalker's future. He teaches Luke the basics of sensing the Force, trains him in lightsaber use (and gives Luke the lightsaber used by Luke's father) and sets up the conflict as good Jedi Knights against the evil Darth Vader.

Most importantly for the purposes of this essay, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Darth Vader killed his father. When Vader then destroys Kenobi's physical body, Luke is convinced that the Empire is the bad guys and eagerly joins the Rebellion.

But at the end of "Empire Strikes Back," Luke discovers that Darth Vader is his father. He doesn't really have much time to discuss this matter, but it's certainly a shock.

And in "Return of the Jedi", Luke talks to Obi-Wan's spirit about this revelation, and hears the infamous weasel words, "from a certain point of view." Was it a harmless fib to spare Luke's feelings? Or evidence of a deeper problem with Kenobi?

So, now we have the three newer movies that fill in the backstory of both Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi. And we learn that while Obi-Wan wasn't directly responsible for Anakin Skywalker's turn to the Dark Side, his actions and inactions certainly contributed a great deal to the tragedy.

When young Anakin is picked up by Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, the Jedi Council forbids the training of the child as a Jedi Knight, on the grounds that he's too old. Dipping into the books as background for just a moment, this is because most Jedi trainees are recruited practically from infancy, and taken to an isolated place where they are brainwashed purged of the emotional connections that tempt Force-sensitives to the Dark Side. Presumably, Force-sensitives who are found later in life are just watched, so their offspring can be recruited. The next generation of Jedi have to come from somewhere, after all.

Anakin has already forged emotional connections, to his mother, and to Padme. But Qui-Gon feels that the potential of Anakin to become "the one who balances the Force" is so promising that he ignores this detail. And when Qui-Gon dies, Obi-Wan takes up the same quest. Unfortunately, Obi-Wan's cloistered upbringing and total belief that he's on the right side lead to a series of mistakes.

Having been raised to consider the Jedi as his family, and anything that happened before his recruitment as irrelevant, Obi-Wan fails to check up on what happened to Shmi Skywalker, or acquire more information on Anakin's "miraculous" birth.

By the time of "Attack of the Clones", the same lack of understanding the emotional connection of family causes Obi-Wan to dismiss Anakin's sense that Shmi is in danger as unimportant. Likewise, the older Jedi fails to notice Anakin's strong sexual attraction to Padme, because he's been trained to control such impulses himself, and so are all the other Jedi he knows. (Padme's attraction to Anakin is less obvious at the time, but that's another essay.)

Eventually, Anakin returns to Tatooine, finds his dying mother, and avenges her on an entire tribe. It's probable that he never told Obi-Wan what had happened, given that events rapidly spiraled out of control for a while thereafter. Obi-Wan simply assumed that Anakin had gotten over the odd feelings of "danger" and never brought up the matter again. Instead, Anakin confides in Chancellor Palpatine, who has shown a willingness to advise the boy in matters of the heart.

Which brings us to "Revenge of the Sith." Obi-Wan, still blinded by his lack of understanding those raised outside the Jedi order, fails to guess that Anakin and Padme are now romantically involved, much less married. He is worried about Anakin's friendship with Palpatine, but not because he guesses the truth, only because of Palpatine's clear lust for power.

Anakin doesn't even bother trying to talk to Obi-Wan about his latest visions, and Yoda is no help either. Instead he goes straight to Palpatine, and we all know what happens there.

In the end, Obi-Wan confronts Anakin/Darth Vader, and leaves him for dead. He takes newborn Luke to live with his relatives, and retreats to the desert to learn the "spirit form" trick.

This gives us some more insight into why Kenobi said what he did in "A New Hope." Obi-Wan realizes, in retrospect, that he made multiple mistakes in his relationship with Anakin, and feels at least partially responsible for what happened. As one of the two remaining Jedi, Obi-Wan feels that he must stop Darth Vader by any means necessary, and only Luke has the necessary capability to take the Sith Lord down. Therefore, Obi-Wan chose to approach the "what happened to my father?" question from "a certain point of view," to ensure that Luke would oppose Vader and the Emperor.

Obi-Wan is a good man, yes. But he was sorely flawed, and it cost the entire galaxy.


And now we come to Albus Dumbledore.

All through the Harry Potter books, Dumbledore has been positioning Harry to battle Voldemort. And unlike Star Wars, Voldemort really did kill Harry's father. But there are similarities here.

In the Pensieve memory of Dumbledore's first meeting with Tom Riddle, described by Albus himself as "satisfyingly accurate", Dumbledore is warned of Tom's odd behavior by the orphanage head. The warning signs of animal killing and torture of smaller children are clear, at least to the reader.

But Dumbledore seems completely unconcerned with those matters, instead warning Tom against theft. Why? My theory is that a certain amount of cruel and brutal behavior is viewed as acceptable (if tacky) in wizarding society. Note, for example, Fred and George's appalling treatment of various people, most especially Ron. And yet they're treated as reasonably respectable members of society, and their "joke" shop is doing great business (most of the customers must be adults, note.) One can also point to how house elves are treated by some of their owners.

So Tom's unsavory habits don't set off alarm bells for Dumbledore. They do make him interested enough to keep an eye on the boy at school, but not enough to demand his full attention.

Even Harry is shocked when Dumbledore just gives funds and directions to Diagon Alley to Tom, rather than making sure someone (himself?) goes with the boy. Harry's had a narrow scrape in Knockturn Alley, and Tom isn't even warned of the possible dangers.

Again, this seems to be at least partially due to the way wizarding society does things. The parents are responsible for feeding, protecting and educating any children they happen to have until they're old enough to attend Hogwarts. If there are no parents, the children are left to the mercy of whoever happens to be nearby. Only when it's Hogwarts time does anyone take notice. If Tom wants to handle his shopping alone, Dumbledore is willing to let him.

Once at Hogwarts, Tom proves to be adept at keeping up a charming facade, and so far as we're told, only Dumbledore suspects his hidden depths. (Dumbledore deciding to give young Riddle a chance to live down his past by never mentioning it to the other teachers.) As seen in Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore strongly suspected Tom of opening the chamber, but could never prove it, and was unable to convince the boy to open up to him.

For at this point, Tom Marvolo Riddle had already decided "I am Lord Voldemort."

We'll skip over some of the intervening years, in which Dumbledore had little part save denying Voldemort a teaching position.

Voldemort and his Death Eaters become a major crisis, and Dumbledore hears a prophecy. Snape also hears some of this prophecy, and relays a garbled version of it to Voldemort. Both Dumbledore and Voldemort proceed to act on the prophecy, resulting in the death of Harry's parents and the torture of the Longbottoms.

Forearmed with the prophecy, Dumbledore is able to have Hagrid on the scene to pick up Harry almost immediately. Having learned something from what happened due to Tom being left to rot in an orphanage, Albus arranges for Harry to live with his blood relatives, the Dursleys. He also has Mrs. Figg placed to keep an eye on the boy.

Unfortunately, Dumbledore apparently just assumed that this would be sufficient to have Harry raised properly, and never checked back. Mrs. Figg never saw the worst of the emotional abuse and neglect Harry suffered, and so never alerted Dumbledore. (And see above about the tolerance of cruelty thing.)

Once it's Hogwarts time, Dumbledore sends Hagrid to alert Harry to his heritage. (This is probably the first time Albus realizes that the Dursleys are not treating Harry right.) And unlike with Tom, Dumbledore makes sure that Hagrid accompanies Harry to Diagon Alley.

Now things get murky. We honestly don't know how much of what went on in the books was stage-managed by Dumbledore. Did he know Quirrel had Voldemort on the back of his head? Or that Moody had been replaced? Certainly at least some of what went on was deliberately arranged to train Harry in the skills and attitudes he'd need as Dumbledore's weapon against Voldemort.

Because that's what Dumbledore's motivation has been. He let Voldemort happen, therefore he had to do whatever it took to stop Voldemort. Even if it meant warping a young man's life out of any natural shape.

Unfortunately, Dumbledore's blind spots still existed. He let Snape poison the teacher-student relationship with Harry, then trusted the two to cooperate in a vital lesson plan. Albus allowed the rift between Slytherin and the other houses to become so wide that even after multiple warnings from the Sorting Hat, the houses could not bring themselves to work together.

And fatally, Dumbledore neglected the Draco situation until it was far, far too late for promises of sanctuary to have any effect.

Was Dumbledore a good man? Certainly he believed so, and Harry did. But a flawed man, and we still do not know the final cost.


Your thoughts?