Akwat Kbrana said:The PT leaves us with basically three options:
1. Obi-Wan is lying about much that happened in the prequel-era. Some of this is understandable (Obi-Wan has a natural disinclination to tell Luke, "Your father was a whiny, bratty, creepy, immature sociopath who somehow managed to bungle up everything that the previous thousand generations had built and accomplished, and all of the evil and suffering in the universe is his fault." Or, "Your father would've wanted you to have this when you were old enough, provided he hadn't turned to the dark side, murdered children, choked your mother, and forced me to dismember him and leave him to burn to death in a pool of lava."), but some of Obi's other "lies" just don't make sense. The way he refers to Yoda as "the Jedi master who instrcuted me" seems incongruous with the depiction of Obi-Wan's training in the PT, but why would he lie about it? Seems pretty irrational to me. Likewise, as has been pointed out, Obi-Wan in the PT was anything but reckless...why would he lie about it, to Yoda of all people, the one person who really would know one way or another?
2. Obi-Wan is remembering everything wrong. Senility has set in, and in order to cope with the troubles of the past, Obi-Wan has invented a fantasy history in which Anakin really was a good (though ultimately misguided) guy, he really did smilingly ask Obi-Wan to give Luke his lightsaber, Qui-Gon never existed (perhaps a defense mechanism to deal with the pain of losing his one father figure), and what stray memories of Anakin's recklessness have gotten through Obi's senility, he has reinterpreted to be his own recklnessness before reaching maturity. I admit this is a stretch, but I much prefer it to the "liar Obi-Wan" interpretation given above. Of course, the biggest problem with this is that Obi seems to misremember the past even as a Force Ghost. Do the effects of psychological trauma and repressed memory really continue to afflict a person after becoming "one with the force"? I'm inclined to say no, though I suppose it's not impossible.
3. The PT is an elaborate forgery, and Obi-Wan is right (save, of course, for the little white lie about Vader killing Anakin). Some meddling wannabe historian pieced together a hodge-podge representation of the history of the Clone Wars, and ended up getting a lot of details wrong. The PT should be disregarded when it clashes with the account of a credible eye-witness: Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Of course, I find option '3' the easiest to swallow, but it won't fly with TFNers. I don't really see any other way out, though. I'm perfectly happy to just write off the PT as poorly-written revisionist historical-fiction and consider "canon" only that which doesn't conflict with the OT...
Good post. Fun. I agree with option 3.
bkev said:-"You are reckless!"
-"So was I, if you'll remember."
Shoot me, for I'm about to cite the dreaded EU. Obi-Wan almost wasn't chosen as a Padawan by anyone - heck, he even got sent off to work as a farm boy - because of his recklessness. So there. :p
We shouldn't have to depend on the EU to patch up the holes in Lucas's storytelling.