jonathan7 said:
However this got my thinking, in relation to another idea in this thread... Split personalities. However instead of split personalities...
Either somewhere in AotC... or RotS credits start with reference to the Chancellor having a personal warrior called Vader working for the Republic to combat the Separatists... Vader is rumoured to be an ex-Jedi. The not exactly possible part would be possibly seeing Vader engaging in combat at some point... Obviously when Anakin isn't doing anything, as they are one and the same, but would be a shock. A bit like say Bruce Wayne and Batman, you never see them together. (and yes I know; how this would be done, or if's possible I don't know).
It's a shame this is impossible to do given the material we have, because this is an exceptionally inspired subplot. You even see hints at something resembling it in the movies with Anakin always running off to Palpatine for one thing or another. If they had gone this route you could have seen his "assignments" appear to get more and more questionable each time, until Anakin lost sight of what was right and wrong.
Actually, this reminds me of the Winter Soldier story arch from Captain America. Basically the story goes like this: Captain America (in modern times) finds out that his friend Bucky is actually alive somehow. Through the course of the story it's revealed that his seemingly innocent kid sidekick was given to him for a much darker purpose than he ever realized. It was Bucky's job to do the things Cap's moral code wouldn't allow, sneak behind enemy lines and slit officer's throats, and tie up loose ends. Cap was the righteous hero, but Bucky was the one who did the dirty work. When he seemingly died, Bucky was found by the russians, rebuilt, and retrained into an assassin of the state.
Basically in this version; Obi-wan Kenobi is the golden boy of the republic and the jedi order during the clone wars, and his apprentice Anakin is seemingly innocuous but secretly "does what is necessary to preserve liberty" under the orders of the supreme chancellor.