The arc in the Kenobi series so far has clearly been leading up to a traditional weak to strong power building type of story, or in other words, how Kenobi gets his mojo back after ten years of little to no practice with the force, or his lightsaber, and far too much PTSD. o6wh
There have been some arguments so far that state that the show has portrayed a far weakened version of Kenobi, thus diminishing his character and heroisim. Sure, this Kenobi is not in his prime, as he was in the Jedi order and the inevitable fall of the republic is a separate essay), he’s lost his mentor and father figure, Qui-Gon, his brother Anakin, his love, Satine, and his way of life post the fall of the Jedi.
This is a man who has lost everything, and is very, very broken.
Like Kenobi tells his fellow balance to the force.
And he does just that. He survives.
Watch the way he fights, or rather defends. Kenobi’s preferred lightsaber technique, form lll, also known as “Soresu” or “Resillience Form” was developed for defense, particularly against a barage of Darth Vader’s preferred form which mostly consists of quick and aggression. It is not quite a duelling form, like form ll, but is certainlly is meant to win.
But notice that force to stop an ocean for long enough to escape and whisk away the attacking stormtroopers.
The most damning piece of evidence brought against Obi-Wan is that he ran away from Vader again would likely trudge up a plethora of deaths from Order 66, which is just another cherry on top of the trauma sundae.
While Kenobi clearly doesn’t want to fight Vader, despite everything, he is still trying to defend himself – and despite being out of practice, I would argue that the shock combined with his bond with Anakin prevented him truly fighting against him. Some make the argument that Vader was holding back, but it may have actually been Kenobi who was holding back.
The benefits of Darth Vader’s fighting style is so aggressive, it wouldn’t exactly be hard to believe that he would and will tire easily, Sith abilities aside. Then it would be an easy thing for Kenobi to find an opening, or a mistake, and strike him down. But he doesn’t do that because he doesn’t want to win. Either out of a sense of guilt, or Jedi morality. But while Kenobi does appear to be willing to sacrifice himself, as we see with his death in “A New Hope”, where he hopes that his death will motivate Luke to action, he is not careless with his life, nor self destructive.
Perhaps one of the noblest aspects of Obi-Wan Kenobi is that despite all of the terrible things that have happened to him, he never did Jedi order as Anakin did, but unlike him he chose, as was in his nature, to use stealth and ive defense rather than directly rebelling agains the order and causing the chaos that Anakin eventually fell to. It shows something very mature and wise about Kenobi: restraint, and balance. Which in many ways is the essence of being a Jedi. Kenobi has the ability to pick his battles, which is what keeps him alive, and, in the long run, is the strongest strategy. He defeats his opponents through attrition, or better yet, avoids a battle in the first place, which saves resources, energy, and lives.
So Kenobi is by no means a coward, or even as weak as he appears to be in the first half of the Kenobi series. Rather, he is by far one of the strongest characters, because even after all of the hurt and trauma he has gone through, he always kept doing what he believed was right, even if meant practicing extreme patience. And that makes him a true Jedi.
Kenobi’s true strength does not lie in strength itself, but in the wisdom to know when to fight, and when to avoid a battle. And in that way, he survives long enough to win the war.
