*Spoilers.*
Yes, there’s also the indirect interactions in A New Hope to consider, but today, I mainly want to talk about this relationship as it exists on Obi-Wan Kenobi. Along with Ewan McGregor’s performance, it’s my favorite part of that show and everything I didn’t know I wanted. Say what you will about Obi-Wan Kenobi, but I will always appreciate it for this.
In the years after Anakin’s fall and Padmé’s death, Obi-Wan becomes a hermit on Tatooine, somewhere between self-imposed exile for his failure to save his former padawan and a penitent mission to look after Anakin’s son from afar. His days are bleak and largely unvarying, and his connection to the Force has dulled.
When Bail Organa comes to him, urging him to help rescue Leia from kidnappers, Obi-Wan is resistant. He doesn’t think he can leave Luke, for one, and after the tragedies of his past, he isn’t sure he can be of help to anyone anymore. But Bail is insistent, and so Obi-Wan reluctantly ventures back out into the galaxy.
Slowly, the mission reignites some of the strength and hope he once had. Leia inspires this in him by simply being herself, eight feet of attitude in a four-foot frame. At first, she’s wary of this guy who claims he’s here to rescue her—she has plenty of scrappiness to show her kidnappers, but it turns out she takes much the same approach toward would-be rescuers, and she’s not about to just trust him and do what he says.
Naturally, this exasperates Obi-Wan, and it’s a hoot watching him try and wrangle a confident 10-year-old girl. When he goes to buy them cloaks to wear as a disguise, I love that Leia also tries on a pair of pretty gloves and willfully ignores all his attempts to point out that they’re not necessary. Eventually, he realizes it’s easier to just buy the gloves and be done with it. She’s still not sure if she wants to follow him or run from him, but when they get into a scrape and Obi-Wan has to call upon the Force to save her, Leia’s estimation of him improves greatly.
Not that they proceed without any further attitude or argument—Leia’s reaction to this new information is practically, Aren’t you a little old and sad to be a Jedi? And their adventures together are frequently marked by Leia not doing what Obi-Wan tells her to, either because she thinks he’s overly cautious or because she doesn’t want to be sidelined. But as they gradually fumble their way back toward safety, they start to see each other differently.
Obi-Wan is reminded, painfully, of both Anakin and Padmé when he looks at Leia. She realizes from his words that he knew her birth parents and begs him to share what he knows. She helps him recognize that there are still good people in the galaxy worth fighting for, and he does everything to keep her safe when she charges ahead. His first priority is getting her home safely, but when they come across some fledgling rebels in a desperate situation, he listens to her pleas to help them.
The way the story is set up, I have my doubts that there was anything else between them until A New Hope. But I think I’m okay with that. Theirs is a sweet, delightful connection that means a lot to both of them and isn’t any less important because it only lasts for a short time. For Obi-Wan, he rekindles his connection to the Force and finds a renewed purpose to life beyond punishing himself for his past mistakes—even though the fundamentals of his day-to-day life don’t change radically after this experience, his state of mind does. And Leia’s adventures with Obi-Wan set her on the path to becoming the Rebel princess we know and love, a spunky fighter who holds her head high in the face of intense strain, someone who fights for something so much larger than herself.
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