Obi-Wan Kenobi Fights the Phantom Depression
The
Disney+ streaming series Obi-Wan Kenobi opens with the legendary Jedi hero
living isolated, withdrawn, and depressed. Once a bright, shining hero actively
concerned in Jedi efforts to assist others, guide new learners, and pursue
democratic ideals, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor, within the role 1st
represented by Sir Alec Guinness) has people to the desert planet of Tatooine,
wherever he carries on a colorless, monotonous existence.
Ostensibly
there to stay an eye fixed on young Luke Skywalker (Grant Feely) from afar, he
plods through in the future once another by operating as a spam manual laborer
and reprehension nearly nobody. His routine existence varies very little till an
emergency message attracts the now-reluctant hero back to the adventuring life
so as to rescue another child.
Arguments
may be created that he suffers from dysthymic disorder (mild however persistent
and intrusive depression) as a result of he doesn't brazenly demonstrate his
suffering at the story's starting, or posttraumatic stress disorder as a result
of these issues following the traumatic events of Star Wars Episode III:
Revenge of the Sith.
However,
an additional fitting identification would appear to be a major affective
disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2022) attributable to however way
his despair and self-recrimination have taken him from the spirited man he is accustomed
be. Sequent episodes reveal additional regarding however way he has fallen into
his sad state.
Obi-Wan
grieves not just for those that are slain by Imperials and Sith but conjointly
for the collective loss of Jedi history and ideals. He feels as if he has even
lost himself. His self-concept, intermeshed in Jedi standing and establishment,
has shattered. He has hassle attraction from the Force less from the dearth of following
than as a result of he has lost confidence in himself. The foremost necessary
values that drove Kenobi in his younger days currently elude the old Jedi
Knight's thinking.
Guilt
wracks him. Guilty conscience, blaming oneself for having survived once others
failed to (Bergman et al., 2017; McClatchy et al., 2009; Monaghan et al., 1979;
Saldinger et al., 2003; Trozzi & Dixon, 2006), fails to comprehend the variety
of things that he feels guilty. He blames himself for not having seen the
hazards that allowed the Empire to rise, for having trained Anakin Skywalker
(Hayden Christensen), who turned traitor and becomes the nefarious Darth Vader
(voiced over again by James Earl Jones), and for having defeated his apprentice
in combat and left him for dead on Mustafar. Kenobi blames himself for
everything having gone therefore wrong for his comrades, allies, friends, and
everybody they'd ever tried to assist.
Calling
himself Ben doesn't merely involve assumptive associate degree alias to assist
him to hide from the Empire. Were that the case, nobody would recognize his
cognomen either. No, mountain Kenobi feels unworthy of his Jedi name,
undeserving Master Obi-Wan. Haunted by failure, brooding mountain plods through
existence. Depression is the phantom that menaces him and keeps him from seeing
the additional Force ghost of his most optimistic mentor Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam
Neeson).
The
mission to rescue 10-year-old Leia Organa (Vivien Lyra Blair) from Reva
Sevander (Moses Ingram) and so to assist rebels evade Darth Vader helps to
waken Kenobi's inner hero. First, he learns that Anakin Skywalker lives on
because of the Sith Lord Vader, and later, he feels one weight of guilt
relieved once Vader takes full responsibility for his descent into the dark
side: You did not kill Anakin Skywalker. I did.
Toward
the tip of the show's final episode, once Vader buries his former Jedi Master
in dust, Kenobi should yield emotional weights in order that he could virtually
raise boulders to unburden himself and cut loose. Merely recalling the
explanations to fight Vader is meager. Thoughts of young Leia and Luke, 2
embodiments of hope for the long run, facilitate him reconnecting along with
his core values and the deeper reasons for doing the correct issue. Opposing
evil isn't enough while not conjointly promoting what is sensible. Vader
misconstrues Kenobi's greatest strength, that of compassion, for lingering
weakness.
The
hero should forgive himself before he will forgive others (see Çolak &
Güngör, 2021; Miyagawa & Taniguchi, 2020; Woodyatt & Wenzel, 2020).
going Vader behind, Kenobi returns to the world of Tatooine, wherever he finds
somebody else currently collapsing below a load of guilt. Reva, who has been
the series' driving antagonist arguably over Darth Vader, currently remembers a
number of her earliest values and can't bring herself to harm the boy, Luke.
Just
as one 10-year-old's abduction player Obi-Wan Kenobi is out of isolation,
another 10-year-old's innocence snaps Reva into her epiphany. She worries that
she has become an excessive amount like Darth Vader, that she had descended
into the sort of evil that once after killed her peers and left her for dead
when she was a baby. Kenobi offers words of solace and lets Reva go. a brand
new and long journey begins for Reva as she starts the struggle together with
her guilt.
Depression
alters not solely mood but conjointly cognitions. Thoughts clouded by
depressive ruminations (Maslej et al., 2020) could have an issue in understanding
or recognizing the terrible things that may build us to feel higher.
Forgiveness, as well as self-forgiveness, will ameliorate some such ruminations
(Çolak & Güngör, 2021; Miyagawa & Taniguchi, 2020; Toussaint et al.,
2022; Wu et al., 2019). Self-compassion heals. Once he's now not powerless by
his phantom guilt, Ben Kenobi, in the end, heads off to begin new adventures,
with some steerage from an additional hopeful ghost that he's currently able to
understand.