Featured Image Credit: Disney+
Topics: Star Wars, Film and TV
The UNILAD Team
His solo series may have come to an end on Disney+, but Obi-Wan Kenobi is never far from our hearts.
The series won praise from fans and critics alike, who were delighted to see Ewan McGregor return as the Jedi master alongside Hayden Christensen reprising his role as Darth Vader.
Now, however, another spin-off – a spin-off of a spin-off? – is exploring Obi-Wan's teenage years, and one in particular has got people talking.
A new book was published this month, Padawan by Kiersten White, and this isn't any fan fiction – it was published by Disney Lucasfilm Press.
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The synopsis reads: "Being a teenager is hard enough without also training to be a Jedi...
"Obi-Wan Kenobi has not been apprenticed long to Qui-Gon Jinn, and he is chafing at Qui-Gon’s training style: all meditation, no action. Obi-Wan yearns to prove himself on a mission, but when he and Qui-Gon are finally set to leave on an assignment, Qui-Gon is nowhere to be found. Angered by his master’s abandonment, Obi-Wan sets out on the mission alone, determined to prove himself.
"On a mysterious planet he encounters a pack of feral, Force-wielding teens who seem to be the planet’s only inhabitants. As he experiences wild freedom with them and wonders if this isn’t the life he was meant for, Obi-Wan can’t escape the nagging sense that something is wrong with the Force there.
"Romantic complications, startling revelations, and a looming threat to both the planet and his new friends will bring Obi-Wan face-to-face with his worst fear: that maybe he was never supposed to be a Jedi at all. Can he connect with the living Force in time to save himself and everyone around him?"
Some of those who have read it already – it only came out on 26 July this year – noticed one scene in particular, in which Obi-Wan considers the idea of kissing another boy and pondering his own sexual desires as he trains to become a Jedi.
The scene is fairly ambiguous and open to interpretation, and while some determined this to mean Obi-Wan is asexual, others thought it might mean he's bisexual, and even suggested the clue is in his name – Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The question of Obi-Wan's sexuality isn't addressed in the films, though he does have a romantic story with Satine Kryze, a Mandalorian duchess, in The Clone Wars.
Previously Star Wars creator George Lucas said: "Jedi Knights aren't celibate – the thing that is forbidden is attachments – and possessive relationships."
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