Haunted

Dooku and Qui-Gon: Ever since he was a youngling small enough for Yoda to tap on the head, Qui-Gon, like every other Jedi initiate, had looked forward to being selected as a Padawan. Most Jedi students longed to be chosen because they did not want to be shunted off to the Agri Corps, but Qui-Gon had always wanted to be picked because the Living Force that whispered to him as it did to no one else caused him to crave a deep bond with someone who wasn't a year mate. He thought that the Master-Padawan relationship would fulfill his need for a connection with another being, and when Dooku asked for him to be his apprentice when he was only eleven, Qui-Gon had been thrilled. Over the coming months, he was to face a long succession of crushing disappointments as he slowly learned the painful lesson that Dooku was a cold, demanding master, who had no real interest in forming a bond with his apprentice. To him, their relationship would never be anything more than a teacher-student one, and in it, Qui-Gon would forever fall short of his Master's expectations. Qui-Gon knew that his unsatisfactory relationship with his Master haunted him and caused him to form deep attachments to his own apprentices, but it was only shortly before he left for Naboo that it occurred to Qui-Gon that maybe Dooku was haunted as well. Perhaps Dooku had even higher expectations of himself than he did of others, and maybe he was determined to destroy himself because he could never live up to them. Maybe the worst ghosts were the ones inside you that showed you just how much you fell short of what you could and should be.

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan: Xanatos might have killed himself in a toxic pool on his homeplanet of Telos, but his memory refused to die. Obi-Wan knew that Xanatos' fate haunted Qui-Gon. Moreover, he could sense the battle that constantly raged within Qui-Gon to separate Obi-Wan and Xanatos in his mind and in his heart. Sometimes, he would see a shadow flit over his Master's keen eyes, and he would know that the man was wondering how he would fail Obi-Wan or how Obi-Wan would fail him. Obi-Wan understood that it was the ghost of Xanatos that planted the doubts, and he would think that while Xanatos was dead, he was refusing to let anyone else rest in peace.

Obi-Wan and Anakin: From the start, Anakin knew that his relationship with Obi-Wan was wound up with the death. After all, if Qui-Gon hadn't died and Obi-Wan hadn't promised him that he would train Anakin, they would never have ended up as Master and apprentice. What Anakin hadn't considered was the impact that the dead would continue to have on their relationship. He hadn't foreseen all the curtains that would fall over Obi-Wan's eyes whenever he thought about Qui-Gon, and he had not contemplated the pangs of resentment that Obi-Wan wasn't Qui-Gon that would stab him like knives over the years. Similarly, it never occurred to him that Shimi would die, and he would be left dealing with the knowledge that he had failed to save her, just like Obi-Wan had failed to rescue Qui-Gon. He had never imagined that he would have to go on living with the fear that he would prove to be a disappointment to her, just as Obi-Wan went through life wondering if he was a disappointment to Qui-Gon. Oh, Anakin had no doubt that ghosts haunted his relationship with Obi-Wan, but he didn't think it was because the dead refused to relinquish their grip on the living. No, he thought it was the living who refused to surrender their hold on the dead.

Anakin and Ashoka: It didn't take long for Ashoka to discover that despite all of his impetuousness and irreverence, her Master was a haunted man. Most of the time, his eyes were filled with a wild courage, but sometimes, when he thought no one was looking, they would take on a more vulnerable sheen, as though he was remembering comrades that he had lost in battle. He could laugh as he performed stunts in a cockpit that would have resulted in an instant, fiery death for a less skilled and equally suicidal pilot, and he could grin as he confronted legions of lethal battle droids, and it would seem that he didn't fear death in the slightest. Ashoka thought that he did fear death, though, but not in the way that most sentients did. Most beings were terrified by the idea of their own death, but that didn't seem to faze Anakin. What seemed to haunt him were the ghosts of dead loved ones and the knowledge that those he cared about now could be snatched from him at any moment. Ashoka Tano knew that her Master, the Hero with No Fear, feared death—not his own demise, but the ends of those he cared about. He could handle the idea of himself dying, but not the notion of the deaths of those he loved. Maybe Ashoka should have felt betrayed by the fact that the Hero with No Fear was afraid of something as incorporeal as death, and perhaps she should have felt angered that her training had been entrusted to a Jedi who could not accept death, but she didn't. The fact that her Master was so haunted by death made him seem more real and more sentient to her.