Where Opinions Differ
"Oh, welcome my boy, welcome! Come, have a seat Anakin. My goodness I haven't seen you in weeks. How have you been?"
Eleven-year-old Anakin did as he was told, grabbing a chair and pulling it behind the desk of the most venerated man in the Senate: Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. He was an older man, though not quite enough to be considered "old," just "older." The grandfatherly figure always insisted that Anakin didn't need to sit on the other side of his opulent desk, to instead sit behind it with him, as an equal; great men, he said, needed to know their station above others. This sometimes confused Anakin, and he would scratch as his browning head, his blond fading to streaks, because the Jedi said that everyone, regardless of their station of abilities or powers, were equal. The young Padawan knew this wasn't true, because he had never been treated with any level of equality when he was a slave. Today, though, he hopped onto his chair and swung his legs back and forth.
"My, you seem to have grown even in the short time that I've last seen you."
"Master says I'm growing, too," Anakin said with some pride. He was already the tallest Padawan he knew, and it made him smile. "Master Obi-Wan says I'll look like a bean sprout, whatever that is."
"It's a type of plant, Anakin, and I dare say Master Kenobi certainly had the right idea."
"How's the Senate stuff?" Anakin asked, always entertained by the stories Palpatine told.
Palpatine looked left and right conspiratorially, putting an elbow on his knee and using his hand to cover his mouth as he leaned into Anakin's ears. "May I tell you a secret, Anakin?" he asked in a low whisper.
The boy leaned in fervently, excited at the very idea. "Sure!" he whispered back.
"It's very, very, boring!"
Palpatine leaned back and laughed heartily as Anakin pouted in indignation. "Do forgive me, my boy, but that was very entertaining!" he said, still laughing in refined dignity. He leaned deeper into his chair and put a hand over his eyes, rubbing a temple as if to forestall a headache.
Anakin frowned, his legs still, as he looked at Palpatine. "Is something wrong?" he asked.
Palpatine looked up, his warm smile slightly weary. "Oh, it's nothing to fret over, my boy."
"No, tell me; I want to help."
"You're such a good boy. I hope Master Kenobi can see what a strong heart you have, your passion for helping others," Palpatine said. He pulled his hand away and rested it on his desk, fingers playing with a flimsy of some sort. The older man frowned, as if thinking how to word something. "Tell me, Anakin," he said slowly, his mind still far away. "Which to you think is better, having control of things around you? Or having control of yourself?"
The boy frowned, fingers reaching up to play with his braid. "I don't know," he said finally.
"Hm, few would, I suppose," Palpatine replied. "There's a bill on the floor that some senator has put forth, trivial business, really, but one of the points of the bill is to diffuse the powers of my office into committees. Truly, it shouldn't even be a point of contention, but for some reason it is cause for heated debate and filibuster. It all revolves around that question, which is better to have control of."
Anakin nodded slowly, motioning for the Supreme Chancellor to continue.
"If there's one thing I've learned after Naboo's crisis that you were so heroic in, it's that the Senate needs strong leadership. For some reason they think that would be me, and I'm more than honored to do it, but it has left me wondering on which side I should favor for this point of the bill."
"You mean you don't know either?"
"It's a question of power, really," Palpatine explained. "Do you need power to control yourself or power to control the events around you? As Supreme Chancellor, I have the power to shape the events around me, and because I have the Republic's best interest at heart, I can shape events that make such a thing so. Is it a good idea to relinquish such a power? Or should I have the self-control to let it go, and no longer be able to do any good? It is a difficult question for me.
"Well, regardless, it's irrelevant right now. I'm sorry to bore you with my trivial problems. How have you been?"
Later that night, Anakin sat at the dinner table frowning as he considered the Chancellor's words. He tried to look at it from a Jedi perspective, but he had only been at the Temple for a couple of years, he didn't feel confident in his understanding of their perspectives. Obi-Wan was always telling him ways to improve himself, he never quite got some teaching or form or answer to a question right.
"... Master?" he asked. He normally didn't like speaking his thoughts; he agreed with Palpatine's idea that some thoughts are supposed to be private. But this was important, and he wanted to know what the Jedi were supposed to say.
"Yes, Padawan?" the master replied, rubbing his beard.
"Palpatine-"
"Supreme Chancellor Palpatine."
"Supreme Chancellor Palpatine," Anakin corrected himself, mentally rolling his eyes. There was a knee-jerk reaction to shut down and stomp out of the room, but the weight on the Chancellor's shoulders impressed itself upon him, and he knew that he needed to ask in spite of his master's attitude.
"Master? Which is better? To have control of the events around you or have control over yourself?" He took a deep breath, waiting.
At first, Obi-Wan just looked at him, that carefully blank look that always drove him nuts. Finally, though, he opened his mouth. "This is an interesting question. What makes you ask it?"
... No immediate lecture? He had finally asked a question that was worthy of his master's thoughts? Anakin found himself reveling at the very thought, and he couldn't quite fight off the smile that he had managed this kind of reaction from his composed master.
He replied, "Pal - Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, he was telling me about a bill on the Senate floor, and that it would take some of the power away from him. He asked me that question."
Obi-Wan nodded, his blank face still far away, considering. "Do you have your own opinion yet?"
... Why oh why did he always answer a question with another question? It was infuriating! Anakin ran a hand through his browning head and wrapped a fist around his braid, huffing out an empty breath. "I don't know," he said with a strained air of indifference.
Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. "You wouldn't ask if you didn't want an answer to compare against your own, Anakin. I want to give you a proper answer, but I need to know what your opinion is first."
It galled him on many levels - if Obi-Wan had an answer then he should just spit it out. But he was his master; he supposed he should capitulate - just this once.
"I think it's obvious that you want to control the events around you," he said. He knew first hand what it was like to not have control of what was around him. Life as a slave was about as far of having control as it could get - everything was at the dictates of the Master: from food and water rations to the amount of work to the consequences of getting even one tiny little thing wrong. Watto was not the worst master by any stretch, but he was far from the best, the demands he put on Anakin were high, he spent many late nights that were often doubled when the boy exerted his independence and snuck out for fun with his friends. He saw and endured beatings simply because he was a slave and someone could. He was always striving to have control over any little thing he had. That was what podracing originally was, something that was his that he could do that no one could control. Even that had been spoiled because Watto had found out and horned in.
Even now, at the Temple, he had very little control over things. There were classes and schedules, he had no control over when or where or what the missions were (and he still hadn't gone on any! What were they waiting for?). When he got up and what was for breakfast and how he was trained was all up to Obi-Wan. There were days where Anakin was absolutely desperate for control, and the idea of having enough power that you could control events around you had a great deal of appeal.
If he could control what was around him, then he could make people happy. He could be happy himself.
Obi-Wan's expression remained blank, far away. Anakin did not explain himself to his master, he didn't want to and he rationalized that he didn't need to; Obi-Wan knew everything anyway.
Finally, the Jedi took a breath. "It's a difficult question to answer," he said finally, his gaze at last pulling to the present and locking his eyes onto Anakin. The boy found himself staring back, pulled into the man's orbs. "There are advantages of one over the other, but I think..." He paused, frowning, as if choosing his words.
"I think, ultimately, I would like to be in control over myself."
... Of course he would pick the opposite answer; a thrill of irritation shot through the back of Anakin's head, but Obi-Wan kept talking, and he kept listening.
"The idea of having control over events around you certainly has appeal, and certainly there are some things that you do have control over, but one cannot control all circumstances." Obi-Wan's eyes glazed suddenly, and his voice became flatter. "I had no control over the events that led up to Qui-Gon's death. I didn't have control over Cerasi's death either, though I left the Order to try. Bruck..." he paused, closing his eyes. "There are many events in my life that I had no control over, and there are more events to come that will likely follow that inevitability. It comes in conflict, too; if I had control over everything around me, that would mean I have control over you, and I certainly know you wouldn't like that." He smiled slightly, the effect not quite reaching his eyes, and Anakin wondered what the man was thinking.
"One would have to be all-powerful, and even with the Force that is just impossible.
"However... To have control over yourself, that is something you can do, and when such a thing is mastered, the events you have no control over... How do I explain this?" He paused, frowning again, but his eyes never left Anakin; they were penetrating in a way that sometimes happened, making the boy feel like he could see straight to his soul, to his innermost thoughts that he didn't share with anybody, even Palpatine.
"When you have control over yourself," Obi-Wan finally said. "You can decide how you will react to the events you have no control over. You can decide what you will do with the tragedies that life can and will give you; to fall and never get up, or mourn and move on. When that happens," he added, "in a way, the events you have no control over become almost irrelevant, because the most critical thing of all, yourself, you do have control over, and suddenly, it affects you much less. Or rather, you have control over how it affects you which means it doesn't affect you until you allow it."
Obi-Wan paused, rubbing his stubble again, frowning. "I'm not entirely sure if I'm explaining this well. Do you understand my meaning?"
Anakin nodded dumbly. In truth, there were parts he understood all too well and parts he didn't understand at all. There were levels, undercurrents that he couldn't quite follow and layers that still seemed veiled to him.
It was a conversation that he would always remember, something in Obi-Wan's words sticking deep in his mind, and later he would often reflect on it. Even when he was fully-grown, he would never quite understand why having control over self was better than control over events around a person.
But he knew exactly what it looked like, because all he had to do was look at Obi-Wan.
Author's Notes: I hope to goodness this came out as good as it did in my head. It's one of the critical differences between Anakin and Obi-Wan, but where it's completely untouched (in so far as we know...) in the universe we wanted Anakin to at least see it, even if he couldn't identify it. He could point to it, even if he couldn't articulate it. It's really important in our heads, and we hope that it came across remotely right.
This also serves as a reminder that as good a job as Obi-Wan is doing in raising Anakin at this point, Palpatine is still chipping at the foundation and making all the cracks he needs for Revenge of the Sith. Not that it will go the way Palpatine wants (oh no, we have plans... ^^) but he does have influence on dear little Ani. We start with simple steps, small nudges that build until you get to Ep3 and things start going very differently.
Next time: Ob-Wan comes home injured.