"Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is evil!" Obi-Wan said, pleading with Anakin to realize what had happened.

A scowl crossed Anakin's face, lit by their two lightsabers and the glow of the lava below. "From the Jedi point of view! From my point of view, the Jedi are evil."

Obi-Wan blinked.

"...why?"

"What?" Anakin retorted.

"From your point of view, the Jedi are evil!" Obi-Wan said. "Why? Why do you think that! What could possibly lead you to think the Jedi are evil?"

"The Jedi were plotting to take over!" Anakin said. "Master Windu was about to kill Chancellor Palpatine!"

"Really?" Obi-Wan asked. "Why, exactly?"

He paused. "I… assume that the Chancellor was using his Sith powers? Because otherwise Mace would have done that very quickly."

"Well, yes," Anakin said. "But that's going against the person in charge! That's evil!"

Obi-Wan frowned.

"...Anakin?" he said. "I know you and I know you're more capable of nuance than this. Are you feeling well?"

"Don't try to distract me!" Anakin snarled. "The Jedi were going to take over the galaxy!"

"No, we were not," Obi-Wan replied. "What would we do with it?"

Anakin frowned.

"...evil… things," he said.

"Like what?" Obi-Wan retorted. "What, exactly?"

Anakin looked confused.

"...I know the Jedi are evil!" he said. "They were keeping things from me – hiding things! They never told me the story of Darth Plagueis the Wise!"

Obi-Wan facepalmed.

"Anakin," he said, and his voice was kinder than he was expecting. "Who told you that the Jedi were hiding that?"

"Chancellor Palpatine!" Anakin replied. "He told me! It's the true story of a Sith who worked out how to keep his loved ones from dying – but his apprentice killed him in his sleep after learning everything he knew! The Chancellor knows how to do it, he can save my loved ones!"

Obi-Wan glanced over in the direction of the landing pad.

"...from what?" he asked. "Being strangled?"

Anakin's expression tightened, and Obi-Wan held up a hand.

"All right, all right, but I've never heard of Darth Plagueis!" he said. "And – Anakin, please, think about it. Which of these things do you think is more likely?"

Obi-Wan raised a finger. "One. The Sith worked out a way of healing people, and the Jedi knew about it. And they kept it to themselves for more than a thousand years. But Palpatine just happens to know about it."

He raised a second finger. "Two. This happened less than a thousand years ago, while the Sith were in hiding, and literally nobody in the entire Jedi order has heard of it. Palpatine might even have been the apprentice."

A third finger. "Three. It's something that some Jedi might know about, but it's not taught because… he died, and if you had a list of the Sith who thought they'd discovered the secret of immortality before dying then it would be so long I'd fall asleep in the class and complain about it."

Anakin's expression twitched.

Another finger. "Or, four, he was lying."

"Chancellor Palpatine would never lie!" Anakin said.

Obi-Wan just looked at him, and after a moment Anakin frowned.

"...okay, that's no true," he admitted. "Chancellor Palpatine would sometimes lie, I guess. But I think he was telling the truth about this!"

"So which of those other three do you think is more likely? Obi-Wan said.

Anakin looked away.

"...the Jedi are still evil," he said.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan told him. "Please, correct me here if I'm saying something that Chancellor Palpatine didn't do."

Anakin's gaze went back to Obi-Wan.

"He had the Trade Federation invade Naboo, and then used the fact that that was happening to get himself made Chancellor," Obi-Wan said.

Anakin frowned, but didn't say anything.

"He sent Darth Maul to kill Padme, and did get Qui-Gon killed," Obi-Wan went on. "He trained Dooku to be a Sith. He organized the Separatist Crisis. He tried to get Padme killed again. He used the threat of the Separatists to get himself given special powers, while also running the Separatists. He was in charge of both sides of the entire war we've been fighting. He had himself kidnapped. He had the entire Jedi Order killed off, including the very young children."

"...I don't think-" Anakin began, then frowned. "...I don't think he had the entire Jedi Order killed off. You're still alive."

"Oh, my mistake, allow me to nominate him for sainthood," Obi-Wan muttered.

"You're just trying to turn me against him!" Anakin said, stubbornly.

"I'm sorry, I thought you approved of that, since Palpatine's clearly been trying to do it for years," Obi-Wan replied. "What is your definition of evil, here?"

He folded his arms. "If we're going to have a climactic duel, then fine. But I refuse to do so based on improper philosophical principles. Tell me that you're doing it because you want something so badly you'd massacre an entire order of peacekeepers – fine. Don't tell me that actually the man who's become the emperor of the galaxy by crossing an ocean of blood and waging several wars entirely for that purpose is the misunderstood good one, and the people trying to stop him are evil."

Anakin was silent for several seconds.

"...maybe I should have talked to you first," he said.

"An astute observation," Obi-Wan replied. "Are you going to keep trying to kill me? Or should we perhaps get Padme to an actual hospital?"

AN:

Only the Sith deal in absolutes, but Obi-Wan definitely deals in definitions.