Could Obi-wan and Anakin be a Force Dyad? This week, Disney Plus’s limited series Obi-wan Kenobi opened with fascinating scene. As Obi-wan recuperates in a bacta tank, the scene crosscuts with shots of Darth Vader neé Anakin, healing in his own bacta tank.
Soon, some Star Wars fans began excitedly posting screen screen captures. They chattered that this was proof that Kenobi and Skywalker were a Force Dyad.
Now, just to be clear, this talk of an Obi-wan/Anakin Force Dyad isn’t just fans discussing a new fan canon. Fan canons are a fine way to have creative fun with the Star Wars franchise.
For example, one can imagine that Watto was the real Chosen One, or that Emperor Palpatine was in love with Shmi Skywalker. No one genuinely believes it to be canon, or even possible in future canon. It’s simply being fanciful.
Instead, this is fans positing a theory that Anakin and Obi-wan are canonically a Force Dyad.
Well, this is quite simply wrong, and not possible. At least, not without making some major retcons to established canon.
Let’s discuss why this theory is simply dead in the bacta tank.
The Rise of Skywalker Establishes The Dyad
The concept of a Force Dyad was introduced in The Rise of Skywalker. Narratively, the concept exists to explain why Ben Solo and Rey can achieve the awesome feats we’ve seen in the trilogy.
We’ve seen plenty of Force sensitive characters communicate via the Force. Luke reached out to his sister Leia in the Empire Strikes Back. Kylo could sense his mother in the Last Jedi, and f in the Rise of Skywalker, hear her voice.
n addition, we have Force-Bonds that can form between Force users, or be created by others. In Star Wars Rebels, Darth Maul creates a Force-Bond between himself and Ezra. These bonds allow Force users to better communicate and feel each other’s emotions across space.
However, none of these characters can physically touch each other across space, or send physical objects to each other. When the audience saw the rain of Ach-to in Kylo Ren’s hand, this was something Star Wars fans had never seen before.
Ben and Rey’s bond was something extremely powerful and rare. We would get the name for this in the Rise of Skywalker: the Force Dyad.
According to writer, Chris Terrio:
…we began talking about them as a mythic concept, which is in Joseph Campbell, which is the mythic dyad–that they’re two parts of the same whole.
Chris Terrio
The Dyad isn’t two separate people connected by the Force: they are halves of a whole. In Star Wars parlance, a person’s “presence in the Force” is a sort of stand-in way of describing a soul. Ben and Rey are the same presence in the Force—they are the same soul.
Palpatine Tells Us the Force Dyad is Unseen in Generations
Now, unfortunately, the Rise of Skywalker never tells us why the Force Dyad exists. There is much that we don’t know about it. But the film makes it plain that the Dyad is extremely rare.
As Palpatine says,
The life force of your bond…a dyad in the Force. A power like life itself. Unseen for generations.
Emperero Palpatine
Palpatine has been around for some time, yet he has never encountered one. Considering that he was obviously alive when Anakin and Obi-wan were, and has had both men standing before him, this would mean they could not be a Force Dyad.
Darth Sidious even tried to artificially create a Dyad between himself and Vader according to Rae Carson’s novelization of The Rise of Skywalker. He fails in this endeavor. It would seem that only the Force itself can create a Dyad.
I will not deny that Obi-wan and Anakin Skywalker have a powerful relationship in the Force. However, there is no evidence of it being a Force Dyad. At no point do they accomplish any of the preternatural feats that Rey and Ben are capable of.
Furthermore, if they were a Dyad, at some point Palpatine would have noticed and drained them as he would do with his granddaughter and Ben Solo.
The Force Dyad isn’t just a bond – it’s a prophetic event
When we look at other supplemental materials such as the excellent reference book Secrets of the Sith, we get even more information about the Dyad.
This book goes further in exploring Palpatine’s own knowledge on the Force Dyad. According to this book, it’s a sacred, prophesied Force-bond that is extremely rare. The Jedi and the Sith both form their duos of Master and Apprentice in imitation of the ideal of the Dyad.
Check out 5 Things We’ve Learned from The Secrets of the Sith to learn more about the Force Dyad
Everyone wants to be a Dyad, but few can ever be one. And unlike the prophesy of the Chosen One, it’s indicated in Palpatine’s words that the Dyad has happened before, just not in his lifetime.
It is certainly possible fans will encounter the Force Dyad again. It could be in the High Republic someday, or Revan and Bastila could be re-canonized as a Force Dyad. However, the latter seems the most likely scenario.
In the Secrets of the Sith, Palpatine remembers that the return of the Dyad “will usher in the dawn of a new era.”
While we still don’t know what this means for the post-TROS era, both the TROS novel and Secrets of the Sith make it clear that the Force Dyad is an epoch-making event. It’s not something that every Force user and their cousin can have.
Conclusion: No, Obi-wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are not a Force Dyad
1. The Dyad is a rare event that is era-changing.
2. A Force Dyad had not existed in Darth Sidious’s lifetime, ruling out Kenobi and Skywalker or anyone else in the prequel trilogy or original trilogy as being a Force Dyad
3. While many Force users can have Force bonds and communicate across time and space, absolutely none of them can move objects across space. This is an incredible power only the real Dyad can do.
4. Can your favorite Force using couple move objects across space and time? No? Well, they aren’t a Force Dyad.
Why do so many fans want to see Obi-wan and Anakin as a Force Dyad? Or Leia and Luke, or Finn and Rey?
My personal opinion is that these fans recognize the romantic underpinnings of the Force Dyad in the sequel trilogy. Terrio does say they are “soulmates”. The term Dyad? That was Joseph Campbell describing mythic marriage.
I think some fans want that intimate dynamic for their own favorite ships. Which, as fan canon, is perfectly fine. However, to suggest that it is a viable theory is simply wrong-headed. To think they are a Dyad is to completely misunderstand the text presented in the films and external materials.
Many fans will insist on pushing falsities about Star Wars, despite either zero evidence for their claims, and creators stating that they are incorrect.
We’ve seen fans push that Uncle Owen is abusive, despite no evidence of this (to assert that having to do chores is “abuse” is laughable), and that Palpatine is the father of Anakin based on one Darth Vader comic.
The writer of this particular comic, Charles Soule, has said repeatedly that his comic was not suggesting Palpatine created Anakin, but fans ignore it and insist on pushing this discredited notion. Matt Martin has also weighed in on this—there is no evidence Palpatine created Anakin. It’s not just a fan theory—fans insist that it is FACT despite being told otherwise
I think these sorts of fans are trying to do this here with the Force Dyad as well. They want to insist, contrary to text, that their particular duo is a Force Dyad, and present it as canonical fact.
There is a fair bit of storytelling absurdity here. If virtually every Force user with a bond is a Force Dyad because they can communicate with each other via the Force, then what does that make Ben and Rey? Because the narrative invention of the Force Dyad exists to explain why Ben and Rey can do WHAT NO ONE ELSE CAN DO.
If you insist that Luke and Leia and Obi-wan and Anakin are a Force Dyad for doing less, then you’re are forced to create yet another concept and term to explain how Ben and Rey are different. You’ve put yourself back at square one, when there was no need to in the first place.
And that’s definitely bad writing.