it guts me that they cut the “help me, master” in Revenge of the Sith and left what Anakin mouthed ambiguous because oh the angst there
“help me, master” and that’s all Obi-Wan wants to do but he’s tried and failed so many times that he doesn’t know how anymore.
“help me, master” and that’s not what Anakin means. help me do this. stop fighting me. let me fall further and do it willingly.
“help me, master” and it’s not Obi-Wan he’s calling to.
“help me, master” and Palpatine does.
Thinking abt how Anakin says "you're the closest thing I have to a father" and "he's like my father" but Obi-Wan says "you were my brother"
At first I was gonna say Anakin applies distance bc he knows they're Jedi and they don't have parents or experience with the traditional framework of family whereas Obi-Wan calls it as it was for him rather than softening it with simile/metaphor bc, by the time they get to Mustafar, the Jedi Order has collapsed so what's the point of pretending the attachment isn't there
And while I think that's true, there's also something to be said abt how Obi-Wan's use of the past tense does still apply distance but as opposed to Anakin, for whom that distance is emotional (in the sense that he doesn't claim Obi-Wan's importance to him directly), Obi-Wan's distance is temporal. Was/were instead of Are/is. By the end of ROTS, neither of them truly admits what they've been to each other and bc the landscape of their relationship is as On Fire and Mutilated™ as Anakin is on the lava bank, neither of them is interested in bridging the gap
Faced with Obi-Wan's confession (that's both too little too late and still not quite enough, not quite completely vulnerable) Anakin screams "I hate you" (direct ownership of his thoughts and feelings with no simile/metaphor to soften the blow) denying the hand that isn't extended out to him bc as long as he denies it then it'll hurt less that it isn't there