Star Wars is giving its fans a deeper insight into the dynamic between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker in a new audiobook, exploring a lesser-known part of the characters’ lives. Thanks to Star Wars: The Clone Wars, audiences have a good understanding of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s dynamic during the Clone Wars era, filling in the gaps from the movies to show the friendship hinted at in the first Star Wars. Yet, one often unexplored period is how Obi-Wan and Anakin got along after the death of Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menace, and the ten-year gap between that film and Attack of the Clones.
Lucasfilm unveiled the audio novel Star Wars: Padawan’s Pride in a surprise release on Audible. Written by Bryan Q. Miller, the story is set three years after The Phantom Menace and sees Obi-Wan Kenobi and his young padawan, Anakin Skywalker, infiltrate an underground podracing circuit to find a Republic spy. The two Jedi must balance their own difficult feelings towards one another. Kevin Kemp narrates the audiobook, which is available for purchase.
The Next Installment in a Jedi Lineage
Since Lucasfilm labeled all the original Star Wars Extended Universe novels as Legends as their own continuity, the time between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones is rather sparse in the canon. Right now, the only significant novel set between those two films is Queen’s Shadow, part of E.K. Johnston’s Padme-centric trilogy, with Queen’s Peril set before and during The Phantom Menace, and Queen’s Hope shortly after Attack of the Clones. Given that Anakin and Padme’s eventual doomed romance becomes a major catalyst of the franchise, Padawan’s Pride would make for a good companion piece to Queen’s Shadow. It could explore what came of the two after they left each other in Phantom Menace before reuniting in Attack of the Clones.
Exploring the dynamic between a Jedi Master like Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice Anakin could make Padawan’s Pride part of a thematic series of exploring the Jedi Master lineage of Count Dooku, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Anakin Skywalker. The first chronologically is Cavan Scott’s Dooku: Jedi Lost, followed by Kiersten White’s Padawan, which focuses on Obi-Wan in his early days as an apprentice for Qui-Gon Jinn. The story continues in Claudia Gray’s Master & Apprentice, which has two separate storylines as it follows Qui-Gon Jinn being a master to Obi-Wan Kenobi and his own time as an apprentice to Count Dooku. The lineage of this Jedi teaching can be followed across these four stories, all during the early events of the Star Wars franchise before the Clone Wars.
