Lies My (Jedi) Teacher Told Me Part 2: Choosing Not to Look at Qui-Gon Jinn

In part 1 of this series, I covered Star Wars discrepancies that were the result of Obi-Wan Kenobi lying so as to get Luke Skywalker off-planet and start his Jedi training.

In the second of this three-part series, it is time to learn about Obi-Wan's deceptions regarding his own past that are definitely not simply the result of the filmmakers making continuity mistakes.

The True Importance of "The"

The pattern of subtle but implicit lies about the elderly Jedi's own past training make their debut in Empire Strikes Back, when Obi-Wan's spirit calls Luke to find Yoda in the Dagobah system:

With his use of the (the article) he is implicitly saying that Yoda was the only Jedi who trained him to become a Jedi Knight. We know this to be untrue from The Phantom Menace, where we see a young Obi-Wan Kenobi as a Padawan apprenticed to a Jedi named Qui-Gon Jinn. We might be tempted to hand wave this contradiction away by parsing the distinction between Jedi Master and Jedi Knight, which the prequels establish to be specific ranks. In this line of thinking, Yoda would be the Master who instructed Obi-Wan while Qui-Gon was the Knight who continued the process. But it is quickly apparent that Qui-Gon is a powerful and dedicated enough Jedi to be on the Jedi Council, as the younger Obi-Wan says:

The prequels also make it clear that the Jedi Council is exclusively composed of Jedi Masters:

Anakin's anger in Revenge of the Sith only makes sense if admittance into the Jedi Council goes hand-in-hand with the rank of Master. In addition to Qui-Gon's qualifications for the Jedi Council showing him to be a Jedi Master, the Yoda of the prequels also refers to Qui-Gon explicitly as Master when the latter informs the Jedi Council of a Sith threat:

Because Yoda is a Master himself, he would not refer to another Jedi as Master unless they had attained that rank. This title is not something used flippantly, as Padmé even goes out of her way to correct the misuse of the title when Anakin Skywalker is still a Padawan:

The Invisibility of Qui-Gon Jinn

With the understanding that Yoda could not have been the only Jedi Master who instructed Obi-Wan Kenobi, we can then take note that Obi-Wan Kenobi deliberately omits other references to Qui-Gon Jinn that should have been there. For example, Obi-Wan explains to Luke the circumstances in which he trained Anakin without mentioning his own teacher: 

This is misleading in two ways. Firstly, we can surmise that Yoda wouldn't have been the first comparison Obi-Wan would have made. In The Phantom Menace, it is initially Qui-Gon Jinn who is set to take the young Anakin as a Padawan:

With this in mind, it would seem that Obi-Wan would primarily hope to live up to the training standards of his old master, Qui-Gon, rather than to Yoda. In addition, Obi-Wan didn't take it upon himself to train Anakin as much as he was compelled by a dying Qui-Gon Jinn to train him:

This lie of omission even flavors other information about Obi-Wan's past that we get from other characters. When Yoda is resistant to taking Luke on as a student, he and Obi-Wan have this exchange:

Yoda does not deny Obi-Wan's assertion because he likely did teach Obi-Wan as a Jedi youngling; the prequels establish that Yoda had a hand in teaching many of the younglings. Without this proper information from the prequels, the inference that Luke gets from overhearing this exchange is a confirmation that Yoda and only Yoda trained Obi-Wan Kenobi in a manner similar to the training he could provide for Luke.

"Come children. To the rock-lifting room we must go."

 Down the Memory Hole

This pattern of omission might seem like the byproduct of the creators of Star Wars movies inventing Qui-Gon Jinn for the prequels without worrying about how so instrumental a figure to Obi-Wan Kenobi's Jedi past should have naturally gotten some mention in Luke's training, but the omission still makes sense at a narrative level if we are to understand Obi-Wan as taking part in further deception. 

From this line of deception, where it is clear that Obi-Wan doesn't wish to mention Qui-Gon Jinn, it is likely that the lies about Obi-Wan's past are part of a deliberate coverup. But why would Obi-Wan wish to mislead Luke on what seem like minor points of history?

Insert Obi-Wan+Padmé fan theory/fan fiction here

The most likely answer is embarrassment. Qui-Gon Jinn was a Jedi, but he acted independently of the Jedi Council when he felt that the structures or rules of the Jedi Order stood in the way of what he felt was right. This actually helps Qui-Gon Jinn stand apart, as the other Jedi fail to uphold their own principles, such as when they task Anakin Skywalker with spying on the Chancellor in Revenge of the Sith:

It's even clear that the Jedi are conspiring to remove the Chancellor from office and establish a military junta:

Compounding this is that these Jedi Council members failed to uphold their own principles because of their desire to stop the Sith, but ended up failing anyway. Were Luke Skywalker to learn of Qui-Gon Jinn, he would also learn of how both Yoda and Obi-Wan failed against Palpatine, not because of the treachery of Darth Vader but because of their own mistakes. That might shake his trust in them enough to doubt their council.

I will return to this idea of saving face and maintaining credibility in the third and final installment in this Star Wars series by covering the lies both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda tell to Luke regarding Anakin Skywalker's religious conversion to a Sith Lord.