Dex is an old prospector of the provinces—jetsetting round the Outer Rim, associating with pirates, swapping information with spice traders and fur trappers—all of which qualifies him, now, for consulting on the provenance of foreign objects. In his previous life, he lived on the periphery, the frontier, the avant-garde. Now he sells coffee in the capital, tells stories from his former life. It’s a credit to Kenobi that he knows someone like this, that he can be friendly with a grease-stained ex-prospector, that he’s not just the straight-laced, by-the-book personality he plays—that he feels forced to play—around the loose, intuitive, irreverent Anakin. Skywalker and Amidala aren’t the only ones imprisoned by their duty. Obi-Wan gave a promise to his dying master—to his own surrogate father—to raise and train Anakin. Everything since has been in service to that promise.
When we talk about the way interpersonal love imperils institutional pledges, we are also talking about platonic and familial love. Everything in this story works on the basis of love-based betrayal, individuals rebelling against the mandates of their order out of love. Anakin’s training as a padawan begins here—with Kenobi, willing and offering to leave his Order if he must, to fulfill the promise made even against the Council’s wishes. Anakin’s system-hopping journey across Clones—first to Tatooine, then to Geonosis—the trips that take him into desert hell; that permanently change him; his first steps toward darkness—is similarly spurred by love, first his love for his mother, then Padme’s love for Kenobi. And when the Temple burns with the bodies of innocents, in Sith, it will be for love.