In Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan watches the Jedi Temple recordings and discovers that Anakin led the attack during Order 66. The film shows his horror, but Matthew Stover’s Revenge of the Sith novelization describes what happened in far greater detail.
Obi-Wan did not respond with anger first. He collapsed, blamed himself for Anakin’s fall and wished that he had died years earlier before ever becoming Anakin’s Master.
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Obi-Wan Initially Believed Anakin Was Dead
Before returning to the Jedi Temple, Obi-Wan still did not know that Anakin had joined Darth Sidious.
He believed Anakin had probably died alongside Mace Windu, Kit Fisto, Agen Kolar, Saesee Tiin and the other Jedi caught in Palpatine’s purge. While speaking with Yoda and Bail Organa, Obi-Wan began shaking as he considered how completely the Jedi Order had been destroyed.
His thoughts turned toward the younglings.
The Jedi had taken those children from their families and accepted responsibility for raising and protecting them. Now the Temple had been attacked, and Obi-Wan believed nearly all of them were dead.
Yoda warned him not to surrender to despair. The Order had fallen, but surviving Jedi were still being called back to Coruscant by the Temple’s emergency beacon. If they followed that signal, they would walk directly into an Imperial trap.
Obi-Wan proposed returning to the Temple and replacing the message with a warning telling every surviving Jedi to stay away. At that point, he was preparing to face the destruction of his home. He was not prepared to discover that Anakin had helped destroy it.
Obi-Wan Was Too Horrified to React
Obi-Wan insisted on watching the Temple recordings even after Yoda warned that they would only cause him more pain.
The footage showed younglings running into one of the Temple’s rooms while clone troopers fired behind them. Cin Drallig, the Temple’s chief lightsaber instructor, backed into the room alongside two teenage Padawans, deflecting the clones’ blaster bolts as they attempted to protect the children.
Obi-Wan remained stone-faced as he watched. Then another lightsaber entered the recording.
Anakin cut down the first Padawan, then the second. He strode toward Cin Drallig and struck through the Jedi Master’s shoulder. As Drallig fell dying, Anakin stepped aside and allowed the clone troopers to continue firing into the younglings gathered behind him.
The novel describes Obi-Wan’s immediate reaction in a single line:
“Obi-Wan’s expression never flickered.”
He did not shout or turn away. He remained completely still as he watched Anakin kill the children’s defenders and leave the remaining younglings to the clones.
Only after the recording continued—and showed Anakin kneeling before Darth Sidious and accepting the name Darth Vader—did Obi-Wan finally lose his strength.
Watching Anakin’s Betrayal Broke Him
After entering the Temple, Obi-Wan and Yoda moved through halls filled with the bodies of Jedi, clone troopers and younglings.
Obi-Wan eventually found Cin Drallig, the Temple’s chief lightsaber instructor, among the dead. Drallig had been killed while defending his students during the attack.
Yoda directed Obi-Wan’s attention to the wound running across Drallig’s shoulder and chest. It had not been caused by a clone’s blaster.
It had been made by a lightsaber.
Obi-Wan immediately declared that he would find whoever had done it. Yoda answered that he already knew the truth.
Obi-Wan understood what Yoda meant. The clone troopers could explain the blaster wounds throughout the Temple, but they could not explain why Jedi had also been cut down by another lightsaber wielder. Anakin had disappeared on Coruscant at the same time Palpatine launched the attack, and the evidence was already leading Obi-Wan toward the answer.
He still refused to accept it without seeing the recordings himself.
Yoda warned him not to watch them because the knowledge would only bring him more pain. Obi-Wan answered:
“I have to see it.”
When Yoda continued trying to stop him, Obi-Wan replied:
“Then it is pain that I have earned.”
The Temple recordings showed younglings running from clone blasterfire while Cin Drallig and two teenage Padawans attempted to defend them.
Anakin then entered the recording.
He killed the two Padawans, struck down Drallig and allowed the clone troopers to continue firing upon the children. The recording later showed Anakin kneeling before Darth Sidious and accepting his new identity as Darth Vader.
The novel does not describe Obi-Wan watching Anakin personally strike down the younglings in that specific recording. Instead, he sees Anakin kill their defenders and stand with the troops carrying out the massacre. Anakin had led the assault, entered the Temple with the clones and become Sidious’s apprentice.
Obi-Wan wished that he could tear out his own eyes, but he knew that even blindness would never remove what he had seen. His strength failed, and he collapsed against the recording console.
Then he blamed himself.
Obi-Wan said he should have died fighting Darth Maul on Naboo before he ever brought Anakin before the Jedi Council:
“I should have died there.”
He believed that if he had never survived Naboo, he could never have trained Anakin, and the Jedi Temple might never have suffered this betrayal.
Yoda refused to let him accept responsibility for Anakin’s choices. He reminded Obi-Wan that even Darth Sidious could not force a Jedi to embrace the dark side.
“Chose this, Skywalker did.”
Anakin had been manipulated, but the final decision remained his. He chose to kneel before Sidious, lead the clones into the Temple and turn against the people who had raised him.