Qui-Gon Jinn’s involvement in the Skywalker Saga may not extend beyond his screen time in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, but in finding the young Anakin and introducing him to his Jedi friends, Liam Neeson’s character played a crucial role in setting the story in motion, for better or worse.
But while it’s tempting, and perhaps only right, to place some of the blame for the rise of Darth Vader and the Empire on Obi-Wan Kenobi’s master, the new Star Wars: Age of Republic – Qui-Gon Jinn comic suggests that our hero may not have been as oblivious to the risks he was taking as we previously thought.
A new piece from Screen Rant observes how the comic tells the story of Qui-Gon’s quest to a distant world where he seeks to rediscover the true nature of The Force. Here he comes to grasp the notion of “balance, but through a means beyond conflict,” fueling his beliefs that the Jedi have lost their way and resigned themselves to being soldiers for the Republic.
With this in mind, it’s argued that Qui-Gon very much sensed the darkness that was present in Anakin when they first met, but he saw this Dark Side as necessary for bringing balance to The Force. The Jedi Council, on the other hand, were too entrenched in their Sith-like absolutes, failing to see that bringing balance is not the same thing as trying to vanquish the darkness. So while Qui-Gon may’ve had the potential to steer Anakin in the right direction, his peers were ill-equipped to nurture the young Jedi, ultimately driving Anakin towards the Dark Side through their dogmatic, self-righteous ways.
All in all, it’s a pretty apt explanation for why Anakin turned out so differently from what Qui-Gon envisioned, making it too bad that he had to die in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and doom the galaxy in the process.