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Our first suspect is none other than Obi-Wan. Throughout the Obi-Wan and Leia Power Hour, we see the old Jedi haunted by what he deems his failure to defeat Vader. In his eyes, a student’s failures are really a master’s failures, so it’s on Obi-Wan that the younglings were murdered and the Jedi destroyed.
But the fight on Mustafar did not affect Anakin’s turn, as he had already pledged allegiance to Palpatine. If anything, Obi-Wan’s role in the fall of Anakin came when he asked his apprentice to spy on the Senate and Palpatine, despite knowing he was a close friend of Anakin’s.
Then there’s Obi-Wan’s overall treatment of Anakin as a friend and brother rather than a son. As Dave Filoni once said, the pivotal scene in “The Phantom Menace,” the “Duel of the Fates” was really about the fate of Anakin Skywalker. Qui-Gon was fighting for Anakin to have the father figure he desperately needed after being forced to leave his mother, and only he understood that the Jedi ways were not perfect, and that Anakin needed to be allowed to express his emotions.
Yet even if Obi-Wan wasn’t prepared to take on an apprentice, let alone a son, he was still just what Anakin needed. He was an anchor, someone who could get him to express his feelings rather than let them bottle up. Obi-Wan may appear as the straight-arrow to Anakin’s maverick, but he wasn’t so strict that he could not change his mind. Above all, he listens to Anakin. But Anakin still turns evil, and Obi-Wan blames himself for it, as any parent would if their kid turned into a mass murderer. Obi-Wan could never fully control what Anakin turned into, especially when he was already inside a broken system.
Verdict: not guilty.
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