Skip to main content

star wars - Why didn't Darth Vader tell Sidious that Obi-Wan disappeared instead of dying?


After the events of A New Hope, Sidious believed Obi-Wan was dead. Vader apparently never told Sidious that Obi-Wan disappeared instead of being sliced in two on the original Death Star.


From the 1983 novelization of Return of the Jedi by James Kahn,



“Tell me, young Skywalker,” the Emperor said when he saw Luke’s first struggle had taken its course. “Who has been involved in your training until now?” The smile was thin, open-mouthed, hollow.



Luke was silent. He would reveal nothing.


“Oh, I know it was Obi-Wan Kenobi at first,” the wicked ruler continued, rubbing his fingers together as if trying to remember. Then pausing, his lips creased into a sneer. “Of course, we are familiar with the talent Obi-Wan Kenobi had, when it came to training Jedi.” He nodded politely in Vader’s direction, indicating Obi-Wan’s previous star pupil. Vader stood without responding, without moving.


Luke tensed with fury at the Emperor’s defamation of Ben — though, of course, to the Emperor it was praise. And he bridled even more, knowing the Emperor was so nearly right. He tried to bring his anger under control, though, for it seemed to please the malevolent dictator greatly.


Palpatine noted the emotions on Luke’s face and chuckled. “So, in your early training you have followed your father’s path, it would seem. But alas, Obi-Wan is now dead, I believe; his elder student, here, saw to that—” Again, he made a hand motion toward Vader. “So tell me, young Skywalker—who continued your training?”



And from the script for The Empire Strikes Back:



Emperor: We have a new enemy - Luke Skywalker.


Vader: Yes, my master.


Emperor: He could destroy us.



Vader: He’s just a boy. Obi-Wan can no longer help him.



Vader would say the Obi-Wan can no longer help Luke because he probably believes Obi-Wan is dead. Yet, he should not assume his previous master was dead because of what Obi-Wan told him a moment before his "death".



Obi-Wan: Strike me down and I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.



For somebody to disappear was a trick Vader had never seen before. To the best of my knowledge, it was a trick nobody in the galaxy had ever seen before since Obi-Wan was the first to will his body into becoming one with the Force. (Qui-Gonn was a Force Ghost, but his body did not disappear as Obi-Wan's did. And according to Lucas, "We never see the ghost of Qui-Gon; he's not that accomplished. He's able to retain his personality, but he's not able to become a corporal ghost.") Nor was there anything in the Jedi teachings about Force Ghosts. It would puzzle, perhaps even unnerve, Vader.


Did Vader deliberately hide this from his master? We know Sidious could so easily extract information from the minds around him, so hiding such a crucial piece of knowledge would be difficult.


What exactly did he tell Sidious?


I am looking for answers from G-canon or T-canon, not lower canon levels.




Answer



There's a few points that play into this



  1. Vader doesn't tell Sidious everything (and vice versa). In fact, it's a major plot point that Vader has been wrestling with his feelings internally, and Sidious is caught off guard when Vader acts on them and kills his master.

  2. As far as anyone but Luke and Yoda are concerned, Obi-Wan is dead. Nobody else sees him, except Anakin at the very end of ROTJ. There's no indication Sith know how to Force ghost, and there's no evidence of any Jedi ghosts being sensed by Sith.

  3. Vader seems to believe he's dead. That he disappeared is irrelevant. Vader says this in ESB

    Don’t let yourself be destroyed, as Obi-Wan did.





  4. Even if Vader had mentioned it, what exactly would you do? The guy disappeared. The Sith didn't believe in life after death

    We shall see. There is no life after death. Only nothingness awaits you, Jedi. Your fear feeds our hunger for power. They will know you are here. We will tell them. You will die and be nothing.





Remember, Anakin only learned to Force Ghost in the last moments of his life.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more