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star wars - Did Obi-Wan need to sacrifice himself to Vader?


As far as I understand it, Obi-Wan Kenobi's motivation for engaging Darth Vader in combat and



allowing himself to be slain



was to buy time for Luke et al to escape from the Death Star. After the battle, he urges Luke, "Run, Luke, run," indicating that he is concerned about whether or not Luke will successfully get away.


But as the subsequent exchange between Vader and Tarkin reveals,




Vader allowed the heroes to escape so that the Falcon would lead them to the Rebel base.



which seems to mean that they would have escaped regardless of whether or not Obi-Wan "distracted" Vader.


While it's true that after the duel, Obi-Wan was able to assist Luke in his future development as a Jedi (as discussed in this answer), that seems to be making the best of a bad situation, rather than being the best possible way that Obi-Wan could have mentored Luke.


So my question is: Was Obi-Wan's loss to Vader a necessary tactical decision, or merely a circumstance of fate?



Answer



Since this is about Luke and Obi-wan's motivation, this answer is going to mostly be speculative.


We have to assume here that Obi-Wan was not going to win, or that doing so would've taken a very long time, and risked Luke's life.


And we have to take note that Luke was willing to stay behind to help Obi-Wan, even though escape was paramount.



So we can assume that if Obi-Wan hadn't died then and there, that Luke would've stayed behind, been captured, and taken in by either Vader or the Emperor, then corrupted to the dark side of the force (or just executed on the spot).


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