Hiding Luke from Vader - or the abscence of the same

sparrowtm · Post by **sparrowtm** » 2004-11-30 01:02pm

Guten Abend!

First, don´t poke me - or I´ll cry. I mean it.

Let´s say you are responsible for two little brats named Leia and Luke.
Your task is to hide them away from their father, a evil Sith Lord in order
to prevent him from killing them/turning them over to the Dark Side. So
you send Leia a couple of hundred lightyears away, to noble foster
parents.
Great, frist part of the job done. She´ll lead a good life, pampered and
protected by a family of Senators and Generals. Nothing much that can
happen to her. Now on to Luke.

Hmm ... you think ... hmm ... where would be a good place for him? And
you come to the following conclusions:

- to hide him on the same planet as his evil father was born
- on said planet, to hide him near the very same city the evil father grew up

So far so good, but as your plans get more detailed you decide to put
that evil Sith Lords own relatives in charge of Luke! And what the heck,
since you´re already through with the second bottle of vodka you decide
to let Luke keep the name Skywalker! Who would notice!

Is it just me who finds the choice of Lukes hiding place a bit odd or do I miss some EU information which covers this seemingly carelessness up?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-11-30 01:05pm

It's been covered before. The gist is that nobody cares or remembers, and Vader would have more than likely never enter the Tatoo System again if it was up to him.

Also, the Lars Homestead is actually very far away from Mos Espa.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2004-11-30 01:29pm

The decision to put Luke in the Lars's care actually makes far more sense than the decision to give Leia to Bail Organa. Luke was on a backwater world that the Empire paid little attention to and where Vader would not ever want to go. Bail being a senator, however, increased the chances of Leia getting to Coruscant and being noticed by Vader of Palpy.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2004-11-30 01:43pm

Trogdor wrote:The decision to put Luke in the Lars's care actually makes far more sense than the decision to give Leia to Bail Organa. Luke was on a backwater world that the Empire paid little attention to and where Vader would not ever want to go. Bail being a senator, however, increased the chances of Leia getting to Coruscant and being noticed by Vader of Palpy.

Which leads to the interesting point that Vader has met Leia before ANH as I take it from interpretting the dialogue between them on the Tantive IV. She was a rather prominent voice in the Senate and noted for her rebel sympathies "You weren't on any mercy mission this time." Vader never once even suspected she was his offspring despite the fact that he spent alot of alone time with her when he tortured her on the DS including mind probes, she should have been insanely strong in the Force (Vader noted Luke's strength from several starship lengths away in the heat of battle) and if we take ESB and ROTJ a certain way his connection to his children is particularly strong (he could tell just by looking at the probe droid data that Luke was on Hoth, he could feel Luke's presence from the Executor while the Emperor could not feel him at all.) and if he 'searched his feelings he would know it to be true.' whatever the hell that means.

So why didn't Vader at least suspect Leia of being some connection to him?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-11-30 01:52pm

Probably because he just didn't.

First of all, how would he have any suspicion anything was up, unlike with Luke, who during the BoY trench run was concentrating with the Force.

FireNexus · Post by **FireNexus** » 2004-11-30 01:56pm

Maybe it was because by the time Vader met Luke, his mind was opened up to the force by Obi-Wan Kenobi, thus some sort of connection formed. He never felt the presence of Leia, hell, she never even made the slightest blip on his radar.

The only difference between the two was Luke's mind being open.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-11-30 01:58pm

Yeah, Vader only finally became aware of Leia being his daughter after sensing Luke's thoughts during their battle on Death Star II.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2004-11-30 03:08pm

FireNexus wrote:
The only difference between the two was Luke's mind being open.

Anakin's mind wasn't open on Tatooine and Qui Gon suspected he was strong in the Force.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2004-11-30 03:18pm

Stravo wrote:
FireNexus wrote:
The only difference between the two was Luke's mind being open.
Anakin's mind wasn't open on Tatooine and Qui Gon suspected he was strong in the Force.

An he had somehow innately learned to use the force too. Probably trying to fly a racing pod.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-11-30 03:20pm

Stravo wrote:
FireNexus wrote:
The only difference between the two was Luke's mind being open.
Anakin's mind wasn't open on Tatooine and Qui Gon suspected he was strong in the Force.

Because he was racing pods, something that no normal human could do, much less a nine year old kid.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-11-30 03:21pm

Both Anakin and Luke had been accessing the Force slightly during their lives before the left Tatooine. Leia probably never had.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2004-11-30 03:40pm

Well we know that both Anakin and Luke were self-"trained" Pilots when they left Tatooine (Anakin with the Podracers and Luke with the T-16 skyhopper) and luke had training in the ways of the Force before the battle of Yavin. As for Leia, I think that Vader might have thought that she reminded him about Padme, but since a fellow padawan reminded him about her in "Jedi Trial", Anakin didn't consider anything special (also Bail Organa is similar to Amidala in his polical opinions it's not that odd that Leia Organa would have that kind polical values and opinions)" and like Spanky said Leia didn't probaly use the Force that much.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-11-30 03:48pm

In my opinion, she probably didn't use it at all.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2004-11-30 03:54pm

There is the throw away line "Her resistance to the mind probe is considerable." Whether that means a damned thing I have no clue since it is the only mention of any sort of mind probing technology in the films.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2004-11-30 03:58pm

That probaly one of few times she used the Force (unknownly ofcourse).

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-11-30 03:59pm

Yeah, that line is all too vague simply because we have no idea exactly what Vader is refering to.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2004-11-30 04:01pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Yeah, that line is all too vague simply because we have no idea exactly what Vader is refering to.

well ROTJ novelization clears that bit up. (from Leias POW).

Mark S · Post by **Mark S** » 2004-11-30 05:26pm

Perhaps, since Leia was somewhat promanent in the Senate, Vader had a low opinion of her and interpreted any strong feelings around her as annoyance and anger at her being an upity bitch.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-11-30 06:47pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Both Anakin and Luke had been accessing the Force slightly during their lives before the left Tatooine. Leia probably never had.

That's rather presumptious - especially when Jedi Search strongly suggests it is a characteristic of many Force sensitives.

Darth Sephiroth · Post by **Darth Sephiroth** » 2004-11-30 06:49pm

With Leia it's hiding in plain sight, he wouldn't expect that sort of thing, I mean if you think someone is hiding a letter from you, do you check the stack of letters you have access to? Most people wouldn't, it's psychological, further, with Luke, Owen and Beruhad a possible reason to use the last name, last names may not really mean that much, Shmi did die, and it could simply be that if Vader noticed the name, the connection probably made him think it was a tribute to his own mother, who I believe there was some mention by Owen that he looked up to her as his mother, I seem to remember that his real mother died giving birth to him or something, not totally sure on that part though. It wouldn't be that big of a thing, infact, I'm just sort of suprised Vader didn't do something for them, especially as they really did help him, unless he to was sort of protecting them, which gets into a whole other conspiracy theory.

But another theory with Luke was that it was designed to lure Vader in to have Obi-Wan kill him.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2004-11-30 06:58pm

I think Georgie is an idiot for tieing up both families at all.

Now he's going to have to explain how come Vader didn't give a shit that he had a son. Because he HAS to know.

Unless Obi can read his mind and KNOW that he's not going ever to return to that place, or find out or read anything about what happens in it, it makes no sense to me.

EDIT: unless they actually only got to hide Leia for whatever reason, and where Luke stayed wasn't the decision of the Jedi at all.