Headscratchers / Star Wars Anakin Skywalker And Darth Vader

Vader's buttons

• What happens when you push the buttons on Darth Vader's chest? Or are they just a bunch of lights to indicate that his support system is working properly and display his vital signs and whatnot?
  • He Force Chokes you for your impudence, that is what happens. Or more realistically, they are needed for adjusting his suit's settings depending on situations and locations he is operating in.
  • They're actually a part of his life support system. The buttons and shit on his chest are hooked up to tubes in his lungs and wires to his heart. The belt/chest panel are a dual system to regulate his breathing and heart beat. If one did try to touch them Vader would most likely kill them as fast as he could.
  • That's also why he changed his lightsaber stance (ever wondered why he kept his blade in front of his chest?) If anyone wanted to cut that, they'd have to bypass his lightsaber. Also, IIRC, there was an EU novel where a prisoner actually had the audacity to switch one of those buttons off, thus deactivating Vader's entire suit. It's a miracle Vader didn't kill him right then and there.
  • He kept his lightsaber that way because he can't really raise his arms because of the shoulder pads of his armour, he is shown doing it in several occasion though.
  • In other words, the whole suit is just one massive case of extremely bad design. It limits his mobility, has exposed systems that if damaged could result in death and leaves him distinctly vulnerable to his boss's favourite power (Force Lightning).
  • That last one may be a deliberate design element, though. Palpatine designed the suit, and Palpatine is exactly the sort of person who would leave his apprentice vulnerable to his favourite attack.
  • Maybe that's just what Vader wants everyone to think, when really the "buttons" are just flashy lights in front of a piece of armour plate, and if anyone ever targeted it they would really be attacking the most armoured spot on his suit.
  • There is also the issue of the portable iron lung on the back of the suit. Which is probably why Vader wears a cape most of the time. To hide it. While it is reasonable to assume that the suit has safety features so that it does not shut down if the chest console is played with, if a blaster or lightsaber scored a hit on the air pump then Vader would suffocate inside his own suit.
• As of "Kenobi", damaging the chestbox is shown to be a highly effective way to cripple Darth Vader, so pushing the buttons could likely produce a similar result. Of course, Darth Vader is also highly unlikely to let that happen in the first place...

Vader sensing his children

• Why couldn't the Force tell Vader that the presence he felt was children (Jaina did it with Allana in Invincible.)
  • "The Force is strong in this one," he says of Luke in the first film, even without meeting him in the flesh. Wouldn't it stand to reason Leia would show up on his radar in a similar way? More evidence that the revelation that Luke and Leia are siblings is an Ass Pull.
  • Vader could pick up on Luke because Luke was using the Force- there's no indication that he was at all aware of that one particular X-Wing pilot until Luke started using the Force to guide him rather than his computer. Leia had no idea she was even Force-sensitive until Luke told her and she certainly never used her powers in Vader's presence.
  • It occurs to me too that this is consistent with how Vader doesn't pick up on Obi-Wan being on Tatooine when he's in orbit more or less right above him, but does notice Obi-Wan is on the Death Star, because Obi-Wan was using the Force to distract stormtroopers and such. Jedi and Sith seem to have a way to "cloak" themselves from each other, maybe by simply not using the Force and keeping it to themselves. Notice how Darth Maul was able to sneak up on the two Jedi on Naboo and Vader was able to ambush Luke when they fought on Cloud City, and Yoda arrived to fight Count Dooku without him noticing on Geonosis (but Anakin and Obi-Wan sense Count Dooku when they sneak onboard his flagship above Coruscant, so maybe that was because he was using the Force for something. It probably just depends on whatever is plot-relevant anyway).
  • There's also the issue of distance. Sensing a guy from orbit is surely a lot harder than sensing him when he's 20 yards away. And it's heavily implied that emotional investment makes it easier to sense someone; Vader senses Luke when he arrives at Endor, but Palpatine doesn't feel a thing.
  • Watch how Leia addresses Vader in their scenes together. It's abundantly clear that she absolutely hates his guts, and probably has ever since Daddy Bail explained to his adoptive daughter that that armoured dude looming next to the Emperor's throne in all the propaganda broadcasts is Palpatine's hand-picked bullyboy, responsible for many good people's deaths. The finale of Rogue One would have further inflamed those feelings to white-hot after he'd brutally killed most of her Senatorial entourage. Given how attuned Sith are to dark emotion, the hostility and contempt Leia felt for Vader-The Dragon could very easily have overwhelmed any subtle hints of relatedness to Anakin-the-man.

Killing the Emperor

• So why didn't Darth Vader ever try to kill the Emperor during the 20 years between the two trilogies? I mean sure Palpatine is more powerful than him but I find it hard to believe his master's guard was up the ENTIRE TIME. The Expanded Universe tries to hand wave this by saying Palpatine learned his lesson through the murder of his master Plagueis, whom he killed while he was asleep, and learned to stay awake every moment of every day. This hand wave doesn't make sense as even Superman needs to sleep, so no amount of power should keep you up forever unless you have infinite power, which Emperor Palpatine does not have. Plus no guard Darth Sidious would have stationed while he sleeps would be anywhere near as powerful as Vader is. I find it hard to believe in 20 years Vader had absolutely NO OPPORTUNITY to kill his master.
  • Why would he do this. I mean, why would he try to kill the Emperor? What are his motivations for killing his own master? Does he get more power out of it? Does he somehow inherit the title of Emperor?
  • He achieves vengeance on the person who tricked him into becoming the monster that killed Padmé. Remember, a Sith derives power from hatred, and the thing Vader hates most is himself, for obvious reasons- so, logically, he must also really hate the one who made him fall and do the deed. Also, it’s literally a Sith tradition to assassinate one's master- that's the official method of ascending from Sith Apprentice to Sith Master.
  • Palpatine is killed, and the Empire tries Vader with treason and assassination and has him executed, since it is, y'know, a government. Sith or not is really irrelevant.
  • As was posted by the previous poster the Sith work under the premise that the Master should constantly watch his apprentice in order to prevent him from killing him and should he find a better apprentice replace the weak apprentice for the stronger one, and the apprentice should try to get stronger until he can kill his master and succeed him. The master is the one who wields the power and the apprentice craves it, this way both are constantly forced to reach new heights in order to survive, and Palpatine's ideal world would have both him and Vader being the top two Force users for all time and with his potential reach new heights and unlock mysteries of the Dark Side. However when Vader became injured Palpatine sought a replacement and so Vader in response has been planning to replace him as the Sith Master and Emperor of the galaxy, not only so the Emperor can't kill and replace him but for ruining his life by taking him down the path he went. So it isn't a question of why he would want to kill the Emperor, the question is how.
  • Now onto the way Vader would become Emperor. For the poster who said it is a government and Vader would be arrested, not necessarily. There have been countless rises to power through assassination in history, and some with little to no opposition to the assassin. In terms of power Vader is the Supreme Commander of the entire Galactic Military, making him second in command to the Emperor. So, should he die the legal channels of the government would make him next in line for Emperor, so killing him would benefit Vader. And Vader doesn't even have to make it an overt assassination should he be worried about retaliation, which he shouldn't since he controls the military. But all he has to do is reach over at the Emperor with his hand and snap his neck, no finger prints, no blood, sweat, etc. to find and he can just say some assassin came in before he could stop him, among other possibilities.
  • I think it'd rather take more cunning than that; in a one-on-one fight, all Palpatine has to do is lightning Vader and he's basically dead. Keep in mind, he did kill the Emperor while he was distracted with Luke, and died shortly thereafter. As for killing him in his sleep, Palpatine is not Superman, and the Force is not solar energy; there's no reason Superman's sleep schedule should have any bearing on a Force user's. Also keep in mind that it's a big galaxy; it's not like Palpy and Vader are roomies. And something tells me slipping in without triggering any alarms to get Palpatine in lightning mode isn't one of Vader's strong suits.
  • It's also worth noting that not everyone in the Imperial hierarchy thinks all that highly of Vader. He may not have commanded full support as Emperor and might even have been somewhat vulnerable to mutiny. There was a rebellion going on after all, which they lost, so even maintaining what power he had was something of a question. He also made the mistake of underestimating his previous master in Episode III, and that didn't end so well for him. Bottom line, I think it's just likely that Vader may not have believed himself strong enough to take on Palpatine. He does, however, seem to believe he and Luke together capable of doing it, and tries to pull Luke over to his side.
  • It has been proven that lightsabers can block Force Lightning and there are ways to create actual barriers made of energy with the Force, so Vader has some form of protection against the Emperor short circuiting his suit with Force Lightning. Besides, once the Force Lightning did successfully short circuit Vader's breathing apparatus, the strength of the attack itself was not able to deter Vader from throwing Palpatine over the edge, so Vader is at least powerful enough to be able to withstand an attack from his master and once he has a hold of him his superior physical strength could easily break the Emperor's body. Being at 80% of the Emperor’s power doesn't mean Vader is weak, it means he is the second most powerful Sith in history seeing as the Emperor is the most powerful Sith ever. I brought up the example of Superman as he is practically a demi-god who can survive going through stars and can move planets, if that kind of power needs to sleep than Palpatine should need sleep. As for assassinating the Emperor Vader doesn't even have to do it in his sleep (which he could pull off since he knows how to hold his breath, he used it on Luke to ambush him), there are moments in the Expanded Universe and the films where he is literally just a few feet away from his master, Vader is a powerful and fast warrior a quick raising of his hand towards his master's neck and... SNAP! Not to mention what Vader could pull of with a lightsaber, if I recall correctly his mastery is greater than his master's. It would be that simple.
  • Superman needs sleep for one reason only: because his writers say he does. The Star Wars writers aren't bound by that. You might as well say the Millennium Falcon can't go faster than light because Serenity can't.
  • Remember how Palpatine had to use the clones to kill off the Jedi? Remember their main advantage? It wasn't their overwhelming numbers - it was their lack of emotions that shielded them from the Jedi precognition powers. Vader didn't have such an advantage. Palpatine would've sensed his murderous intention, probably even in sleep (why not, the Great Force doesn't sleep). Next, you somehow suppose that Palpatine is NOT a powerful and fast warrior. I thought Yoda's example taught us that the frail constitution is not a hindrance to a Jedi or really any Force user. All in all, I guess, Vader only managed to kill Palpatine because the latter was distracted with torturing Luke.
  • This is contradicted by out-of-film sources that have the Jedi possess the ability to sense energy signals of clones, Yoda in particular has told clones to their faces he can feel an energy and a spirit inside of them that makes them unique to other clones. It was probably the heat of battle and the sudden change of heart that didn't allow the Jedi to notice the malice in time to react. Palpatine seems relatively aware of Vader's thoughts and emotions due to the Force bond he has with his apprentice so logically he should have some degree of preparation time in case of a betrayal, but this DOES NOT APPLY WHEN HE IS SLEEPING. If that was the case then Palpatine would not have been able to murder Plagueis who was his master while he slept. The fast and powerful statement was to do with Vader's actual physical strength and agility, Vader being a foot away from his master is akin to a person strangling a person with a gun before they can bring their gun out, sure if the gun comes out (in this case Palpatine's Force powers) then the attacker is screwed but if the gun wielder is killed before he can reach his gun then the weapon is useless. Vader is actually relatively swift, once he became adapted to the suit he was able to jump and run with some degree of grace and his strength due to his robotic arms is self explanatory, so a personal meeting between him and his master would be the perfect time to use those attributes of his. It wouldn't be without risk to Vader but not impossible to pull off.
  • Well, that's Yoda for you. Others just weren't that good. As for the sleeping part, you apparently take everything Palpatine told Anakin about Plagueis at face value. You shouldn't. And if the Force Awareness (or whatever the ability to sense intentions is called) is indeed on 24/7, this negates all the reasoning with respect to Vader's prowess. However swift you are, if the target already knows you're about to strike (and can electrocute you with its mind), you're screwed. And electrocuted. Finally, you seem to give the Emperor too little respect. The man managed to get the better of the whole Jedi Order, not to mention the rest of the galaxy, after all. Surely he could manage one whiny bitch in a clanking suit.
  • Word of God from George Lucas confirms Palpatine's story about Plagueis in an interview where he calls him a "super-Sith", and even the Expanded Universe speaks of Palpatine training under Plagueis. That is until he learned that his master wanted to create life using the Force which Palpatine viewed as his potential replacement, and then he killed him in his sleep. According to Palpatine, Plagueis was so wise and so powerful in the Force that he could even save those he wanted to from dying, and allegedly was capable of creating life or was on the verge of finding such a power, so he was a Force user so powerful that he had to kill him in his sleep in order to succeed. If his story is to be believed then even someone as aware as Plagueis was can't sense danger in their sleep, unless in the form of prophetic visions such as what Anakin experienced. I am not downplaying how powerful Palpatine is, I called him the most powerful Sith in the history of the Sith Order (which many sources claim him to be), I was simply claiming that no matter how powerful you are your guard can't always be up and even powerful Force users can take damage from opponents that are weaker than them. Besides if Palpatine was so aware all the time then he wouldn't have been grabbed by Vader and thrown over an edge of a reactor core to his death in Return of the Jedi, which is where the topic of why Vader didn't try something like that some time in the prior 20 years comes from. Also Vader is not a "whining bitch in a clanking suit" (especially since his whining personality that so many infamously claim Anakin had in the prequels is gone once he becomes Darth Vader), he is the Chosen One who had the potential to be the most powerful Force user who ever lived. Due to certain mistakes and injuries he was reduced to a shell of what he could have been, but said shell is 80% as powerful as the Emperor is who as I said is the most powerful Sith that has ever lived. 80% of Palpatine is nothing to laugh at.
  • Lots of Real Life dictators ruled that long and even longer, somehow avoiding all attempts on their lives (usually plentiful), despite lacking awesome Jedi powers. If the Plagueis story was indeed true, a reasonable assumption would be that Palpatine learned from his master's mistakes, like a good Sith should. Vader only managed to kill Palpatine because the latter was distracted with torturing Luke. And last but not least: Evil Never Sleeps. Nuff said.
  • The Rise of Darth Vader mentions this: "Unlike Plagueis, Sidious knew better than to sleep".
  • The Emperor clearly has some ability at mind reading (e.g. "I can feel your hatred"), so my guess is that he's constantly monitoring Vader and is ready to short out his suit whenever he senses a dangerous thought. Vader knows this and is biding his time for a moment when the Emperor is distracted enough to be killed, and in turn the Emperor is careful not to become overly distracted (hence why he doesn't Force Storm the Rebellion bases). In the end the Emperor realised that the shield was down and they were all about to be obliterated, so he figured that should enjoy his final moments and fry Luke regardless of potential betrayal, Vader saw his opportunity and promptly murdered his master.
  • A lot of this is ignoring the fact that Palpatine bends the rules. He deliberately takes inadequate apprentices so they can never surpass him. Darth Maul wasn't a strong Force-sensitive; he could be trained in combat and was thus a threat to Palpatine's enemies, but not to Palpatine. Count Dooku was easy to deceive and manipulate. Anakin had a leash around his neck with "Padmé" inscribed on it, and after that's out of the way, Darth Vader is, for all the prosthetics and scariness, a cripple. Vader certainly wants to kill him, but he can't. It's not possible for him to pull it off. Palpatine, on his worst day, can still read Vader like a book, hear him like an audiobook, and see his intentions in James Cameron 3D. Remember Vader's speech to Luke in Empire, where he blatantly spells out his intent for the two of them to kill Palpatine so they can rule together as father and son? It's even given a Call-Back in The Force Unleashed, where Galen realises, "You never wanted to kill the Emperor," but Vader answers, "Not with you."
  • One thing that always bothered me about saying that Palpatine can take out Vader in one strike is that if this is the case then having an apprentice to help him kill the Emperor in a straight fight is pointless. Vader didn't disown Galen Marek because he was weak but because he didn't like the fact that he was becoming a good person and turning away from the Dark Side, The Force Unleashed II is dealing with the premise of Vader cloning Starkiller in order to have a more obedient version to command against Palpatine. All that aside, whether he was going to use Galen Marek or his son Luke Vader can't help his apprentice if Palpatine takes him out of the fight with one burst of Force Lightning by short-circuiting his suit, unless Vader can actually deal a blow then the whole affair is of no good. Unless Vader was hoping to raise his apprentice to be stronger than the Emperor and let him fight his battle for him, which doesn't sound like Vader as he not only would want to participate in the assassination of his master but raising an apprentice to a level equal to or beyond that of the Emperor, even Luke who according to George Lucas has the same potential that Anakin once had, would take years. Logically Vader can at least hurt the Emperor, a guy who is weaker than you can still inflict pain on you or even kill you, and therefore the apprentice is there only so that Vader doesn't die taking the Emperor with him. This is showcased in the Return of the Jedi, had Luke been powerful enough then Vader and Luke could have killed the Emperor together, but as it was Vader had to sacrifice himself in order to kill Palpatine.
  • In short: Palpatine killed Plagueis because the latter was overconfident and believed he could afford to let down his guard, Palpatine took the lesson to heart so he never slept and Vader just isn't strong enough to take Palpatine, and only managed in the end because Palpy was intoxicated by the Dark Side while torturing Luke. Oh yeah, Power of Love.
  • Power of Love indeed. It's entirely possible that the whole reason Vader was even able to kill Palpatine in the end was (in addition to his distraction) the fact that his emotions at the time weren't aggressive. He wasn't feeling his overwhelming hatred for his master, he was feeling his love for Luke. Presumably Palpatine had trained himself to react to feelings of violence towards him, but, distracted as he was, he couldn't immediately process Vader's shift to positive emotion, digest the implications, and anticipate his attack. If you look at it in that light, it's entirely feasible that Vader spent the last twenty years trying to kill him and failing at it, since he presumably went about his assassination attempts in a very Sith way, and Palpatine was always the superior Sith.
  • Also, if Vader would be the logical heir to the Emperor's throne as has been suggested, being Emperor involves a lot of politics and social manipulation. Shadows of the Empire makes it quite clear that Vader hates having to deal with politics and politicians, who are always sneaking around jockeying for influence and power, and with the shadow-world of spies and secret agents. Vader is, frankly, a warrior, and it's stated that he'd rather fight with a lightsaber or starfighter than duel in a political ring. Also, Palpatine is a bit of a dick and has spent the last 30-40 years wrapping Anakin/Vader around his little finger. You're telling me that a man who can make several billion people forget seeing an 8km-long warship getting buried in Coruscant (namely Lusankya, a Super Star Destroyer that shows up in the X-Wing novels) and specifically designed Vader's life-support suit to be a hassle and burden wouldn't have had other methods of keeping Vader in his place?
  • Unlike Palpatine, Vader does not want power for power's sake. He wanted power to save Padmé and rule the galaxy with her. With her dead, he would have no more reason to want to be Emperor. Besides, after the events of Sith, Vader is probably pretty Lonely at the Top and Palpatine is the closest thing he has to a friend left. It was only when Luke came along that this changed.
  • Is there any evidence that Vader considers Palpatine to be the enemy? Palpatine's apparently been his friend since he was a boy, he gave Anakin his position on the Jedi Council, always encouraged him even when everybody else was "holding him back", and in the end was the only person to offer any useful advice other than "Death is a natural part of life accept it and let go". From Vader's point of view, it's his own fault that everything came crashing down, and Palpatine was just a good friend who did everything he could.
  • Yes, there is. In the novelisation of Revenge of the Sith Palpatine asks him if he hates him and wants to kill him- Vader says yes, he does, and later in the film he tells Padmé that he can get strong enough to defeat him. And in The Empire Strikes Back he tries to talk Luke into helping him overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy together, and there is no indication that he isn't serious. Vader is not stupid- he knows full well that Palpatine is not his friend. He tricked him into killing Mace Windu because he said he had the power to save Padmé`- "whoops! I meant we might be able to find out how to save her", or as Anakin heard it "I lied, bitch". He also just found out that his so-called friend orchestrated that hugely destructive intergalactic war that he had just spent the last X years fighting and seeing people die in. He hates Palpatine; Palpatine ruined his life, and he's well aware that for all his talk about "peace" he is really motivated only by a lust for power. He goes along with him only to learn how to beat him, and because Vader really does believe in using The Empire for peace- he has to, because he needs to somehow drag some sort of victory out of all the disasters he is responsible for. In one of the comics a Fallen assassin tells him that he can't keep running from his crimes- Vader's response is "I have no choice", and he kills her, and that sums him up rather neatly.
  • I always thought Palpatine had some sort of mind control over others. He obviously wanted Luke to kill Vader, presumably so that he could be his new apprentice. It seems clear to me that surrendering to anger (the Dark Side) gave Palpatine power over the Jedi. Besides, Luke tries to persuade Vader to fight Palpatine, and his response amounts to "his power over me is too strong". He doesn't say "he's my master, I am on his side and I don't want to kill him". Heck, he stops just short of saying "I am entirely incapable of turning against him". Giving in to your anger does not seem like an abstract, moral victory for Palpatine (i.e. you kill your father/son/whatever, you are evil and therefore the Dark Side wins). It seems that Vader even acting against Palpatine required a heroic act of willpower on his part, when he finally did. Heck, that's why I figured Anakin became Vader in the first place. There is absolutely no reason for him not to say "what, my love died? You promised me you'd save her. No, I will not be your apprentice". The Dark Side seems to warp Sith mentally, they are not merely "bad guys". Otherwise, there is no reason for Luke to be at Palpatine's side after he killed Vader. He'd either kill Palpatine or get killed himself. And what purpose would it serve for Palpatine to have Vader killed, if Luke was not meant to replace him somehow?
  • There's also the simple problem facing Vader: Palpatine's a much better planner. He's perfectly willing to kill Palpatine (in fact, he mentions such ambitions to Padmé), but it's all for nothing if Vader gets himself killed or sidelined in the process.
  • Lucas has stated that Vader being in the suit made him physically much weaker than Palpatine had hoped. Probably the estimate of Vader as being 80% as powerful as Palpatine might have been true if he hadn't gone and got himself all burned up, but afterward the percentage was way lower.
  • Lucas' exact words were that had Anakin never suffered any of his injuries he could have been twice as powerful as the Emperor, in his injured state Vader could only achieve 80% of the power that the Emperor wields. The way it is worded heavily implies that Vader is at that 80% power in the Original Trilogy.
  • Obi-Wan said it himself - “he's more machine now than man.” That wasn't just referencing Vader's cybernetics: the man has lost everyone he ever loved, and been involved in some horrific events. He's desensitised, dead inside, and has no idea what to do with himself. The more he thinks about his current situation, his past - anything, really, the deeper into despair he falls, so as a coping mechanism, he tries to stop thinking altogether, and simply follows his orders without question - anything to keep his mind busy. As time goes by, this habitual obedience becomes a part of his psyche until it is all that he is anymore. It's only once he realizes his son might be alive that he begins to think for himself again.
  • In the RotS novelisation, Vader tries to kill Palpatine after being interred in his armour but is too damaged from his wounds to even hurt him. He then realizes he doesn't even want to because Palpatine is the only thing he has left.
  • Problem with waiting for the Emperor to let his guard down is the whole psychic powers thing. If Vader is planning to kill the Emperor, the Emperor will likely sense it and be prepared. When Vader does strike at the Emperor, it's an impulsive act; the Emperor didn't sense it coming, because the time between Vader deciding to kill him and following through on it was effectively zero, not to mention the Emperor was distracted with torturing Luke.
  • With regards to sleep, I really don’t think Palpatine literally went his whole life (or at least his whole life from the time Plagueis was dead and he mentored Sith apprentices himself) without it. In real life, special forces soldiers are expected to operate for potentially days on end with little to zero sleep, so that aspect of it is plausible. And also Force users can probably draw from the energy field and keep themselves going for say, weeks at a time. But everyone has their limits. I would say Palpatine can probably keep tabs on Vader’s (and before him, Dooku’s) whereabouts with both Force and also technological/spying means. If (or rather, whenever) he knows he is on missions across the galaxy from wherever Palpatine is currently calling his residence/headquarters, Palpatine can afford to rest. Whenever anyone capable of posing a threat to him is nearby, as alerted to him by various types of alarms (spiritual, technological and HUMINT ones), that’s when he projects the reputation of “no sleep, ever”. And that’s what affords him the ability to keep energy up for that constant vigilance.
• Long story short: It's not explained in the films, likely because it was seen as self-explanatory; Anakin states before his crippling that he wanted to overthrow Palpatine and rule the galaxy, and two movies later, he tells Luke the two of them can do so together. Ergo, he knew that after his crippling he wasn't strong enough to kill Palpatine until he found potential help in Luke. The problem is that A. the idea he couldn't kill Palpatine (or that Luke changed things that much) stands on shaky ground for a few reasons, and B. given everything he went through for Padme, seems unlikely he would care more about his own life or ruling the galaxy than avenging her. Legends and Canon thus provide two different explanations; in the former (the ROTS novelization aside), he indeed wanted to usurp Palpatine the whole time, but was too weak to do it alone and his various schemes around that failed. In the latter, he (for some reason) became genuinely loyal to Palpatine despite still being stronger, at least until he learned Luke was alive, which meant Palpatine had lied to him, at which point he began various failed schemes to overthrow him.

Vader in the suit

• This was brought up in the Archives page but I never could understand why Vader stays in that suit, iconic as it may be, for the entire Saga when he had alternatives to being a walking iron lung. There was cloning technology right there, and yet his limbs, damaged organs, lungs, and skin are never replaced with healthier cloned parts, this is somewhat hand-waved by the fact that Dark Side energies apparently corrupt clone flesh for some reason and yet there are more advanced forms of cloning that prevent this problem, technology that Vader personally uses on his apprentice Starkiller. Vader was also given the option of being taken out of his old suit and put in one that would be far better in every way in comparison to the original, but considers it too risky as having his suit replaced would require everything to be turned off, including his iron lung which he needs to breath. It upsets me that Vader feels trapped in that suit of his when there were clearly ways out of it, options that he never experimented with. I could understand if he tried and failed, but Vader never even tried.
  • Remember, a Sith's power stems from his hate, and the thing Vader hates most is himself. It’s entirely probable that whatever explanation he gave to others (and to himself), the real subconscious reason he stayed in the super-uncomfortable suit is self-flagellation.
  • Yeah but Vader's justification is irrational, you don't need to put yourself through physical pain or discomfort to prove you hate yourself. That kind of thing starts from within the heart, not the body. I agree with the statement that he has self-hatred because Vader said that he hated himself in a fight he had with a resurrected Maul, Maul grabs Vader from behind but Vader pierces Maul by putting his lightsaber through his stomach and as collateral through Maul's as well, Maul has a brief exchange with Vader before he dies for a second time; Maul: What could you hate enough to destroy me? Vader: Myself. However if Vader's self-hatred was that great you would think he would have have gave up on life long ago, Vader hates himself because of his failures but clings to life because he feels that he can reach greater heights than his present condition by killing his master and becoming Emperor, it would only make sense for Vader to make himself stronger by healing his body so he can achieve the only goal he feels he has left to live for.
  • It’s irrational, but that's why I said subconscious. He probably never admitted to even himself that that was why he stayed in the suit- he probably convinced himself on an intellectual level that it was due to the risks involved being too great, or being too busy, or dangers of clone tissue degeneration or something. And because he had convinced himself it was a logical-sounding justification, and not the subconscious hatred, rational argument wouldn't really do much good in persuading him (lord knows I've run into a similar problem with my own psyche enough times). Basically, just assume he ain't thinking clearly and is just one huge bundle of self-hating neuroses, and it all falls into place. It doesn't make sense- but then again, psychological issues, especially ones driven by trauma, rarely do, and hate is often self-destructive and aimed as much inward as it is outward, even when they only admit the outward part to themselves.

• Probably the most interesting story about Vader's self-hatred is when he uses it on himself... for healing purposes. In Shadows of the Empire Vader focuses on all of the hatred he has against himself, everything bad that has ever happened to him, and for his master Palpatine, and channels this into Dark Side energy which he uses to heal his old scars from Mustafar. Vader's skin is completely void of all scar tissue from the severe third degree burns he suffered and the damage dealt to his internal organs and lungs is reversed which allowed him to breathe without his iron lung, but his regenerated body causes Vader to flashback to what life used to be like when he was fully organic, back when he was once Anakin and this causes Vader to become joyful and reverses the Dark Side induced regeneration. Vader's regeneration wasn't being held back by Vader, but rather by Anakin, the spark of good inside Vader prevented Vader from regenerating his body back to the way it once was. because the more he became like his old self physically the more his memories of being the good man he once was as Anakin interfered with his Dark Side powers. Not cloning body parts to graft onto his flesh was probably Anakin's guilt affecting Vader.
• Not to mention, we're talking about completely cloning Anakin then putting Vader's brain into the clone. Difficult and expensive, not to mention probably too advanced even for Star Wars. And about The Force Unleashed 2, I always thought it was the original Starkiller all along, and Vader just wants to confuse him enough to turn him evil again, so he takes the almost-dead Starkiller, heals him, then uses the Dark Side to try and corrupt his mind. The bad clones were just that, and were supposed to just be powerful cannon fodder.
• My bet is that Palpatine wouldn't let him- he designed that suit to be a hindrance to Vader to help keep him under control. Palpatine probably beat Vader over the head with “this procedure would likely kill you” when he caught word that Vader wanted the new suit until Vader gave in. Palpatine is supposed to be a manipulative bastard, and the person he needs to manipulate the most is Vader, his trusted and very very powerful second-in-command.
• Knowing Palpatine, he probably had the suit deliberately designed to guarantee Vader's death if he tried to replace it with something better: no mere "very likely" about it.
• I'd imagine the actual reason is because Lucas hadn't conceived of clone tissue being used in that manner back when writing the original trilogy and had to keep it consistent by the time of the prequels. There's also the point that Lucas is a fan of Cybernetics Eat Your Soul; Darth Vader's implants represent his inhumanity.

• In the Disney canon, Darth Vader stays in his armor because a) Cloning a powerful Force-user, even for the spare parts, is insanely difficult. b) The suit helps him channel the Dark Side and distance himself from Anakin. c) Because he is explicitly permitted to modify it by Palpatine himself, Vader can actually minimise/get rid of its flaws while maintaining its benefits as a powersuit.

Knowledge of Anakin Skywalker

• So does anyone even know that Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker in the general populace? You would think that Palpatine would like to use the story of a noble Jedi like Anakin defending the Republic from his rebelling brethren and being scarred and put in a life-sustaining suit in the process as propaganda. People like Yoda and Obi-Wan know who he is because they used to know him when he was a Jedi himself and know that after he became Darth Vader that he survived the volcanic scarring he suffered on Mustafar. The surviving Jedi and Dark Side users on occasion also claim to know Vader was once Anakin but how they know is never explained, either Obi-Wan and Palpatine shared their knowledge of Vader's identity to the galaxy or Vader's mind is an open book to whatever Force user tries to pry through his thoughts which I find unlikely.
  • Most people don't know who Vader really is. Even Prince Xizor, who was powerful enough that he could have been a rival for Vader in position within the Empire, did not know Vader was originally Anakin.
  • Actually Xizor does know that. When he finds out Luke Skywalker's name, he realises that was once Vader's name, and figures out they are related.
  • So if people don't know that Anakin is Darth Vader then what is the general perception of Anakin Skywalker in Galactic history? Is Anakin still viewed as a galactic war hero by the general populace despite being remembered as a Jedi, or did Palpatine not care to protect the memory of his apprentice's original identity since no one knew he was Darth Vader anyway? It is at least presented that people who fought in the Clone Wars with Anakin still remember him favourably, for example a fighter pilot who fought with Anakin Skywalker during the Clone Wars decided to choose Luke as the squadron leader on the basis that he was Anakin's son, it must be noted that said pilot had only ever participated with Anakin in one battle out of literally thousands that were fought in the overall war.
  • I believe the general populace were told that Anakin Skywalker died heroically defending the Chancellor from Jedi assassins, and while I don't think that story was ever changed outright, it was downplayed as the Jedi became increasingly taboo. Luke, of course, wouldn't have been told anything about this by his aunt and uncle, and may well have believed his father and "the" Anakin Skywalker were two different guys with the same name until Obi-Wan set him straight. Then, after the Rebellion was successful the truth got out, and Anakin's reputation for pretty self-evident reasons took a nosedive.
  • Tatooine Ghost has an image of Anakin Skywalker for sale in the auction house. A small scene ensues and it's shown that they, in fact, knew who Anakin was and that he became Darth Vader.
  • Really, what would they have to hide? What could be gained by pretending that Lord Vader is some new person?
  • Realistically, because that would kill The Reveal: if Vader's real identity were common galactic knowledge, then Luke should have found out years ago. Canonically, because Palpatine wanted a clean break between the person Anakin was and his new personality; several times in the EU Palpatine chastises Vader for retaining vestiges of his old self.
  • Maybe there's two guys in the galaxy named Anakin Skywalker and Luke grew up thinking it's a weird coincidence that his father and evil's iron fist happened to have the same name?
  • Before Vader's "mishap" on Mustafar, Palpatine was likely planning some spin about how all the evil Jedi, except for heroic Anakin Skywalker, were killed by loyal clone troops to prevent them from taking over the Republic. Once Anakin was confined to the suit, it was much easier and more effective to claim him as an entirely new person. Instead of asking the public to believe that all Jedi but one were bad, they're asked to believe that all Jedi are bad, but you can trust your Friendly Neighbourhood Sith Lord. There's just no reason to try and ride the coattails of Anakin's fame, and every reason to abolish them. Reminding the public of Anakin's great exploits would remind them of other Jedi, and anti-Jedi sentiment would be harder to cultivate. By first vilifying, then erasing, as much information about the Jedi as possible, Palpatine both prevents the public from retaining romantic notions about the guardians of peace and justice, and makes it that much harder for random Force-Sensitives to piece together enough Jedi lore to resurrect the Order. A great deal of early EU (especially before the prequels) deals with the fact that Luke has precious little information about the old Jedi Order to model his new Order on, and has to basically reinvent all the wheels.
  • To the above two points: Even if nobody knows that Vader is Anakin, Luke would still have to reconcile that his father the nobody spice-freighter navigator had the same name as galactic war hero Jedi general Anakin Skywalker. That is, unless Palpatine and the Empire suppressed all knowledge of Anakin and the Jedi in general (explaining how Luke knows nothing about them or even what the Force is). The Empire's propaganda could have easily taken the line of "the Jedi were evil, they betrayed the Republic, they're dead now, so stop talking about them" and written them out of all the history books (or history holograms or whatever) and banned all mention of them like the Roman practice of [[{{Unperson ''damnatio memoriae'}}]].
  • For Palpatine, declaring to the Galaxy that Anakin was dead also has the additional benefit of helping Vader to dissociate himself from his old identity and devoting himself to the Dark Side.
  • Indeed, the Emperor declaring Anakin dead might explain where Obi-Wan got his "betrayed and murdered" BS from, if that's what public information about the Jedi Purge had initially claimed. Palpatine might even have said that his "new" second-in-command, Darth Vader, killed Anakin when the latter made yet another last-ditch assassination attempt to avenge the "traitor" Jedi, thus providing "proof" that the ongoing massacre that was Order 66 needed to wipe out every last one, ex-war heroes included.

The Emperor discussing Luke

• "We have a new enemy, the young Rebel who destroyed the Death Star. I have no doubt this boy is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker." Then Vader says, "how is that possible?", as opposed to "holy shit, my son's alive!" or "wait, why aren't YOU surprised my boy's alive?" (or questioning about the other twin).
  • Vader never knew there were twins in the first place. Secondly his reaction of "how is that possible" basically is his version of "holy shit, my son's alive".
  • Vader not knowing he had twins strikes me as implausible. They don't have ultrasound in Star Wars? He and Padmé should both have known she was pregnant with a boy and a girl.
  • According to another page where this was brought up, the novelisation of Revenge of the Sith says that Padmé went to the doctor to make sure she was healthy, but wanted everything else to be a surprise.
  • Yeah, "how is that possible?" is basically the same as "holy shit, my son's alive?" except the latter isn't the sort of thing Darth Vader would say. As to why the Emperor wouldn't sound surprised, if he was going to show surprise, it'd be when he found out. By the time he's telling Vader, Vader would presume he's taken time to confirm in some fashion so the surprise would have passed.
  • Fridge Logic here because Vader should have known Padmé had twins because he would have been able to feel them through the Force. More likely, he is asking how his son can be alive when he assumes both children died when Padmé did. When he reads Luke's thoughts on the Death Star II, perhaps he realises Leia is alive as well.
  • I don't think that Force sensitives can discern pregnancy, however. Anakin didn't realise Padmé was pregnant upon his return from rescuing the Chancellor, after all. It's highly likely, therefore, that he wouldn't have sensed anything about his future progeny.
  • The EU establishes that Vader interrogates a Rebel officer concerning the identity of the pilot who destroyed the Death Star after the events of A New Hope. The officer utters, "Luke Skywalker" before Vader kills him, so Vader knew that his son was alive before the events of The Empire Strikes Back. Logically this means that his utterance of, "how is this possible?", is more Vader asking the Emperor why he lied to him about the death of his children than a genuine shock at the existence of his son.
  • Vader's had years to learn to maintain a reserved demeanour in his dealings with Palpatine. Such a sudden, amazed outburst wouldn't be consistent with how sombrely the two of them interact all through the series.
  • I'm sorry, but what are you all talking about? Vader never says "How is this possible?" so far as I can recall. The actual exchange is as follows:
    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.
    Emperor: The Force is strong with him. The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi.
  • That's the way the conversation went in older versions. It has been updated in newer DVD/Blu-Ray versions of the trilogy.
  • The only question here is why the Emperor refers to "the son of (Anakin) Skywalker" when talking to Anakin Skywalker, rather than just saying "your son," and the in-story reason is that "that name no longer has any meaning for [Vader]," and the writer's reason is so as not to spoil The Reveal. Vader never asks "How is this possible?"
  • Go watch that scene again. He did SO ask that question.
  • Why does the Emperor call Luke "the son of Skywalker"? Because, as Obi-Wan put it:
  • "[He] was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was [Anakin] was destroyed."
  • Meaning that the Emperor knows what would happen if Anakin Skywalker reasserted himself, and is working to keep that part of Vader's mind submerged.
  • Or he just knows how to count months. When Luke was conceived, i.e. "fathered", his male parent still was Anakin, not yet Vader.
  • I always thought Palpatine was using euphemisms in the vein of a Cryptic Conversation. Remember this is probably a top-secret communication between the highest-ranking individuals of the Imperial government. If the message got compromised and anyone else heard it, then it wouldn't be obvious to the listener that Vader is Anakin and the person they're talking about is Vader's son. I also figured that, given three years have passed since the Battle of Yavin, they both already knew Luke's name and strongly suspected he was Anakin's son; this message is just the Emperor confirming to Vader that he has found out that Luke is in fact his son and he is training to become a Jedi, so it's extremely urgent that they deal with him quickly before he becomes a serious threat. They may have discussed Luke's identity before and Vader is just saying he's still unconvinced when he asks "how is that possible?".
  • For all Vader and Palpatine knew initially, "Luke Skywalker" could've been some random Rebel who happened to be a bit Force-sensitive and had adopted an alias that borrowed the surname of a famous Jedi war hero. Lots of Rebel Alliance fighters probably worked under false names and idolised the old Republic. It took some investigation to confirm that, no, this wasn't just another hotshot fanboy.

Better suit

• Why doesn't Vader get a better cybernetic suit? I'm not asking for an Iron-Man suit like in the comic books as I know Vader would prefer to rely more on the Force than technology, but Vader could easily modify his suit and cybernetics so things could be more comfortable for him. In fact if I remember correctly I think an Expanded Universe source claimed that Vader was going to do it but was afraid that the surgery might kill him, though you would think that after years of being in his current suit his wounds would have healed to the point where a second surgery wouldn't be as risky. Plus even if it was too risky a periodical upgrade could have been conducted safely, you know like they retro-fit him with new limbs first, then move on to his lungs, and so on and so forth until he has a new cybernetic body suit.
  • The Emperor is a prick who intentionally gave him an ill-fitting mildly dysfunctional suit in order to cause pain and suffering, in order to make his Dark Side usage stronger.
  • Why doesn't Vader try taking the initiative on his own? I would say 20 years of suffering in the same suit and all its limitations would have allowed him to milk all the "Dark Side energies" that would have been produced by his negative feelings. Hell, even if Vader did get a new suit he still has reason to be angry since he isn't a fully organic human being which is obviously much more comfortable. That isn't an excuse to not improve his living and combat situations with a new suit, and besides the Emperor knows as well as Vader does that until he can become a fully organic human being again Vader won't have the power to overthrow Palpatine. Neither of them should have a problem with the surgery.
  • Why doesn't Vader take initiative? Because Palpatine told him not to, and it'd be really hard to hide the fact that he replaced his entire body. If he gets an new suit without permission, Palpatine might just kill him. He has no use for a disobedient apprentice.
  • The person Vader hates the most is himself. On some level, he probably feels he deserves being miserable and stuck in a low-quality life-support suit for the rest of his life, particularly since it doesn't impede his duties (thereby keeping him from feeling an immediate practical need to upgrade).
  • The thing about Vader's suit being of a crappy design and leaving him in constant pain is an EU invention, isn't it? Leaving aside that he would be in pain already from the multiple amputations and severe burns, there is no evidence in the movies themselves that the suit is subpar or particularly uncomfortable. Maybe it's kind of heavy and reduces his agility, but it also provides protection, so it's exactly like real-life armour, not a monk's cilice.

Real-world solutions to Vader's medical condition

• Some people above were debating about a new cybernetic suit or cloning to fix Vader's injuries but amusingly there are a bunch of real world medical solutions that could make life easier for him. For example Vader's lungs could be fitted with prosthetic sponge-like gel that given enough time would be absorbed by the flesh of the lungs and would expand up and down like organic lungs would, or lungs can even be transplanted, getting rid of the need for the respirator. We also have stem cell medicine that takes the healthy cells from your skin and within a matter of days can cure burned skin as if the burn had never occurred. Are we to reasonably believe that if we can accomplish things like this in real life that Palpatine didn't have access to stuff like this when he was repairing Vader in a society with super-advanced technology?
  • Palpatine wanted a loyal servant, and Vader wanted to heal his lungs himself. They could have very easily replaced the lung damage, if only through cloning, but neither of them wanted to.
  • Yeah, typical responses. Can't we just accept that Status Quo Is God and that no one wants Vader's condition to improve? Obviously if the Vader we know from the Original Trilogy had been cured the story as we know it would change, and no one wants that.
  • Also consider that many real-life disabled people know about cures or treatments for their conditions, but they don't want them (for example, deaf people who could get cochlear implants, but have been using sign language their whole lives and are comfortable that way, and don't see the point). Maybe Vader liked his intimidating image with his scary metal helmet and it suited his purposes for the time being, so lung transplants were more like a future possibility once he's gotten more important stuff like exterminating the Rebels out of the way.
  • From Palpatine's angle, he WANTS Vader broken and hindered. Both because it fuels the Dark Side in him (he's CONSTANTLY in pain, which fuels his anger and hate), and as a failsafe (if Vader ever were to get too cocky and try to take power, he knows he can easily kill his former apprentice). For Vader, it's likely a combination of divorcing himself from his past (symbolically "killing" Anakin Skywalker) and a form of self-flagellation (he wears that suit as a constant reminder of his failure and loss, to keep his edge in the Dark Side).

Vader and infrared

• About Darth Vader's helmet; why did Palpatine design it so that it can only see in infrared images? Wouldn't it have been far more productive to make it so that his visor can see in colour for combat situations? Infrared would only be useful in environments where visibility is poor like in pitch black or in snowy weather, which would make it cool if his helmet could turn that feature on when he needed it. Everyday life on the battlefield seeing in that mode would make comprehending the environment and who is friend or foe extremely difficult. Plus how is he even suppose to be able to recognise the faces of those under his command? To top it all off it just seems cruel to make it so he can only see in red, it only enhances the feeling of being trapped in a mechanical coffin and is counter-productive to him not succumbing to despair. The Force must do wonders if it can help Vader past all these problems.
  • "It just seems cruel" and "is counter-productive to him not succumbing to despair" is probably what Palpatine was aiming for. Despair is how he keeps Vader under control, after all.
  • Despair is quite the opposite of what you want a soldier to have, as any real world military force would tell you, if all a soldier can do is dwell on a traumatic experience then he is useless on the battlefield unless he can learn to channel it, which to be fair Vader does succeed in doing. Also people that fall too deeply into despair tend to lash out emotionally on others, which is probably why Vader kills his own officers for their mistakes, and this only leads to further problems in a Military Chain of Command. Hell over time Vader would come to resent Palpatine for limiting him in the suit and if he ever found a way around it would try to kill his master. Are all of these potential problems really worth it? Palpatine is far from sane if he thought all of this was in any way productive.
  • Something to keep in mind, though, is that Vader ISN'T a soldier in the typical sense. He's more or less Palpatine's personal attack dog, dispatched specifically to deal with things that his master needs to deal with harshly. He's less a part of military command or any structure, and more a weapon that the Emperor points at things and lets loose. So keeping that kind of person in a perpetual state of grief, despair, and barely controlled anger is EXACTLY what Palpatine wants. And if Vader DOES try to kill him, well, that's just how the Sith operate.
  • That's probably why Palpatine spends half the original trilogy trying to replace Vader with Luke.
  • "Palpatine is far from sane if he thought all of this was in any way productive". Um, megalomaniacal sadism isn't exactly an uncommon trait among Sith Lords.
  • Basically the answer to all of the "why does Palpatine do X if it is gonna cause problems?" is "Palpatine is a prick who likes torturing people in all sorts of interesting ways just for shits and giggles". It's kinda his thing.
  • Pretty much. All he cares about is himself, not how to make someone's life as comfortable as humanly possible. If he cares about others, it's about how they can serve him. He knows that with one word, he could arrange to have Vader be put in a suit that would make his life a bit better, if not more. He just doesn't want to. After 20 years of living with an angsty, robotic toy, he got tired of it and wanted to find another apprentice.
  • I'd like to point out that "red" and "infrared" are different things. There's no indication that Vader perceives images as a heatmap or whatever. Also, just because we saw red lenses at the end of Ep3 doesn't mean that they stayed that way for 20 years. Maybe the red stuff was just the prototype, and it was later replaced with a full-colour version.
  • Anakin's eyes look weird when he's writhing on the ground without his limbs, screaming about how he hates Obi-Wan. Possibly his vision was damaged in some way by the heat and/or his own over-straining of his Force powers during the duel, and he finds colours other than red to be too garish and eye-straining to look at afterwards...? It'd certainly explain why he only takes the helmet off inside a sealable pod that's all flat white on the inside.
  • His eyes looked weird because he was at maximum Dark Side power and they turned yellow like Maul and Sidious'. Though they were in fact damaged by the heat, and the new Canon Vader comics shows him switching between infrared and ultraviolet vision, so it's possible that there are more options.

Vader's suit improving lifespan

• Would Vader's suit provide a longer life-span than what he normally would have had? I mean would the cybernetics make it so his body could survive longer than its natural limits? In the Star Wars universe 100 years is apparently the average human life-span, and Force Users being able to maintain their youth and physical abilities longer than normal humans, there have even been cases of human Force Users living almost as long as Yoda (however rare that may be). I imagine cybernetics plus the Force is like a treasure trove as far as life extension goes.
  • Well, considering they're already doing so since his lifespan would have been measured in minutes otherwise... but in all seriousness, yes, probably. Likely they would have kept him alive for a long, long time... Sith in other parts of the franchise are implied to live for multiple centuries, largely because they don't shy away from cybernetics. The suit probably would have kept him going for a long, long time... but in ever-increasing pain and misery, until everything left of Anakin was wiped out, at which point he'd either be able to heal himself further with the Dark Side or be powerful and confident enough to say "screw you, Sith Dad, you're not the boss of me" to Palpatine and get himself some upgrades.

Owen telling Luke about Anakin

• How did Owen tell Luke anything about his father considering they only met once? He lied, but he also seems to be aware of his past and his becoming Vader, hence his worry that Luke will turn out like him. Obi-Wan also mentions that Owen disapproves of the "damn fool idealistic crusade" he went on, which implies they knew each other for a while, at least.
  • There was something like a three year intercession between them meeting, and Anakin becoming Darth Vader. He might have visited. Plus, he'd have known Shmi, so he could have gotten information from her.
  • Considering the time gap between the first and second trilogies it's likely that Lucas simply forgot about that line or decided that he liked the new background for Anakin too much to reconcile the line with the second trilogy. Nothing we see in Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Sith suggests that Anakin ever had much contact with Owen, that Owen was against Anakin getting involved in anything^note and considering that by the time they met Anakin was already on his way to becoming a Jedi it makes even less sense or that Owen ever had the faintest idea who Darth Vader was. The Rebellion certainly didn't seem to know until the events of The Empire Strikes Back.
  • At the end of Episode III, Obi-Wan is seen handing baby Luke over to Owen and Beru. Obi-Wan must have explained Luke's sordid ancestry to them at that time. In fact, this is necessary for the story to work: without the family tie, Luke is just a Doorstop Baby to them, being dropped off by a guy they'd never met before.
  • There is zero evidence that either Owen or Beru ever knew that Anakin was Vader. In fact, I'd say there's strong evidence against it when Beru says "Luke's just not a farmer, Owen. He has too much of his father in him." Look at the way she says it. She practically smiles. Bearing in mind that Vader is basically Hitler (second only to Palpatine himself), this is not the sort of thing you would smile about. So here's my headcanon: Obi-Wan didn't tell them the full truth. He told them that Luke was Anakin's son. He told them that Anakin perished in the Order 66 purge. He told them that the mother died too. They knew that Anakin was a Jedi, and that the Empire had murdered all the Jedi. They knew that if Luke's heritage became public knowledge then the Empire would come hunt him down on the off-chance that he might follow in his father's footsteps and become a Jedi himself. So they told Luke (and everyone else) that Luke's father was a non-Jedi navigator on a spice freighter. Beru tends to think of Anakin as a heroic figure who tragically died; she smiles at the mention of Anakin because she hopes that Luke will grow up to be a good person just like his father. Owen, working from the same (incomplete) information, tends to think of Anakin as a well-intentioned idiot who got himself killed by trying too hard to be a hero (hence the line about Anakin being on a "damn fool idealistic crusade"). He figures that Anakin never would have died if he had never become a Jedi, and he wants Luke to stay on the farm so he won't meet his father's fate. Neither one of them has any clue that Anakin was ever evil.
  • That smile could also be a sad one, alluding to her knowing the truth about him. The evidence thus far is ambiguous. Does anyone know if the Obi-Wan Disney + series confirms this one way or the other? I can't recall.

Breathing while talking

• How can Vader talk and make those breathing noises at the same time?
  • Because the machine does the breathing for him, regardless of whether or not he talks.
  • Come to think of it, Vader's speech might not actually involve any air going through his windpipe. There could just be a little sensor hooked up to his vocal chords, and whenever it senses that he's trying to say something it just activates an internal speaker that generates the sound for him.
  • He IS actually talking, but his voice is weak because of the damage so a microphone picks up the tiny sounds he makes and projects it as the VADER voice through a speaker. As shown by when he does take off the mask briefly as the end of Rot J and he can speak weakly. The Vader "breath" on the other hand is just his suit pumping air, his actual breathing is inaudible. Which is why it can make the sound at the same time he's talking as it's pumping a breath he hasn't taken yet.

Vader and Boba

• Vader is not bothered by the fact that he's forced to work with Boba Fett? You have a mercenary who looks and sounds exactly like the guy who tried to assassinate your late wife. It doesn't feel awkward for Vader?
  • Vader seems to have contempt for most beings. It doesn't mean you can't be useful to him. Plus the fact that he also looks a sounds a lot like the clone troopers that he fought with for much of his life.
  • "Forced to work with?" He hired him. Also, yeah, he fought next to the clone troopers for years. One more clone two decades later isn't going to even register.
  • A clone of the guy who hired someone (did he even, or did Count Dooku?) to kill the wife he desperately wants to forget, over twenty years ago. That's going to pale next to having the best bounty hunter in the galaxy help find his son. Besides, I don't think Anakin even met Jango Fett - Obi-Wan did. Maybe he saw him briefly right before he got his head chopped off.
  • Wait, does Vader actually desperately want to forget Padmé? What's the source for that?
  • The other clones were the best soldiers Vader/Anakin ever knew, so that probably mitigates it somewhat. But it's worth noting that Vader does canonically hold a grudge against Tarkin (and possibly Commander Fox, who he threw out of a ship for making a stupid decision, but that doesn't say much) for his role in Ahsoka Tano's trial, even though Tarkin was Just Following Orders, and Vader tried to kill Ahsoka himself. So yeah, Darth Vader is definitely not above petty, hypocritical grudges for things people did to Anakin Skywalker's family.

Anakin's lightsaber design

• Why, just why, Anakin/Luke's lightsaber design is so inconsistent between movies?
  • Not sure what you mean. Anakin/Luke's 1st/Rey's lightsaber all have the same design between movies, except for the belt clip part, perhaps.
  • The lightsaber Anakin had in Attack of the Clones ended up getting cut in half while he was fighting through the Geonosian Droid Factory. He used a borrowed lightsaber during the battle against Dooku at the end, and then built a new one for Revenge of the Sith. This new lightsaber would end up in Luke's hands years later, but would be lost in the battle against Darth Vader on Bespin, which required Luke to build a new lightsaber of his own, which is a totally different design (it's based on Obi-Wan's). So that explains why Anakin's lightsaber is not exactly the same in Episode III as it is in II but it is nevertheless very similar. There are also some small differences between Luke's lightsaber in Episode IV and V, such as screws being added to the black grips on the lower part of the hilt. Maybe Luke tinkered with it a bit and "made a few special modifications". Obi-Wan's lightsaber also looks slightly different so perhaps it's common for Jedi to periodically upgrade or replace parts on their weapons the same way you might replace components in a car or computer. They are technological weapons after all.
  • Luke may have modified his saber between IV and V to make sure its controls would work properly in the frigid conditions of Hoth, same as the rebels were having to adapt their vehicles. Neither he nor Anakin would seem to have had to operate the thing on a world that cold before, at least to judge by the movies.

Anakin and Darth Vader

• Why do some fans talk about Vader and Anakin like they are two separate entities? I keep hearing "Vader killed Anakin" and "Anakin killed Vader to save Luke" from fans. I know it's true from a "certain point of view", but they make it sound like Anakin was possessed by an evil spirit, or something.
  • It's more a case of "Anakin" and "Vader", while being the same person, are two separate identities based on the side of the Force he was aligned with. So when Anakin turned to the Dark Side, the "Vader" identity effectively killed the "Anakin" identity (though not quite) and when he redeemed himself, the "Anakin" identity reemerged and killed the "Vader" identity along with Palpatine.
  • The idea of them being separate people came about because, when the first film was written, they were. It later became a powerful metaphor/turn of phrase that the franchise rolled with, but logically and in-universe, it’s a bit more complicated. If you put ATOC Anakin and Vader side by side, few would guess they were the same person because they have very different dispositions, personalities, loyalties, etc. But Anakin changed; he became quicker to anger, lost his faith in the Jedi and the Republic, etc. At what point he “stopped being Anakin and started being Vader” goes into the Ship Of Theseus problem, but it makes the idea that Anakin reawakened for his redemption rather strange; saying there’s “good” or “a piece of Anakin” still in him would seem to be simply stating he has some similarities to his old self (he still loves his family) which is both evidently true and believable. But the franchise often acts like there was a fully-formed set of character traits and motivations (i.e. everything that made Anakin Anakin) lying dormant in Vader’s mind, and embracing that similarity made him readopt them, which raises all sorts of questions. If that's how character development works, would Luke go back to being the naive farm boy with dreams of joining the Imperial Academy if Aunt Beru turned out to be alive and he saved her? Would Han Solo become a smuggler and scoundrel again if he became estranged from his new family? Wait a second...
  • I don't really get where your Voodoo Shark stuff is coming from. No, Luke would probably not do that, because even if he saved her, she'd presumably still be injured or just having been put under duress by the stormtroopers. And presumably in this hypothetical you've proposed, Uncle Owen would still be dead. So Luke wouldn't go back to being a naive farm boy, or think that the Empire is cool enough to join their military, after seeing those negative events. And certainly not after being enticed by the ways of the Force due to Obi-Wan's infleunce. Can you elaborate if we're missing something there?

Your father wanted you to have this

• "Your father wanted you to have this, when you were old enough... if, of course, he knew you had existed and I hadn't just chopped his legs off. But I swiped it from what I thought was his burned corpse, so um, here." Maybe it should have been "Your father would have wanted you to have this..."
  • Yeah, because we all know Obi-Wan, who is actually more or less actively deceiving Luke about how his father died, is going to tell him exactly what his father said regarding the lightsaber. Instead of, you know, making something up.
  • Good point though - why does Obi-Wan lie so often, about things for which there is no reason to lie about? Not that I remotely get why he couldn't either have just told Luke the truth or if he really thought that would be too demoralising - ha! Hust say "Your father died in the war. Bad things happen in war. It certainly had nothing personally to do with Darth Vader! Who is a very bad guy, but hey - don't get into a big Dark Side-Inducing rage about him!". But anyway, assuming that makes sense "from a certain point of view," why lie when "This was your father's - you should have it, it's what he would have wanted" would be perfectly true?
  • I always figured that when Obi-Wan told Luke that Darth Vader destroyed his father, it was from a figurative stance. As in Darth Vader the Sith personality overrode all the good that Anakin has done.
  • Really? I always figured that Obi-Wan was just ashamed at having helped to create one of the most hated monsters ever to exist. I mean, he' a Jedi, not a priest. Who says he can't lie if he wants?
  • Yes, I know that's how he defends it, but it's just not good enough, dammit. For one thing he gave Luke no indication that he was speaking metaphorically, he knew perfectly well that what he said would be taken to be straightforward fact. And said "betrayed and murdered" which is even less likely to be read as figurative by an uninformed observer than "destroyed". If when asked to explain the facts, you say something that might, at a stretch, be seen as metaphorically compatible with the facts by someone who already knows them, but which you know cannot possibly have any effect other than to mislead someone who does not, then you're lying. Like if when asked for directions to the post office, which is on the left, you say "It's on the right," but justify yourself that this is true, "so long as you keep going in a straight line all the way around the world". It's still obviously a lie, because you knowingly gave him a false view of the factual situation. I know, I know, I'm hardly the first to have a problem with this. Obi-Wan's just such an amazing git.
  • It makes it more meaningful if he indicates that his father would have wanted him to have it, instead of just giving it to Luke.
  • It's surely still fairly meaningful to receive a legacy from your dead father even without explicit confirmation that he willed this to happen, and in any case, why does Obi-Wan want the situation to be more emotive than it already is? Won't that only fuel grief, resentment and hate, and lead to the Dark Side?
  • Yeah, because telling a kid his dead father who he never knew in the first place wants him to have this lightsaber is going to be the thing that pushes him over to the dark side. I mean, Luke is a wuss at that point, but seriously.
  • On its own, of course it wouldn't. But it's just one extra, entirely unnecessary lying detail to make the lying story of Luke's lovely heroic dead dad whom that bastard Darth Vader murdered even more inflammatory to him than it already is.
  • Obi-Wan is clearly not thinking purely objectively and rationally here. Anakin's fall is the big traumatic incident that his whole later emotional life has revolved around. It's probably not really possible for Obi-Wan to try to downplay either Anakin's heroic life or Vader's horrible evil with a straight face. In trying to come up with a way to talk to Luke to motivate him to live a good life, the life of Anakin Skywalker is the only story he can find that moves him; in trying to convince Luke how horrible and awful the Dark Side is, the metaphorical "murder" of Anakin by the Vader personality is even more so the one example that dominates all his thoughts.
  • And there's also a practical reason for the Vader-as-Anakin's-murderer story — if it's established from the beginning that Vader "killed" Anakin it predisposes Luke to see Vader as an entity of pure evil who needs to be killed to stop the terror, * not* as his poor long-lost father whom he needs to redeem. Remember that Ben sees his own greatest failure as failing to recognise how far gone Anakin was, failing to overcome his deep personal attachment to Anakin ("attachment" being verboten for the Old Jedi) and failing to kill him once and for all when he had the chance. Ben thinks that an uncompromising and unflinching attitude toward Anakin's fall into total depravity is the only way to defeat him.
  • Ben and Yoda are, of course, both wrong about this. There *is* a fine line between an uncompromising, dispassionate antipathy toward evil and crossing over into contempt and hatred for evil people, which is itself an evil line of thought that leads to the Dark Side. The Old Jedi were foolish about this and refused to recognise this as an error in their own thinking; the Sith, meanwhile, knew all about this and had formulated their entire strategy for corrupting and destroying the Jedi on it. Palpatine and Vader *counted on* the idea that Ben and Yoda would've tried to poison Luke against his father and turn Luke into a slayer of his own kin; it was Luke's unwillingness to do this, his "weakness", his inability to become a Knight Templar, that was his real strength.
  • That's one of the best "Old Jedi vs New Jedi" summaries I've ever read.
  • Alternatively, Obi-Wan simply has learned from the mistakes of the old Jedi and the mistakes of Anakin, and he's trying to bring Luke up differently. With Anakin, he was extremely forthcoming, very blatant about things like wanting him to spy on Palpatine when he could've just said "so, has the Chancellor done anything WEIRD lately?" every now and then. And that's to say nothing of his training, where he thought being honest with Anakin ("[you're a match for Yoda] only in your mind, my very young apprentice") to the point of downright demoralising him was the best way to do it. Now, just look at the scene in RotJ where he explains that what he said "was true...from a certain point of view." Luke's response is to stare at him incredulously, obviously understanding the point, but not understanding how that makes it okay. Compare with Episode III where this is clearly referenced, "from my point of view, the Jedi are evil!" And earlier, when Obi-Wan says "only a Sith deals in absolutes," possibly the biggest logical fallacy spoken in the series. Obi-Wan has learned from all of these things, and what he's learned is that he can't just say "this is how it is" and expect someone, Luke or otherwise, to believe you. Call Obi-Wan's actions machinations or a dirty scheme if that's what it feels like, but in the end, he screwed up with Anakin, and succeeded with Luke.
  • A simpler idea along the same lines as the above: Obi-Wan is teaching Luke the power of differing points of view. A certain point of view let Anakin legitimately see the Jedi as evil and Palpatine as good, in Anakin's own words. Luke is certainly much less likely to be swayed by semantics and other wordplay after this, and will have learned to look at the world objectively instead of being satisfied with what he sees in front of him at any given time.
  • This is probably right. People tend to forget what Obi-Wan says after that "certain point of view" line:
    Ben: Your father was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true ... from a certain point of view.
    Luke: A certain point of view?
    Ben: Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Anakin was a good friend.
  • All this ignores, of course, the obvious non-Fan Wank out-of-character fact that the line was written that way because George Lucas didn't initially know that Vader was Luke's father; that was a plot point he tacked on later, just like Leia being Luke's sister.
  • Getting back to the original topic, maybe what happened was that Padmé, while being transported to Polis Massa, mentioned to Obi-Wan upon seeing Anakin's lightsaber that he'd mentioned wanting to pass it on to his eventual child (albeit she did this with difficulty, between breaths, in a slight daze, etc). Wait, did she realise what Obi-Wan had done to Vader?
  • Or maybe we're overlooking one other teeny tiny detail: that Obi-Wan, having watched over Luke and his foster parents for decades, might've sensed Owen's and Beru's deaths, and given Luke the lightsaber to prepare him for the discovery that the only parents he's ever known have been tortured and murdered by the Empire. Luke was filled with grief when he found their bodies: roiling with anger over their deaths, with guilt for not having been there to defend them, and with helpless shame that it wouldn't have made a difference if he had. All of these are also potential paths to the Dark Side. Giving him the saber in a way that forges a connection to the original, pre-Vader Anakin is Ben's way of building Luke a family tie that can survive the horror of finding of his aunt's and uncle's bodies, thus pulling him back from despair over losing the only parents he actually did know, and loved.
  • Just think about it, folks: what is Obi-Wan supposed to say? "Luke, I plucked this off your father's charbroiled corpse because I took him for a dead man after I horrendously mutilated him and left him for dead on the edge of a volcano on a horrible infernal planet that may as well be Hell itself, as he screamed 'I HATE YOU!!!'" Yeah, that's sure to go over well with the guy you're trying to recruit to the war effort, ain't it? In all fairness Obi-Wan didn't have to say anything about the saber's origins at all, so it was an unnecessary lie, but when he told Luke that Vader betrayed and murdered his father, despite this being obviously intentionally chosen careful wording he was only echoing what Yoda had told him at the time: "the young boy you trained, gone he is, consumed by Darth Vader."
  • Note that, in an Exact Words sense, Obi-Wan isn't lying when he says that Luke's father wanted his child to have his lightsaber. It's just that, specifically, Luke's father wanted his child to have survived, and to have taken up his light saber as a Sith, just as he'd wanted Padmé to have lived and ruled the galaxy with him. Indeed, that's exactly what Vader'd wished, however vainly, more than anything else in the world: to have his wife and child/apprentice/heir join him in his dark reign.
  • To put it simply, he’s not talking about the literal Anakin whom he left a charbroiled corpse of hate and pain on Mustafar. He’s talking about an idealised Anakin — the Anakin he wished had existed. That Anakin. He imagined this version of Anakin would’ve wanted to pass on his lightsaber to his children when they became of age. Dude had twenty years to reflect on everything that had happened between him and his former apprentice/good friend. Odds are he probably imagined an alternate version of Anakin to help himself cope.

Blame for Vader's Injuries

• A lot of fans claim that Anakin getting crippled on Mustafar was the fault of his fall to the Dark Side, and one of the key reasons he (or at least, the Anakin part of Vader) regretted falling, but would he really blame the incident on the Dark Side? Should he? Yes, he wouldn’t have been fighting Obi-Wan if he hadn’t turned, but Obi-Wan is not the only dangerous thing in the galaxy. When he was previously crippled by Dooku, he didn’t seem to blame his allegiance to the light side or Jedi, even though he probably would have had more reason to, since the Sith, the Jedi’s mortal enemies, are on average far more powerful and willing to inflict severe harm. Injuries in the line of duty are clearly an occupational hazard for Jedi and Sith. And yes, the power the dark side gave him made him over-confident enough to charge at Obi-Wan full tilt and eventually make that ill-fated jump, but it’s not like Sith are incapable of fighting strategically or knowing when they’re outmatched. It’s not even like the Dark Side wouldn’t grant him the power to regain control of that situation in relatively short order, at least in canon. Seems like Vader’s injuries and suit should be seen as a powerful symbol of how far he’d fallen, but do little to contribute to his personal regret on the matter.
  • Under the normal circumstances, Anakin would have likely won the duel or at least thought better than to jump straight over Obi-Wan; also, he wouln't have decided to choke Padme in the first place. Unfortunately for him, the Dark Side is known to magnify emotions and Anakin had A LOT on his mind at the time. Moreover, Palpatine didn't have time to teach him how to properly focus his Dark Side enhanced emotions into a combat situation without getting emotionally compromised instead. As a result, he didn't have a clear enough head which lead to his one crucial mistake that costed him his body.

But Please Know It's All True.... From A Certain Point Of View

• On a meta-level, I gotta know— why does Obi-Wan catch so much crap from fans for not telling Luke the truth about his father straight away? Putting aside the real-life reason behind this (the story rewrites and such), what effect would it have had on an idealistic Farm Boy if Obi-Wan had said something like this:
  "Your father was one of the greatest Jedi Knights who ever lived, as well as my student and closest friend. Unfortunately, he fell to The Dark Side and helped to massacre his Jedi brethren, including defenceless younglings. He and I then fought to the death, and I left him horribly wounded, after which he was recreated as a cybernetic warlord. Now, I'm going to train you to be a Jedi Knight, and when the time comes, you must kill your own father."
  It might be awkward and shocking for Luke, but he still lied to a boy's face to trick him into killing his father.
  • Truth or lie, it was a valid answer to the question "How did my father die?". To the extent that his father had died, that was how.
  "Your father *sigh*. Luke, I knew your father ever since he was half your age. My mentor, Qui-Gon Jinn, was the one to discover him, and due to the enormous potential he sensed in young Anakin Skywalker, he took it upon himself to train the boy to become the greatest Jedi and peacekeeper the galaxy had every known. Unfortunately, my master was killed shortly afterwards, and the responsibility of training your father fell to me long before I was ready. I taught him to think, and I taught him to fight, and at times it seemed I had taught him right from wrong and compassion, but alas, the combination of the departure of his own apprentice, his growing disillusionment with the Jedi Council he believed held him back, the toll the Clone Wars took on all of us, the manipulations of the former Chancellor, the fear of losing his wife and you while you were still in her womb, and above all my own failings as a mentor, set him down a dark path from which he would never stray. Luke, your father... your father is the man in the dark armour that strikes fear into the hearts of the Empire's enemies. Your father is Darth Vader, and since his fall, despite my best efforts to first redeem, them defeat him, he has committed countless atrocities, and is now more machine than man. Twisted, evil. I cannot ask you to battle your own father and make right my mistakes, but I can ask you to understand that if Palpatine and his Empire are not stopped soon, the misery and rage felt by Darth Vader will soon come to consume every being in the galaxy. Whether they know it or not, the galaxy is counting on the Jedi Order."
  • The reason Obi-Wan lied to Luke is both reasonable and obvious, even if one disagrees with him. He didn't tell Luke that Vader was his father because he was concerned that Luke would be reluctant to kill Vader if he found out. Seeing as that is literally exactly what happened when Luke did find out, it's kind of hard to argue Obi-Wan was in the wrong. As far as Obi-Wan was concerned, Vader was a lost cause who had to be put down. It was simply too dangerous to try to rely on there still being good left in him. He needed to be taken out in the most direct way possible and anything that interfered with this, such as Luke knowing Vader was his father, was an unnecessary complication.

Vader the Bodybuilder

• Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker. So he has Anakin's height by the end of Ep 3. However, in Ep 4, he is a huge bodybuilder type of guy. So how did he grow to his new size?
  • At some point, he said "The black suit and scary helmet look is insufficiently imposing! I need lifts!
  • "Huge bodybuilder type of guy"? Um... what?
  • I think you need glasses (this is coming from someone who has had glasses since infancy) if you think Vader is some kind of bodybuilder. He is tall; Anakin was also tall. He's not huge at all, having mostly normal arms. Any real anomalies come from his armoured life support suit. Basically, Anakin/Vader didn't grow; he got put in a heavy armoured suit that is a bit more bulky than a Jedi's robes. Cape and all I think Vader takes up less space than Anakin does wearing full Jedi robes.
  • Dave Prowse, the man in the Vader suit, was a bodybuilder and weightlifter. He's not huge by Schwarzenegger standards but he's still a pretty big guy.
  • He might be tall, but he just doesn't look like a bodybuilder in that suit (to me, anyway). Some old Star Wars toys I used to have reinforced my view of Vader not being very muscular (robot limbs making that unnecessary). Unlike my other characters, Vader's arms showed no muscle tone at all, and I didn't really see any in the films. Maybe I'm not paying attention enough, but Vader and bodybuilder do not seem to go together, especially since he'd never get through airport security the easy way.
  • Hayden Christensen is a bit over six feet. Dave Prowse was about 6'6." The extra six inches could've come with the armour - the height difference between Vader and Palpatine is about the same in both the end of 3 and their last shared scene in Jedi.
  • In the last scene of Revenge of the Sith, that's actually Hayden Christensen in the Vader armour. And yes, they put him on lifts to make him taller. He deliberately didn't practice walking in them because he wanted it to look like Vader himself was still getting used to the extra height/cybernetic legs.
  • With heavy boots on, cybernetic legs which are not necessarily the same length as his organic ones, and a helmet on, it's not inconceivable that Vader could be slightly taller than Anakin. Keep in mind too that Vader seems much taller than some of the other characters because they aren't all that tall themselves - Mark Hamill is 5'9" and Carrie Fisher is just 5'1."
  • Given that Prowse was 6'6" and Christensen merely 6'1" with lifts (and perhaps Forced Perspective) designed to make him appear taller while in the Vader suit, I suspect there are inconsistencies in Vader’s size between the two trilogies, but admittedly it’s not something I’ve examined in detail.^note Also, in just the first trilogy Prowse wasn't the only one in the Vader costume—during significant parts of the light-saber battles he was played by fencer Bob Anderson, who like Christensen was merely 6'1". I never noticed any inconsistencies in height the way it was filmed, but others may disagree.

Anakin's changing hair color

• Anakin in The Phantom Menace has light blond hair, while ten years later in Attack of the Clones he somehow has much darker brown hair. Now, we all know that children's eye color can change as they get older, but hair color?
  • It's absolutely possible.
  • Then again, there's also that whole matter of Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen looking nothing alike, hair color regardless. And Sebastian Shaw looks like neither of them!
    • Actors playing the same character at different ages looking noticeably different is an almost inevitable feature of Time-Shifted Actor.
  • Could be that, as a child, his hair was HEAVILY sun-bleached (from what we see, a lot of his work is outside in the parts yard), while, after he was taken as a Jedi, he spent much more time inside and on planets that DON'T have a Binary sun, so the sun bleaching gradually faded.
  • Lots of people see their hair darken with age. Happened to my brother; he was dirty-blond in his early years, but it had turned brown by the time he hit his teens. Hell, Mark Hamill's hair gets significantly darker between the first film and the sequels.

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