Why Can't Vader Be Telling The Truth?

It would be a head doer inner for him, and as we all know the ghost of Anakin Skywalker lived on in burried deep by the darkness in Vader. You can be sure the ghost of Anakin awakened and started crying out from the depths at the moment Vader accepted he was a Father. It would be a tough thing to reconcile being Sith with the feelings and insticts of being a Father. One is all about selflessness, doing things only for yourself, while the other calls for you to sacrifice everything you are for the sake of your offspring.

Anakin had human failings that led to his fall into darkness, but he loved Padme, and he did say it was the happiest moment of his life when he found out she was pregnant. It was only with Padme's death that he was fully wedded to the dark side and the Emperor. Finding out his child/children survived would surely call into question his loyalty to that path.

This was Sideous's unltimate test for Vader, and one, from a certain point of view, that he failed. Vader let his weakness and sentiment prevail, and the dark side and Sideous were undone. Sideous's overconfidence did indeed prove to be his greatest weakness in the end.

 

I agree with you my friend. I'm convinced that Vader had no idea and that he was maybe curious about who it was that was named Skywalker and nothing more. The fact that we only see the Skywalkers we know from the films does not mean that they are the only ones in existence as Shmi must have had family. This is something that I believe has never been addressed in any SW book before yet it is quite possible for there to be more Skywalkers around. Vader could have thought that maybe a distant relative was responsible for the destruction of the Death Star so his reaction toward the Emperor's words would indeed be sincere.

 

Even if he was aware before, he may have been wanting to hide it from the Emperor. If you want to wonder about comic books and other stuff where he finds out before the Emperor tells him. I always felt it was his plan to try to take the Emperor with the help of his son, after finding out he had one.

 

He already knew he had a son. The "Darth Vader" comic series explain how he found out and it's canon. Possibly he was hiding that piece of knowledge from the Emperor.

 

Many of you are saying that Vader knew but this is based on stories that were added to canon AFTER said movies existed. We can't use this as a base for our theories to be true because that was never the intention of Lucas when he made the movie. We sometimes want to add our knowledge of SW that we gained through the years to a story that was made before some of these fans were even born and that's just not possible. The OT had a story and there was no EU so what we got on the screen is what was true. Maybe we could get one or two new things from the novels or the radio drama but that's it.

Can we say that Maz Kanata was in TPM just because of this?


There are many things that were created AFTER writers saw the movies and decided to base stories on said elements but that doesn't mean that George Lucas meant for this to be in the story.

Take this pic as an example:

Lucas used the same Zuckuss head as a prop in the trash mess where Chewie found C3PO. Nobody has made a story out of this and till this moment that head there is just a piece of trash and nothing more. So does that mean that if Timothy Zahn sees this pic and decides to make a story about Zuckuss's twin brother that was killed on Bespin before Vader arrived, that we can say that this was a story element that was planed all along when TESB was made?

We can't let our EU knowledge cloud our reasons when we theorize about the movies as many of those elements were created by other people and not Lucas and even though he had input on many things, George didn't know each and every little tiny thing there was about the EU.

 

He's obsessed with hunting down a young Force Sensitive (who seems like he would have been born around Vader's fall) named Skywalker.
If Vader didn't know, he damn sure thought.

Lucas himself kept changing things. Back when Jedi was in pre-production, he said that Yoda would never get into a fight. Then Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith happened. The intent back in the day doesn't matter if new story elements show it to be different. To the Vader we see in Empire, this happened to him:

(By the way, this scene is kriffing amazing)
It doesn't matter if that scene was thought of in 1980 or in 2015, it happened.
Also, you are comparing completely different ideas to what you are criticizing. There's a difference between the above scene and theories about Maz from that statue in The Phantom Menace or your theoretical statue.

 

No my friend you are wrong. It really doesn't matter if it happened or not in the canon as my comment was not based on that. What happened with Maz is exactly the same as what happens with many theories and indeed it does matter as it's silly to assume that things that are being done now were reflected years ago when nothing of that existed.

Look at the very comic page you posted. Back in 1983, when Vader was having his conflicts in ROTJ, do you really think that anybody thought that Vader was thinking about anything more than Luke? Nothing else existed and Luke was the only thing on Vaders mind. After the PT, we know many more elements that were ADDED to the story and it is with these things in mind that we change our view and we now ASSUME that Vader might have been thinking about Shmi, Padme and everythuing else he loved back then.

That is what I am talking about. We add things as the story goes yet that in no way means that those things were MEANT to be for the audience to think about from the start. Take this scene as an example:

What did we see here? Simply Rey freeing BB-8 cause she didn't want a dweeb like Teedo to take him apart. What can we assume? That Rey is a nice girl with a very good heart and nothing more. Now suppose that Rian Johnson decides to expand on Rey's origin story by showing us that when she was a little girl, Rey had a R5 droid that was her only friend and that she cared for him alot. Even if this is something that Rian just came up with, fans are quickly going to use this new scene as a basis for what was going threw Rey's mind when she rescued BB-8. We will ASSUME that it was the memories of her childhood with her R5 unit that made her care for BB-8's safety even if that was never in the mind of JJ Abrams when he made this scene in TFA.

Same thing can be said about the comics and novels as many new story elements are retconned. Boba Fett and Bossk were always hated rivals and nothing more in the EU yet now TCW shows us that Bossk cared for Fett when he was a little kid. Everything that we see in the comics changes now as we wonder what goes threw each characters heads when they fight knowing that in the past they had a good relationship. Was that the very first intent of the author? Nope! It is just our new line of thought based on the new stories but it is silly for us to argue and want to make it seem like a fact that when Vader gathered the Bounty Hunters in TESB, Bossk was looking at Fett thinking ''Oh darn! Here's the snotty ungrateful brat that I helped raise as a kid.''

 

Then why even have stories that take place before stories that exist if this were the case? Again, you're argument here makes no sense.
Also, original intent doesn't affect this conversation. If intent when making the film counts forever, the different personal interpretations would clash. I mean, every actor in The Usual Suspects played their character thinking THEY were Keyser Soze.
There's also a difference between what was going on behind the scenes and what happens on screen. When a conversation is talking about within the story, what is happening behind the scenes doesn't ever apply, just the story within and in any connecting story. We aren't talking about if Lucas thought that Vader knew that Luke's his son or not back in 2004*. We are talking about if Vader knew in-universe.
What you say reminds me of how some Whovians freaked out with the the boyfriend statements that Missy made about the Doctor because the original intent was for them to be brothers (despite the fact that no story discussed their potential familial relationship until 2007's "The Sound of Drums" which says that they are in fact not biologically related).

Also, comparing the EU to The Clone Wars is a foolish idea to begin with. The show had far more free reign when it came to continuity than the EU, so there are differences everywhere (there's a reason it stayed canon after all). I mean, in the EU prior to 2008, Anakin was a Padawan for most of the war, only being promoted during the last six months. That's six months for the entire show if it followed the EU!

*This is when the lines in question where added to Empire. In prior versions, while Palpatine does refer to Luke at one point to being "the son of Skywalker", it's not done as a theory, nor does Vader say anything indicating possible disbelief, feigned or otherwise.

 

I think this is right. The (now canon) comics say so, but you're right to discount those since they weren't around at the time. The indication to me is in the opening crawl of ESB;

So from the very beginning of the movie, he was in active pursuit. Would he be if it were just some random rebel pilot? We can't say, but probably not. Is it simply because Luke was Force-sensitive? Possible, but would we assume that was a big deal back in 1980? Not sure. But that last name, which would absolutely be known to Vader, would warrant the word "obsessed." I think it only stands to reason that he is at least curious about, and suspicious of, Luke. His surprise to the Emperor was a lie.

 

Read the canon comics

 

Finished LoTS and it shows so much of how Vader is still thinks of his past. It fuels him at times but it also shows his emotion when he is actively thinking of what ifs and the past. I think Vader is a lost soul cause it in the OT he still reflects on his past. He wants Luke to join him but tells the emperor its nothing. throughout the book he thinks of killing his master. I havent read the comics so I dont kno if that changes his views. Even in Rebels hes able to talk to Ahsoka as Anakin and as Vader. So his past is haunting him. always saying the past fuels his anger/hate and helps him but isnt the emotions that helped him channel his strength of the force?

 

Interesting discussion and thread. You made me look up "retcon" which seems to have a bit of a muddy usuage, and made me think of a recent Pablo comment I'm still digesting!

 

Well, as @PrincessLeiaCB3 mentioned above, and as we talked about in my recent thread about this scene, it's firmly established in the new canon that Vader was not telling the truth with respect to his confusion. See here: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_original/1282581245816422502.png

Add to that, he clearly knew in the original version of the scene that Luke was his son (he simply says, "Yes, my Master" after the Emperor mentions their "new enemy, Luke Skywalker," and then reveals to Luke later, "I am your father"). So whether we're looking at the new version of the scene or the old one, the "canon" explanation is that Vader knew he was a father before the Emperor told him.

It is indeed strange, though, that there seems to have been a twofold retcon on this issue, one by Lucas, one by Disney. Although in a way, the Lucas change and the Disney re-retcon go well together, adding an element of Sith deception to the whole thing.

 

Vader is a broke, sad, STRANGE little man after ROTS. He is aware he has done bad. For him, he believes it is too late and has acceptad his true fate by the time of ROTJ so he is confused himself but starts the real games when he meets Luke and the good seeds are re-planted within him
.

 

+1

Please accept a bottle of Corellian Whisky as a compliment for your great post.

Agree with you: that scene is awesome.

And yeah, maybe back in 1980 it was not they way Lucas envisioned it, maybe, but now it is canon. Period.

Darth Vader comic series. Definitely worth reading.

 

Anakin has always been Vader and Vader has always been Anakin. They have always been one and the same. I never understood why Lucas and many others have this tendency to compartmentalize his personality . . . to the extent of giving it labels.