PT Why didn't Yoda take the twins with him to Dagobah to be Trained as Jedi from Birth?

What I am describing is a very different backstory. One where Vader knew of Luke from birth, and chose to let him be. If he was aware that the birth was happening, but not told that there were twins, he could have been made aware of one child and not the other, as a way to ensure that at least one remains unknown.

 

It does to me.

 

I just have a hard time believing that you don't see the danger in placing Luke in such an obvious place

 

Yoda raising babies on Dagobah?

One, he wasn't even aware of Luke until the latter display his connection to the Force during the Battle of Yavin. Two, Leia has never displayed any talent with the Force in the three movies. And why would Vader assume that Padme had been carrying twins? He didn't even know that she was able to give birth Luke, until he learned about the latter's identity after the events of ANH.

 

I think the whole "It was dumb to leave Luke on Tatooine" argument rests on the assumption that either Vader or Palpatine had any suspicion that Padme had any children at all. The current -- not the old -- version of the conversation scene between Vader and Palpatine in ESB seems to be suggesting otherwise. It's Palpatine who first says he believes the pilot who destroyed the Death Star is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker. Vader's reply is "How is that possible?" The implication being that Yoda and Ben had apparently pulled off the ruse: neither Vader or Palpatine suspected or sensed the presence of Anakin's children before Luke destroyed the Death Star. There is such a thing as hiding in plain sight. And one might make the assumption that by the point where Luke's wandering around on Tatooine calling himself "Skywalker" that both Vader and the Emperor were complacent in their rule: every other Jedi had disappeared or had decided to just hide rather than fight them.

Although I do like the proposition that Yoda/Ben were placing the kids somewhere displaced from themselves because they had the pessimistic assumption that either or both of them wouldn't make it to train them.

 

I think it rests on common sense. Whether they knew the kids existed or not, that is an incredibly dangerous and reckless place to "hide" Luke. Nothing I see here changes that. "Hiding in plain sight", no. I don't think that's what you do with so much on the line. The story breaks down here.

It simply doesn't pass the sniff test. An entire galaxy, you don't "hide" the kid there with that name.

You name him Luke Smith and you put him somewhere where there is no trace of his real origins.

 

yup because Yoda was cut out to be a dad..

and what sort of life is it?

no friends, no sentient life apart from Yoda

plus his little stew as food

come on think about it



Obi-wan: Yoda why don't you enslave them and bring them up on a swamp?

 

How is it any more dangerous than anywhere else in the galaxy? Assuming the Empire's power, Luke was no safer on Tatooine than Leia was on Alderaan surrounded by a planetload of troops dedicated to Bail Organa - and as several people have pointed out, it's not like either Ben or Yoda really had the resources or the emotional connection with Luke or Leia to raise them or care for them by themselves. Not to mention that if anything, Luke was safer: Tatooine was still well outside the Republic (and thus the Empire's) authority when Ben and Yoda made the decision, too - and Vader and Palpatine had the entire Republic to settle down and hunt down any miscellaneous Jedi left after the purge, not proceed on programs of conquest. Bail Organa's wife suddenly having a child out of nowhere could have easily been the subject of suspicions for Vader, too, given Bail was at the Jedi Temple and escaped in direct view of the Empire's troops.

You could've adopted them to an anonymous family of some kind on a backwater world, perhaps, but to me they did almost the same thing anyway, with the added benefit they didn't have to go screening foster parents or getting inconvenient questions asked of them such as "Whose kid is this?" At the moment your argument seems to be "Do not put the kid anywhere that Vader ever walked or spent any time in his life, because he'll be more likely to look for Luke there." It's a flawed argument because it assumes Vader is the same person as Anakin in a mental or emotional sense, and Ben at least thought he wasn't. Yoda and Ben had to put the kids somewhere the Sith would not sense their presence; there's no direct explanation for why Alderaan and Tatooine are said to fit that bill other than that Luke and Leia would be loved and raised there, but it seems inconceivable that they'd put them where Vader or Sidious could feel their existence. And again, they're working on same assumption that Vader and Palpatine demonstrably were: that Padme did not survive and bore no children. Owen and Beru weren't killed because they were hiding Luke, they were killed because they were hiding R2-D2 and C-3P0. That's how effective the ruse was.

P.S. hiding in plain sight sure seemed to work for the Emperor, did it not?

 

Do I really need to explain it? Really.................?

Nothing was outside the Empire'a reach, as we see in ANH. Once they had a reason to be there, they were there. At any time, for any reason, if someone finds out that kid is there all bets are off. That name and that location=disaster. Leaving that kid there with that name is utterly idiotic. There isn't a worse place to put him with that name. You might as well put a neon sign over the kid saying "Vader, this is your son Luke". You have an entire galaxy of places to put that kid.

It also happens to be among the very first places you would look if you did in fact find out that those kids survived Padme's death. The first thing you do is investigate family connections, it is literally the first thing you would do, and that home is one of the first place you would look. And what do you find there, a boy named Skywalker?

When you want to hide someone from the mob, do you keep them in the neighborhood, or do you put them in Idaho and call them Fred Jones the plumber?

I'm surprised this is even a conversation.

And to that point about the stormtroopers killing his Luke's aunt and uncle because of the droids. I'd say that's more function as to the fact that the idea that Luke was a boy being hidden from his father, the mass murdering Lord of the Sith , hadn't been conceived of yet.

 

Nothing was outside the Empire'a reach, as we see in ANH. Once they had a reason to be there, they were there. At any time, for any reason, if someone finds out that kid is there all bets are off.

But that's part of my point: if anywhere is within the Empire's reach, what difference does it make which backwater world they choose to raise Luke on?

Leaving that kid there with that name is utterly idiotic. There isn't a worse place to put him with that name. You might as well put a neon sign over the kid saying "Vader, this is your son Luke". You have an entire galaxy of places to put that kid.

Yep - all of which are within the Empire's reach, as you've just pointed out. So it makes no difference at all whether you put him on Tatooine or on Dagobah. Dagobah, in fact, is more of a risk because there's no population to hide among at all. And Tatooine was not under the Empire's control when Luke was placed there; it had been outside the Republic and thus a lot harder, presumably, for Republic records or Republic officials to cast any light on who is there on what date.

It also happens to be among the very first places you would look if you did in fact find out that those kids survived Padme's death. The first thing you do is investigate family connections, it is literally the first thing you would do, and that home is one of the first place you would look. And what do you find there, a boy named Skywalker?

Which all rests on the assumption that you discover a child survived Padme's death. As we've already established: Ben and Yoda had pretty damn good grounds to think Anakin didn't realise anyone had survived, because Anakin strangled Padme to within an inch of her life with Obi-Wan right there in front of him. One might even note at the end of ROTS that Vader protests that Padme was alive, that he felt it. But he believes Palpatine -- and it's clear no search for a Skywalker child then takes place. Per ESB it's clear Vader doesn't even conceive of the possibility that his children might have survived until Palpatine raises the prospect. Those things being so, Obi-Wan and Yoda are confident enough to send Luke back to the Lars family, mainly because it's not a place where the Sith can sense his presence. And even then Obi-Wan doesn't leave them to it; his brief for the next twenty years is to watch over Luke, a brief he sticks to just in case the scenario you're talking about should pop up. Armchair quarterbacking is the worst kind of quarterbacking, because it doesn't happen in context, and you're doing it right here.

An anonymous foster family - one that has no blood affiliation to the Skywalkers - would be more risky: there would be far less emotional connection for said foster family to not inadvertently blab something or for word to get out. If you uproot the Lars and put them somewhere else, that movement, too, can be tracked and raises more questions in the community you choose to hide the family in. There's no question there was a certain gamble that Luke might be found out, but it was a calculated risk and not nearly as powerful a risk as you imply.

 

Interestingly, Ben in the RoTJ novel characterizes Luke's mother as "Anakin's estranged wife" and even says "Anakin didn't know your mother was pregnant".

There must have been some changes between RoTJ and the prequels- assuming such novel content comes from extended versions of that scene, that is.

 

First and formost, for anyone who thinks the idea of hiding the twins the way they did and where they did was not thought out well, please blame the OT not the PT, as it was all established in ESB/ROTJ.

Also I believe the idea in ROTS was that it was made to appear that the kids did not survive. Notice how Padme was in the coffin during the funeral and STILL appeared to be pregnant. The idea being that everyone was made to believe that she died before she gave birth thus the children died along with her.

Also in ROTS Anakin and Padme clearly dont realise they are having twins as multiple times they refer to the baby as singular. So even at that, if Vader ever did find out that the boy named Skywalker was alive and living on Tatooine, he wouldnt even know to look for Leia too.

 

Still find that odd. The fact they were oblivious that it was twins she was expecting. I mean, don't they have pre natal scans and stuff in a highly technological society? Too make sure the kid/kids are healthy and so on.

 

Actually they do. Notice the medical droid is able to relay to Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Bail that she was carrying twins before the birthing actually took place. It is entirely possible that Anakin and Padme didnt want to go though that process in order to keep it a suprise (gender, etc). Also I am sure it was written that way so Lucas could help explain the fact that Vader has no clue that there was "another". I guess it was probably done that way for dramatic effect.

 

Very interesting discussion. I once read a fanfic that explained it like this....

(from Choices by Jedi-lover)

I think at least the first part is definitely possible - Obi-Wan using Luke as bait. It would definitely explain why Obi-Wan stayed close-by. He didn't expect Luke's existence to remain undiscovered forever and once Luke was discovered, he'd be there to confront Vader. If that went well, Vader would be turned or dead, thus removing the danger to the children. If Vader killed Luke, he'd at least be convinced that his offspring was dead and Leia would be safe.

Of course, if you believe that's their motive....than that would kinda taint my opinion of Obi-Wan and Yoda....

If you think about it....Luke would have been hidden much better even on Tatooine if Owen and Beru had pretended to be his parents and had given Luke the last name "Lars". That way, if Vader had thought to check the Lars', he would have found that they have a child, but he'd assume that it's their biological child. Instead, they have a nephew, parents unknown, who happens to have the last name Skywalker....

Don't get me wrong. I love the OT, but that part only makes sense if a) you assume that Luke was deliberately placed there as a bait, as suggested by the fanfic author, or b) when Yoda said that Luke should grow up with his family, he already knew (via the Force) that it would work out and not endanger Luke.

As for why Vader didn't know about the child being twins....I have no idea. I'm very surprised that no one (neither Anakin nor Obi-Wan) sensed two lifeforms. I could understand somewhat that Padme wanted to keep her pregnancy a secret and maybe didn't go to see a doctor. Then she wouldn't know that she's carrying twins. But how Anakin didn't know.... I can only come up with the explanation that maybe one child's force signature was much stronger/more obvious and sort-of "covered" the other child's signature, thus making the second child more difficult to sense.

 

I don't know why we fabricate plot holes that don't exist.

 

You never share the true circumstances of the children's birth.


As to the question "what's the difference", the difference is pretty obvious. You would never take that kind of risk with the kid on the HOPE that nobody comes looking for him. That defies all sense and logic. It's not a calculated risk, it's absurdity. Quite frankly, the only reason the story is structured the way it is is because Lucas didn't have this all planned out from the beginning the way he sometimes likes to suggest.

Again, you don't take that risk on the hopes Vader never comes looking. That's just insanity. Again, what do they do with people in witness protection? They move them somewhere where the person had absolutely no previous connection. They do that for a reason.

What happens if someone repairing one of those medical droids finds info on the births in the memory banks? What happens if one of the people on the ship that carried Ben and Luke to Tattooine decide to cash in on what they know and sell their info about a surviving Jedi taking a newborn to Tattooine? There are a hundred things that could go wrong, and Tattooine is one of the first places an investigation is going to start.

I'm sorry, but your entire post is basically just "let's hope they don't look". That's not a reasonable strategy for "hiding" someone. You can't just hope the secret never comes out. Tattooine is just too risky a place, especially with that name in that home.

 

Cliff Bleszinski, the famous game developer, posted something on Twitter today that is relevant to this topic. He said:

"Now that I finished Bioshock Infinite.. TO THE INTERNET where we use the power of CROWDSOURCE PLOT HOLE FINDING to ruin it for ourselves!"

He makes a lot of sense. Instead of just enjoying something, we tend to pick apart every minor detail involved until we ruin it. Yoda and Obi-Wan decided to do what they did because they thought it would be the best way to keep them hidden. Would it have been better for them to change Luke's last name, or to have Yoda train them both when they became older? Maybe. But, given the circumstances, they decided to send Luke to his family, and Leia with Bail. That's what Jedi Masters, both on the council, decided to do. That's good enough for me, especially with something like the Force, which no one truly understands, at work.

 

It's not really nitpicking, some of these things just jump out at you. This is one of those, Leia's memory of her mother is another.

 

Oh yeah, raise babies from birth in a miserable, dangerous swamp with no human contact so you can give them grueling training for twenty years to kill their father. That would produce some noble, worthy heirs to the Jedi name.

Atleast when the Jedi trained children to be supersoldiers before they actually had dry beds and could be taught how to interact with the norms.

 

To me it's not a plot hole at all that Luke was placed on Tatooine. I actually don't think that Tatooine is an obvious place at all for Vader to look (but again he thinks the baby is not born so he's not actively searching). The one place he doesn't want to go back to is where his nightmares began to haunt him. He was a slave there, he discovered his murdered mother, and felt guilt (as shown in the films) about his actions against the Tusken Raiders.

Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Bail wanted Luke and Leia to be raised in a family (as much is said). Perhaps this is an act of penance at a realization that the Jedi monastical system had failed, or perhaps they think it's best for children that have to wait for training. The logical move would be to have what family they had raise one of them (assuming you agree they needed to be split up, which to me seems a given).

 

It's a really good thing some of you don't work in witness protection, you would get a lot of people killed.

You don't bank the boy's life on "well, he might not look". That is just insanity.

 

In the movie- there's no hint that Ben believes Anakin is alive. He left him burning on hot rock, after all.

 

And they clearly say in that same movie that they have to hide the children. Which is not really compatible with putting Luke in the worst hiding place ever imagined by anyone in the history of hiding.

 

Hide them from the Emperor, though.

The Emperor doesn't know they're alive either.

I wonder why nobody senses Anakin on Tatooine, before Qui-Gon finds him?

Maybe Tatooine's like Dagobah?