Did Darth Vader let Luke win their duel in ROTJ?

My friend and I have been battling this question for weeks. He says yes; I say no.

Reason why he says yes.
- Vader would never kill his son.
- Vader is strong and could kill Luke with ease, but can't bring himself to do so.
- In short, Vader would never and could never kill his son.

Reasons why I say no.
- If Vader didn't kill him or turn him, then Vader would be killed and he didn't want to die.
- If he would not turn, then he would be destroyed.
- If he failed at turning Luke, he would just kill him and turn Leia to the dark side.
- Vader's goal is to take over the Emperor. His goal is to turn Luke. If he can't turn Luke, then he will kill him and turn his efforts to Leia. If Leia turned, then he would use her to rule the galaxy as father and daughter.
- In short, Vader is a Sith through and through. Yes, there is a conflict inside him, but it isn't until Luke spares his life that he realize that Luke loves him and is willing to die for him. Therefore, when he sees his son suffering at the hands up the Emperor, he redeems his soul by turning to the light side and saving his son. Then and only then he is no longer a Sith Lord.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter. If there is exists an official answer from Lucas in favor of either answer, I'd love to hear it. Is this one of the questions that will be battled forever? Thanks.

 

Obviously it didn't work that way, seeing as Luke refused to be turned and he still sacrificed himself for his son. I personally like to believe Vader did not lose the duel, he was just caught off guard.

Darth Vader/ Anakin is the chosen one. Sure, he may not be what he used to be, but he's still strong in the force and well trained with a saber. In ESB, he defeated Luke but allowed him to live hoping that he could turn him. In ROTJ, Luke refuses to fight for the most part, which is hard to defeat someone if they don't fight. Luke is beat and thats why he hides to the shadows up until Darth Vader brings out the anger hidden inside of him.

He uses what got him in the end, attatchment and love.

He can't see Luke, and he comes out of nowhere full throttle. The only reason Luke did win that fight is because he is still young, uninjured and for a moment used the darkside. He overpowered Vader, because Vader was not there to kill him. Though, the emporer thought it was a fight to the death, IMO I think Vader was waiting it out as long as he could. You have to bait someone turning to the darkside- A la, Anakin vs Dooku round two. Subtle little pushes.

Darth Vader has a good 35 more years experience than Luke does with the force. He's been in more lightsaber duels and had better and more efficient training. If he was going to kill Luke, he would've in Empire. But like I said, up until he realized he was wrong about the darkside, he kept trying to push Luke into joining him.

 

Vader seemed to lose the will to fight after the "then perhaps she will" part. He seemed very half-hearted.

 

I think he would be totally capable of killing his own son, especially a son that was practically a stranger to him. I agree with what was said above, he was drawing the fight out as part of the turning process, but was then caught by surprise.
Now that I think of it, I don't know why he should have been surprised by Luke's rage and the power it gave him, since Vader had experienced it personally. It is exactly what he had been taunting Luke to do, then he was caught off guard by it?

 

Please allow me to re-phrase the question.

The question is "Did Vader allow Luke to win?" Yes or No? Maybe the moderator can add a poll?

 

No, Vader did not let Luke win. Vader's intent was to allowed Luke to live long enough to join him, and was in complete control until the very end.

 

No, he did not "let" him win. Thats just stupide. But remember the conflict, and see how Vader changes more and more through the course of TESB and ROTJ. No way he can just slaughter his son at the time of ROTJ, he can`t.

If Luke were not Vaders son, and then they fought, Vader would have destroyed him very quickly! If Vader didnt have any emotional attachments to Luke, then i think the fight would look very much like the Anakin vs Dooku in AOTC.

 

No he didn't.

 

It is an interesting question. Considering the motivation for Anakin's entire turn to the Dark side, in an effort to save his family, and the fact that he had recently discovered that his family was not entirely dead, I think that at the very least, Vader delayed the duel, strung it out as long as he could. I don't buy that he could be all gung ho about trying to kill Luke, and then a split second later, is saving Luke's life. I suspect Vader wanted Luke to be successful in converting him back, but didn't have enough internal strength to take the jump. He needed Luke to give him that strength, and that meant making the duel go longer than it needed to, to give Luke time to do that. Luke didn't really want to kill Vader, obviously, considering he had the opportunity to do so, and refused. Vader in TESB wasn't really fighting Luke either. He was just testing Luke's skills. Vader fighting Luke without trying to kill him is not a new concept by ROTJ.

I don't know if Vader was intending on throwing the fight, but I do think he was intentionally trying to draw it out as long as he could, while he gathered the internal strength to betray Palpatine. Basically, Vader was convinced that Luke would succeed in converting him, if he had enough time to do it, and Vader decided to give him that time. Then, Luke, in a remarkable show of strength, proves the superior duelist, and defeats him. I don't think Vader was planning on that...it was too soon, he wasn't fully converted back to the Light yet. Luke rushed the timetable a little. This explains why Vader initially stands by as Palpatine is shooting Luke full of electricity. Once he sees Luke suffering enough, he is full of the internal strength he needed to do what his destiny foretold. The need to protect his family overruled any lingering ties to the Dark side.

Pre-duel, Vader secretly wanted Luke to convert him back.
During the duel, Vader was buying Luke the time to do it.
End of the duel, Luke overpowered Vader too quickly, before Vader had garnered up enough courage to make the transition on his own.
After the duel, Vader finally gets the courage needed to kill Palpatine, because his need to protect family came first.

Vader never really wanted to kill Luke. Luke never wanted to kill Vader. Since neither would kill the other, this really was the only possible outcome. If Vader were still truly Sith, he wouldn't have hesitated to kill his own son in service to the Dark side.

 

I'm pretty sure that Vader knew he was no match for Luke from moment they met on Endor's moon, if not before.

 

Someone suggested that Vader knew no non-lethal way to stop Luke at that point.

 

Vader didn't want to win, he wanted to convert Luke so they could overthrow the Emperor right at that point of the movie. It was the perfect time to do it.

 

Vader just plain lost, imo. Seriously-Luke was trying very hard to kill him when he lost his temper. Vader knows *exactly* what happened to Dooku. Letting Luke win in front of the Emperor would've meant his death, frankly.

I think he was hoping that the duel would not have its usual end-rather, that Luke would stop fighting, and join him. He got part of it right

 

Vader understood that if Luke did not voluntarily join the Dark Side that Luke would have to be destroyed. He says as much during the DSII duel. He also tells the Emperor in ESB that Luke will join the Dark Side or die. There's no equivocation in Vader's comments. The only equivocation comes on Cloud City where Vader recognizes that Luke's danger to the Emperor is huge and that Vader can "alter the deal" with the Emperor by trying to persuade Luke to join Vader and overthrow the Emperor. Once Luke decides to die rather than join the Dark Side, Vader recognizes that Luke's only choice, and Vader's, is Luke's ultimate destruction. Vader understood as much on the DS II. He understood that he was honor bound to defend the Emperor but he also knew that if he lost the duel then Luke would face the ultimate temptation to join the Dark Side.

Thus, Vader fought Luke with all of his power. He did so out of self-preservation. He knew that he was up for replacement. Luke won only because he gave into his anger and beat the crap out of his old man. He trod dangerously close to the Dark Side. However, Luke also showed superior strength than his father because he rejected the Dark Side when it would have been quick and easy to have given in. He did precisely what Anakin should have done in Episode III.

So, Vader did not let his son win. It's possible Vader feared for his son's soul and didn't want him to win and then be tempted to strike Vader down and join the Emperor. Vader either wanted his son to join him or die, thereby preserving him from the Dark Side, and preserving Vader's life. There was no incentive for Vader to allow his son to win the duel, IMO.

 

polymath, I suggest that Vader's words to that effect were spoken just to appease Palpatine, and that Vader never really meant it. What was he supposed to say, "He will join us, or...umm...you know, really, Master, I can't kill my own son, so if it comes to that, I am gonna finally betray you, Sorry"?

Vader is lying to Palpatine when he says "He will join us or die".

 

I don't think Vader consciously let Luke win, but I've always thought that from the end of TESB on, Vader becomes a slightly different character, torn on a level between the merciless Vader of TESB and the man he had once been, reawakend somewhat by his son. I think he was sub-consciously in two minds for quite some time before his final "redemption" and that may have contributed to his performance against Luke in ROTJ.

 

I don't think that Vader had any intention of being brought back to the light, up until the final moment. I think he had complete confidence that he could turn Luke and they could overthrow the Emperor. I think that was his entire plan, hence his comment to Luke, "It is too late for me." He truly believed that. Then at the final moment, seeing his son reject the darkside, spare his life and sacrificing himself, Vader saw things more clearly than he ever had. And I believe that the Emperor's plan to do away with Vader, although not a surprise to him, also contributed to his decision.

But I don't think that before that moment he had any intention, even subconciously, of returning to the light.

 

I wouldn't say he had any feelings as specific as returning to the light, but I think that the appearance of Luke in his life interfered with his Sithly feelings. It's difficult to imagine that the final act of returning to the light would not to some extent be the result of an accumulation of thoughts and feelings, consciously or otherwise.

 

Lucas set the ROTS duel between Dooku and Anakin to mirror the duel between Luke and Vader. In both duels, the Sith were overconfident and believed they were in control. In both duels the younger, less experienced but potentially more powerful jedi (Vader was a shell at that point of his old self) unleashed an unexpected barrage of controled anger that overwhelmed the Sith due their perceived feeling of control of the duel to that point. The difference between the two duels is that Luke was better equipped to master his anger and reconnect with the "good side" that Yoda preached.

So IMO, Vader was toying with Luke a bit and controled the duel until he tripped the anger switch on Luke, much like the duel between Dooku and Vader.

 

No, I don't think Vader let Luke win... he was very merciless at that point.
He changed to good mode after Luke refused to kill him.

 

It's possible that Vader was only saying that to appease the Emperor but Vader of all people knew not to underestimate the Emperor's power. He ran an awful risk lying to the Emperor...the risk that the Emperor would discover his true feelings for his son. I'm not saying that Vader wasn't lying...just that there's a high degree of risk involved.

 

I think what Luke said was true. Vader was conflicted. Add to that he set Luke off about his sister, and the fact that Luke was young, and strong, and he lost.

 

I disagree with that completely. I dont even understand how Luke was able to keep up with Vader. Annikan was the chosen one and every Jedi/Sith knew it. In ROTS, Palpatine even said that Annikan would grow to be stronger and more powerful than all of us and that was without any darkside training. No one ever could match Vaders strengths. I just wish we knew exactly how strong Luke was with the force compared to his father because he did start at a late age compared to most Jedi Masters.

 

I think the conflict within Vader weakened him and that was how Luke was able to defeat him. Also, the mechanical Vader was never able to scale the heights of power that Fully able Vader would have.

 

Vader went into the fight knowing he would either have to kill Luke or die. It was a Dooku match all over again except Vader didn't believe the lie Sidious had told him (we'll turn him together) because he'd already experienced it in the Dooku match and knew what Sidious was all about.

If Luke was to win - Vader knew Luke could only do it by turning to the dark side and drawing on that easy wealth of power - he had the potential Anakin had had in his youth and Vader knew it. But Vader would have to goad him into it.

The only alternative was to kill Luke, by not goading him - just a force choke or whatever. This would have pissed Sidious off, but with Luke dead, Sidious wouldn't have been able to do anything about it and he needed Vader so he wouldn't have killed him for it.

Vader took the route that he knew would wind up in his death, he goaded Luke to embrace dark side power and he knew Luke would likely be able to take him out - which happened. Then he knew Sidious would tell Luke to kill him - which happened.

Then Luke threw a wrench in the works and the Anakin in Vader was like "copy that" - and Sidious loses.