CT Does Vader know that *Leia* is the "twin sister"?

At the end of Return of the Jedi, is Vader depicted as knowing that Leia is Luke's twin sister, or does he just know that Luke has a sister?

 

Very interesting question. I suspect he does know, because Luke's connection to Leia is so strong and Leia was shown knowing that Luke wasn't on the Death Star when it blew up.

 

It's kind of obvious how absent Leia's name is from this exchange. If Vader has locked on to Leia being this twin sister he has just discovered. This is possibly Lucas bludgeoning the audience with the familial triangle. Or to put it more crudely, Lucas is making the isness of the finale about blood family rather than the non-familial relationships between heroes and villains who also happen to be related to each other.
While Leia's name is conspicuously absent, the curious proxy of Obi-Wan is not adequately obvious if Vader did not recognize that Leia was the twin sister.
To rephrase, why would Vader make a reference to Obi-Wan when talking about Luke's feelings?
If Luke had had a twin sister that was switched in the birthing room, Vader would not have a comment of odd specificity about Obi-Wan.
If Luke had had a twin sister that was abducted by Gungans, Vader would not have a comment of odd specificity about Obi-Wan.
If Luke had had a twin sister that ran off with a pod racer, Vader would not have a comment of odd specificity about Obi-Wan.

If you trace this tuple of [ Obi-Wan, sister ] back in the script, you hit a block that renders the exchange in question "pretty" transparent. For Vader to access Luke's mind and read out that Obi-Wan hid Luke's sister is for Vader to access Luke's conversation with Obi-Wan. It is then difficult to argue that Vader could not also read out that the twin sister that Obi-Wan hid was... Leia. Because that was declared in the conversation. To be specific, the naming of Leia was the last thing accomplished in the exchange between Luke and Obi-Wan that Vader is reading. In lesser hands we might say that Vader was reading the script.

 

The crisis that builds to a head when Luke throws down his lightsaber is the crisis, or part of that crisis, that both Yoda and Obi-Wan worried about. Outside the universe, Lucas somewhere in commentary said he put the Luke Vader sister thing in there because he needed Luke to get back into the fight. Authorial thumb on scale, yes. That crisis, when Luke is lit by red on one side and blue on the other, is where Luke does not want to kill any family member (father) and does not want to endanger any family member (sister). Vader already possesses the fact that Luke does not want to kill a family member (Vader). Luke is already at risk for baring that vulnerability. The Emperor can already use that vulnerability. The phrase "bury your feelings deep down" is symmetric with the property of "sister" being a more fundamental property than that of "Leia". The fact of "Leia" is not something that occupies any very fundamental depth. Or, the name "Leia" is not in the blood.

In order for Vader to exploit the vulnerability that Luke did not bury deep enough, Vader would not activate/mobilize it by the less fundamental property of "Leia". Tactically, Vader could care less what her name is. His priority is to get a thin edge in and pry up Luke's wrath, because that is fastest path to giving in to the dark side. Luke does allow that to pry up his wrath (authorial thumb on scale) and it enhances the peril he faces when he is genuinely landing his blows on prone Vader's lightsaber.

That's the function of Vader maneuvering on "sister" and not maneuvering on "Leia". The function rides through the entire exchange down to the "I am a Jedi, like my father".

 

He pulled knowledge of her from Luke's mind, so its entirely conceivable Luke was thinking of Leia, visualising her. So yes, I think he must have found out it was Leia.

Saying that, when he dies, he says "tells your sister you were right". So, maybe that throws a spanner in the works.

 

I’ve always wondered this. Honestly, I thought it was interesting that Vader didn’t sense a disturbance in the Force when he interacted with Leia (or Luke, for that matter) throughout A New Hope. Granted, up until the moment he realized Luke was his son, he had no idea that he had surviving offspring after Padmé’s death. But based on the current canon, I don’t think there’s anything that says Vader had any sort of suspicion about Leia — the only time when he could’ve made the connection was when he peered into Luke’s mind and realized he had a twin sister.

That being said, the dialogue is written in a way where Vader only ever refers to her as Luke’s sister — he never calls her by her name, so we don’t know for sure if he actually realized Leia was his daughter or not. However, he does tell Luke “tell your sister you were right [about me being able to be turned].” Therefore, I would assume Vader learned of the conversation Luke had with Leia in which he told her he had to go to Vader to try and turn him, and consequently, died with the knowledge that Leia was his daughter.

 

That's another good line of argument. Luke has never voiced to Vader that he had a conversation with his twin sister on Endor. So how did Vader know that Luke had tried to convince his twin sister on Endor of his motivation? It's hard to argue that Vader could read Lucas' script that Luke had read because Luke is the main character in Lucas' script, and had had the key conversations with Obi-Wan and Leia, but Vader still could not see the name of the twin sister while he could see the name of Obi-Wan. That's sexist!

 

Did she go with them all to the Sarlacc?

 

How much does being trained in the ways of the Force factor into this?

In ANH, Vader spends what, a third of the film, in Leia's presence either talking to her, threatening her, heck even torturing her and not once do we see him acknowledge or even become suspicious of her heritage or her Force potential.

Yet in the heat of battle, at incredible speeds, Vader senses the potential of a mysterious unknown X-Wing pilot who soon blows up the Death Star.

By that point though, Luke had begun to receive some rudimentary training from Obi-Wan. So, does Leia's lack of any training also help mask her identity from Vader?

 

I think he knows, and if he didn't, he soon would by feeling Luke's thoughts in that highly charged moment.

 

Surely if he knows, he would simply say Leia's name?

 

Answer and some interesting information regarding this topic:

 

I believe this must be the case, or it would be awfully risky placing her with the Organas and allowing her to become an Imperial senator.

 

It's right there in Vader's dialogue.

“Give yourself to the dark side,” Vader urged. “It is the only way you can save your friends.”

“Yes, your thoughts betray you,” Vader spoke, confirming Luke’s suspicion. “Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for …”

“Sister!” Vader said. “So … you have a twin sister.

 

Right. The dialogue is clear.

 

I would argue it isn't. Hence this entire thread. Vader knows Luke has a sister, but nothing in dialogue indicates he knows who that sister is.

 

Was he? I think he was suspicious of the idea that she was dead. Both his ego and his former self's love for Ahsoka kept the idea of her survival a possibility, but I don't think he really knew until he saw her on Malachor.

Perhaps, but I see no confirmation of this. A connection can be "detected" without revealing the identity of the remotely connected party. I'm not saying that is what happened, I'm not saying it is not, either. If this turns out to be true, cool. I suspect something similar to this is what GL intended. As of now, however, I am unwilling to say this is - for sure - true.

So certain are you.

 

He is talking about his friends. He knows who they are. Feelings are strong, especially for Leia, and he takes that knowledge of that being his sister right out of his head. It's obvious.

 

I appreciate that you think so, but I am not so certain. There are assumptions that must be made in order to arrive at this conclusion. I am unwilling to make that leap.

Would it make sense if it was explained with great specificity? It is very likely that it would, yes. Has it been explained with great specificity, beyond the shadow of a doubt? No. Does it need to be? No.

Having said that, the case made in one of the YouTube vids which @SateleNovelist11 posted was quite compelling and it revealed something I never really observed. Leia is shot and Luke feels it. Thus, Luke looses himself momentarily and Vader is then able to extract this information. I have not had a chance to re-watch the scenes since, but I will be reviewing.