Saga The Foibles and Flaws of the Jedi

I do say that for all the religions incorporated. They may share some basic truths, but when getting into the details like attachment they hold different views, and it's not just among the fanatics. Catholic and Methodist views are all consistent with each other either. Neither are Jewish and Muslim. It's not just about how to deliver and enforce the message, there ARE differences in the message. I believe in bringing religions together, in focusing on what they have in common... but to ignore the differences completely is offensive to people of all those religions, and not just fanatics. A patchwork of idea from all of them won't be consistent when you dig deeper, unless a new religion is described theologically in-depth to explain the new religion, and that has not happened with the Force and there's been disagreements in the SW books that have tried to flesh it out a little more.

 

Agree with what you say @Ghost ...and that's one of the fundamental disagreements I think I have with any Malcolm Campbell inspired projection of religion - there are major differences, even within the same religions because....people. There are probably as many Christianities, Islams, Buddhisms etc as there are Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and there are major distinctions to be made between the cosmologies of all faiths - but that's a whole other, very long discussion.

In terms of how the Jedi are portrayed in the PT, a couple of lines from the OT are used and taken way too literally, imo, and don't actually make that much sense. The idea that Jedi take younglings in infancy, for example, comes from Yoda's claim that Luke is too old. But this is in the middle of Yoda doubting Luke's ability to get the Jedi message (or possibly testing his commitment), he even follows it up with, "Yes, that's it, too old"....which would be an odd thing to have just remembered if Jedi were trained from infancy - even odder is Obi-Wan's response "Was I any different when you trained me?" - well, I would hops so Obi-Wan, if you came to Yoda as an infant, I would hope you were different.

The Jedi were designed the way they were in the PT in order to suit what Lucas had decided was going to be Anakin's downfall. Obi-Wan talks of Luke's father as being a "good friend", he tells Luke that his feelings for Han and Leia do him credit - there is no sense in which, in the OT, attachment is denied tothe Jedi - Luke is merely told to keep those attachments from those who would use them against him.

 

It's attachment because Luke wouldn't have cared about saving Vader if he wasn't his father. Family relationships which the jedi cut themselves from and aganist them is what saved the galaxy.

Anakin's anger come from bottled up frustration of seeing Clovis consistently flirting with Padme since the moment he show up (which Padme could have simply stopped by telling him that she is involved with someone without necessarily saying who) and seeing him trying to force a kiss on Padme made him lost it. If this a point for why attachments are "bad" and that the jedi were right about them, then no person would have gotten married in real life because people get angry for far less than that.

And if Anakin was a greedy possessive man, he would have gotten angry and violent when Padme asked for a break from their relationship instead of respecting her choice and leaving without argurment.

 

That's why you have the Sith in the Saga. The Sith share the same basic tenant of wanting to bring peace and justice to the Republic, but they choose to do so through harsh and severe methods, while the Jedi's methods rely on the spirit of cooperation with everyone. The EU is a different matter because they're not written by Lucas and were not adhering to his views on the Force.

Except that's where you miss the point. The Jedi care about everyone. A Jedi would try to save a Sith, not because they're related, but because of compassion. That's why Lucas said that the Jedi are trained to love everyone, not just one particular person. Obi-wan himself doesn't want to kill Anakin when they fought on Mustafar. He told Yoda that he cannot do it and that he (Yoda) should be the one to face Anakin, while he would fight Sidious. And when he arrives there, he tries to reason with him and kept hesitating to kill him. He stops trying because Anakin has rejected his help and he believes that he cannot be brought back. Likewise with Ahoska and Vader on Malachoir, where she still cared for the man that he was, but at the time believed that he couldn't be saved as well. Luke only believes that Anakin could be saved because he senses the conflict and the guilt for what he did. It's when he shows him compassion at the end and spares him, that he finally starts getting through to him.

That's what unconditional love is. To look past all the flaws and still love them. And the fact is that in real life, people can give up on family members regardless of bonds of blood or not. I don't have a great relationship with my father, but I did with my stepfather.

And as a Jedi, he should be above such emotional outbursts. That's why it was foreshadowing of what was to come. He shouldn't have suspected Padme of being unfaithful, which was before that confrontation, when he's talking to Obi-wan. And he shouldn't have picked up his Lightsaber with the intention of killing him out of anger and hate, based on a fear of losing Padme. Nor should he almost beat him to death. Remember that the fear of loss can lead to jealousy and is the shadow of greed.

Except there are people who do become that angry, that jealous and that violent. It happens far more than you realize. The reason it doesn't happen for everyone, is because those who don't go that far, have developed a balance within their hearts that prevents them from crossing those lines. But not everyone has done so and so this is why you have domestic violence when it relates to matters of fidelity and of keeping people in their lives, often times against their will in the latter. Where it relates to the Jedi is that if a Jedi falls prey to such acts of violence, it would lead to their undoing and to the birth of another dark side threat. Think about it, why did Anakin kill Dooku? Because he was afraid that Obi-wan was seriously hurt and he wasn't powerful enough to stop that, so he unleashes his anger and hate and kills Dooku using the dark side. Well, think about it with Rush. He does the same thing. His expression when he stops is the same one that Luke had when he stopped himself against Vader.

He's not all the way there yet. He hasn't yet succumbed to the dark side. But everything that he did before that was wrong and not the Jedi way.

 

Oh please, Luke was fully planning to kill Vader until he find out that he is his father which made him decide to save him instead. You kidding yourself if you think Luke did it because "Jedi loves everyone".

Yeah, because the "not the jedi way" is the human way.

 

darth-sinister, that's a non-response, which has nothing to do with what I wrote and why I wrote it.

 

As @only one kenobi pointed out, that was Luke's ego in TESB. He was believing that as a Jedi, it was his duty to kill the man who killed the Jedi and killed his father and his father figure. That's why he fails in the dark side cave, because he's going about it all wrong. When he finds out that Vader is his father, it shatters his beliefs and tests him because he has to accept that the darkness existed within his father just as it does for himself. When Luke confronts Vader again, he's only doing so because he believes that he can save him. That he felt that there was good within him and that he has to save him because of that. If Obi-wan or Ahsoka had felt the good within him, they wouldn't have stopped trying to reach him.

But it is not that simple either, because his father has to die in order for the Force to be brought back into balance. The Jedi have to kill the Sith, just as the Sith have to kill the Jedi. In the case of the latter, it's because the former will stop them from achieving their goals. In the case of the former, the reason it to restore the balance to the Force. Luke has to be willing to kill his father, in order to save the galaxy and the Force. What Luke did was find a way that still got the job done, which meant that his father would have to sacrifice himself in order to restore the balance.

When Obi-wan killed Maul, he didn't do it with malice in his heart. He did it because it was the right thing to do and he had compassion in him.

ANAKIN: "I'm a Jedi. I know that I'm better than this."

Being a Jedi is more than just being human. Humans can make mistakes, good or bad. Even humans are wrong to do what he did with Rush Clovis. With the Tusken Raiders. With Dooku. With his fellow Jedi and the Separatists. A Jedi cannot make that kind of mistake or else they become an agent of evil. You know what happened when the last person told him that it was only natural and human to have that kind of reaction.

PALPATINE: "It is only natural. He cut off your arm, and you wanted revenge. It wasn't the first time, Anakin. Remember what you told me about your mother and the Sand People."

He turned to the dark side because he was encouraged to follow those feelings.

 

That doesn't make any sense and it doesn't line up with with we saw from the movies.

Luke didn't go in TESB to kill Vader out of revenge or duty, he went there to save his friends and was willing to kill Vader if he had to face him. He lost to him not because he had "malicious" in his heart for him, he lost because Vader was better and stronger.

Sure, that's why when Luke told his jedi masters that he sense good in his father he was encouraged to try to reach him.

Oh wait, that didn't happen. He instead was told to give it up and Obi-Wan declared that all hope was lost when Luke refused to do so. Which makes your point about how Luke wanted to save his father because "jedi loves everyone" doesn't make any sense when his own Jedi masters were aganist the idea.

Which is why I think the jedi dogma is a failure and played a big role in creating Vader. Thinking that making mistakes will lead someone to become an agent of evil is naive and arrogant at the same time.

Making mistakes is what teach us to become better people and failure is the pillar of success.

I do. He didn't fell to the dark side and instead did a lot of good where he saved counless lives in the clone wars. He also successfully trained a student who was able to survive without the order because he taught her how.

Yoda's stupid advice is what pushed him farther and made him easy target to the dark side.

 

Yes and I think from a strict Jedi POV it's questionable whether he did do the right thing in refusing to fight Vader and later also the Emperor. It's better that he not fight them than to go Dark but in not fighting them was he abandoning his duty?

 

I wasn't talking about the battle on Cloud City. There was vengeance in his heart in the dark side tree cave, as well as fear. He went into the cave because he was afraid and he went in armed for that same reason. That fear translated into seeing Vader and his reaction was to destroy him, because that is who Vader is. The man who killed and betrayed the Jedi, including his father and his mentor. He went to rescue his friends, but he was very much interested in destroying Vader when he was confronted by him. He was fighting for the wrong reasons.

Obi-wan and Yoda never tell Luke to kill Vader. Just that in order to become a Jedi, he had to confront Vader again. Luke inferred that it meant that he had to kill him and refused to confront him. It is why when he realizes that Vader is at Endor, that he has to confront him, but to save him. Not to kill him. And then there's this...

"The part I am working on now is mostly about Darth Vader, who he is, where he came from, how he became Luke and Leia's father, what his relationship to Ben is. In Jedi, the film is really about the redemption of this fallen angel. Ben is the fitting good angel, and Vader is the bad angel who started off good. All these years Ben has been waiting for Luke to come of age so that he can become a Jedi and redeem his father. That's what Ben has been doing, but you don't know this in the first film."

--George Lucas, Star Wars-A New Hope: The Annotated Screenplays, 1997.

So Obi-wan wasn't seeking to have him killed, but he is wanting Luke to come to this conclusion on his own and work intuitively to save him.

There's making mistakes and then there's making mistakes. Yoda understood this and had to remind Luke of it.

Yoda: "Heeded my words not, did you? Pass on what you have learned. Strength. Mastery. But weakness, folly, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters."

Obi-wan's mistake on Naboo was to give into a momentary lapse of fear, anger and hate. His success was in realizing this and letting go, in order to defeat Maul. His acknowledgement and openness to the Council is why they made him a Knight. He learned from his mistakes. Anakin, on the other hand, made a mistake and kept making additional mistakes until it turned him to the dark side. He didn't learn from his mistakes and as a result, he suffered for it. He only learns from his mistakes when he sees Luke not make the same mistake that he made. This is why his able to come back from the dark side.

Anakin touched the dark side on Tatooine and even though he did a lot of good in the war, his soul was still tainted by the Tusken Slaughter. He still hadn't learned from his mistakes which was why he was still prone to dark side emotions when confronted by Dooku and whenever his attachments were threatened. This is why Yoda warned Luke that once you start down the dark path, it will forever dominate your destiny and it will consume you. Anakin started down the dark path and until he acknowledged and accepted the darkness within him and the flaws within himself, he would become Vader no matter what Yoda did or didn't do. He didn't push him towards the dark side. Anakin did because he refused to accept that the Force has limits and that he will need to let go of his attachments when the time comes.

As Yoda told Ezra, how a Jedi chooses to fight is more important than just the fight itself and any victory that comes from it. Luke chose to fight the Sith by reaching out to his father and showing him compassion, which got through to him and angered Sidious, because he was certain that Luke would fall easily due to his age and attachments.

 

It's too bad for George that the one line that indicates what his masters expected him to do contradicts his supposed intent.

Luke: (emphatically) I can't kill my own father.

Ben: (resigned) Then the Emperor has already won. You were our last hope.

So Ben and others clearly hoped Luke would destroy Vader.

This is reinforced with earlier statements.

"The good man that was your father was destroyed."

And. Immediately after Luke says he feels there's still good in him.

(dismissively) "He's more machine now than man. Twisted and evil. "

If that's supposed to be Ben expressing that he's "been waiting for Luke to come of age so that he can become a Jedi and redeem his father" then he's being ambiguous or playing devil's advocate to the point of absurdity.

 

He's being ambiguous towards Luke. He recalls being told to kill Anakin and his own resistance to the plan. What he is doing is putting Luke on the path to self-discovery. He has to figure out these things on his own, rather than just taking orders.

"What Luke is doing in the beginning of Star Wars is finding his own responsibility for his place in the world. He thinks that his responsibility is with his aunt and uncle, and to do his chores. His ultimate responsibility is much larger than that because it deals with a much larger base of humanity—larger more cosmic issues. He is unwilling to look up and see those as something that relate to him. He’s much more looking at the ground and plodding along in his everyday life. So it’s that awakening, first of all, that is the performed by the insider, the magic of Obi-Wan that sends him on the path to self-discovery."

--George Lucas, Laserdisc Commentary, Star Wars Trilogy Definitive Collection, 1993.


"It will be about how young Anakin Skywalker became evil and then was redeemed by his son. But it's also about the transformation of how his son came to find the call and then ultimately realize what it was. Because Luke works intuitively through most of the original trilogy until he gets to the very end. And it’s only in the last act—when he throws his sword down and says, “I’m not going to fight this”—that he makes a more conscious, rational decision. And he does it at the risk of his life because the Emperor is going to kill him. It’s only that way that he is able to redeem his father."

--George Lucas, Star Wars Trilogy VHS box set 2000.

Yoda tells him that he can only become a Jedi by facing Vader. Luke infers it to mean kill him. He winds up becoming a Jedi by not killing his father. Why is he a Jedi if he doesn't kill his father? He becomes a Jedi because he finally gets it. He finally gets it by letting go of his emotions, his attachments and doing what a Jedi should do, which is show compassion. He has to figure it out for himself, otherwise he is not worthy of being a Jedi and the one to revive the Jedi Order. He has to trust his instincts and his feelings.

 

Close but I wouldn't describe it quite that far. I think he prefers that Luke be willing to kill him, not have an absolute inability, an absolute inability would indicate excessive attachment, but he doesn't hope for Luke destroying him as the first or only option, just warning him that redeeming him would be difficult & even unlikely and he should be willing to kill him if it's necessary.

Well, he only said he was
Seriously, in discarding his lightsaber he plausibly says he is a Jedi (and is acknowledged as such by the Emperor) but that's a pretty different kind of Jedi than was seen in the prequels (they don't seem real reluctant to fight, let alone averse to and avoiding weapons). And I think the point of the story, especially how happy and impressed they seemed the ending, is that Yoda and Obi-Wan were pleased but surprised that Luke succeeded in his mission to bring Anakin back.

First, is duty an attachment? If so that's odd as the films tend to say it should be followed. As a Rebel member does he have a duty to try to defeat Palpatine (not just think he'll be destroyed with the whole station and even if he escapes that's OK)? It seems like he chose his attachment to Anakin & trying to help him over that to the Rebellion and trying to help the people overall.
Second the Prequel Jedi were said to be compassionate but not compassionate to their enemies nor did they seem to consider that to even be an ideal to aspire to.

 

RE:
the idea that Jedi are supposed to be compassionate even to their enemies/the sith.

First, I don't think the films support this view.
In both the OT and PT, when it comes to the sith, killing them is what is needed.
Luke is the one that suggest that there is good in Vader but Obi-Wan shoots that down and Yoda does not offer much encouragement in that regard either.

Second, if we add the prophecy to this and what the Jedi thinks it means then it says that all sith must die.
So the Jedi have a prophecy that is about how the Sith must not be allowed to live and yet they care about them?
Does not really add up.
And did Obi-Wan show much compassion to Anakin when he dismembered him and left him to burn in RotS?

Lastly, the Jedi caring about everyone equally.
I think that runs the risk that caring and compassion becomes so diluted that it becomes meaningless.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

But Obi-Wan makes no attempt to discourage Luke from assuming that he is expected to kill Vader. If it's reverse psychology it's extremely subtle. And risky.

 

Again, how a Jedi chooses to fight is more important than fighting to win. Yoda told Ezra this, who thought that just fighting was necessary to win against the Sith. He then sent him to Malachor V, where the remains of a war between the Sith and the Jedi ended only in death on both sides. No clear cut victory. Then there's this.

The Sith are the natural enemy of the Jedi. As George Lucas describes it, the Sith were once in control of the galaxy 1000 years in the past. Unfortunately, the Sith's hunger for conquest got the better of them-so many Sith Lords were vying for ultimate control that it led to infighting among their ranks. Such internecine struggles were exploited by the Jedi Knights of the era, and they were able to turn the tide and defeat the Sith.

--Star Wars Insider, issue 78; page 60.


The Jedi won the war against the Sith, by using their greedy ambition against them. Luke defeats the Sith by getting his father to turn on Palpatine, killing them both. The Jedi of the Clone Wars era had failed because they chose to fight straight up against the Sith and lost. When Luke throws down his Lightsaber, he is acknowledging that he is about to become his father and he doesn't want that. He wants to be the Jedi that he should be and will accept whatever may come, rather than condemn himself for a quick and easy victory. Upon seeing this, Vader soon remembers that he himself couldn't do that very thing for Dooku and had killed him in an act of revenge for the war and for the loss of his arm. Luke showed him compassion and forgiveness for all of his crimes. This is what saves them both.

Duty is not an attachment. A Jedi's duty is a selfless endeavor. The Jedi have a responsibility to use their powers to help others for the sake of helping them. But that Jedi should not cross moral and ethical boundaries in order to achieve a victory. That's why Yoda says that they lost on Geonosis, because they crossed lines in order to try and stop the war and it kept getting worse and worse...until they had lost their way and were destroyed. Luke was going to cross a line in order to save his friends and his sister and that was wrong.

"The key issue in these movies is for a Jedi not to use anger when he’s fighting. So the final confrontation here is primarily about trying to make Luke become angry, so that when he fights his father he’s fighting in anger, therefore begins to use the dark side of the Force, and therefore sort of succumbs to the dark side of the Force. In The Empire Strikes Back we had them confront each other and fight together. But in this film Luke has become more mature so that now he knows he shouldn’t be fighting him—that is the path to the dark side. So it’s basically a confrontation between two people and one of them doesn’t want to fight, and the other one keeps trying to push him into it. And then in the end when he gives up and they really do fight, what’s happening there is that ultimately Luke is turning to the dark side, and all is going to be lost."

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary, 2004.

Being compassionate to their enemies doesn't that they cannot kill them. It means that the Jedi should use killing as a last resort and do so without fear, anger and hate in their hearts. They should feel compassion.

It does. When Obi-wan faces Maul on Tatooine, he doesn't want to fight him, but finds it is inevitable now.

OBI-WAN: "Maul is an old adversary, and a persistent one at that."

EZRA: "We can fight him together."

OBI-WAN: "I had no intention of fighting him, though that seems inevitable now."

After the fight and striking him down, Obi-wan stays with him as he is dying. He feels pity towards him for what he has become. Because Palpatine had used him and then discarded him, when he had served his purpose. He spent the rest of his life in pursuit of power and revenge, that no longer had any meaning for him. Obi-wan recognizes that Maul is a victim in all of this, as much as he was a victim and all the other Jedi were victims of Palpatine's ambitions to carry out Bane's revenge. As I also noted, Luke not killing Vader doesn't mean that it is wrong to kill. He just doesn't do the job. What was foretold came to pass, but in the process, Luke shows his father something that was sorely needed.

That became the problem because he couldn't bring himself to help him anymore, but also needed to fulfill his duty by eliminating the Sith threat. If he had reached out and brought him up from the lava bank, he would have showed him enough compassion to break the dark side's hold on Anakin. It would have shown him that he still believed in him despite all the terrible things he had done. This is why Luke saves him.

Why? Are we not told that Christ loved everyone? Why couldn't the Jedi show compassion for all living beings? It is only meaningless if you believe that someone is beyond compassion, but not another person.

OBI-WAN: "The truth is often what we make of it. You heard what you wanted to hear, believed what you wanted to believe."

Luke heard what he wanted to hear and believed what he wanted to. Once he chooses to follow his own path, as Leia said of Han, he found the solution.

 

Obi-Wan responds to Luke saying he cannot kill his father. That's an important part of that discussion - Obi-Wan is responding to Luke's attachment to the idea of father, and hence he tells him that the good man that was his father is gone. Luke's expectation is that his father will not be able to turn against Luke, and when he does not behave to Luke's expectations - that is when Luke loses it.

Again I will say that the way these scenes are viewed now is coloured by the PT motifs of Anakin as 'Chosen One', of 'balancing the Force, of Lucas' obsession with the idea of attachment - let me paint the scenes slightly differently....

Luke's expectations of 'father' are thwarted and so he becomes angered - he is then full of hatred against this monster and attacks him in that hate and anger and strikes him down until...at the moment he is about to vent his own anger and hatred by killing the 'monster' he has a moment of recognition. He has given up on 'father' at this point - his next action is NOTHING TO DO with Anakin and faith in him; he realises that he is being drawn into anger and, further, that whatever he does from now is not going to make any difference to what is going on outside. His friends will either win the battle or lose it, the only thing he can achieve by striking down Vader is to sate his own impotent anger. It is about ego, not attachment - Luke understands that he is not all powerful, that he is the keeper of his own soul and nothing more and he refuses to give that soul to darkness. He recognises that he is as likely to become Vader as his father did, that to kill because he can, the idea that he can 'avenge' in some way what has befallen his friends by destroying Vader is exactly the mirage that Vader fell for.

He throws down his weapon because he knows that is what it truly is to do Jedi - to know when action is required and when it is not - to know the limits of what he can do and to know the limits he must endure to not become the very thing he set out as a Jedi to fight.

Anakin's redemption is then a personal victory for both men - it is a purely personal redemption for Anakin; he does not save the galaxy, he saves Luke because he understands what Luke has taught him, that he never understood from his teachers before. He sees how empty the idea of power is, ultimately. He understands finally what it is to 'do' Jedi.

 

"I won't fight you, Father"
"I'm a Jedi like my father before me"
"Father, please!"
"Father... I won't leave you"

If Luke has given up on his father and wasn't attached to him, he wouldn't have begged him to help him when the emperor attacked him nor he would have still tried to save him. Lucas himself said that what touched Anakin was Luke's love for him and saying that the love just come from "jedi loves everyone" cheapen the moment.

 

RE: Yoda and Obi-Wan really wanted Luke to NOT kill his father.

Lets' see what is in the films.

RotS:

No ambiguity here, KILL is what they talk about.

ESB.

This time it is conquer.
Kill isn't mentioned but neither is the idea of redeeming them.

RotJ.

This has been talked about already, Luke says kill and Obi-Wan does not correct him and concludes that it is over, the emperor has won.

Taken together, the message is clear, kill the sith is what Yoda and Obi-Wan is about but Luke disagrees with them.

Lastly, a part from the RotJ script that was cut.

Again no ambiguity here, DESTROY.
Yes it was cut but it totally fits with the rest of what Obi-Wan says.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

Luke did say that earlier but it seems a questionable claim by him-the Rebels could destroy the Death Star and thus the Emperor on their own but even if they did destroy it that wouldn't necessarily prevent the Emperor from escaping-as we did see, others pretty easily were able to. Unless he thinks it's not in Palpatine's nature to flee.

Even if it's good to not kill Vader or the Emperor out of vengeance, why is it wise for him to throw it off and not have it to defend himself against what Palpatine may do?

 

It's unconditional love which is different from attachment.

"The film is ultimately about the dark side and the light side, and those sides are designed around compassion and greed. The issue of greed, of getting things and owning things and having things and not being able to let go of things, is the opposite of compassion—of not thinking of yourself all the time. These are the two sides—the good force and the bad force. They're the simplest parts of a complex cosmic construction."

--George Lucas, Time Magazine article, 1999.

"The Jedi are trained to let go. They're trained from birth," he continues, "They're not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can't form attachments. So what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 213.

"It really has to do with learning," Lucas says, "Children teach you compassion. They teach you to love unconditionally. Anakin can't be redeemed for all the pain and suffering he's caused. He doesn't right the wrongs, but he stops the horror. The end of the Saga is simply Anakin saying, I care about this person, regardless of what it means to me. I will throw away everything that I have, everything that I've grown to love- primarily the Emperor- and throw away my life, to save this person. And I'm doing it because he has faith in me; he loves me despite all the horrible things I've done. I broke his mother's heart, but he still cares about me, and I can't let that die. Anakin is very different in the end. The thing of it is: The prophecy was right. Anakin was the chosen one, and he does bring balance to the Force. He takes the one ounce of good still left in him and destroys the Emperor out of compassion for his son."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 221.

Compassion is very different from passion. Unconditional love versus conditional love. Selflessness vs selfishness. Detachment vs attachment. Luke continues to reach out to Anakin because he still believes that he is a good man and he still loves him despite his evil ways. He believes that he can change if he only makes the effort. Do or do not. What Luke has given up when he throws down his Lightsaber is the notion that his father was not a flawed man. This is his attachment to him. He makes a choice in the here and now to accept that his father is a very flawed man, but that he is not worth killing. He has to accept that darkness exists within all men's hearts and his father was no different, just as he is no different. Luke sees himself in Anakin and Anakin sees himself in Luke. The son won't kill in order to save his loved ones, and the father realizes that he has to give up his ambitions for ultimate power because his son showed him the correct path. The path that he ignored twenty years ago.

Yes, destroy Vader. Destroy the dark part of his father, not his father himself.

When Luke says that they'll be dead soon, he thinks that the Empire has no clue about the stolen Death Star plans this time and that the Alliance can quickly destroy the Death Star before help could arrive and before Palpatine can flee. Luke has no idea about the fleet being hidden and that the super laser is operational.

Because Luke is willing to sacrifice himself to avoid killing Vader and thus not becoming evil. It has an impact since it strikes a chord within Vader that leads to his redemption.

 

Luke still has a special connection to Vader because Vader is his father.

You can play semantics on if it's "attachment" or not (it is in the way most people use the word, just not Lucas).

But it's not like Luke is begging to the Emperor "your highness, help me!" or trying to get him to turn the entire time, along with Vader. Or all those stormtroopers he kills on Endor, or Jabba's goons on Tatooine.

 

Luke's willing to sacrifice himself to avoid turning to the darkside. It prompts Vader to turn his back on the dark side to prevent his son from dying. Vader was still prepared for Luke to to turn to the dark side right up until the last second when he realised it would not happen and his master was not joking about destroying him.

 

Luke begs Anakin for help because he can sense the good within him, whereas he couldn't with the others. That's the point you're missing. If Obi-wan could have felt that good on Mustafar, he wouldn't have sliced and burned Anakin. It had nothing to do with biology that Obi-wan couldn't and Luke could. It has to do with all sorts of emotions surrounding both Jedi. Likewise, Padme believes in the good in Anakin despite not being blood related. She believes in the good being in him because she has faith in him. He would have killed her if he was truly evil. He wouldn't have stopped for any other reason. Likewise, Obi-wan was a father figure to Anakin and his friend and even like a brother. But Obi-wan is also an object of hate for Anakin because of his attachment to both Padme and to his desire for power and control. With Luke, the struggle is more clear. Vader's conflict is that he wants to be the Dark Lord of the Sith and Emperor of the galaxy, versus becoming a Jedi Knight again and being with his son. He is willing to kill his son if he rejects him, but he is also willing to help him out of the predicament that they're in. The struggle is that he has to give up his attachment and act compassionately towards his son. Attachment versus compassion. There's no semantics at play here.

But just because a Jedi kills their opponent doesn't mean that they don't care about them as an individual. What is the opposite of hate? Love. A Jedi does not hate anyone. When a Jedi can sense goodness within people, that is when they can make the effort to avoid killing and try to redeem. When they cannot sense it, then they do their best to neutralize the threat without malice.

Right. Vader had to choose between his attachment for power over compassion, which was doing something for someone else. Of not thinking about himself. A good parent is one who will make sacrifices for their child. Not just in a life or death situation, but in general. Lucas felt that it was important to step back from film making in order to spend more time with his daughter, because the stress of making ROTJ was becoming too much for him and he felt that his relationship with his daughter was suffering for it. Not to mention with his wife. That's why he took a back seat going forward and spent his time caring for his daughter and then the other two. And when he went to work on the PT, he found a balance between being a father and being the creator. This also served as an influence on the story direction for the Saga.

One more thing. Iron_lord posted this quote from the ROTJ novelization.

Madine called out: "General Solo, is your strike team assembled?"
Leia looked up at Han, shock quickly melting to joyous admiration. She knew there was a reason she loved him—in spite of his usual crass insensitivity and oafish bravado. Beneath it all, he had heart.
Moreover, a change had come over him since he emerged from carbonization. He had lost his selfish edge and had somehow, subtly, become part of the whole. He was actually doing something for someone else, now, and that fact moved Leia greatly. Madine had called him General; that meant Han had let himself officially become a member of the army. A part of the whole.

Han had fully stopped being selfish, being attached to his past, and became more selfless and compassionate. This is best exemplified by telling Leia that he's letting her go to be with Luke. He is giving up his attachment to her, for the sake of Leia and not his own sake. He loves her a lot, but he is giving her up. He is letting go of her. He just happens to be rewarded with the strangest bit of news, but one that yields a greater reward.