What exactly did Obi-Wan and Yoda expect from Luke?

The purpose of this thread is what exactly did they think Luke could achieve? Surely, Yoda and OBW together was more powerful than Luke was. If it was for the fighting of it, why wouldn't Yoda and OBW stand as good a chance as Luke?

Did Yoda and Obi-Wan still believe in the prophecy, and that Luke was the only person who could make that come true (read bring back Vader)? Was Yoda's reference to the cave a foreshadowing of what would happen? That Luke indeed wouldn't need his weapons. And if so, Sideous was wrong in saying that "his feeble Jedi skills would not save him" - after all it was the feeble skill of compassion that did save him.

Did they think that Luke really would become more powerful than Vader and the Emperor with very little training compared?

 

Well, I'm abit tired, but this is my thoughts on that: we've sen that Luke was more than Vader's superior with just 4 years of Jedihood under his belt by ROTJ. Good as the Emperor? Tough to say; Ian MCDiarmid isn't exactly the World's Greatest Swordsman IRL, but the conception of the Emperor is "you have to be Yoda or Mace to be equal to him." Is Luke more powerful than those two? Tough to say, for sure, but my belief is that this is Lucas' intent-Luke>everyone else. Obviously, if Yoda and Obi-Wan are expecting him to have to potentially fight & kill Vader and Sidious, then he'd have to be.

I tend to view the cave as being a major part of Luke's counter-Sith combat training, actually. If he doesn't fear, then there's not alot Palpatine's words can do to him. The basis for Palpatine's attempt to turn Luke, it sems, is alot like how Palps turned Anakin-playing on his fears, and his desire to control everything. Methinks that Yoda & Obi-Wan figured out just how Palpatine turned Anakin, and did their absolute damndest to make sure the same things didn't happen to Luke.

As for whether or not Obi-Wan & Yoda still thought Anakin was the Chosen One and Luke could bring him back-perhaps. YOu could read alot of either view, those being that they think Anakin's still the Chosen One, or that Luke is-in their statements in the OT. For example, Luke and Obi-Wan's conversation on Dagobah could be easily interpreted either way-either that Obi-Wan thinks Luke is going to have to kill Vader, or that he's just preparing Luke for the possibility of having to kill Vader. I tend to think the second option is more accurate-planning for Luke to kill his father is a touch Palpatine-ish IMO, and Obi-Wan simply isn't like that.

Like I said up top, he was more powerful than Vader by ROTJ. Whether or not he was capable of killing the Emperor-perhaps. Yoda certainly seems to think he was ready for the challenge, that he just needed to be cautious around him, as Sidious' weapons are more than just the Force & a lightsabre.

 

I think it all boils down to the end of ROTS. Yoda went to destroy Palpatine, Obi-wan went to destroy Vader. They failed. They had some hope that the off-spring of Anakin would be more power than him, thus able to succeed where they failed.

I've heard it argued that Obi-wan was hoping Luke would turn Vader so that he would fulfill the prophecy as originally intended. But if those two still believed in the prophecy after Anakin's turn, I don't think they would have tried to kill him in ROTS.

 

But then again, OBW didn't kill him. He had the perfect opportunity, but he left it up to the will of the force. If the will of the force let him live, it must have been for a reason. And I don't think we can doubt that Kenobi believed in the will of the force!?

Great post DarthBoba. I'll try to answer that one when I can muster up some good counter arguments

 

Did not Yoda say that they may have mis-read the prophesy, the prophesy said the chosen one would destroy the darkness, but it didn't really say how. Anakin did destroy the Dark side but at the expense of the Jedi Order. At the end the light side was triumphant, although it was at a terrible cost.

 

I've always felt that Yoda and Obi-Wan were training Luke to be the weapon of the Force to bring down the Emperor. I doubt that Obi-Wan and Yoda continued to have faith in the prophecy that Anakin could be redeemed and bring balance to the Force. In fact, Obi-Wan repeatedly tells Luke that his father is more machine than man, twisted and evil. He's skeptical that Anakin has any good left in him, let alone sufficient for Anakin to return to the lightside and fulfill the prophecy. Perhaps Obi-Wan and Yoda just felt like they needed Luke to go and fight the Emperor and destroy him and that by doing so he would be forced to destroy his father.

 

I just can't try to act like the saga is actually one big story and that everything that happened in the OT is related to the PT. I just can't. Not when the PT was made AFTER the OT. There really was no reason why Obi-Wan and Yoda couldn't have taken Vader. They WERE stronger than Luke. After Lucas decided that Vader was Luke's father, it's most likely that it was more dramatic for it to be son vs father. And then more dramatic for the son to bring the father back from the darkside. Plus, Luke was the hero of the OT. It's always the hero's job to take on the villian!

 

I appreciate what you're saying Fat Bird but this thread isn't about whether Vader was really Luke's father from the beginning or that the PT is all irrelevant since Lucas made it up as he went along.

Besides it wouldn't have mattered if Obi-Wan and Yoda would have killed Vader. Vader was not in charge and this is obvious in the original movie when Tarkin barks an order at Vader and Vader obeys. The Emperor is in charge and Vader is just his flunky and the governors know this. Yoda could not the defeat the Emperor so Obi-Wan would not have stood a chance.

 

I think it *is* relevant that GL changed the story as he went along when trying to reconcile the OT with the PT. The PT has totally changed some people's views on events in the OT. Some fans are basically changing their points of view so that everything in the OT will make sense in light of the PT. If GL would have spent more time making sure everything flowed and gelled between the trilogies, people wouldn't have to have this revisionist view of things.

 

Tell me-what does everything 'not flowing and gelling' have anything to do with what Yoda & Obi-Wan expected of Luke? I'm immensely curious.

If you can't grasp the question, as you freely state in your first post, why even bother coming in here?


edit:

Thankyou, Rossa. I do my best thinking half-awake.

 

Luke with enough training would become more powerful than Obi-wan and Yoda combined. Same with Leia. So the two of them would be enough to tackle the Sith, since they had the potential to be what Anakin could've been. Luke gets the task of becoming a Jedi first, since the Jedi stick to the one Master and one Padawan relationship. As well as the fact that Leia was a prisioner of Vader, at the start of ANH. Then Obi-wan dies, so that leaves Luke with Yoda.

 

Hi,
I am new here and no native speaker, but I hope my postings won't be too bad to understand.

Very interesting thread and I want to give you my thoughts about it.

Some weeks ago we had a discussion at a German forum, and we talked about Luke and how he defeated Vader. After analyzing the scene in the movie we found out that in the end Luke didn't need and didn't use the force to bring Vader/Anakin back to the light side. Yes, at first they fought with their lightsabres and when giving in to the dark side's power Luke was able to strike Vader down. But after this he refused to fight again, he let off everything, he even threw away his Jedi weapon - and saved his father by bringing up Anakins compassion and the feelings for the one's he loved. But all of this is no question of how much power Luke has got compared to Vader/Anakin oder Obi-Wan oder Yoda. Luke's weapon was not his lightsabre and the power that defeated Vader and brought back Anakin was not the force. He chose another way.

 

This is a very good question. We all know that GL is, for the most part, making these episodes up as he goes along, so I will look only at ESB and ROTJ. In ESB he tells Luke, "Only a fully trained Jedi Knight, with The Force as his ally, can conquer Vader and his Emperor." Clearly he intended for Luke to kill them both, or, perhaps, to completely subjugate them. Yet if one watches ESB carefully, Luke only trains with Yoda for ONE DAY. To be sure, Yoda implores Luke to complete his training, but it's nowhere suggested that that training could take decades. (I figure that Obi-Wan was 27 when he was knighted, and assuming Anakin was a knight for less than a year, then he was 23.)

In ROTJ Yoda merely tells Luke he "must confront Vader." A few minutes later Luke says to Obi-Wan, "I can't kill my own father." Obi-Wan tries to change his mind. Putting this all together, it's clear that Yoda's intent was for Luke to kill Vader and the Emperor in ESB and while it's possible he had a clearer view of the future by the time of ROTJ and saw that Luke only needed to "confront Vader," "confront" is still consistent with the previously stated desire for Luke to kill them. Obi-Wan says nothing specific in ESB (or ANH for that matter), but he silently assented when Yoda talked to Luke about "conquer[ing] Vader and his Emperor" and tried to change Luke's mind in ROTJ when Luke balked at killing Vader. His exact words were, "Then the Emperor has already won."

While it's extremely doubtful that GL had come up with the idea that candidates were inducted into the Jedi Order within their first year of birth, it is clear that Luke was beyond the normal age of acceptability and that, while it might not have taken decades to train a candidate to knighthood, it took longer than a single day.

Thus, in the OT both Obi-Wan and Yoda wanted Luke to kill Vader and the Emperor. What's less clear is how they expected it considering the pitiful amount of training Luke received, and late in life (even by OT Jedi standards) to boot!

The truth is that GL was probably being careless here, as he, unfortunately, often is. We fans are the ones who have to fill in the details. Taking up this challenge, I do have one potential answer. I'm in no way saying that it's THE answer, but it might be adequate. In Slinter of the Mind's Eye, Luke tells Vader that, essentially, Obi-Wan has possessed him. In other words, Luke is the vessel for Obi-Wan to act through from the Netherworld. Before dismissing this as meaningless EU, please consider the following. Obi-Wan tells Vader in ANH that, if he's struck down, he'll become more powerful than Vader can imagine. After he ascends, he continues to speak to Luke, and it's implied that he helps Luke destroy the DS. In ROTJ, he tells Luke, "Yoda will always be with you," and at the end of the film, all three Jedi Spirits appear to Luke. So it could be that, once they had created a connection, Obi-Wan and Yoda could direct Luke. Finally, in ESB Obi-Wan tells Luke that if he abandons his training to confront Vader, he "cannot interfere," which implies that he otherwise could!

In conclusion, the purpose of Luke's training was to make him a vessel through which Obi-Wan and Yoda could act to "conquer Vader and his Emperor." Reading backwards (forward) to the NT, Luke is the offspring of the Chosen One, so he would be a very pure vessel though which Yoda, Obi-Wan, the rest of the Jedi Council, Qui-Gonn, Cin Drallig, Padme, Nute Gunray, Jar Jar, etc., could act. He just needed enough training to establish a Force connection to make these possessions possible.

 

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I have always thought of luke as the ultimate idiot-savant of the jedi.

He is able to flat out defeat vader one on one in rotj with only a few years experience and very little and only paritally complete training.

Give him a few more years even without complete training and he'd wipe the floor with the emporer and vader at the same time.

Luke is every hero in every myth all combined with all the luck and power of 'whatever gods' on his side at once.

Everything always goes his way, he's ridiculously powerful, spiritually innocent and very lucky.

Truly Luke might be the all time prototype of the mythical hero, Joseph Campbell thought so and i tend to agree.

 

One word answer: Patricide.

That was why they let him keep his father's name 'Skywalker' because they knew that Vader would only allow himself to be defeated by his own child.

 

How simple it may seem, it is my thought on it too. I don't agree that Luke would become more powerful than OBW and Yoda combined. At least if we look at the movies, he is nowhere near their strength.
Luke, and Leia, was their last hope! There were other prosepects I'm sure, so why just Luke and Leia? As you say, because they were Vader's children. Through them, Vader could see his wife and his former life.

 

Luke was trained and sent to kill Vader. I believe they would have told him who his father really was after they thought he was ready. I also believe they did not think DV would either put two and two together about Luke or that he would tell him. By telling Luke he demonstrated that the dark side was not purely entrenched within him. I believe that the two of them were certain that the empire would be destroyed if vader was destroyed. he was the chosen one after all.

what is so great about the whole thing is Luke stumbles upon a special solution to that problem. he is supposed to kill vader. he says he wont kill vader. but vader has to die. and he does but not by the "rules" but by luke being the key. luke was the key to the problem all along. it is just another example of old school hubris when the force is concerned.

 

Plus, I think Yoda wanted to raise a jedi -- and he knew Sidious would try to turn Luke, not just kill him. This is a mental duel between the jedi and sith for the future, physical fighting isn't going to win anything, when Sidious has all those armies.

 

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda believed that both Luke and Leia were their last hope in undoing the evil that had been done. Leia was the last hope to restore peace, justice, and "freedom to the galaxy". On the other hand, Obi-Wan and Yoda believed that Luke was the last hope to bring forth the Return of the Jedi.

 

RedHanded_Jill posted:
Luke was trained and sent to kill Vader. I believe they would have told him who his father really was after they thought he was ready. I also believe they did not think DV would either put two and two together about Luke or that he would tell him. By telling Luke he demonstrated that the dark side was not purely entrenched within him. I believe that the two of them were certain that the empire would be destroyed if vader was destroyed. he was the chosen one after all.
what is so great about the whole thing is Luke stumbles upon a special solution to that problem. he is supposed to kill vader. he says he wont kill vader. but vader has to die. and he does but not by the "rules" but by luke being the key. luke was the key to the problem all along. it is just another example of old school hubris when the force is concerned.

Excellent breakdown!!!

What is interesting about the concept of Truth in the Star Wars saga is in its layers, in its "certain points ov view." If you observe the dialogue in the movies closely, the Jedi are doing a lot of lying, whereas the Sith are actually very honest.

Immediate examples are Obi-Wan and Vader.

Luke first learns about his father from Obi-Wan, who describes Anakin Skywalker as a Jedi Knight and a war hero who was betrayed and murdered by Darth Vader. Now, in a very literal sense, Old Ben is obviously lying. Vader couldn't have possibly killed Anakin Skywalker, because Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader are the same person, so But as Obi-Wan put it "Luke, you're going to find that the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." Hence, Obi-Wan presents the information to Luke in a way that he can readily accept it.

Would it have been better if Luke had learned the truth from the beginning? Consider how he took the information when Vader revealed it to him. It was emotionally devastating, not only to learn that his father was Darth Vader all along, but that his mentor had lied to him. Vader reveals the truth in this situation not to enlighten, but to purposefully devastate emotionally and cast doubt.

Now on the side of the Jedi, Luke is told Vader is an irredeemably evil machine-monster and that he must confront/kill Vader in order to become a Jedi Knight and bring freedom to the galaxy. On the side of the Sith, he has his father that he never knew offering him another, different path.

The beautiful thing about Luke in this case is that he follows his own truth.

Anakin may not be the ideal Jedi hero that his mentors made him out to be, but he wasn't the irredeemable half-machine monster they make him out to be, either. Luke clings to this truth not out of reason or observation, but on faith. And love.

 

If you mean bringing aboutthe return of the jedi in the sense of killing anakin and the emporer then i agree.

If you have been "drinking the Kool-Aid" to the point where you now think the meaning of hte title "Return of the Jedi" means Anakin turning back then i have to dissagree completely.

Yoda and Obi-Wan didn't think for a second that there was any chance of saving Anakin, he said so himself in ESB.

"Forever dominate your destiny. Consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice."

Doesn't mean "you'll turn evil till your son causes you to turn back", it means you'll be evil forever.

This is pretty clear.

EDIT:

To the poster above who argues that luke is no where near as strong as yoda or obi-wan i suggest watching the movies again with your eyes open this time. hehe, that's a joke btw.

The reason I would reject that notion is that with nearly no training at all luke is at least obi-wans demonstrated superior and probably already yoda's superior at the time of RotJ.

When the force decides you are it's choosen vessal to complete a mission you get vaulted to the top of the power charts, beyond everyone.

luke flat out beat vader, post mustafar, something obi-wan did not do because he couldn't do it in episode 4. If he could have killed vader he would have.

Vader did not let luke win, that would be bad writing and i simply reject the notion based on the fact that inspite of Lucas' many character flaws he's an excellent writer.

 

the jedi and sith do a lot of lying. but the sign of a great liar is one who tells as much truth as possible so as not to get caught in a lie. (this skill goes way back. in high school kids would pay me to make up stories for them to tell the parents.) but its not lying. its only telling what is necessary but telling as much truth as possible. the sith are evil and when they "lie" we dont hold it against them because we expect them to lie. the jedi are "honorable" so when they "lie" it is so much worse because heroes dont lie.

just dont tell odysseus (the greatest literary hero) about lying. i mean when the goddess of wisdom thinks you lie well, you know you are freakin awesome.


M, i agree. GL screwed it all up. his writing is atrocious and juvenile. the muse he had with the OT, which is almost perfect, left him soon after. joseph campbell god rest your soul.

 

Fat_Bird, what you say is true... from a certain point of view, but this discussion is in light of the saga as it stands. I take it for granted things changed as the story went along, starting with ESB.


But then again, OBW didn't kill him. He had the perfect opportunity, but he left it up to the will of the force.

I've heard this before, but don't accept it. I think two things happened: 1) Jedi don't kill anyone who is helpless. We learn this in the Dooku duel at the start of the movie. Anakin was helpless. (2) Anakin was already dying. He was trapped on a volcanic planet with no help, three missing limps and he had caught fire. Had the Emporer not got there in time, he would have died. Obi-wan didn't need to strike him down to finish the job (or so he thought). Plus, Anakin was his friend, and he couldn't bring himself to deal a death blow.

 

My 2 cents:

The Jedi had been extinct for 20-30 years to the point where it was known as an "old religion." Vader wasn't exactly at his peak of sword fighting, I mean how could he be? He wasn't fighting Count Dooku types during that time period. The Empire had a tight grip on the universe, all Vader had to do to people was use force grip. It's easy to believe that he had gotten rusty. The same can be said for Yoda and Obi-Wan. It's not like they were training their sword abilities while in solitude.

Ultimately, sword ability doesn't even matter. Sure they could have probably teamed up and killed Palps. But I think that the key to taking him down wasn't in besting him with a sword fight, but rather to bring him back from the Dark Side and using him to defeat Palps. And to bring him back they needed Luke to remind him of his former life. Neither Yoda nor Obi could do that.