CT Why did it take Darth Vader so long to decide to save his son?

The Emperor starts electrocuting Luke at 5:11 -

It's not until 6:50 that Darth Vader decides to save Luke. Granted it's not completely sustained, but still - how can he bear watching his son being tortured for this long?

If your son was being tortured, would you take this long to save him?

 

Maybe Vader wanted Luke to toughen up. Vader and Palps probably heard about Luke's whining about not being allowed to go to The Tosche Station to play with friends. Dad and Pop decided to make a man outta the boy.

 

Anakin spent more time as Darth Vader during his lifetime. Officially turning against the Emperor was a big choice.

 

He wanted Luke to suffer a little bit. Punk just cut off his hand and lost his lightsaber that one day he hoped to pass down to his grandson.

 

In the PT section a couple of fans tried to convince me that Vader was committed to kill Luke had he not turned to the dark side of the Force.

I feel this to be inconclusive (there is a difference between voicing a threat and actually meaning it) and Vader's hesitation during the climax of ROJ looks like a reasonable explanation to me.

EMPEROR If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed.

The lad has just severed and humbled the dark lord, has revealed his stubbornness and lack of respect for his Imperial majesty and deserves a lesson in humiliation himself > first wave of lightning strikes

EMPEROR Young fool...only now, at the end, do you understand.

Luke is almost unconscious beneath the continuing assault of the
Emperor's lightning.

Assuming that Vader and the Emperor agreed to let him live and go for another try later, the lightning strikes could have been applied to render Luke unconscious > second wave of lightning strikes

EMPEROR Now, young Skywalker...you will die.

Was that still part of their plan? Possible that Vader now realizes that is not what they or he would have agreed upon and acts accordingly, i.e. saves Luke's life.

 

As I remember this scene, I always took it that Darth Vader, having just been pummelled and defeated by his son Luke Skywalker, is momentarily exhausted and still somewhat under the grip of the Dark Side of the Force.

Anakin Skywalker had been encased, entombed even, in that deathly suit for many years after having fallen so far and spent so much time under the Emperor's powerful and merciless influence.

Understandably, considering all the wrong Vader had done in his lifetime, it would take at least a few moment for him to come out of this Dark Side coma, "search his feelings," know the truth, and fulfill his true destiny: the prophecy of the One, bringing balance to the Force.

Luke's earlier repeated invoking of the word father helped prime Darth Vader's mind for the full return of Anakin Skywalker.

As the Dark Side's grip weakened on Anakin Skywalker as he watched what was going on between Palpatine and his son, Anakin's awakening and rebirth enabled him to return to this moment no longer as a Sith steeped in hatred but as a Jedi embracing empathy and compassion, now intent on saving his son.

Once he fully took stock of the situation in his newly awakened state, he mustered what energy he could and sacrificed himself to save his son, who had sacrificed everything to surrender to his father with the hopes of redeeming him.

And then there was redemption, the unmasking of Vader, the restoration of father and son, and the long-awaited Return of the Jedi.

JediMasterRobert

 

As others said, he had been under the grips of the Dark Side for 23-24 years. It's not easy to just shrug it off. That was a big -- and brave -- thing Vader did.

 

Maybe he was waiting until the Emperor was certain that he wouldn't betray him and so he waited until Palps was really into attacking Luke.

 

It did seem a little drawn out, although I can fully appreciate how difficult it might have been for Vader to break away from the dark side: "I must obey" implies a great deal more than following someone because you think they're right.

 

Storm_Cloud

VADER You don't know the power of the dark side. I must obey my master.

Since you did mention it, I can't help but to ask "why"?

What has the Emperor ever done to ensure Vader's everlasting cooperation? Just because he picked up his dying body on Mustafar, told Vader that his wife died because of him and imprisoned him in this mechanical armor for the rest of his physical existence?

It would have been cool had Luke asked "Why". Maybe it was Vader who started to ask this question himself, after all I'm pretty sure there was never a previous situation where he told anybody "I must obey my master".

Maybe the odd ring of this sentence was a wake-up call which he slowly but surely started to take into account.

 

I think it was simply the power of the dark side compelling him to follow his master's bidding - kind of like an uber Jedi mind trick where his free will is subsumed, which is why I contrasted it with allegiance based on approval / respect / gratitude etc.

 

As it started out, the Emperor was just torturing Luke as punishment. Pretty soon, it was clear that Luke was going to die, and that's when Vader started to act on his conflict. Vader had more than two decades of evil deeds under his belt, so redemption wasn't really in the picture up until this point.

 

The reason he waits so long is because it takes that long for Anakin to finally realize that he's wrong and that he loves his son more than he does himself. He's confused the whole time because he had Dooku in a similar position and yet, he killed him in cold blood because he had grown to hate the man. But when Luke had him in that position, he couldn't bring himself to kill his own father. He could sense the anger and hate, but he also felt the love and compassion coming from him. The longer he stood there, the more it became evident that Luke wouldn't give up on him the way Obi-wan had. Then it started to become clear to him that he had the power to save his loved ones all along, but he had chose not to because he had become obsessed with power and it cost him dearly.

So he had all these things rattling around in his head and he had to make a choice. In his mind's eye, he wasn't just seeing Luke laying there. He was see Padme.





At least that's how I like to think it was in his mind.

 

I just noticed - inspired by another poster in the Rogue One thread - that Vader's first "cracks" start to become apparent after Luke arrived on Endor. In all his conversations with the Emperor Luke was simply "young Skywalker":

VADER A small Rebel force has penetrated the shield and landed on Endor.

EMPEROR (no surprise)
Yes, I know.

VADER (after a beat)
My son is with them.

EMPEROR (very cool)
Are you sure?

VADER I have felt him, my Master.

EMPEROR Strange, that I have not. I wonder if your feelings on this matter are clear, Lord Vader.

I'd say the Emperor had been warned but was later caught off-guard.

 

It was a decision between his own life and his son. I have no doubt that he knew saving Luke meant his own death. It's then that he overcomes his selfishness and realizes that he made the wrong choice when he tried to save Padme
"I can't live without her"
It was all for himself. It's at that moment, I think that he realized that. Love means placing another before yourself. And given that it was a choice between letting his son die in agony vs. sacrificing himself to kill the man who ruined his life and imprisoned him to his will, it isn't surprising it took him a moment to choose to defy fate, so to speak
"Luke, help me take this mask off"
"But you'll die"
"Nothing can stop that now"
Acceptance of a lesson Yoda taught him
"Death is a natural part of life"

The ultimate character arc, if you ask me

Sent from my C5155 using Tapatalk

 

i think he just realized the emperor was going to kill luke for real. the whole time before that, vader himself wanted to bring luke in alive but probably at the final moment vader realized the emperor no longer cared about what vader had in mind and he (the emperor) would have had them both killed just to make sure he still survived. at that point he probably realized they were being pitted against each other for no gain for each other while palpatine really was the one to make the decision over who would be accepted. it's not like he probably didn't see the dynamics before (palpatine pitting them against each other, survivor wins, while vader was concerned about just having his son join him) it's just that by the time they got to that point, things became clear and no other resolutions could have been reached other than kill the emperor to save his son

 

Vader sacrificed his life for his son's. Probably not a spur of the moment decision.

 

Because George Lucas wanted him to wait that long before he could do something. The plot demands it.

 

Plot suspense...

 

I concur. Vader was a psychological mess, and he was especially one in ROTJ. He had so many options before him, which I detailed in other threads. However, he chose the right thing in the end.

 

Those beats in which Vader seems inactive are essential in illustrating his conflict with the light and the dark. Turning against the Emperor to protect his son out of sentiment meant turning his back on the dark, which he had been fully immersed in for years at that point. It was a powerful scene, and if Vader hadn't shown some sort of inner conflict before making his decision, the scene would've felt flat and unbelievable to me.

 

He had to say "NOOOOOOOOOOO" first.

 

The surprising thing wasn't that it took him so long to decide, the surprising thing was that he saved Luke at all! He was DARTH VADER! He shouldn't have cared at that point the son of Anakin Skywalker, a son he never knew, a son that was trying to undo everything he and the Emperor had achieved, was about to die. But he yet he did. But in those moments he had so much to reflect on...his past, his family, Obi_Wan and Jedi, Anakin Skywalker...Padme...Luke. But also he had so many years of evil, power, anger and brainwashing keeping him trapped. It was such a great moment and I remember watching in the theatre (2nd night it was showing) the people in my theatre were awesome. Some were yelling out "Save him!" Another guy was like "Luke's gonna die." And when Vader made his choice, the applause was crazy. Ah, good times. I love that scene. L O V E I T