I don’t know if it’s been covered before, so please let me know if it has…
In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke leaves Dagobah, and Ben says something to the effect of “…that boy is our only hope…”, to which Yoda replies, “No, there is another”.
So Yoda knew this, but Ben, Vader, The Emporer, and Luke didn’t? Is this because Yoda was a Jedi “Master”?
In the Battle of Yavin, Vader could tell “the Force is strong in this one” when trying to shoot Luke down, but he couldn’t tell that the Force was strong in Leia when he was torturing her on the Death Star (in Episode IV)?
If Leia was adept enough for Yoda to think she was another possibility, why couldn’t anyone else sense it? Were the “cinnamon bun” spirals on her head some sort of Force insulator? Maybe Vader should have tried to convert her, rather than Luke- she wouldn’t have been nearly as whiny and would have had a better sense of humor. Not to mention the Sith leather bikini Jedi outfit she’d be wearing…
Perhaps Ben wasn’t around at the birth of Luke and Leia and Yoda gave Ben Luke to put into hiding and never told him about Leia.
Also the whole ‘sensing’ other Jedi may not be done the way you think as now you have to take a blood sample and check for midi-clorines. Yoda knew Leia as the child of Annie and Paddedbra would have a high level of these.
Good question. I seem to remember this being touched upon in one of Zahn’s books, but can’t quite recall. Maybe Vader knew, or could sense it, but wasn’t recruiting at the time (recession?).
NOTE: I’m no expert.
2nd NOTE: The following is fanciful overanalyzing.
Ben probably knew about Leia, but perhaps didn’t think she could be trained quickly enough to be of any use. Maybe those midichlorian thingies aren’t inherited equally [like height, blood type and other physical attributes].
As for Vader not “sensing” it whilst torturing her, I’ll bet you have to be using the force, and before that, actually trained to use it for someone to “sense” it. Like, no matter how strong the Force is with you, until you’ve had a bit of training, no one can tell; then, after training, a little swith is flipped in your brain and only then can someone else can pick up your strength with the Force.
3rd NOTE: I’m probably completely wrong about this and I haven’t read any of the books that further develop the histories. I’m only speculating.
As a Star Wars fan, I shouldn’t say things like this, but I suspect that Vader’s lack of knowledge regarding Leia’s identity may have been due to it not having been made up yet.
As a fan, though, the fact that they decided to hide Luke from Vader by keeping the last name “Skywalker” and bringing him to Vader’s home planet and yet Leia ended up on Alderaan hints that perhaps both twins were not delivered to the same rescuers. So maybe you have a midwife who delivers the twins and smuggles one to Obi-Wan and one to, say, Jar-Jar, to increase the chance of one or both getting out alive. Each could have been completely unaware of the other.
Also, Vader senses Luke’s strength with the Force after Luke is aware of his ability with it and has trained somewhat in it. Leia is unaware that she has ability with the Force, so perhaps this somehow “dampens” it to others.
On the other hand, having all three of them related was kind of a dumb idea from the get-go, so there’s only so far I’m willing to strecth it.
Another thing I was wondering about, in addition to the above: Is there any sort of range in sensing the Force? For example, Luke and Ben when both living on Tatooine, did not sense each other (at least before the 'droids came), but in hyperspace, on the way to Alderaan, Ben felt something, “as if millions of voices cried out in terror, then, silence”.
I realize it’s all fiction, just find it interesting to hear your ideas about it…
We’ll have to wait and see what Ben would’ve known about the twins–he may or may not have known that Leia was Luke’s sister before Yoda told him. Then again, he never met Leia in person in the course of Ep IV; he may have assumed, based on the fact that she hadn’t demonstrated any particular facility with the Force, that she wasn’t very strong.
Vader based his judgement on Luke’s ability to evade the lock on him in the Death Star trench–he didn’t necessarily sense anything, but the fact that Luke kept making just the right evasive maneuvers clued him in. Leia never used any Force powers in front of him–she didn’t know how–so there wasn’t anything for him to sense.
Luke could have picked up on it during the fighting, but he was new to the game, and fairly busy, so that’s excusable.
The range was definately talked about in Zahn’s novels. I think it was the second of the three. Joruus C’boath was a cloned fallen Jedi that Grand Admiral Thrawn used to do work, or whatever. So, what I remember (it was about 7 years ago) from the books is that the amount of ‘force’ strength is relative to the ‘force’ power. Obi Wan was more in tune to the force, so Vader sensed him on the first death star, but didn’t sense luke.
Joruus could help command an entire fleet of ships using the force, and Luke could pick up on it. But because he was a clone, it didn’t feel right, if I’m remembering correctly.
So to wrap up this up, it seems that the force is similar to a radio signal, the stronger it is, the farther away it is picked up, and vice versa. The more in tune with the force or the more training you have will govern your ‘force’ strength. Then there’s those midichlorians that also help with the force… i thought that was a cop-out.
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I suppooose… that if the force is any kind of supernatural force of nature worth its salt, one might argue that besides binding the universe together yatta yatta yatta, it proceeds inevitably toward the end of the film. So plot elements are not irrelevant. Leia wasn’t sensed because the good side of the force was always going to win. And she was given special suppositories by Chewbacca in the Christmas Special, which prevented her from being detected.
So the sensing of the force is a lot like the coloured dye that highlights urine in a swimming pool. If you don’t give out, you don’t get detected.
I like that.
Well, for one thing, Obi Wan DID know about Luke-they were neighbors, and if you read the book, you’d know that Owen was Ben’s brother. Ben did know Luke had the POTENTIAL for the Force, which is why he said, “I had been intending to give this to you, but your uncle wouldn’t allow it,” or something to that effect.