# Why was it unexpected that Darth Vader would tell Luke he is his Father? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [August 1, 2020, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016 "2020-08-01T20:16:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2020, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/41 "2020-08-02T16:48:21Z")
“Terrible stench, this is. Deal with it, you must.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2020, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/42 "2020-08-02T16:55:26Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Terrible stench, this is. Deal with it, you must. “You don’t want to sell me death sticks.” "…I don’t wanna sell you death sticks.” “You want to go home and rethink your life.” "…I wanna go home and rethink my life.” “You’ll take up babysitting, change some diapers…” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2020, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/43 "2020-08-02T17:33:31Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > …Sometimes, it’s better to hide under the porch than to hide in the woods. Dug would definitely agree: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui9Mm63zpfE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui9Mm63zpfE) ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2020, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/44 "2020-08-02T18:15:32Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I like to point out when people say “you can’t spoil a X-year-old movie/TV show” that, just as the [XKCD comic](https://xkcd.com/1053/) noted, there are always younger people coming up in the pipeline who have not yet experienced the thing in question. That’s a good point, but I think there’s a statute of limitations for such things. As the years and decades go by, the average person bears less and less responsibility for protecting spoilers in casual conversation, particularly when the spoiler has already infiltrated popular culture the way “I am your father” has. _Citizen Kane_ was released almost 80 years ago—should I watch my mouth when talking about the ending of that movie? Charles Schulz famously [put the spoiler into a _Peanuts_ strip](https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1973/12/09), and that was back in 1973. Sure, if I’m recommending the movie to a friend to hasn’t seen it, I’ll won’t mention the ending. But if I’m chatting with film fans on the internet, I’m not going to worry about it. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2020, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/45 "2020-08-02T18:32:08Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > “Hiding” him with Skywalker relatives on the same world where Vader grew up, with Obi-Wan just down the road still under the same freakin’ last name by which Vader knew him when both were Jedi knights, was _stoopid_ with two O’s. There’s no way around it. There had to have be plenty of dependable families (like the Organas) with whom baby Luke could have been safely left, discreetly guarded by Obi-Wan, both under assumed names. I vaguely recall something—maybe in one of the novelizations—about how Luke and Leia had to be separated to make them harder to find … something about how having two Force-sensitive siblings together would make them more noticeable to somebody like Vader. I may be imagining that, though. I don’t know why Leia got the privileged upbringing, while Luke had to go to miserable Tatooine. Personally, I think the safest move would be to put them on different but equally obscure planets. Vader didn’t know about the kids, but if he had, I think he would have assumed that as the children of two VIPs, they would be living in luxury and going to private schools and getting new cars on their 16th birthday and all that stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2020, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/46 "2020-08-02T20:30:54Z")
> [@Galactus](#): > > If Obi-wan was going to stay on the same planet as Luke why didn’t he just raise him himself and train him the whole time? I got to figure, after watching his best friend murder everyone he knew and destroy everything he valued, Obi-Wan didn’t want a kid getting in the way of his planned ~10 year bender. Hell, maybe he’d already started, which is why he thought hiding on Tatooine would make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2020, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/47 "2020-08-02T20:54:48Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Obi-Wan didn’t want a kid getting in the way of his planned ~10 year bender. That must have been one hellacious Leaving-Las-Vegas level bender to age 30 or 40 years in one decade. I always figured Yoda was sapping life force from his underlings to extend his life span. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2020, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/48 "2020-08-02T21:04:38Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > Maybe so, but I like how Alec Guinness gets a shifty, evasive expression when Luke asks “How did my father die?” Obi-Wan looks like he’s thinking, “Oh, shit, I wish he hadn’t asked me that. Well, I hope he buys this bullshit story I’m about to feed him.” It may not have been planned that way, but it works. That is a slight misinterpretation of the scene. Obi-Wan was not, in his own mind, making up a bullshit story. He may have paused for a moment to consider what to say, but what he said was the truth, as he saw it. Darth Vader was not the Anakin Skywalker that Obi-Wan knew from earlier days, even though the body was mostly the same. He had killed Anakin in a metaphorical sense, destroying the previous person and replacing him with a monster. It is just like the way the tarot card Death is not interpreted as mortality but as transformation. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2020, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/49 "2020-08-02T21:10:30Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > That must have been one hellacious Leaving-Las-Vegas level bender to age 30 or 40 years in one decade. I always figured Yoda was sapping life force from his underlings to extend his life span. Give him a break! Tatooine has moisture farms, not moisturizer farms! (Also, Guinness was 62 when he filmed Star Wars - which is pretty close to how old Obi-Wan should have been in-universe. Figure that he’s 18-20 in Phantom Menace, early 30s in AotC, and late 30s by the end of Revenge of the Sith - 20 years later, in Star Wars, he’d be maybe mid fifties at the youngest, 59 or 60 at the oldest.) ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2020, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/50 "2020-08-02T23:16:53Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > I think we all know all this. It’s just that some find the Doylist perspective less fun and interesting. 😛 Fair enough. As pastimes go, it’s benign. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/51 "2020-08-03T00:48:36Z")
> [@Galactus](#): > > If Obi-wan was going to stay on the same planet as Luke why didn’t he just raise him himself and train him the whole time? Just spitballing here, but; - He wanted to make sure Luke would grow up to be the kind of person who could handle the responsibility of wielding the Force - He was waiting for a sign that the time was right to train him - He didn’t believe one Jedi, even the son of Skywalker, stood a chance against the Empire - He felt responsible for Anakin’s fall and didn’t trust himself to take on another student ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/52 "2020-08-03T01:02:15Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Luke is a teenager - he’s going hear “Confront” as “Fight” - and he already wanted to kill Vader for several reasons. By ESB, Luke isn’t a teenager; he was 19 or 20 in Star Wars, and a few years have gone by. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/53 "2020-08-03T01:08:31Z")
Well, and the other point was that Tatooine was one of those shithole planets, featuring wretched hives of scum and villainy, so why would Darth Vader even want to go there? He grew up there, got the hell out and never looked back. He was on the imperial thingy that captured Leia in the neighborhood and could have gone down there and personally supervise rooting out the droids, but, what, go back there again? Eww. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/54 "2020-08-03T11:32:05Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Twenty million **quatloo** award […] in **the gamma quadrant** ISWYDT! 🖖 ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/55 "2020-08-03T17:32:33Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Well, and the other point was that Tatooine was one of those shithole planets, featuring wretched hives of scum and villainy, so why would Darth Vader even want to go there? He grew up there, got the hell out and never looked back. He was on the imperial thingy that captured Leia in the neighborhood and could have gone down there and personally supervise rooting out the droids, but, what, go back there again? Eww. Christ, even when he was a Jedi, he couldn’t be bothered to go back to Tatooine to rescue his mom from freaking slavery until the Force started punching him in the head about it ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/56 "2020-08-03T18:03:02Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Similarly, in the [“What a piece of junk!”…“I made a lot of special modifications myself”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrx24jofi0w) exchange, Obi-Wan is giving a massive eye-roll when Han delivers that last line. That’s a legitimate LOL here. It seems like such a modern expression, not one from a long, long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/57 "2020-08-03T18:10:18Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > > [@MEBuckner](#): > > > > Similarly, in the [“What a piece of junk!”…“I made a lot of special modifications myself”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrx24jofi0w) exchange, Obi-Wan is giving a massive eye-roll when Han delivers that last line. > > That’s a legitimate LOL here. It seems like such a modern expression, not one from a long, long time ago. Guys have been bragging about their rides for a _long_ time. “Look at the fetlocks on ol’ Blaze; I trimmed them myself!” ---
**Author:** ![Powers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/58 "2020-08-03T18:34:47Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Obi-Wan is giving a massive eye-roll when Han delivers that last line. He’s actually looking up at the _Falcon_, but he’s definitely doing it skeptically. Powers &8^] ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/59 "2020-08-03T18:38:35Z")
“Bah! In _my_ day spaceships were all SHINY! _Ooh, it’s a ‘distressed’ starship! It’s ‘grunge’!_ Bunch of beat-up-looking old JUNK if you ask me!” ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2020, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016/60 "2020-08-03T18:41:58Z")
[quote=“erysichthon, post:44, topic:917016, full:true”] [quote=“SlackerInc, post:33, topic:917016”] Charles Schulz famously [put the spoiler into a _Peanuts_ strip](https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1973/12/09), and that was back in 1973. [/quote] Carla gave it away on _ **Cheers!** _ too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-it-unexpected-that-darth-vader-would-tell-luke-he-is-his-father/917016.md?page=4)