Saturday, October 9, 2021

Obi-Wan Used Emperor Palpatine's Sith Deception in Luke's Jedi Training

The first Jedi training Luke Skywalker received was from Obi-Wan Kenobi, but the major lie his master used to motivate him was a classic Sith technique, and one that Emperor Palpatine valued highly. While Obi-Wan's a master Jedi, he can be rather sneaky, and bends the truth with Luke when asked inconvenient questions. While it's understandable that Obi-Wan wants to keep some details to himself, it turns out that the perspective he adopts to do so is one encouraged by Emperor Palpatine, to the extent that he actually trains Darth Vader to think in the same way.

In Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, Luke asks Obi-Wan how his father dies. The old master responds "A young Jedi named Darth Vader... betrayed and murdered your father." This is revealed to not be entirely true, since Darth Vader is Luke's father and is very much alive. This question is revisited in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi, in which Obi-Wan tells Luke that Anakin was destroyed by his transformation into Vader, "So what I told you was true, from a certain point of view." This confuses Luke, and for good reason. In many ways, this is the same framing a Sith would use to justify a useful lie.

Related: Darth Vader Secretly Attacked The Empire After The First Movie

Star Wars: Age of Rebellion - Darth Vader #1 has the creative team of Greg Pak, Ramón Bachs, Stéphane Paitreau, and Travis Lanham. Within this issue, Darth Vader is forced to follow the commands of an Imperial governor, by order of the Emperor. He is told to obey his every command "to the letter." Although he does not want to, there is a lesson for him to learn - how to subvert orders while following them. In other words, follow the command "from a certain point of view."

Darth Vader follows every order as he was instructed. Gradually, he becomes more and more frustrated with his situation. However, his moment to follow orders in a way that satisfies him does arrive. The governor becomes careless, becoming power-mad with Vader at his disposal, gradually facing his new thrall with more and more dangerous challenges, even withdrawing troops so Vader must fight alone. Ultimately, the governor pits Vader against a huge, crab-like creature residing within an asteroid belt. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't give his command carefully enough, ordering Vader to "destroy the greatest threat you find." Vader angers the crab monster and directs its attention towards the Imperial ship. The Sith apprentice does not take out the governor himself, maintaining technical obedience to the end. Instead, the crab bursts through the ship walls, taking out the governor, whose position inarguably makes him a bigger threat than the alien creature (especially to Vader.)

Vader never disobeys his master; he simply carries out an order from his own point of view, framing the situation to best fit his needs. The Emperor knew that the governor would eventually slip up and that Vader would be able to work in a loophole, seeking to teach him to approach the world from this dishonest perspective. This subversion is exactly how the Sith operate, but the lesson is also one that Obi-Wan passes down to Luke in a less violent and obvious way. He allows Luke to experience his life with certain perspectives in place, before the young Jedi is forced to face the truth from a different angle. If Obi-Wan's argument is to be believed, he never lied - he simply framed the truth in a way that fit his perspective and the galaxy's needs at the time of Luke's early training.

By the time of A New Hope, Obi-Wan has been separated from the Jedi Order for a long time, repeating some of their mistakes while making plenty of his own. That he adopts Palpatine's logic, observing the letter of the truth while ignoring its spirit, shows that he's a flawed teacher, and sets Luke up to discover his own truths and his own moral equilibrium. Luke Skywalker likely wouldn't have expected Sith techniques from Obi-Wan Kenobi, but the Jedi Order of the past kept a tight hold on its adherents, and ultimately his first mentor wasn't above misleading him in a situation where the truth was inconvenient - a decision that would have met with Emperor Palpatine's total approval.

More: Luke Skywalker Mastered a Jedi Technique With His Yellow Lightsaber



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