Did Obi Wan tell Luke a pack of Lies in ANH?

[Dave]

We already know that Obi Wan lies to Luke in ANH at least once:

LUKE: How did my father die?
BEN: A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader was seduced by the Dark side of the Force.

But there are a few more things from Episode IV that I find hard to believe will be possible when we see Episode III:

BEN: Obi-Wan Kenobi...Obi-Wan? Now thats a name I haven't heard in a long time...a long time.
LUKE: I think my uncle knew him. He said he was dead.
BEN: Oh, he's not dead, not...not yet.
LUKE: You know him!
BEN: Well of course, of course I know him. He's me! I haven't gone by the name Obi-Wan since oh, before you were born.

So, before Luke is born he stops calling himself Obi Wan and changes his name to Ben Kenobi.

BEN: I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damned-fool idealistic crusade like your father did.

So, Anakin wanted Luke to have his own Light Sabre? And he asked Obi Wan (who had now changed his name to Ben) to look after it. Yet, he forgets all about his son soon after this, and Ben hides him on Tatooine.

I am amazed that the film series holds up as well as it does actually, but something is going to be wrong there. Either that or Obi Wan was really laying 'Your father was a great Jedi' at little thick in that scene.

[Diamond9697]

okay...the part where he explains about Vader killing his father I have always explained away by saying that it was true in a sense at least...Darth Vader did kill Anakin Skywalker for all intents and purposes. It just happened that it was the same person. As for the rest...well...guess we just wait and see.

[HeyLynny]

Great detective work Dave! I'm sure we'll all find out the answers in ep III. The hardest part is just waiting!!!!!!

[Boranon]

*heavy breathing*

Yea, I kind of always have thought that myself that once Anakin Falls to the Dark side of the Force and Darth Vader is 'born' Anakin dies. So in a way Darth 'kills' Anakin Skywalker. :evil:

[timdgreat]

well i think that perhaps it wasnt that Vader forgot about his sun, just that he didnt know where he was:rolly2:

[Rodders]

I've always seen it this way.

Perhaps Ben considered Anakin dead when he struck him down? He wasn't expecting Vader to survive. Whilst Vader was recuperating and the Death Star being built no one would of heard of Vader for a long time. Particularly in a back waters planet such as Tatooine. Ben then went into hiding to protect Luke from the Emporor rather than from Vader. As for his story, well he and Anakin were close. Maybe he didn't want to tarnish Anakins name because of the bond they once shared?

[Dave]

Ben would have felt the ongoing presence of Anakin/Darth Vader. He and Yoda would have gone into hiding to survive what was coming, nothing more. You really can't defend Lucas on this, he just decided to change the story and make Ben into a compulsive liar, but look at it this way, would Luke have gone with him if he had known that it was his father who had wiped out his whole family.

[Cayal]

Anakin is dead when Sidious named him Lord Vader.

[C Of K]

I think it was imperative to Obi's cause that Luke see his father as a hero. He had to turn Anakin into more than just the pilot that Luke knew him as. He had to give Luke someone to emulate.

Luke had respect for Ben, but he wouldn't want to live the life of some strange old hermit from Tatooine. I think Obi lied in order to push Luke in the right direction.

Anakin never meant Luke to have his lightsaber, because he didn't know about Luke. Notice how uncomfortable Obi Wan looks while telling Luke how Vader killed Anakin.

But, Obi was human. I've never actually read, or seen, or heard anything stating that jedi weren't allowed to lie. Ever. To anyone. Because they're our heroes, some people imagine that the jedi moral compass is supposed to point north according to our own view of morality (whatever that may be) but Lucas has never been so specific regarding such matters.

I have no idea what his view of lies and lying really is, but I personally think Obi lied to Luke.

[The Ace]

He was speaking metaphorically and trying to condense a lot into a few sentences. I'll go with metaphors but not outright lies.

[Moonbat]

He had gone slightly senile by that time, living on his own in a cave on a desert planet for nearly two decades.

Actually the passage of time isn't well defined in SW. How long does a year last on Tattoine? Surely years are different depending on the planet you are on? Was there a great galactic standard year, 1 orbit of Curascant (sp)?

[Scifi fan]

First of all, Ep IV was written and produced before Ep I-III, so there would be that inconsistency. That said, I think Obi-Wan is weaseling when he said, in Ep VI, that he was correct, in a manner of speaking, to say that Darth Vader killed Luke's father, Anakin.

[Dave]

Everybody check the date on this thread please. I wrote it before Ep III. I wanted to know 'how' Lucas was 'going' to resolve that inconsistency. He didn't, Ben does lie, but I agree with C of K that it was imperative that Luke thought of his father as a hero otherwise that would have been the end of the story.

[w-three]

Well, heres my two pence:

1. I think Obi-wan preferred to consider anakin dead, than as Dark Vader, so it was a mental block for himself. Obi-wan couldnt bring himself to think of Anakin, his friend as this mass murdering sith.

2. The thing is, he has to think about when he was last called obi-wan, and to be fair, it was only slightly after he was born. So its not too much of a problem. Plus, you could see it as a matter of, when the Jedi were hunted down, Obi-wan was no longer Obi-wan, he was ben, he was in hiding.

3. This I think, is something of a white lie. Rather than just say "I pinched this off your dad's body", it was a lot more ceremonial for Luke to think he had inherited through kindness.


Alot of this ties into why Obi-wan let himself die, its all part of luke growing up to become a Jedi and bring balance to the force. Obi-wan needed luke to hate vader, to want to defeat him, and not to think of his father as a corrupt individual. Its not a great way to start your journey to the Jedi is it? "Yeah, your dad turned evil, and I cut him up". It was a white lie, intended to help Luke become a Jedi.

[PTeppic]

Originally Posted by w-three

2. The thing is, he has to think about when he was last called obi-wan, and to be fair, it was only slightly after he was born. So its not too much of a problem. Plus, you could see it as a matter of, when the Jedi were hunted down, Obi-wan was no longer Obi-wan, he was ben, he was in hiding.

Given it's c.20 years since he appears to have renounced his Jedi named and "become" the weird loner "Ben Kenobi" it would seem on the surface to be a valid point that he got the date wrong by a few months. Except that, his whole purpose for being on Tatooine (apart from evading capture) was to keep a watch over Luke's growing up. He knew who Luke was from the outset, so he's kept tabs. And, at the end of the day, it was Luke and Leia's births which prompted that life-style commitment. Personally, I think it's one of those lines which they simply couldn't get round in EpIII without a little cough and an "er, bad memory?"