After the end of the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan retreated to Tatooine with the infant son of Anakin Skywalker. The plan was to hide the child for his protection, but Obi-Wan may have had a completely different plan rolling around his Jedi mind — one that could have put Luke in harm’s way as a means of luring Darth Vader in for a fight.
During the course of the war, Anakin Skywalker secretly married Padmé Amidala. The secrecy was entirely necessary as Jedi Knights were forbidden to have any kind of personal attachments, including family. That’s why Anakin had to leave his mother, Shmi, behind on Tatooine when he joined the Jedi Order. It was something all younglings went through, which one would have to imagine was a rather traumatic experience for a child.
Click the button below to start this article in quick view.
If hiding a secret marriage wasn’t stressful enough for Anakin and Padmé, she also became pregnant during the course of the war. This only compounded the situation as it became more and more difficult to hide Padmé’s pregnancy from other Jedi and the Senate. But Chancellor Palpatine played on the fear and insecurities in Anakin, using it to turn him to the Dark Side and become Darth Vader.
After the end of the Clone Wars and Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side was complete, Bail Organa took Leia to Alderaan and Obi-Wan headed to Tatooine with Luke. There, he hid Luke with his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru on their moisture farm. His hope that Luke and Leia would grow up to take the fight to the Empire, which they did, but there might have been more to Obi-Wan’s plan.
Tatooine was Anakin’s homeworld. It was where Qui-Gon discovered Anakin, and it was where Anakin slaughtered a tribe of Tusken Raiders and buried his mother. Saying he had a deep connection to Tatooine would be an understatement, to say the least. As such, this raises more than a few questions as to why Obi-Wan would choose this world among thousands of others as a place to hide Luke.
Giving Obi-Wan the benefit of the doubt, Tatooine was a sparsely populated Outer Rim backwater that no one in the galaxy gave a womp rat’s fart about. But the Force moves in mysterious ways. Both Luke and Obi-Wan were strong with the Force and Vader was deeply connected to them. As such, there was always a chance that he could have sensed them there.
If Obi-Wan’s true intentions were for Luke to stand up to his father at some point, then he should have started training Luke much sooner. That’s why it makes more sense that Obi-Wan may have been using Luke as bait to lure Darth Vader into some sort of trap. Perhaps Obi-Wan wanted to face the Sith Lord on his own terms instead of Vader’s. After all, sit and wait just doesn’t seem like an Obi-Wan plan.
As a powerful Jedi well trained in the Force, Obi-Wan must have known that there was always a chance that he and Luke would be discovered by Darth Vader or one of his emissaries. If Maul could find Obi-Wan, Vader certainly could, too. Leaving Luke in the open had the potential to create an opportunity to bring Vader back to Tatooine and for Obi-Wan to finally defeat him.
Even if that was the case, the Force had other plans. Princess Leia Organa came looking for him, drawing Obi-Wan into an open conflict with Darth Vader that he was not prepared for. Obi-Wan died on the first Death Star and Luke continued his training with Yoda. But if Vader had followed the Force to Tatooine and faced off against his old ally, the galaxy may have looked a lot different.
About The Author