Author Topic: Why would Lars take in baby Luke?  (Read 9329 times)

Offline Phrubruh

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Why would Lars take in baby Luke?
« on: August 20, 2009, 12:13 PM »
I was thinking about this the other night. What was the conversation like between Obiwan and Owen Lars about taking in Anakin's child? Did Obiwan tell Owen what happen to Anakin? If he did, why would Owen put himself and his wife at risk if Vader found out his son was alive? At the end of ROTS we see Owen and Breu very happy to see Obiwan and accept the baby. What made Owen become so negative towards Obiwan? Why didn't Obiwan just raise the baby by himself or at least setup an agreement to train Luke as he grew up?
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Offline JediJman

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Re: Why would Lars take in baby Luke?
« Reply #1 on: August 20, 2009, 12:32 PM »
I was thinking about this the other night. What was the conversation like between Obiwan and Owen Lars about taking in Anakin's child? Did Obiwan tell Owen what happen to Anakin? If he did, why would Owen put himself and his wife at risk if Vader found out his son was alive? At the end of ROTS we see Owen and Breu very happy to see Obiwan and accept the baby. What made Owen become so negative towards Obiwan? Why didn't Obiwan just raise the baby by himself or at least setup an agreement to train Luke as he grew up?

I'm not sure this has been clearly explained anywhere, but my take on it is this:  Owen & Beru are more than happy to take on an adoptive son.  Maybe they can't have kids of their own, but Anakin is family of a sort and so why not take on his boy to honor Shmi if nothing else?  They obviously raise him/love him like a son despite retaining the aunt and uncle title.  When Luke talks about joining the rebellion or seeking out Obi-Wan, Owen is just pulling the crusty old "stay and help onthe farm" bit to prevent Luke from going off to war.  If you knew the boy you raised as a son was likely heading off to a life of fighting, you'd probably want to keep him sheltered as long as you could.  I don't think Owen is so much negative at Obi-Wan as he is just scared of Luke running off and getting hurt if he knows the truth about his dad.

I brought up the reluctance of Obi-Wan to train Luke over in the Yoda thread, but totally agree with you there.  I don't understand at all why Obi-Wan wouldn't be more involved in Luke's training at a younger age, especially after what happened with Anakin after starting his training so late. 

The other piece I don't understand is why they didn't change his name from Luke Skywalker to something else if they were trying to hide him.  Why not call him Luke Lars until he finds out he is truly a Skywalker?
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Offline iFett

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Re: Why would Lars take in baby Luke?
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2009, 08:57 PM »
The other piece I don't understand is why they didn't change his name from Luke Skywalker to something else if they were trying to hide him.  Why not call him Luke Lars until he finds out he is truly a Skywalker?

Luke Lars?  Do you know how badly he would have gotten teased at school?  Plus he'd have to go through all sorts of legal work to change his last name back to Skywalker.   ;)

Good point though.  You'd think with all of their advanced "everything" in a galaxy far far away that there would be a galactic phone book of sorts showing names on every planet.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: Why would Lars take in baby Luke?
« Reply #3 on: August 21, 2009, 12:46 PM »
Those are good points jedijman. It also makes me wonder why they didn't change Luke's name to something completely different. I know they probably couldn't legally adopt Luke without Imperial social workers asking questions. But here is a Skywalker on Tatooine. Maybe Skywalker is a common name like Smith?
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Offline Jesse James

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Re: Why would Lars take in baby Luke?
« Reply #4 on: August 26, 2009, 03:22 AM »
I think the Lars family took Luke in partly out of guilt...  Anakin's mother passing away was something they maybe felt guilt over, possibly.  Especially with how he went out, alone, and brought her back when an apparantly large search party couldn't even come back alive without her.  He was ultimately family too...  I think they felt they were doing the morally right thing.

Ultimately I think they were well aware of Anakin and what he did/what happened to him.  Owen and Beru both seemed aware by their conversation's seriousness on Luke "being like his father" and all that jazz.
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Offline Jabba the Slug

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Re: Why would Lars take in baby Luke?
« Reply #5 on: August 31, 2009, 09:44 PM »
Don't forget that at this time Obi-Wan thinks Anakin is dead. It isn't till the end of the Dark Lord novel focusing on Vader that Obi-Wan hears Vader is alive. So, to Obi-Wan, it's just a matter of hiding the child from Palpatine. It isn't until later that Vader realizes the kids survived and he has the opportunity to find the children.
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Offline Pete_Fett

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Re: Why would Lars take in baby Luke?
« Reply #6 on: April 19, 2010, 06:00 PM »
I apologize if I'm getting the books wrong, it's either in The Approaching Storm or the novellization for Attack of the Clones that they give the reader insight into the life that Shmi lead with the Lars'.

I'm pretty sure that in one of those two the books, they establish that Shmi loved Cliegg as a husband and Owen as a son, and that Owen loved his stepmother as he would his biological mother. So the bond between Shmi and Owen was pretty strong.

We also don't know how long they had been Stepmother/Stepson - it could have been for as long as seven or eight years.

In some of those same scenes they also establish that Shmi and Beru have a well developed relationship.

And also in the novellization for Attack of the Clones there is a pretty sweet/tender scene between Beru and Padme. (the inclusion of this scene in the movie would have really helped with the whole Beru becomes Luke's mom thing, but that's a mute point)

So for me, I always just rationalized that Owen & Beru took in Luke because they both loved Shmi and Luke is Shmi's orphaned grandson.
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Offline Matt_Fury

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Re: Why would Lars take in baby Luke?
« Reply #7 on: April 19, 2010, 09:28 PM »
It was the AOTC novel.
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Offline Pete_Fett

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Re: Why would Lars take in baby Luke?
« Reply #8 on: April 20, 2010, 01:17 AM »
It was the AOTC novel.

Thanks Matt.

Now that I'm home, I thumbed through the novels a bit.

Those scenes at the Lars homestead before Shmi is taken by the Tuskens take place during the events of The Approaching Storm and during that book, Anakin first starts to have the nightmares about his mother.

I always thought it should have come out that either Sidious or Dooku (on orders from Sidious) was behind the Tuskens taking Shmi. Just like in The Empire Strikes Back when Vader holds Han, Chewie and Leia hostage and causes them agony to draw out Luke, taking Shmi and torturing her was all done to draw out Anakin, bring him to Tatooine and drive him into doing something that would draw him closer to the dark side - just like Ben and Yoda warning Luke that rushing off to face Vader would bring him closer to the dark side.

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Offline Jabba the Slug

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Re: Why would Lars take in baby Luke?
« Reply #9 on: April 20, 2010, 02:46 AM »
I always thought it should have come out that either Sidious or Dooku (on orders from Sidious) was behind the Tuskens taking Shmi. Just like in The Empire Strikes Back when Vader holds Han, Chewie and Leia hostage and causes them agony to draw out Luke, taking Shmi and torturing her was all done to draw out Anakin, bring him to Tatooine and drive him into doing something that would draw him closer to the dark side - just like Ben and Yoda warning Luke that rushing off to face Vader would bring him closer to the dark side.

...WoW! Now that would have been clever. Bravo!
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Offline R5Don4

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Re: Why would Lars take in baby Luke?
« Reply #10 on: June 30, 2012, 10:46 AM »
Those are good points jedijman. It also makes me wonder why they didn't change Luke's name to something completely different. I know they probably couldn't legally adopt Luke without Imperial social workers asking questions. But here is a Skywalker on Tatooine. Maybe Skywalker is a common name like Smith?

I was thinking the other day about this.  Tatooine is very backwater, with not much going on.  Anakin Skywalker the only human to win a podrace would be pretty famous.  Famous enough that a speed freak kid like Luke with the same name would at least have passing knowledge of.  It would have been one thing if Anakin was a great race pilot but not a lot of people knew about it, but no there were thousands of spectators at the Boonta Eve Classic which he won.

Why didn't Obiwan just raise the baby by himself or at least setup an agreement to train Luke as he grew up?

Good point.  It would have made a lot more sense for Obi to raise Luke as his padawan seeing as how young the Jedi take children away to train.