Leia's Torture – Superb Timing

[Tolif Espen]

I've been doing some writing about Force sensitivity to reconcile potential inconsistencies and discovered something very interesting.

First, the set-up: Anakin senses his mother's pain in the Tusken camp. Luke senses Han, Leia, and Chewie's torture on Bespin. I wondered what Luke was feeling when Leia was being tortured in A New Hope. Even in his ignorance of his heritage and relationship to Leia, it seems like he should have felt something.

I reviewed the scenes. By coincidence (?), the scene of Vader torturing Leia splices the scenes when Luke rushes home to find the farm in ruins and Owen and Beru dead. This is genius. His immediate grief and agony at the farm would shield any feelings coming from Leia from across the galaxy. One could argue that their pain would augment each other's.

In 1977, I'm sure Lucas wasn't thinking about the Force connection between them and edited the sequence this way to tighten the tension leading to Luke's decision to join Obi-wan. In hindsight, the timing is just perfect.

Another observation: It's never established that the Force is a compass, a geiger counter, or a spiritual version of Wolverine's tracking abilities. The dialog in all six films describes vague feelings and images, not 100% clairvoyance.

[The Lost Skywalker]

There's also that back then, Lucas hadn't decided to make Luke and Leia brother and sister. That was an after thought during Jedi, in all likelyhood. But it interesting, since the editting was done in such a tightened fashion.

[Starkindler (The Naked Jedi)]

Another observation: It's never established that the Force is a compass, a geiger counter, or a spiritual version of Wolverine's tracking abilities. The dialog in all six films describes vague feelings and images, not 100% clairvoyance.

perhaps not established as constant but certainly in essence:

Vader knows Luke is on a specific ship.
Luke knows Vader is on a specific ship.

Luke knew when Vader was on the moon of Endor waiting for him.

Vader kew Obi-Wan was on the Death Star.
Obi-Wan knew (Inferred) that Luke was coming into the hangar bay before allowing himself to be struck (he looks sideways at the area just before Luke comes in)

Luke didn't have to ask where Leia and Han were being tortured...even though he'd never been there.

Anakin took shortcuts in the speeder chase on Coruscant to get ahead of Zam and be where Zam was going to be.

In the novelization of TPM Qui-Gon senses the Sith Droid around a corner due to its unusual force presence...and destroys it.

the EU books have instances of finding people by their Force Presence as well.....though they're not essentially canon.

[kivaanzion]

You guys are missing the obvious one from ROTJ...

Darth Vader: "He will come to me?"

Palpatine: "I have foreseen it. His compassion for you will be his undoing. He will come to you and then you will bring him before me."

Oh and a smaller one: Obi-Wan senses that Zam is sneaking up on him in a crowded bar.

[Tolif Espen]

Of course, Obi-wan went to the bar specifically to casually draw Zam out of hiding as opposed to Anakin's brazen style. I wonder what "I'm going to shoot this guy in the back" feels like through the Force.

[Starkindler (The Naked Jedi)]

Tolif:
On your (very well done) video that bar scene is included. I saw for the first time when I watched it this afternoon that Obi-an not only turns around, igniting his saber, but sharply angles it BEFORE fully turning to neatly slice Zam's forearm off in a very economical motion.

either Obi was just letting the Force guide his hand....or he knew exactly where Zam's arm was without seeing it.....amounts to the same thing though.

[kivaanzion]

We had a bit of a discussion about Force Powers many moons ago. I likened "Force Clairvoyance" to Spider-man's "Spidey Sense"- however it is a little more specific than the "tingling" sensation Spider-man always described.

Qui-Gon briefly described this Force power when he was talking to Shmi about Anakin's podracing ability:

"He can see things before they happen. That's why he appears to have such quick reflexes. It's a Jedi trait."

[Tolif Espen]

And (duh to me) going all the way back to 1977: "I could almost see the remote."

The key is focus. Obi-wan went to the bar and (aside from helping drug addicts) probably went into a near waking trance. Think about it... instead of using the physical senses to search the bar (Anakin's approach), Obi-wan stood in one place and waited. It reminds me of one the greatest moments in the prequels, when Qui-gon immediately drops to medidate when the forcefield separates him from Maul. Obi-wan facing the bar would also elimnate some of the sensory clutter.

"The Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense."

Luke sees Han and Leia while in a deep state of meditation and reflection under Yoda's guidance. Yoda hears Qui-gon from beyond and feels Anakin's pain because he's in deep meditation, in tune with the Force. Therefore, Luke probably wouldn't have felt a thing when Leia was being tortured. I only bring it up because they're twins and Skywalkers and likely to be more connected than most.

I wonder what meditating is like for Palpatine. I remember reading in an EU book about Darth Vader's catch 22. When he meditates and relaxes, it brings him closer to the good side of the Force and he can all but live without his life support. But the Dark Side fuels him. He's consumed by his anger, and it drags him back. Tragic.

[Starkindler (The Naked Jedi)]

in the recent outbound flight book it is mentioned that Palpitane was originally motivated by premonitions of the Yutzen Vong (sp?) and their invasion.......He saw it happening....and Thrawn deduced it happening and so joined him.

[Seda Navilli]

I like to think of the force as the feeling you get when you have tunnel vision, if anyone's experienced it. You don't actually see a vision of things happening, but you rely solely on reflexes and your body reacts to things as if you had seen them. Y'know, being "in the zone", where every action you make is the right one, except if you're a Jedi you have that all the time ;D

I also like the spidey sense idea, especailly with things like the Zam encounter.

[tanzanlinnear]

seda said:

I like to think of the force as the feeling you get when you have tunnel vision, if anyone's experienced it. You don't actually see a vision of things happening, but you rely solely on reflexes and your body reacts to things as if you had seen them.

For me, it's completely the reverse. I can walk through a mall and be able to feel not only where everyone is within a certain radius, but also where they're going to move to, so I'm very adept at darting about in crowds, as I just 'fill the spaces' they leave. That said, 19 years of martial arts study and meditation will do that for you

[Solinbeb Newau]

I don't think it's so much a random thing that Jedi have with their awareness.

Luke could feel when Han and Leia were in trouble, because he'd grown used to being around them and "knew what they felt like".
Anakin could feel his mother being tortured for the same reason.
So, Luke wouldn't have been able to sense Leia's distress, because he wasn't attuned to her (seeing as he'd only known her for a few minutes after birth...he didn't have any bonds formed with her yet.)

Jedi relfexes that Anakin had as a boy were more in the self-preservation area, and like most self defense feelings, they would happen younger.

The premonition of what could or was happening didn't awaken in Anakin until AotC...when he was ready to become a knight.

True foresight didn't happen until he was more or less ready to become a master.

------------

Much in the same way, Vader had become more and more aware of Luke's presence on Bespin during their combat...and it allowed Vader to become more aware of being able to sense Luke.

But, it you look at RotJ, Palpatine couldn't sense Luke all that well...where Vader could. It's a familiarity thing.

[Tolif Espen]

I like that idea of familiarity. Amid the masses of the universe, one person's Force signature would blend right in until you became familiar with it, and then you would be able to pick it out.

Knowing Palpatine the way we do now, I'm sure it really irked him that Vader sensed Luke when he couldn't.

So we have familliarity. How about distance? I like to think of the Force as a Grand Unification theory, like superstrings, in which everything is one and there is no such thing as time and distance, only our perception of it as biological beings. The closer you are to the Force, the closer you are to transcending human trappings. That's why Yoda says, "Size matters not," and "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter."

He would probably say the same about distance. "Distance matters not." In everyday activity when you're not focused, you may miss a Force signature on a nearby planet. But, if you're familiar with that person and are actively seeking it, the distance disappears. Again, this is why it was important to show Yoda in deep meditation when he sensed Anakin's pain and heard Qui-gon's voice. Mace could have heard it, too, but he wasn't meditating at the time. His mind was on the things at hand.

[Solinbeb Newau]

Distance typically shouldn't matter...but, you would have to be actively searching. Yoda was having to meditate strongly mostly because of the distance between Coruscant and Tatooine...not to mention having to feel through any other signitures between the Core and the Outer Rim...not that Anakin isn't a beacon.

Being very familiar would have made it easier to locate, but say, a jedi living on a remote world would find it easier to avoid Vader and Palpatine's senses just due to the fact they wouldn't think about searching there.

Surely Palpatine would have been familiar with Yoda's presence...if he'd considered it, but he never seemed to bother searching for him himself.

[jayden]

I rememeber reading in the Shadow Hunter (Darth Maul) Maul used the force to cloud himself from the force. Even Master Yoda could not see the future due to " Clouded the future is ". So it is possible that a master of their art (light or dark) can use the force or quide it to adapt to each situation. In shadow hunter Maul could sense where his target was pretty close to all the time after he had his/her body signature in tune with his own.

The Emperor was a little over comfidant in his abilities that he clouded him self from seeing what he was searching for. He utilized the dark side to cloud himself from being felt, so that in turn may have clouded his visions of who he was searching for (when he could not sense Luke , when Vader could). Of course with Vader with his midiclorian count being higher than the Emperor Vader could feel and sense more than the Emperor could. Thus far Vader has the highest midiclorian count of any jedi / sith ( over twenty thousand, not even master yoda has a count that high ) said by Obi-wan in ep1. Vader's estimated amount of force 27,500 or so. Luke and Leia midiclorian count is 18,500, with master yoda at 17,000. Vader in turn was the most powerful force user in exsistance. That might be why he could sense when the emperor could not.