Note: This post works as a stand-alone article or as a second part two of Why Were Luke & Leia Not Trained As Kids? Feel free to read that first or read on now.
Too often questions like this get a reaction analog to: “George Lucas meant a different person! He changed it after the fact!”. That is not entirely true. The truth is Lucas had a variety of different ideas during the production of all his movies…and he rejected some and kept some. He had the opportunity to solidify any bit of detail about this “ other” person in Empire, but he specifically chose not to put anything on the official record. Why? To leave his options open. He eventually latched onto, or had the story’s own momentum lead him to, the second jaw-dropping reveal of the movie series: Leia was Luke’s brother and Darth Vader’s daughter. This in no way altered the story’s continuity or reality. This is the only continuity the story has ever known, so the real background of this moment becomes woven into the story.
Now, why did it appear that Yoda had to remind Obi-Wan of the presence of this ‘other”…Leia? Could Obi-Wan really have forgotten, or not realized, there was a second last hope? What happened that left both twins not trained while growing up and one not considered a possibility? The prequels and the events in both A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back point the explanation with just a bit of reasoning to fill the gaps.
The time between episodes III and IV is still hazy, but we were given a good amount of detail in the prequels with respect to Anakin’s twins and, specifically to why Leia was not a focus early on for Jedi training.
It is certainly clear in a A New Hope that Luke was the first choice of Yoda and Obi-Wan. But why? We know from the prequels (and Lucas’ comments) that Luke and Leia are basically equal in Force-potential. This means Leia was not ignored because she was less powerful or anything like that. In addition, it was not simply because she was a girl since the prequels and the Clone Wars series show the Jedi Order was full of women.
We do know that at the end of Revenge of the Sith, these two Jedi Masters were in an excruciatingly difficult position. They had allowed a Sith Lord to take over the galaxy they were charged with protecting. They had been reduced to homeless and poor failures. one large component of this failure were two homeless orphan babies with a very questionable future.
Decisions had to be made, and they didn’t have a lot of time to make them, nor did they have many options. I have read people complaining that they should have found some place to hideaway, raise the kids and train them both for twenty years or so. But two soldiers with no experience raising kids in a cave somewhere would be awful for the kids… and to what end? To force a violent life on innocent kids, hoping that someday they might fix the massive problem that the Jedi failed at? That is all just bad and a horrible way to treat anyone ( one of the problems with the Jedi order, as well, but that is a topic for another time). So, instead, Yoda and Obi-Wan found loving homes for the babies with the hope that, somehow, they will choose to find their own way to the fight and, possibly, be as powerful as their dad and as loving as their mother.
That all took place right after Vader’s emergence. In the years that followed, Darth Sideous and Vader became more powerful. Their empire’s grip was becoming stronger, more violent and further-reaching. Conversely, the ability of the last two Jedi Masters to personally confront Sideous, Vader and their war machine was becoming less and less meaningful.
Luke and Leia were always innocent children, so, deciding whether to drag them into the conflict at any age would be a very selfish action. But they knew one or both needed to be trained early in order to become trustworthy Jedi, or there would always be a risk of either or both of them falling to the Dark Side. In addition to all of that, training either of them might be sensed by Vader and or Sidius. If that happened, the entire weight of the Empire and two powerful Sith would be brought down on the kids. That would easily be the end of everything.
Leia’s situation, specifically, was extra difficult. She was growing up in a wealthy, prominent and very political family in the heart of the Empire. Training her at any point would have been a huge risk. In addition, she was being raised in a luxurious life by good people who loved her. Anything Obi-Wan or Yoda did to start training her would be very disruptive and essentially throwing a little girl with a good life into a deadly struggle.
They appeared to make a decision very early on that that, given the entirety of the situation, Luke was the only real option. The problem was getting Owen Lars to agree. It is clear in A New Hope that Owen knew Obi Wan and his agenda well enough by that point…and Owen didn’t like nor trust him. He wanted Kenobi kept away from Luke.
All of this leads to the situation we see in A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. They were hoping one of them would be led by free will and the Force to be trained as a Jedi. When it was Luke, they went with him and put everything into him. He turned out to be immature, impulsive and headstrong…like his dad.
Yoda realized this, and, we see in Empire, thought is was possibly too late at that point to be turned into someone who would not to be tempted by the Dark Side. This was the same problem he encountered with young Anakin, so many years before, and he was proven right. Luke seemed to prove him right again by rushing off thinking he alone could defeat Darth Vader and save his friends from the massive grip of the Empire. Luke was acting arrogantly, foolishly and focusing only on his bad feelings about his friends and the situation. He was, in the view of Yoda and Obi-Wan, rushing off to be turned to the Dark Side…for the same basic reasons as his dad. They again had failed…or so it seemed to Obi_wan in that moment.
So, in that classic scene when Obi-Wan says that Luke was their last hope, he was acknowledging they had gambled on the son of Anakin Skywalker…and lost.
Yoda, however, wisely focusing on the good, on possibility and on hope, seems to have looked to the potential of Leia. She was already a remarkable and powerful agent of the Force. There was hope in her continued fight. Not as a trained lightsaber-wielding Jedi, which is all Obi-Wan had known, but as her own pure, focused and dedicated warrior of light. She, without their instruction, was already on her way to possibly defeating the evil they had failed to stop. Leia was another in which they could place hope.
