From what we see and are told in the movie, apparently Luke didn’t even try to talk to Ben before going to him in his hut. And that’s just insane for me. We’re talking about the guy who surrendered himself to the Empire to have some alone time with Hitler to try to convince him that he’s actually a good guy.
Luke said that he had sensed some of this during their training, but had to be sure. It really doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that you ask someone about as a primary way of discovering the truth.
I respectfully disagree. To me, trust is the basis for any relationship, and not just romantic ones. So yes, Luke should’ve talked to Ben before anything. Talking to him would also trigger several of Ben’s inner thoughts and feelings that Luke would be able to sense, given the subject of their discussion, and because Ben at that point probably didn’t know how to close his mind from a Jedi master.
That assumption that i bolded is yours. i think the opposite, and I think there is enough in the movie to point to Ben having already been under some level of tutelage from Snoke at that point, that yeah, he probably could close his mind to a Jedi master. The other reason to believe that he could close his mind, is because Luke choose to search his feelings while he was asleep, with the obvious to discern reason that he couldn’t do it as well when he wasn’t asleep.
For one Luke already told us, he sensed the darkness, but if that were the case, that Ben was closing his mind, the film should have told us. It’s the basis for good story telling IMO. Just insert a line, where Luke sensed Ben was purposefully hiding his true feelings from Luke, something he shouldn’t be able to do.