I have contributed to the tangent so my bad if I have derailed things somewhat. I think it did originally tie in to this show, how the last duel in OWK ended, and whether Obi-Wan walking away after defeating Vader makes sense. I don’t believe it does, but that is no doubt influenced by my reading of Ben’s intentions in the OT. If I was to buy in to the notion that killing Vader is just not a jedi thing to do, the resolution in OWK works I guess, but that leaves me wondering if perhaps this was also the prefered outcome in Ben’s mind for ROTJ too: Luke messes up Vader’s suit, says ‘goodbye Darth’ and walks away with a moral victory, leaving Vader free to oppress the galaxy for another decade.
Well, the Death Star explosion would’ve blown Vader up, so I guess he was just hoping the Rebels would do the job for Luke?
That assumption of death why I kind of wanted Vader to shut down his suit/cut himself off from the force temporarily to make Ben think he was dead this time. Just wait until Kenobi is a few light years away before he re-activates and heads back to Mustafar. I would’ve appreciated that trick, to show that Vader is learning more control.
At the same time though, I think it’s out of character for Vader to play dead. I think he’d think it’s beneath him. He’d rather go down fighting as a true warrior and Sith than pretend to die just to live another day.
That’s totally fair and more reasonable within canon. Vader, at this point in the canon, really doesn’t have much of a self-preservation instinct. If he can do something, he will try to do it in the here and now.
If anything, he chilled out a lot by the time R1 and ANH happened. I guess working for an additional decade in the Empire’s equivalent of upper management dulled his madness a bit. Management jobs do tend to soul-suck you a little. It’s my head canon that Vader is so utterly bored and complacent with his life by R1 than he relishes in all the chaos of Scarif, Ben’s return, and Yavin. He feels truly alive again.