First of all, I’m not claiming that Kane and General Vader were combined into one character in the early drafts. I’m saying that the Vader we ended up getting post-ESB is basically a combination of those two characters.
Second of all, I think it’s very obvious that Lucas is talking about Kane and not Annikin in that quote. He likely mixed them up. As I already said.
“Lucas misspoke?”, he is “talking about Kane and not Annikin”, and “he said that for convenience because he didn’t want to have to go on and explain who Kane was”?
No. Sorry, that just doesn’t work.
Your premise of “Vader was always gonna be Luke’s father” is based on that Lucas quote. Which seems like Lucas being disingenuous once more, possibly misremembering, or caught out lying again, than what you claim it could be. His quote certainly does not hold up well to scrutiny at all, does it?
Plus, it is more like a combination of the 4 characters I listed, not two characters as you state: which I why I suggested you reading the early scripts, the 2014 comic, and also “The Secret History Of Star Wars” book.
I’ll leave it there as your premise of is short on credibility and evidence, and has some stretches and mental gymnastics going on. And I do feel like I am repeating myself. But as I said earlier, everyone is free to believe what they wish.
And if nothing else, on the evidence we have, I’m more convinced than ever after looking this stuff up over time: the scripts, TSHoSW book, Rinzler’s books, this thread, and even Lucasfilm claims: that Vader was never even thought of as being Luke’s father at all, until the time of that 2nd draft of Empire in April 1978.