At the risk of flogging a dead horse...

Originally posted by: MTHaslett
Lying to Luke served what greater good? Did it prepare him to face Vader? Did it protect Luke?

Any presumption that Luke can't "handle the truth" flies in the face of everything Luke Skywalker does. The guy blows up the fu*king Death Star, I think he can handle an unpleasant truth about his father. Plenty of murderers have children. There is no statistical evidence that killers will have evil children who fall to the dark side. It's nonsense to say Luke is being "protected."

Hopefully, Obi-Wan is not a two-dimensional character. Whether his words to Luke were successful in protecting him or not has nothing to do with whether he would say them or not. At the time of their conversation, Luke had not yet blown up "the fu*king Death Star" and Ben couldn't use that as a judge of what he could or couldn't handle. Most murderers don't have supernatural powers. Even so, wards who are in a position to keep their children in the dark about their parent's wrongdoing often do so. Ben wasn't basing his choice of words on statistical evidence, but on his own feelings, right or wrong.

Ben felt responsible for Anakin's downfall and didn't want to be responsible for potentially leading Luke the same way. Maybe he was wrong to say what he did, but that doesn't mean it was out of character. After all, he'd been charged with watching over Luke specifically to keep him from Vader. Leia's message and it's consequences forced him to tell Luke more than he originally intended, and in the circumstances he would naturally be reticent to divulge all the secrets he'd been keeping for so many years.

Anyway, that's the way I see it.