I wonder if at any point developing Rotj, George considered making Luke into “Luke Vader” and keeping Anakin a separate character than Darth.
He should’ve.
I used to think so as well. Or rather, that it was possible that that’s what he did (actually, I thought maybe George considered it for ANH and for TESB, but changed it for ROTJ).
In the scenario I’m proposing, they would be two separate characters as well. The difference being that the one who died in the back-story was Vader, rather than Anakin. And Anakin took on the former’s identity. I’m mainly extrapolating and triangulating between Lucas and Kurtz’s statements to get a clearer picture of what I think the original plans were for the OT. And I think ROTJ is when Lucas changed it. I’m aware that the ‘consensus’ view is that Anakin wasn’t Vader/Vader wasn’t Luke’s father until the second draft of TESB, but I think this view has been accepted too uncritically.