Originally posted by: canofhumdingers
I think the argument that before the PT all jedi disappeared when they die is completely flawed. When Vader strikes down Obi-wan in ANH, he looks puzzled (well, as much as he can with that mask covering his face) and steps on the clothing as if checking to see where the heck he went.

That is a good point.

In my imagined backstory that I made up when I was about 8 years old and it was the nineteen-eighties, this is what I came up with:

"A young jedi named darth vader killed and murdered your father" - this makes me think that obi-wan's student, Darth vader, was young and inexperienced, and he fell to the darkside before he finished his jedi training, and therefore did not know that when somebody is truly one with the force, as obi-wan was, they disappear at death. Vader thought he was pretty hot shit, but he was a rank amatuer compared to Obi-wan, who truly understood the force, the universe, the way things are. Vader on the other hand gave in to evil and took the quick and easy path.

Of course, that was just a logical backstory based on the info we are given by the OT characters and has no relation to the actual backstory we were given in the PT. My imagined backstory had no 'jedi council' or any of that stuff. The jedi were more like wanderers, travelling around doing good heroic deeds.