Calling yourself “Old Ben” is fine. Saying mean things about someone’s uncle is rude yet necessary. Pretending that you don’t remember your BBF’s old copilot droid is crappy, but saves time. Does that excuse all the outright lies that Obi-Wan Kenobi tells to Luke Skywalker? Maybe if those lies were truly essential to getting the kid to bring down the Empire. But they’re not, so most of those lies (and omissions) are pretty egregious.
Here are a few things that Obi-Wan could have said to avoid the most ridiculous ones. Because let’s face it, most of Ben’s lies are just kind of… ill-conceived.
1. Darth Vader and Your Dad Are the Same Guy, Sorry That Your Dad is Evil
When I’m trying to explain to people how I screwed something up, I always come up with a story—for framing purposes! Let’s say I kind of missed out on preventing a friend’s fall to evil? When I tell that story, I make sure to separate my friend into two different entities; the guy I drank brewskis with, and the fellow I trained who murdered the guy who I drank brewskis with. Two totally different bros. That sounds like a nicer story, yeah?
Okay, there are a few legitimate reasons for not immediately explaining to Luke that Vader is his dad. And telling the kid that Vader murdered a father he never knew is a good way to get him to care about bringing down the Empire. But there are so many ways that this plan could have backfired. Luke could have easily gotten fixated on vengeance. He could have said whoa, that’s kind of freaky, maybe I should sit this one out. He could have decided that he needed to know much more, and grilled Obi-Wan long after Alderaan had been reduced to space dust. Creating this whole goofy backstory about how Vader killed Luke’s dad just reads like a desperate attempt from Obi-Wan to sidestep the unfortunate fact that he is partly responsible for Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side. He’s really lucky that Luke didn’t tell his Force ghost to shove it once he learned the truth on Cloud City.
2. Your “Uncle” and Your Dad Only Met, Like, Once
Doesn’t it seem like one of the easiest ways to get Luke ready for a space-faring journey away from his family on Tatooine would have been to clue him in that they… weren’t really his family? Sure, neglecting that fact is kinder, but it results in Obi-Wan spinning this wild story about how Luke’s Uncle Owen didn’t “hold with your father’s ideals” and told his dad not to get involved in the Clone Wars. Which never happened because Owen Lars is Anakin’s step-brother, and the only time they met was years before Luke’s birth when the prodigal Jedi son returned to Tatooine to find his mother, and ended up returning to the family homestead with her dead body instead.
Owen and Beru Lars have been good guardians to Luke all this time, but they’re not related to him. Obi-Wan could have saved himself a lot of time by just telling the kid that he was hidden away to protect him from the Empire, and now it’s time to step out. It probably would have been a shock still, but at least you don’t have to spend several hours convincing the kid that he doesn’t have to do what his uncle taught him. It shouldn’t be a hard sell to get a teenager away from a life of moisture farming, but Luke is weirdly reasonable for an adolescent (trips to the Tosche Station not withstanding).
3. Here’s Some Background On the Jedi Order and the Empire
This isn’t a lie, but it is a gigantic omission that contains a lot of vital information. This is what you get for being shortsighted and short on time. Obi-Wan (and Yoda too, for that matter) give Luke practically zero background information on the war he’s entering into. It’s obvious why; they want Luke to do something very specific, wiping out the Emperor and his right hand guy. They’re not in education mode, they’re in weapons-making mode. As a result, Luke gets no rundown on the Jedi Order, their downfall, or the rise of the Empire. He gets the micro tale over the macro one — the Empire is the reason your dad is evil. Care about that part.
But the rest of that stuff? Is kind of important for the future that will come about if Luke is successful. If he doesn’t know much about the Jedi, he’s stuck putting the pieces together after the fact. Which could cause all the same problems that led to their destruction and a mega-evil Empire all over again. Case in point? From what we know about Luke post-Return of the Jedi, his whole new Jedi school kinda blows up in his face. When he fails to prevent the fall of his nephew. Does this sound familiar? I feel like I’m repeating myself. I feel like this also could have been avoided if you’d given him some Jedi books from the Jedi library. (I know, they’re gone now. But people have some holocrons of knowledge squirreled away and Yoda was old enough to have a lot of facts stored up that in green brain.)
4. Burying Your Feelings Deep Down is Not a Good Way to Defeat the Emperor
To be fair, this is one of those places where Obi-Wan got so good at lying, he even lied to himself. On a regular basis, in fact. It sort of makes sense, considering the fact that his best friend in the whole universe went berserk and killed practically everyone they knew, younglings included. Problem is, Obi-Wan bought into the Jedi doctrine wholesale, even in the places where it obviously came up short. Insisting that Anakin keep his emotions buried is part of what caused his fall to the Dark Side. His advice seems really even on this account—your feelings are a credit to you, but they might be of use to the Emperor, so just push them way down there—but it’s advice that also goes against all of his former training. Most of Obi-Wan’s first lessons to Luke in using the Force were about “trusting” his feelings and “stretching out” with his feelings. We’re mixing our messages here.
More importantly, trusting those feelings as he was initially instructed is how Luke actually works things out in the end. After burying his feelings until he rage-explodes, the kid finally takes a pause in the middle of thrashing his pops and realizes that he’s gone too far. He takes a deep breath, re-centers himself, and tells the Emperor that he will always be a Jedi—just like his father was. This declaration, along with some previous needling is precisely what allows Anakin Skywalker to resurface and kill the Emperor. If Luke had kept his feelings buried, he probably just would have wound up dead, and nothing would have changed. Emotion was the name of the game.
Of course, the most important lie-by-omission has a lot less to do with the Force…
5. That Princess is Your Sister, DO NOT Spend Time Thinking That Your Sister is Cute
Dude, we’re not in the Dune universe. Mating with your sister to keep the bloodlines pure is not a thing that we do around here. Letting this kid think that the princess in that holovid message is cute, then walking him onto one of the most dangerous weapons in the galaxy to rescue her? Ben, you know how forbidden love works. You’ve witnessed it, this is not funny, do your damn job and tell the kid that the princess is his sister. It’s like you don’t even remember that Order 66 was a thing, or that your apprentice and best pal flipped out when he thought that his secret wife was going to die.
You’ve witnessed enough of the Skywalker family to know that they’ve got some issues around their emotions, you are just setting this kid up to fail, what I’m saying is that it’s your fault that they kiss okay? THIS IS ON YOU, CRAZY OLD BEN. You didn’t even have to say sister, you could have just told Luke that Leia was his cousin! Someone he should feel weird about making googly eyes at. You could have stopped all this terrible confusion and prevented both those kids from needing serious therapy later on. You chose not to do that, Obi-Wan. You should feel bad.
Emmet Asher-Perrin thinks that Obi-Wan should have stuck to what he was good at — snark and flirting with villains. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
All this would have been much more helpful, ha.
Emily, I always love your adapted biography notes and this one has SO much truth:
“snark and flirting with villains” is Obi-Wan Kenobi middle name. I wanted more episodes of him snarking with Ventress, Thank you, The Clone Wars TV show for that!
My dream for Star Wars: An Obi-Wan Story is to have Ewan McGregor come back as Obi-Wan caught up in intrigues between two Hutt factions during his exile on Tattooine in a twisty crime thriller directed by Guy Ritchie, although I would also accept Danny Boyle.
Well, there’s the obvious ‘no fun’ explanation that Lucas obviously didn’t really know the story himself because I don’t think he intended to create Obi-Wan as such a dubious character (still way less dubious than Dumbledore though!).
I always was hoping we’d get more information on 2 specifically – especially now that we have a fresh slate. Did Obi-Wan try to perhaps hang around, and eventually Owen told him to scat and that he didn’t want any of that Jedi nonsense around? He obviously is pretty quick to shut Luke down when he brings up Ben so I do wonder if there is more to that story and about him ‘not holding with his father’s ideals (by which I assume he means Jedi ideals, not Darth Vader’s ideals, lol).
I am not sure that 4 is a lie so much, as Obi-Wan being flat out wrong. I think we may also disagree on the extent to which Obi-Wan is responsible for Anakin’s fall. I think certainly he didn’t help or do as much as he could have (especially given that he seemed to do quite well with the Jedi teachings without turning into a total sociopath so he might have been able to exert more influence on Anakin if he really realized what was going on in time) and there were a lot of other extreme things about the Jedi teachings that may have been a stumbling block to him (Yoda certainly does not give him useful advice). But in a way Anakin IS a demonstration of why those teachings probably arose in the first place (even if they’ve morphed into something dysfunctional by the PT time) – Anakin IS hotheaded, possessive, jealous, clingy (and distressingly close to an abusive, violent boyfriend if the Clone Wars is anything to go off of) and somewhat self centered. Whose fault is that is hard to say – the environment of the Jedi Order certainly didn’t help (I’m not sure anybody could have been qualified to since none of them really have experience with healthy attachment either) but Anakin is also an adult responsible for his own actions.
OMG I laughed out loud at 5 though :)
@3, Yes, please. And please, let there be Falleen in it.
Regarding #4, I’d always assumed Obi-Wan was talking about that specific situation–“at this moment in time, hide your brotherly feelings toward Leia because if Vader or the Emperor get hold of them they’ll use them against you, kind of like they did not that long ago when they set up a trap for you by preying on your emotions toward your friends.” I never took it as a general blanket statement meaning all emotions should be buried forever, full stop.
And really, seeing as how it was Vader figuring out Luke had a sister (through sensing Luke’s emotions) and taunting him with the possibility that she might be more easily turned to the Dark Side (HAHA, Vader, good luck with that, not this princess) that sent Luke into his frenzy … Obi-Wan might have had a point. Though perhaps sticking with Yoda’s “Control, you must learn control!” would have been better. Controlling one’s emotions is not the same thing as burying them, and I think that’s more where Obi-Wan goes wrong.
@6 – true, good point :)
And lets not forget that Obi Wan was really too young himself to be training someone, but Qui Gon’s shenanigans kinda left the council, Obi Wan, and Anakin all in an awkward spot. Personally I agree with #4, Anakin was a bad candidate for Jedi-dom and he came at a bad time for the order, and it all ended badly. I think Obi Wan picked up the pieces as best he could, but he might have been a great Jedi Knight himself but he was not a good choice for teaching someone.
“It’s a trope!” That is, “Elderly Mentor Withholding Info that Puts Disciple in Unnecessary Peril,” which list includes Gandalf and Dumbledore.
Or, we could just admit that Lucas had no plan for anything after Star Wars and was pulling things from his butt from Empire onwards.
The conversation between Obi-wan’s Force ghost and Yoda in ESB implies he doesn’t know Leia is Luke’s sister.
OB: That boy is our only hope.
Y: No. There is another.
Maybe it was part of Leia’s cover story?
#10 — Bingo.
As much as I love me some Star Wars, the whole saga is a sloppily told thing. There was no master plan from Lucas, only a very rough idea, and it led to some awkward places. Really, Leia is his sister? The woman who has been smooching Luke in the past two movies? That woman? You know, George, she still could’ve been the ‘other’ Yoda spoke about in Empire without being in the Skywalker family. Doesn’t have to be a blood related thing. Her spiritual strength alone was enough to be a Jedi.
Did Vader ever realize Leia was the sister before he turned on the Emperor?
Might be some of the reason he does it.
“Dear Force! I had my daughter prisoner on the 1st Death Star and on Bespin and let her go both times? I cannot let the old bat realize how badly I screwed the pooch there!”
@13 It sure would close a lot of plot holes if Leia isn’t a Skywalker, and was switched as a baby to protect the actual daughter of Skywalker. She’s just someone who grew up to be a badass rebel leader all on her own, no Force required.
@10 You nailed it! Lucas had no clue about a greater story than “Peasant come save the Princess from the Dark Knight.”
@13 He also tortures his own daughter on the first Death Star to try and find out where the Rebel base is. It must have been a real OH &&&&& moment for poor ole Vader :)
There is an implicit plot arc towards 4 – not that Kenobi is responsible for Anakin’s moral choices, but the whole arc involving Qui-Gon Jinn’s death and Anakin becoming Kenobi’s padawan. The implication is that this amazingly talented kid was trained by someone barely out of apprenticeship himself, and who possibly focused a bit too much on cool Jedi skills at the expense of all those tedious foundational drills on proper socialization for those with superpowers.
So, of course, the second apprentice gets the mushroom treatment instead…
I…don’t see what the point of #2 is. Owen and Beru have raised Luke since he was a baby; of course they’re his family, and whether Luke should listen to them is a point entirely unconnected from whether they’re his blood relations. And trying to convince him on those grounds strikes me as being much more likely to backfire than not.
luke is always a coward, If obi-wan had told him what the war be like w/ emperor luke would have dug up a hole & hide in there until forever (: Know this about luke skywalker that he is a scaredy-pants!
Hey give Old OB1 a break. After 20 yrs getting baked by 2 suns & having to make conversation with an eopie you start to lose your mind a little.
I would have preferred the following, but it rather blows up virtually every aspect of the worldbuilding:
“Deeds and intentions are not truly independent, young Skywalker. Each one influences the other. Deeds and intentions each draw from both the noblest impulses and the dark side — from a certain point of view. Your friend Solo shot first, after all, and that mess has still not been cleaned up.”
It isn’t so much that Obi-Wan was a “bad mentor” as that the context of his mentorship is so perverse, simplistic, and ideologically correct… starting with the absence of a “Grey Veil of the Force” and going downhill rather rapidly from there. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone who recalls that the original Star Wars concept and script were developed before the fall of Saigon, in the midst of the Cold War.
Yeah, I mean, fun article but half these issues just come down to “Lucas was flying by the seat of his pants”
1. Honestly for as much as people get hung up over this, I think the omission/lie is perfectly acceptable. I mean, do you REALLY want to be the one to tell someone that his dad is the second in command to the utmost evil in the universe and also he murdered a ton of babies? All the scenarios you say could have gone wrong later, could also have gone wrong at the very start if the truth was laid out. So, personally I’m willing to forgive this trope.
2. This one falls square under how shabbily written the prequels are. I like the YouTube video “What if Star Wars Episode I Was Good?” by Belated Media — he does a great job rewriting the prequels in a way that make *sense* in context of the OT. A big change he adds is making Owen’s role much bigger, so that Anakin and he were practically brothers. Thus, it shouldn’t matter if you’re blood related or not, he was still a family figure. (And in all honesty, his videos are my new head-canon, so much so that I tend to forget what was actually in the prequels. A mild blessing)
3. I think that’s more on Luke for not researching after the fact. He didn’t start the war with the intent of reviving the Jedi, so it didn’t matter then. But if after the war he wanted to try, he should have done his own research into the rise and fall of the Jedi.
4. I think “burying” your feelings gets conflated with “control” your feelings. The latter is what the Jedi are supposed to do, they should be able to feel, but should also be aware and in control. The former is what Anakin did which led to him exploding.
5. Again, this just goes to poor writing and retconning.
RE: #5
Not sure why cousin would be a problem? Even in the US, 19 states still allow marriage of first cousins. The view that first cousin marriage is incestuous is actually a rather recent one in the Western world.
George Lucas had an idea about a space “saga”. When he was shooting the first movie, he did not think things through, hence the “lies of omission” and the obvious plot holes you could fly a “SpaceBalls” Mega Destroyer through!
I have to take issue a bit with part of #2. Owen and Beru Lars ARE related to Luke. Owen may be “only” Anakin’s step-brother, but the fact remains that they are indeed brothers. It makes no difference that they have different fathers. Heck, it would make no difference if there was no blood kin relationship at all – they are brothers! Or are you going to try and tell every step-sibling in the world, every adopted child in the world that nope, you’re not family. No family for you here, move along. On that point you’re off-base. As for everything else, it all pretty much falls under the story evolving and changing as Lucas went along, so yes, you’re going to get continuity issues.
The writing of the prequel trilogy is a whole other matter, and where so many of the story issues can be found. But that’s a whole other batch of Bantha poo-doo for another time.
@10: Yes. Every movie released after 1977 was clumsy retcon designed to extract filthy lucre from the unwashed (and credulous) masses. There is only one Star Wars movie.
@6:
I dunno, I tend to think the Emperor, Vader, and the Galaxy might have lucked out that they were dealing with a goofy, too-easily-forgiving farmboy instead of a hyper-competent aristocrat fueled by the emotions generated by getting tortured by her dad, witnessing the explosion of her homeworld and family, being sentenced to death, crawling through sewage, being shot at by TIE Fighters, almost getting blown up by a Death Star, narrowly escaping Hoth Base, being shot at by more TIE Fighters, nearly getting eaten by a space monster, surviving a trip through an asteroid field despite 3720 to 1 odds against, getting tortured by her dad again, watching her boyfriend get turned into a wall hanging, and being sexually harassed by a gigantic drooly slug beast.
“General Dodonna, Senator Mothma: we have good news and bad news. The good news is that Palpatine and Darth Vader are thoroughly, completely, totally, a thousand percent, not even enough left to make up a wisp of a Force ghost dead, and the Imperial Fleet has been told to stand down for negotiations.”
“What?! How could there possibly be bad news?!”
“Well…. The Empress has demands….”
I realize it’s not canon, but if you read Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of the first movie, or his sequel Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, it’s pretty obvious that pre-Empire Strikes Back nobody was thinking (a) Luke and Leia were siblings, or (b) Vader was their father. Even the role of the emperor changed pretty dramatically–IIRC from the novelization he was just a puppet figure, not a true power.
I really hate RetConning for this reason. If everything you think you know is wrong, not because the author originally intended you to be misled, but because he/she wants to do something different with a sequel, it really makes the original storyline feel pointless.
@27 Charles Stross neatly avoids (mostly) the retcon issue by making the narrator of his early Laundry Files books both ignorant and unreliable. Re-reading them now I get to marvel at just how blissfully ignorant Bob is and how little he knows compared to what he thinks he knows. It’s not his fault most of the stuff he doesn’t know didn’t “exist” when the book was written.
“They’re not your real family”? Um. I’ve watched my mother try to locate her birth family – not quite as screwed up as the Skywalkers, but hoo boy – and my son cope with his biological father’s remarriage, and the idea that only DNA makes relation is problematic to say the least.
I think most of these go to the fact that Star Wars just isn’t very well written. Points #2 and #3 could have been solved if the backstory actually had been fleshed out in advance (or if Lucas had been consistent when he wrote the stories for the prequel trilogy.) Point #4 has to do with the fact that the Jedi philosophy/magic system seems to be made up on the fly, which says to me that Lucas wasn’t really thinking things through as he wrote these stories down.
Re “made up on the fly”: I’m so glad we *seem* to be long past that period of sci-fi/fantasy history when we had to sit through such bits of deus-ex-machina info as: “Ah yes, but bear in mind Culture Rule 33 is not–repeat: NOT–in effect during twilight hours on Ganymede, so Dubious Option 87 is now much more than merely tolerable . . .”
[Darn, “fake” dialog is so hard to think up.]
@24 – J. Roberson: Owen and Anakin are not blood related at all. Owen is not Shmi’s child, she just married his father. Anakin and Owen never met until he returned to Tatooine, much less grew up together. There is nothing that makes them actually brothers beyond Shmí being Owen’s stepmother.
Now, Owen and Beru raised Luke, so yes, they’re his family.
Exactly on all points. AND Han shot first.
If you read the original story of Episode IV, which was issued in comic book form a few years ago, you realize how many elements of the story were in flux as the movie was being developed. Lucas was too busy crafting a single movie to think about all the long term implications of everything being said. And while he dreamed of it being part of a longer story, I doubt he considered that having much chance of actually occurring. So I am not surprised at the ‘seams’ that showed up as the story played out in subsequent movies.
I blame Obi Wan’s erratic behavior and uneasy relationship with the truth on too much time in the sun…
I agree that Lucas hadn’t really planned out the whole saga when he did the first movie – heck, who could tell that it was going to be such a huge hit? I would blame him, though, for then saying, “Hey, what if we make Leia Luke’s sister? Then we can have her end up with Han Solo.” Which is a regular trope in this sort of story – as when Harry doesn’t marry Hermione, Ron does, even if the author is now saying maybe she shouldn’t have done it that way. But Rowling, at least, did plan out the whole saga in advance, so there are few, if any, inconsistencies. Even within this series, there are some inconsistencies, such as when Leia says she remembers her mother – perhaps she’s talking about her foster mother, but I don’t think so. And then, in the prequel films, her mother dies in childbirth.
While I did have fun muttering, “Liar!” at Obi Wan on a reviewing, I do have to admit that he probably wasn’t, the author just hadn’t planned and then changed his mind. Obi Wan’s excuse when Luke asks him why he hadn’t told him is pathetic.
Obi-Wan is Merlin. Just as Merlin forgot to tell Arthur that Morgause was his sister (resulting in Mordred), Obi-Wan forgot to tell Luke that Leia was his sister (resulting in Rey?).
@36 I think Rey is way to young to be Luke and Leia’s daughter. Besides I would prefer her not to be a Skywalker, it would be better if it was left a mystery.
Also I just don’t get why there is any kind of problem with Han’s shooting first. Almost always whoever shoots first lives, in the situation he was in he would have been crazy not to shoot first,
@37 sdzald But Han didn’t shoot “first”; his was the ONLY shot :D
@36 Ick. I am going to try to forget that theory. It’s bad enough to have watched them kiss on Hoth.
Whatta ya mean about 5? We wouldn’t have Rey if they didn’t keep it up! I mean can’t you just see them trying to find comfort long after Han disappeared? Add a little too much of that blue stuff served at the Mos Eisley Cantina & boom! a nice late Surprise baby to add to being a lousy master to Ben Solo to make Luke run like a mid-age crisis addled Jedi dropping his little bundle of joy at the 3:00 AM Space Port Orphanage run by Lor San Tekka on the planet Jakku…
What? why else would he have a map to Luke’s Hole in the Wall Bar & Jedi Training Center?
@38 That works for me. Hans life is in danger considering the current ‘scrape’ he finds himself in. Now of course justifying that he is involved in a very unsavory underworld organization might be a hard sell.
Taking out a low life bounty hunter that gets paid if Hans is dead or alive, and not knowing if said bounty hunter has his own gun pointed at Hans at the time, seems like the smart thing to do to me.
Hans:
1,2,3 depend on the prequels actually being part of the story. Which I am happy to ignore, helped by the contradictions in facts (your father was a great pilot when I met him) and timeline (clonewars timing, jedi being a myth already).
Of course with the cartoons, prequels and sequels my conceit doesn’t really work. So I have to be happy with any and all of the stories being unreliable.
Lol @42. That said, I think I was at least 14 before I realized that the character was NOT named “Hans Solo”.
@43 – jtmeijer: Anakin was already an excellent pilot when Obi-Wan meets him.
@44 – mutantalbinocrocodile: LOL! It took me decades to realize that Doctor Doom is from “Latveria” and not “Lavteria”. Oh, and that Green Lantern’s arch enemy is “Sinestro” and not “Siniestro”.
@44: or, in a Foglio-etc. (Nagy?) comedy routine (of Lucas pitching his script to possible producers), Hand Solo. I wish I could find that routine somewhere; the most I remember now is “So what’s a lightsaber? (heads following invisible Lucas’s gestures) …uh … ah … George, that’s a flashlight! So the mystic gives the kid his father’s magic flashlight…” A wonderful take on the average Hollywood understanding of SF at the time.
Strongly agree that Lucas was making this up as he went along. I’ve read several sources that there was originally only a pair of leads instead of a trio — IIRC this changed late enough that there was concept artwork with only two of Luke/Leia/Han — but I forget who the pair were.
@6 I think you’ve hit it on the head with Yoda’s line about control. Anakin, Luke, and as far as we can tell Kylo too, sure could have used some instruction along these lines:
‘Isolated virtues, if unsupported by other qualities which give them either the needed firmness or pliancy, often deteriorate into their own characteristic defects. For instance, loving-kindness, without energy and insight, may easily decline to a mere sentimental goodness of weak and unreliable nature. Moreover, such isolated virtues may often carry us in a direction contrary to our original aims and contrary to the welfare of others, too. It is the firm and balanced character of a person that knits isolated virtues into an organic and harmonious whole, within which the single qualities exhibit their best manifestations and avoid the pitfalls of their respective weaknesses. And this is the very function of equanimity, the way it contributes to an ideal relationship between all four sublime states.
‘Equanimity is a perfect, unshakable balance of mind, rooted in insight. But in its perfection and unshakable nature equanimity is not dull, heartless and frigid. Its perfection is not due to an emotional “emptiness,” but to a “fullness” of understanding, to its being complete in itself. Its unshakable nature is not the immovability of a dead, cold stone, but the manifestation of the highest strength.’ (Nyanaponika Thera, “The Four Sublime States: Contemplations on Love, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity)
Or this, as a Book of Mormon character (scriptural, not musical) tells his wayward son: “Bridle your passions, that you may be filled with love.” Same deal. Put a bridle on a big strong horse, and what do you get? Still a big strong horse, just one that you can work with. Trusting his feelings seems to work pretty well for Luke on the whole. Trying to prevent feelings seems to serve the Jedi Order pretty poorly. (Is this why “It’s time for the Jedi to end”?)
I with the commenters that equate “bury” with “hide”, sonthat Vader and the Emperor don’t work out there’s a back-up plan if Luke fails.
As to avoiding the incest: Obi-wan intended Luke to be a Jedi. All romantic stuff with anyone is off the table, so it makes sense that instead of trying to explain the convoluted way a farm boy and a princess are in fact siblings, he’s just going to go with “Jedi get no sexy fun time with anyone, especially not her!”
48, I actually wonder if they could get away with that plot today. They managed to carry it on for more than one movie, so if they were making goo-goo eyes once, what about the next few months?