"She was alive! I felt it!" Vader, ROTS
"I sense something a presence I haven't felt since....." Vader, ANH

Ever since the PT came out I have found it is almost impossible for me to watch familiar OT scenes (such as the one referenced above) without the light of the PT having some impact. While watching the OT I find I can't unlearn what I have learned about Anakin's story, and, in fact, trying to decipher what might be going on behind that impenetrable black mask of Vader's is one of the things that keeps me hooked.

For a while I have been wondering something. It's clear that Jedi are able to distinguish the presences of particular individuals in the Force especially those of people who are close to them. For instance, Yoda could sense pain and suffering and knew it was Anakin's in AOTC, and Anakin was absolutely right that the last time he felt Padme's presence in the Force she was indeed alive on Mustafar. So, in ANH when Vader approaches the Millennium Falcon after it has been pulled into the DS and senses a particular presence this is not surprising. Before the PT, however, I had just assumed that the presence he was sensing was Obi-Wan's, but now I wonder if there might be more too it than that.

I've always found it odd that Vader, after sensing this strange presence, just turns around and walks away. It doesn't really make sense to me that Vader (who has been trying "convince" others in his regime that technology, no matter how powerful, is insignificant in comparison to the power of the Force) suddenly trusts such an important mission to a feeble scanning crew. It especially doesn't make sense when not much later Vader kills Obi-Wan with absolutely no hesitation. Vader's feelings about Obi-Wan are clear. He's only too happy to finish him off and finally prove his mastery over the one who left him limbless and in limbo. It is one of his ultimate triumphs as Vader, and goes a long way in justifying the choices he has made.

I think that what makes Vader turn away is that there was more to that presence than Obi-Wan - there was also Luke. I think that he could feel shades of Padme through his son (in whom the Force was for the first time consciously stirring) that made his initial reaction more tumultuous emotionally and therefore much harder to figure out. I think Vader needed time to get his head (or at least his mask) on straight about the whole situation. When he tries to explain what he felt to Tarkin Vader says he felt a "tremor in the Force." The last time he felt it was in the presence of his old master, but Obi-Wan wasn't the only one there on Mustafar, Padme was there too. To admit to feeling that though would be to risk re-awakening the Anakin inside, so Vader simply applies Vader-logic to the situation (Vader-logic would be the same sorts of mental twists and turns that allow him to not recognize Leia though she looks like Padme, and not consciously believe that a boy running around with his last name could be his son until the Emperor says it out loud). Time and again Vader separates out the particular feelings that most clearly support the survival of the Vader point of view, and acts on those. I think this could be one of those times. I think that Vader could sense the presence of his beloved in the Force, but couldn't bring himself to believe it because to believe it would be to admit that everything he'd lived since Mustafar was in some way a lie.

Or I could just be full of bantha poodoo.

So, what do you think?