A couple of week's ago, my friend Jedi Melinda Wolf made an entry from the scene in ROTJ that I had been contemplating for awhile. Her theory was that Vader was "protecting Luke from himself" when Vader stopped Luke's blade from striking down the Emperor. In effect, Vader was attempting to keep Luke from starting down the path to the Dark Side. An excellent theory, in my opinion, especially since it really worked into what I had been thinking about.

I had recently watched ROTJ (again) and was thinking during that scene, that Vader didn't seem to really put his whole "heart" (or what was left of it at that point ) into the fight with Luke. He seemed to hold back either because of his growing concern for Luke as his son or because, as Jedi Melinda thought, he wanted to help Luke keep himself on the right path.

As the duel went on and Luke became angry and started striking out at Vader with intense emotion and, yes, the brink of hatred, Vader seemed to almost give up, in a way. When Luke was "hacking" away at Vader at the end of the duel and then chopped his hand off, Vader seemed to do nothing at that point to even protect himself. He knew he was finished as an apprentice of the Dark Side. He knew that the Emperor no longer had need of him. He had begun to see the tragic error's that he had made for all those years. I would imagine that during those crushing blows that Luke was delivering, Vader's life as a Dark Lord were flashing before his eyes and he was beginning to see that he had been wrong all those years.

When the Emperor told Luke to finish Vader so that he could take Vader's place at the Emperor's side, I don't believe that came as any surprise to Vader. He knew he had been thinking too softly toward Luke for the Emperor's liking, just like he did for Padme way back when, and the Emperor had done nothing to try to make Vader use those emotions to strengthen himself, as he had done in the past where Padme was concerned. Previously, the Emperor would have manipulated Vader's very thoughts on Luke (or anyone that Vader loved) to feed his anger/hatred and make him stronger with the Dark Side. This didn't happen this time, because the Emperor saw in Luke, the potential to have a new, younger and stronger apprentice as I believe someone blogged about recently. I apologize that I don't remember who that was.

Earlier in the scene the Emperor had said, "Strike me down with all your hatred, and your journey towards the Dark Side will be complete." Now, of course, we all know that in that one split-second Luke did begin to attempt to strike down the Emperor, which Vader blocked, but later it's Vader who struck down the Emperor. Did he do so out of hatred, though? No. He did so out of concern for his son. He wanted solely to protect Luke from the Emperor, from the Dark Side and to save his life! It didn't take him long to make the decision to finally make the jump back to the Light Side and leave the Dark Side in its darkness forever.

When Luke earlier stated that he felt the conflict within Vader, even though Vader denied it, it was evident just before he threw the Emperor down the central core that Vader truly had had that conflict within. He finally accepted it and released the hatred and anger by disposing of his, now former, Master. He knew that he loved his son, just as he had loved Padme. He wanted a good life for his son and he found a way to make that happen and effectively made things better for the galaxy as a whole.

As many have previously blogged, Vader was saved.

Too bad it took so long and he had left so much destruction in his wake, but that's a blog for another day... maybe.

What are your thoughts?

Have a beautiful day and remember... The Force will be with you... always!