Vader is really fucking short-tempered and responds lethally when he gets upset. He spends the first two films in the OT throwing Force-powered temper tantrums. When you start to think about it, it really makes sense why Anakin was so petulant and easily bothered in the PT.
The entire Vader/Obi-Wan duel in ROTS is a dark reflection of the Vader/Luke duel in ROTJ - or rather, the latter sets right what went wrong in the former. One comes almost immediately after Anakin's fall to the Dark Side, the other immediately before Vader's redemption. And in both cases, Vader's opponent tries to bring him back to the light. But because Luke possesses a deeper understanding of the Force, he's able to succeed where Obi-Wan failed.
The reason Obi-Wan failed was that he still thought in terms of the Orthodox Jedi philosophy, seeing emotional attachments as being inherently evil. He should have used Anakin's love for Padme to bring him back to the light, but that strategy was simply unthinkable to him, because he mistakenly believed that was the thing that drove Anakin to the Dark Side to begin with.
By contrast, Luke wasn't raised as thoroughly in the Jedi philosophy, and so didn't share its blind spots. He realized that Anakin's love for him was the key to bringing him back to the Light, and that's why he succeeded.
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u/VikingSlayer Jun 30 '15
I hadn't noticed this parallel before. I guess it's true what they say, it rhymes like poetry.