Obi-Wan Kenobi (spoilers)

[Maxperson]

This is a big presumption.

Not really. As I said, he isn't a real hermit. He works in town, talks to people and Tatooine gets information. He will in fact hear things and Vader would have been the talk of the town for years. You have to presume some sort of force forgetting technique that he's using on himself to forget all the things he hears.

Do we know this for a fact? Obi Wan lives divorced from civilization for the most part.

Maybe you watched a different Obi-Wan series than I did. I saw him working in town and talking to people in the one that I watched. Before things hit the fan.

All he knows is that the Empire is continuing to hunt down Jedi. Obi Wan has been in hiding for a while. I think it isn't until the events of the first episode of the show, that Obi Wan has a run in with the empire.

You don't need a run in with the empire to hear the people around you talking about the Vader guy heading up the hunting of the Jedi.

But even then, he doesn't know who Vader is or what he has been doing.

He doesn't know Vader is Anakin, no.

We do see that as soon as the Jedi shows up, he know about Inquisitors and tells the guy to run away. When he is told that Vader is Anakin, he immediately knows(from the expression on his face) that Anakin is this big, bad evil dude and is horrified. That couldn't happen if Obi-Wan was as ignorant as you are saying. He clearly hears things, which makes sense for someone who works in town and talks to people.

 

[Zardnaar]

Probably they lost faith.

The story arc does parallel LotR, in that if Vader had been killed earlier, he wouldn't be around to defeat the Emperor*, and if Gollum had been killed earlier, he wouldn't be around to destroy the ring once Frodo was finally corrupted. In both cases evil contains the seeds of its own destruction, and fate/The Force required that the good people give mercy to the evil and corrupt.

(*I'm ignoring Episode IX, as it bringing back the Emperor is trash)

Emperor returning by itself isn't bad just was poorly explained. Being cloned is an obvious one.

Plageous would have been better IMHO ties it back to the PT and has a nice reveal element to it.

 

[Hussar]

In the 10 years from the end of Episode 3 to Obi-Wan, what has Vader actually done, canonically? Yup, hunted Jedi - but, then again, that's just the extension of Order 66. LOTS of people were hunting Jedi, presumably. And, what else? Yeah, Anakin Skywalker killed the children, but, Obi-wan thought he was dead. He has no connection to Vader whatsoever. As far as Obi-wan is concerned, and, at the beginning of Obi-Wan, it's not like he was concerned about much of anything, Vader is just another Empire baddie in a rather large crowd of Empire baddies.

 

[Hussar]

Emperor returning by itself isn't bad just was poorly explained. Being cloned is an obvious one.

Plageous would have been better IMHO ties it back to the PT and has a nice reveal element to it.

What is a Plageous and what is a PT?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What is a Plageous and what is a PT?

 

[Staffan]

What is a Plageous and what is a PT?

 

[Rabulias]

Well, Alderaan hadn't happened by this point. Vader is bad, but, then again, lots of things in the universe are bad. Heck, at this point, Obi-wan doesn't even know about the Death Star. All he knows is his padawan brother went to the Dark Side. Vader didn't institute Order 66 - that's the Emperor. Heck, most of the bad things that are happening aren't from Vader - they're from the Emperor. Now, after Vader blows up a planet? Ok, all bets are off.

As others have pointed out, Vader did not make the decision about Alderraan. And while it is not shown directly in the films, the destruction of Alderaan is supposedly a tipping point in the GFFA that drives many systems to support the Rebellion. So maybe the Force knew this too?

He doesn't know Vader is Anakin, no.

Yes he does. In Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan and Yoda watch the security footage in the Jedi Temple and hear Sidious call Anakin "Lord Vader."

Edited to add: Perhaps he has heard about this imposing figure in black leading the Inquisitors, but does not know his name is Vader. I mentioned before though that I found it a bit hard to believe that after 10 years of the Empire, word of the Emperor's brutal right-hand man and feared enforcer, Lord Darth Vader, would not have found its way to Obi-Wan's ears, even out in the Outer Rim.

 

[Rabulias]

What is a Plageous and what is a PT?

And PT = Prequel Trilogy (Episodes I, II, and III).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Edited to add: Perhaps he has heard about this imposing figure in black leading the Inquisitors, but does not know his name is Vader. I mentioned before though that I found it a bit hard to believe that after 10 years of the Empire, word of the Emperor's brutal right-hand man and feared enforcer, Lord Darth Vader, would not have found its way to Obi-Wan's ears, even out in the Outer Rim.

When Vader shows up in Rebels, about six years after Kenobi, he is not recognised, so clearly the emperor prefers to keep his attack dog out of the news.

 

[Ryujin]

Luke?

And, again, how on earth would you detain him? Obi-wan has no power here. He's a rebel. Heck, at this point, the Rebellion has pretty much zero power. Someone who can literally rip apart a spaceship with the power of his mind? Never minding that Obi-wan has a duty to protect Luke and Leia, not stop Vader. The longer he stays with Vader, the greater the chance Vader learns of Luke and/or Leia, resulting in Obi-wan failing yet again.

If Obi-wan kills Vader, the Emperor wins and millions more will die at the hands of a virtually immortal Sith lord. After all, without Vader's weakness for his children, the Emperors new apprentice will be unstoppable and certainly will have no reason to betray the Emperor outside of standard greed.

This is a bog standard morality tale. Again, it goes back to the quote from LotR - “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.” You might not like it, but, the story here pretty plainly supports this interpretation. Kill Vader now and evil wins. Do evil, even with good intentions, and evil wins. That's been the basic premise of Star Wars since day 1.

I'm really frankly baffled how you can interpret Star Wars any other way.

Unfortunately, the idea of moral ambiguity has seeped into all types of entertainment to the point that the public no longer recognizes it for what it is. Moral certitude is the stuff of old legends, even when the actual people that the tales were about were objectively pretty crappy, as humans go.