Star Wars is basically a more accessible version of Dune. In Dune people had precognitive abilities that would allow them to predict the future. Problem is if someone else can foresee the future one person is reacting to what they predict the other will do, but then the other changes what they’ll do based on what they predict the first person would do. So it results in kind of a stalemate. Two people with precognitive abilities can’t predict each other’s actions. Or the actions of those under the other’s influence.
So the Sith’s abilities are weakened by the presence of a Jedi and vice-versa. Leia’s ability with the force (whether she knew she had them or not) prevents Darth Vader from sensing much about her other. Also the Sith’s abilities wouldn’t be effective in predicting the actions of any rebel following Leia’s leadership.
More to the point, every answer to this question is talking about something completely different. Vader was distracted. Vader was only clued into Leia’s existence after Luke thought about her. Vader had too much on his plate…!
But this answer, even among all the above, is reaching at things that just make no sense. By your logic, every force user would be crippled at the battle of Geonosis, with hundreds of jedi and sith present.
Qui-Gon and a young Obi-Wan took on Darth Maul, where the latter was able to use his ability without seemingly any hindrance at all. Similarly with Obi-Wan and Anakin against Count Dooku. When Yoda steps in, it’s 3 jedi against Dooku. There’s no evidence of Dooku bring weakened, as he matches Yoda in force abilities without much effort. By your logic, the sith in both encounters should have been weakened. That is clearly not the case.
The simple and obvious truth is this: at the time of writing, Lucas never intended for Leia to be Luke’s sister (hence their kiss) and so, there simply wasn’t anything for Darth Vader to sense. Retconning that and then adding in some wishy-washy explanation just trashes the credibility of the franchise.
By my logic the Jedi wouldn’t be able to sense that Palpatine was a Sith even while sitting in a room with him where there was no dangers or distractions. I’m no prequel fan, but I recall that it’s mentioned the Jedi’s ability with the force was being weakened.
And it wouldn’t affect the ability to swing a lightsaber around. Though it would affect the ability to use precognition to predict where the opponent was going to swing their lightsaber. I mean they can deflect blaster shots all day but can’t deflect a lightsaber that’s moving much slower? Why is this? Makes sense if you consider the guys shooting the blasters don’t have much force abilities so they can use the force to predict where the shot will be and deflect it. But another force user’s actions can’t as easily be predicted so it comes down to good old fashioned martial arts abilities.
Force powers are vague psychic/mystic stuff. We see Vader sense Kenobi, and he can tell that Luke is strong with the force when he is focusing on him. And there’s other stuff like sensing Alderaan blowing up or things happening in other places and times (aka literally anything the plot wants the character to see). But the rules just really aren’t clear, especially in the original trilogy. There’s no indication given that Vader should be able to sense that someone is related to him, nor would he be able to pull it from Leia’s mind since she doesn’t know either. If anything, he should have sensed the millennium falcon coming in to cover Luke during the trench run, that seems like the more obvious thing to be able to detect.
Troi has empathy, which is a much more clearly defined concept. And while they stray from that sometimes by letting her sense danger or other nebulous generalities, we do know that she should be able to sense emotions, intentions and honesty vs deception. That makes it stand out when the script seemingly forgets that she should be able to sense lies, deception, and malicious intent. Conman pretending to be a researcher from the future lies in order to steal from them and she can’t tell that he’s a fraud. The staff at a party are getting ready to grab weapons and take them all hostage, and she doesn’t notice. These are situations that call for things that are well within her established skillset.
Who says he didn’t? We only know he sensed that Luke was strong in the force during the death star trench run because he said it out loud. Presumably he has encountered many people with relatively strong force potential, but that’s probably something he’s going to keep to himself unless he has a reason to act on it. She’s a prisoner that he’s unlikely to recruit, and it’s not like she’s had any training. Hell, he probably dismisses people like her as being too old to start training anyway. (And if we bring in stuff from outside the movies where they explain that force sensitive people often become leaders, or larger than life figures that shape the course of events, then one would expect a lot of those people to run into Vader eventually.)
It may also be that force ability is more apparent once someone actually starts using the force. That would be logical and consistent with the fact that Luke is only really noticed by Vader once Obi Wan started telling him to use the force, and the fact that Vader and Luke could sense each other in space over Endor, but apparently that didn’t apply to Leia.
And again, he wasn’t trying to reach Luke on the radio to make him an offer once he noticed the force was strong with him, he was trying to kill him. The empire wasn’t determined to capture Luke until the emperor was able to sense him making waves in the force, when he was at the point where he was already using a lightsaber and capable of telekinesis, and when he had been identified as Vader’s son. At that point he had demonstrated actual ability, not just wasted potential, and the familial connection offered a plausible way to work around his opposition to the empire.
Vader didn’t even know about Leia until Luke leaks it in RotJ. During the Vader/Luke duel is the first and only time Vader acknowledged Leia. Luke’s thoughts turned to her during that fight. Vader saw that “weakness”, the attachment, and he leapt on it. And it worked (for a moment).
Now it’s possible Vader had a rough idea of her existence near the finale of Empire. Luke calls out to Leia. Leia is with Luke when Vader calls out to Luke. I expect Vader was too distracted to notice Leia.
Back to A New Hope. Vader doesn’t suspect anything until Obi-wan shows up on the Death Star. Why is Obi-wan here? What is he doing? Then he just disappears? Something about the crew he arrived with is suspicious. Then during the Death Star trench run. He is focused. Vader can sense something. Vader can sense something that can not be. Obi-wan has a Padawan? Why now? Who? Then Han Solo fires at him. Vader should have seen it coming, but he was distracted.
Sooo! Vader seeing Leia opening? He just had no idea.
He’s got SOOO many plates spinning! He’s very busy being the driver of the entire plot of a great big saga. There’s a lot on his mind.
What have you done today, Deanna? Eating a fudge sundae doesn’t count.
To step out of the bit for a moment, when people criticize Troi, they’re really criticizing the writing. This character is there to look good and rarely gets anything meaningful to do, and when she does, it’s almost always redundant or superfluous to the situation. Marina Sirtis deserved so much better.
It did though I lost my way with it, the new season just had some poor choices for me, probably due to Seth thinking with his penis instead of his head.
I am meaning New Horizons, series 3 I think. Season 2 was better than 1 but they still insist on the love stories a lot of the time which is fine but it seemed each week someone was falling in love.
To me the meme comes off as a ‘Star Wars fans complain about Troi meanwhile their evil ‘god’ who has more leather than sense can’t even feel his own daughter standing 2 feet away from him’. It’s not a defense so much as a “If you want to bitch about Troi then you better recognize Vader has major faults too”. A leveling the field as it were.
The target audience doesn’t effect my point at all
But it does. Your point was that it’s “not a defense”. My point was “they’re not trying to defend”. Your rebuttal here is “They’re still not defending.”
At no point in that image does Troi make a defense for her own abilities. She says that people complain about her and then goes onto Vader. So yes. She’s distracting, not defending, but she was never claiming to make a defense in the first place. That does affect your point pretty significantly.
At best, it’s an implied admission, then a distraction to minimize consequences. “Sure I suck. But not as much as this guy! Amiright!?” That’s not really any better.
Is it Star Wars fans complaining about Troi? I always figured it was Star Trek fans. Then again I never understood why there was a divide or why you have to be one or the other?
Even so empathy is the thing that Troi is supposed to excel at. She’s the counselor presumably because she’s an empath.
Vader, on the other hand is a capable warrior, commands the dark side of the force, is a legendary pilot, leads troops, and senses other force users. At this point neither Luke nor Vader is aware of Leia’s sensitivity to the force.
This seems like the equivalent of the Flash being bad at running then saying Superman isn’t very fast either.
I’ve got no problem criticizing Star Wars. There’s plenty to over. But this isn’t really a good comparison.
I like the approach SNW is taking with long lived races. Where Guinan was all calm and wise, Pelia is a quirky ball of energy. Maybe it’s because Guinan is much younger and Pelia knows that there is something significantly worse than death. Boredom.
I think there was an episode of Voyager to that effect; a Q decides to show up on Voyager of all places wanting to kill himself because immortality, omniscience and omnipotence get boring after awhile, and Actual Q is (for some reason) cast as the responsible adult in this situation.
Q showed up on voyager because he knew that Janeway would happily oblige on account of her being a bloodthirsty war criminal, chomping at the bit to extinguish more life in her eternal quest for caffeine
The character of Troi was such a strange collection of decisions.
In addition to a ship’s doctor, let’s also have a psychologist on board. Okay cool. A show as progressive as TNG was in its day would do something like “Hey we have a psychologist. Taking care of mental health is a thing you’re allowed to do.” Plus, in the Trek future, I can see where a psychologist might perform the roles of a present day Navy chaplain; Trek, especially TNG era Trek, had no use for religion and championed science, reason, philosophy and understanding, and so instead of a ship’s chaplain you’d have a ship’s counselor. Makes sense.
She’s a member of an empathic species who feels the emotions of the people she’s talking to so she’s an extra good counselor. And “logical” Vulcans are always science officers, right? Kind of on the nose but it’s on brand for Trek. Surprised the Klingon on the crew isn’t the weapons officer. Yet. So I guess she’s going to be a recurring character kind of like the ship’s doctor, when characters have personal issues they can go to the counselor to work through them?
The man cast will never have personal issues or conflicts among each other. They are the elite best of the best that humanity has to offer, they’re all pictures of perfect mental health and they work flawlessly as a team. …so why did they bother bringing a therapist on board with them?
She’s going to spend most of her duty day on the bridge sitting next to the Captain Ah, so she can use her empathy skills to aid in negotiations with outside characters, aliens and such, tell if they’re lying or upset or something, giving the Captain an amazing upper hand in pretty much any interpersonal situation.
…Shit I hadn’t thought that through. That does eliminate any plot that relies on deception to work. Well she’ll nearly never say anything actually useful, she’ll just sound smart. Okay…so the character is basically pointless?
She’s going to wear a short dress like Uhura did, but this time she’s going to sit in a chair facing forward with no console in front of it so the camera can always see her legs. Ah, there it is. None of the other two women on the crew are wearing such a uniform though, they’re wearing onesie jammies like the men, the doctor even has that really practical coat. Isn’t that kind of sexist even for the late 80’s?
We’ll have some male extras wearing the same uniform in the background sometimes. …Okay sure. So is this counselor a civilian serving aboard ship? She dresses different than everyone else on the crew, and has a purely personnel support role like the teacher and the barber characters.
No, she’s a commissioned officer, a Lieutenant Commander, fifth in command of the ship after the Captain, the first officer, the chief engineer and the navigator. Okay, is she going to command the ship while her superior officers are away, will she be on watch while the others are relieved, play a part in the chain of command?
Of course not, she’s a woman No, in fact several seasons in she’ll be thrust into that situation and the only enlisted man on the show will have to explain to her that she’s even an officer in the first place, and in one of the movies she makes we’ll have her fly the Enterprise, and she’ll immediately crash it. She’s completely useless as a commanding officer. …Okay…so moving on I see you’ve hired Whoopi Goldberg as a recurring guest star, what’s that character like?
There’s going to be a crew lounge on board with big windows, and she’s going to play the wise bartender, Guinan. Interesting. What does she do?
She’ll dispense sage advice, offer to talk to characters who are vexed by the current situation, act as a sounding board, sometimes re-contextualize their problems so they have a revelation, you know. Bartender stuff. Shouldn’t the ship’s counselor do that kind of thing?
Hey speaking of the counselor, what do you think of this spandex aerobics suit instead of the mini dress?
Her and Riker were the ones chosen to be there for their attractiveness. It was a showbiz rule that at least one female character has to be fuckable and in this case we got a male character too. Too bad the writers created such weak episodes for her, like S2 E1 “Child”. I agree that they didn’t think through her plot spoiling abilities properly. She even senses “a unifying consciousness” from Moriarty, a holodeck character made of literal photons of light… I wonder how much cocaine those writers were doing in the 80s…
Riker, Troy, and Data all came from characters that were supposed to be in ToS: Phase 2.
Riker was originally the character that would learn from and replace Kirk. Troys original character was an alien that had to repress her sex drive. And Data was a Vulcan.
Those characters were first repurposed for the movies, and then repurposed again for NG.
They really could have done themselves a favor by adding some clear limitations to her abilities.
Proximity required: No sensing through the view screen.
Surface impressions only: Disciplined minds can fool her
Background noise: The more people are around, the harder it is to get a clear read on someone.
The more alien a mind is, the more difficult or painful it is to interact with.
There you go, she can still use her abilities to help the crew, and sometimes to solve problems, but you can also get stuff past her without making her seem oblivious. Then all they have to do is consistently write her as an intelligent and competent member of the crew, and we’re good.
Early on they established she can’t read Ferengi minds. Which actually made her just that much MORE worthless. “We want money! We’re an entire civilization of late stage capitalists. Acquisition!” “I can’t sense anything.”
I agree with most of your analysis except for her outfits. Every other woman on the ship wears a standard uniform, no other woman on the ship is vaguely sexualized. We have plenty of opportunity to see that women aren’t just ditzy accessories for men but equals.
It feels weirdly regressive that there can’t be a woman with cleavage on the show else it’s sexist and reductive. Obviously women aren’t just there to be sexualized by men, but some women enjoy it and that’s okay too. Basically you’re slut shaming Deanna.
Saying the obvious actually is very useful. Yes, it might seem obvious that they’re angry, hiding something etc., but what if they weren’t and are just really good liars and actors? Troi is there to confirm if they’re honest or not.
I like cum towns take on that character. Basically star trek fans are so autistic that they introduced an empath character to explain emotions to them.
Yeah, can’t say I’m a big fan of insulting an entire fan base to put a single dig towards a character. Don’t like Troi? Fine. But insulting all Trek fans and insulting autistic people just to indirectly insult her? That’s some really gross behavior.
The entire concept of the podcast is shitting on everything and the listeners are well aware of that. No one is forced to listen to it. Ironically the guy who said it is most likely autistic and a closeted star trek fan. I'm autistic as well and I don't see an issue with making fun of it. It makes me feel more included than unnecessarily patronizing behavior.
Of which I am not one. Hopefully you can understand my concern there. If the dudes whole thing is shock comedy and insulting stuff, that’s fine. I have no issue with that. However I have literally never heard of the podcast so I just took it at face value. My apologies for the confusion there. Had I known (on me for not googling) I wouldn’t have responded that way. Again, my apologies.
I did not take “autistic” as an insult. I took “This entire group is so autistic they don’t understand emotions” as an insult. Probably has something due to the fact that people have used autistic as an insult quite a bit. That and I have literally never heard someone say "this entire group is so autistic they " and it be anything other than an insult.
Haha, that seems about right. Only you have to specify that the fans in question were the ones actually writing the show. These are of course the same social pariahs who made the engineers into hopeless incels, the science officer into an emotionless android, and the doc into a sexy redhead who just happens to have a romantic history with the aloof captain, a literature nerd who hates kids. The only character on the bridge with his shit together is the first officer, a parody or pastiche of Captain Kirk, the untouchable coolest person in the franchise.
two: even if he was how is empathic reading supposed to tell him she’s his daughter? it’s telempathy, not remote gene testing. it isn’t like leia was feeling familial affection for the guy.
Vader can sense Luke repeatedly throughout 5 and 6. Luke can sense Leia in 5 and 6. Vader can sense Leia at the end of 6. But no one ever asked why Vader couldn’t do it in 4. Hopefully this helps.
Vader only starts sensing Luke after he gets some training and goes from being merely Force sensitive to a proper Force adept. Trained adepts are consistently shown in the franchise to be easier to sense than untrained sensitives, like Leia.
Vader only knows Luke is his son after being told his name. He only finds out Luke has a sister after ripping the knowledge from his mind, and it’s unclear if he got her name.
i’ll admit it’s been a while since i’ve watched the films, but it was probably a bit more obvious with Luke, right? he wasn’t exactly hidden. he had vader’s last name and lived with vader’s family on vader’s home planet.
meanwhile leia was adopted by some rando and had her name changed to match. she probably didn’t even know she was adopted.
anyway, i will have to rewatch the OT with this in mind at some point.
I think they were banking on Vader hating the planet so much he’d never willingly return and then later training Luke in the hopes that Vader may hesitate to kill his own kids, because Vader hesitating to kill someone is basically the only way anyone has a hope of beating him.
Up the Long Ladder is an episode in which they picked up some backwater folks with Irish accents, in which the hot Irish woman existed mainly to yell about how men are useless and then bang Riker after coyly attracting him by asking him to wash her feet. It is widely regarded as not a great episode, and the only way they could have stereotyped the Irish further would be if someone ran through each scene yelling about how they’re always after his lucky charms.
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