Empathic? That walking leather kink suit? Oh please.
Empathic? That walking leather kink suit? Oh please.


Empathic? That walking leather kink suit? Oh please.
The facial expressions on this one are perfect lol. Good work!
Counterpoint: Vader was not a potted plant.
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.
*sundae
"Look! I have one job on this lousy ship, it's stupid, but I'm gonna do it! Okay?"
Sometimes I wonder if Galaxy Quest didn't understand Trek better than some actual Trek shows?
Ha! I just finished listening to the Film Reroll podcast episode where they play Galaxy Quest, so I find this comment extra amusing.
Bloody autocorrect. Fixed it.
I like it when memes get defensive right in the meme itself. Really sets my phaser to kill, if you know what I mean.
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.
Maybe not if they are related, since neither of them knew.
But shouldn't Vader detect the force in someone? Like Qui-Gon Jinn in the prequels.
We now know both his children are strong with the force
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.
okay, one: vader? an empath? really?
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.
In 4, Vader senses Obi-Wan's presence on the Death Star, but not Luke's.
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.
Vader can sense Leia at the end of 6.
He can? The only thing I remember is him reading Luke's thoughts that she was his sister, which doesn't involve sensing or reading her at all.
He could sense his son.
Yeah, but that was after he was already doing some pretty Forcy things. Leia only used the Force very weakly for empathic connection.
Leia didn't even know
Let's talk Vader.
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.
As an Irish person, Troi doing this impression boiled my piss more than Up the Long Ladder
I’m gonna need a translation here.
It made me mad lol
Something about Guinness
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.
Ok but would y'all actually want to see a mental health counselor who could read your mind? I'd avoid the psychiatry department like the plague.
Agreed. I would just hide out in the holodeck instead.
So that explains Broccoli.
Especially one who's that damn hot
Um, yes? Assuming I haven't done anything that will get me in trouble, and that the society we're in doesn't punish wrongthink, then most definitely; a mind reader should be much better at counseling than anyone else.
Fan theory: Vader recovered just fine in a few days thanks to space aged technology, but used the event as a facade to wear his kink gear full time.
"uh sir? does it...absolutely have to be skintight leather?"
"yes. it also needs to be black."
Ooh I love this template
You mean the daughter he thought was dead at this point?
It's not your empathic abilities, Troi. It's the amount of leading question and interpretations you barrage your clients with that leads me to the conclusion that... well... you are a little shit at your job.
That's not a defense. It's a distraction. They're both bad empaths. Vader being worse doesn't make her better.
Yeah I just can never forgive her for being such a cunt when she lost her empathic abilities
I thought for a second you were talking about Princess Leia. Took my brain a couple of ka-removed to put it together.
It’s been a long day.
This is one of my favorite episodes.
I read the whole thing in Sirtis' disappointed mom voice.
Zotoh Zhaan > Deanna Troi
Leia also has powers with the Force.
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.
This... Isn't the answer.
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.