Owen and Beru’s deaths are one of those Star Wars moments we all know by heart: Luke sees the smoke, runs back to the homestead, and finds the only family he’s ever known burned in the sand. The film never shows us how that order was given, or what Vader actually knew about the people living on that farm. So from Vader’s side of the story, how did the hunt for two droids turn into the execution of his own uncle and aunt?
Legends’ Version of How Vader Ordered Owen and Beru’s Deaths
In Legends, the missing piece comes from Ryder Windham’s novel Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader. The book follows Anakin’s life all the way from Tatooine through Mustafar and up to the events of the Original Trilogy, and it pauses on the moment that lines up with A New Hope: the Empire searching Tatooine for the stolen plans and the droids.
While Vader is aboard the Death Star, an officer activates a holoprojector and connects him to a squad on the planet. The hologram shows two sandtroopers standing beside a kneeling middle-aged couple in front of a moisture farm. From the description, it’s very clearly the Lars homestead.
The troopers report that they traced the Jawas’ sale and learned that a protocol droid and an astromech were sold to these farmers, but the droids are no longer there. Vader listens and then asks a practical question: he wants the farmers’ names. The answer comes back: Owen and Beru Lars.
At that point, the book makes it clear that he recognises them. He studies their faces in the hologram and remembers the time he came to this same homestead as Anakin Skywalker, met Owen and Beru for the first time, and buried his mother outside. From his perspective now, years later as Darth Vader, this isn’t just some random couple in the middle of nowhere. These are the people who took Shmi in, and in his twisted view, failed to keep her safe. They’re also the ones who happened to end up with the droids he’s hunting.
“Every Courtesy” and the Holofeed of the Lars’ Deaths
The way he phrases that order is very in-character. Vader tells the trooper to inform “Mr. and Mrs. Lars” that they seem to have trouble keeping protocol droids on their property, a bitter little reference to both C-3PO and Shmi. Then he says the troopers may extend to them “every courtesy” that was shown to the Jawas before they continue the search.
We already know what that meant for the Jawas: a sandcrawler turned into a smoking wreck in the desert. The line is basically code for “interrogate them if you must, then kill them and burn everything.”
Before the call ends, Vader adds one more instruction. He tells the squad leader not to stop transmitting until he breaks the connection himself. That’s the key detail for this particular topic. He doesn’t just sign off and let the aftermath happen off-screen. He explicitly keeps the holofeed open so he can watch what they do.
Windham then describes Vader standing on the Death Star while the holographic flames rise around the Lars homestead. The sandtroopers carry out his orders on what the book calls “helpless victims,” and Vader finds the sight of the burning farm satisfying, even at that distance. From his point of view, this isn’t a personal tragedy. It’s a loose end tied to his old life and a problem removed from the search for the plans.
Meanwhile, on Tatooine, Luke is heading back across the Dune Sea with C-3PO and R2-D2. The movie only lets us see his side of it: the smoke on the horizon, the sprint back home, the shock of finding the bodies, and the quiet moment where he looks at the twin suns before telling Obi-Wan he’s ready to leave. Legends adds a second viewpoint in orbit at the same time: Darth Vader, calmly watching his step-family die through a holotransmission and feeling nothing but grim satisfaction.
It also fits with where Vader’s head is by this point in the timeline. As Anakin, he once blamed himself for not saving his mother and lashed out at the Tusken Raiders. As Vader, he has turned all of that grief into contempt. To him, Owen and Beru are people who failed Shmi, failed to keep control of the droids, and are now in the way. The man who once stood in their courtyard holding his mother’s body now orders their deaths without blinking.