The duel on the Death Star ended with a moment nobody expected. Obi-Wan Kenobi stopped fighting, smiled, and let Darth Vader cut him down. For Vader, this wasn’t just another battle. It was a clash with his old master, the man who had shaped him, betrayed him, and haunted him for two decades. When the strike landed, Vader felt something far more complicated than victory. The novels that tell this scene in detail reveal exactly what went through his mind, step by step.
A Hard Jolt Of Triumph
The Death Star novel lets you stand in Vader’s boots when Obi-Wan lowers his guard, smiles, and raises his saber straight up. Vader commits:
“Vader shifted his lightsaber and cut from the right, hard, aiming for the neck—
His lightsaber sheared through the old man… and Obi-Wan collapsed.”
For a breath, he rides the high he’s wanted for years:
“Yes! Fierce, exultant joy coursed through the man who had been Anakin Skywalker. He had done it! He had slain Obi-Wan Kenobi! His revenge was complete!”
That’s the clean, first beat: victory and release.
Confusion On The Hangar Floor
The feeling collapses the moment he looks down. No body. Only robes.
“Vader looked down at the body. But there was no body. Only Obi-Wan’s robes and cloak.”
He starts testing reality, grasping for any answer that fits:
“An illusion of some kind? Some Jedi mind trick…? Impossible! Obi-Wan had taught him everything Vader knew…
But, whispered a voice from within, maybe not everything that Obi-Wan knew.”
The A New Hope novelization frames the same beat from the deck: a clean blow, robes on the floor, and a cautious check.
“It struck home, cutting the old man cleanly in half… Kenobi’s cloak fluttered to the deck in two neat sections.
But Ben Kenobi was not in it. Wary of some tricks, Vader poked at the empty cloak sections with the saber.”
One simple reaction hangs in the air—“Where did he go? Does that even count?”—and the room cools as even stormtroopers feel it:
“He had vanished as though he had never existed… even the awesome presence of the Sith Lord couldn’t keep a few of them from feeling a little afraid.”
For the First Time Our Sith Lord Feels Fear
The Death Star novel spells out what hits Vader when the dark side offers no explanation:
“For the first time that he could remember, the dark side had no answer. And a great surge of unfamiliar emotion suddenly washed over him. Darth Vader… was afraid.”
That line matters because it marks the turn: triumph → confusion → fear. Not a loud scream, not a meltdown—just a cold recognition that Obi-Wan crossed a threshold Vader didn’t see coming.