Why couldn’t Darth Vader sense Leia was his daughter?
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Unconsciously Blocking Abilities?
As we know, Leia’s Force abilities were nowhere as strong as her father and brother’s. It might be possible the reason Vader couldn’t sense his daughter was because she was blocking her presence without realizing it. We also need to consider how much she knew about what she could do before Luke told her.
As far as we know, Leia was completely in the dark as her adoptive parents kept her gifts a secret from her until she was ready. There was a Legends story where it was mentioned Bail and Breha knew their daughter used the Force without realizing it and feared she would find out who she really was before she was ready.
However, the Force isn’t something that can be switched off and Bail knew this. This was one of the reasons why Ahsoka and Leia were never allowed to cross paths on Alderaan. Bail worried that upon seeing his little girl, Ahsoka would piece together who was. While this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing given he trusted her, he didn’t want the truth to be revealed to Leia too soon.
With Vader, Leia was likely terrified and closed herself off to the point Vader couldn’t access her thoughts. When Luke became angry during his and his father’s final duel, his old man can sense his every thought which exposes the revelation that the sassy princess is a Skywalker.
The Mind Probe Droid
For anyone who has seen the original Star Wars will know that Leia resisted a mind probe droid. It’s also a well known fact revealed in the prequel films that a Force Sensitive person has the ability to resist probes.
In A New Hope, Leia is subjected to a mind probe off screen. While we don’t see this, we know it doesn’t work which confuses Vader. It would seem odd to him that something like wouldn’t affect her. Though, we doubt he would’ve thought anything of it. Yes, he was a clever guy, but he wouldn’t dwell on something as trivial as a mind probe not working.
Vader simply wanted to use Leia as an instrument to find out whatever he could about the rebels. We can only speculate what he was thinking in that moment, but we doubt he was wondering if the young woman was his daughter.
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