George Lucas has created an interesting plot challenge for himself over the course of the next two movies. In the movie "Return of the Jedi," Obi-Wan Kenobi's spirit very clearly states that Luke has a twin sister. Luke intuits that his sister is Leia, which Obi-Wan confirms.
Having not watched the movie recently, I wanted to assure myself on this point. So I went back to the 1983 book, written by James Kahn, based on George Lucas' story and screenplay. Again, Obi-Wan uses the words "twin sister." He explains, "To protect you both against the Emperor, you were separated when you were born. ... your sister has remained safely anonymous."
Obi-Wan went on to say, "Your mother and I knew he [Darth Vader] would find out eventually, but we wanted to keep you both as safe as possible for as long as possible. So I took you to live with my brother Owen on Tatooine...and your mother took Leia to live as the daughter of Senator Organa on Alderaan."
Apparently, Anakin will leave Amidala, not aware she is pregnant. Since he will have abandoned his Jedi training and embraced the dark side of the force by this time, she and Obi-Wan will devise a plan to "hide" the babies from him.
What I don't understand is that they allow Luke to keep the last name of Skywalker, put him on Tatooine (Anakin's childhood home), and allow his father to have knowledge of him. This last is evidenced by the fact that in "Star Wars, A New Hope," Obi-Wan presents Luke with Anakin's light saber, saying, "When you were old enough...your father wanted you to have this."
All of this leaves Lucas with a lot of questions to answer.
For instance, if Darth Vader knew where Luke was all along, why didn't he just come and get him? Why would he allow Obi-Wan's farmer brother to raise Luke? Even if Vader only knew of the existence of his son, but not his whereabouts, wouldn't he have spent time searching for him?
Also, although I understand the purpose of letting Vader know about one of the children, since it would be inevitable he would find out about the pregnancy, why was Luke chosen? They could have just as easily let Vader think he had a daughter, and let Luke be the anonymous one.
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