I’m not sure it ever sank into me until recently that Luke’s final trial to become a Jedi is to face Darth Vader, and he and everybody else involved all think it will kill him.
“Soon I’ll be dead, and you with me.”
He goes up there not expecting ever to come back. When Yoda and Obi Wan are talking to him about being the last of the Jedi, they really mean LAST last. They’re sending Luke off to clean house on this final problem they couldn’t solve themselves and his consolation prize is posthumous ascension to Jedi knighthood. And the warm glow of having done the right thing in his final moments, I guess.
I wonder what he thinks of that, a few decades later.
His final trial is to face his past – or rather the past of his father, the root where his conflict started (and not just his conflict, but the external conflict Anakin created by becoming Darth Vader).
There’s a wonderful analogy to be made about facing your past in order to reach enlightenment or attaining closure in order to move forward and become the person you need to be. But, as you pointed out, there’s also some disturbing family dynamics in there as well coming not from Vader, but from the two people Luke trusted to help him. Yoda and Obi-Wan weren’t strong enough to defeat Vader so they send Luke to do it, with the understanding that if Luke dies before he can, Leia can pinch hit for them.
That has to be disquieting for him on later reflection.
It makes me wonder about the Jedi and what trials they usually had to pass to advance, back when they were still around. Were they normally as primal “trial-by-fire” as this? Luke is getting destruction-tested here. But maybe that befits a group of people who are trusted with maintaining the balance of preternatural forces and some semi-scifi variation on souls. Maybe exactly what they SHOULD be doing is facing that which has the power to destroy them from the inside out and, if they have what it takes, walking out the other side. Or not walking out at all, if they’re not strong enough to handle it. It’s ruthless, but maybe some things should be.
(If that’s how it used to be, then you can imagine why the Jedi stance might have softened over time. How hard it would be to throw the kids you’ve raised and trained into a meat grinder, to test whether you did a good enough job or or if you’ll have to kill them yourself because they fall. Apparently some of the oldest Jedi temples are that kind of brutal, but I don’t know whether it’s a training option most Jedi take anymore.)
Anyway, Luke seems to be on board with it. He knows the Emperor and Vader have to be stopped. But it would behoove his mentors to be honest with him about what he’ll face, you would think.
Although it’s also true that Luke seems to have a better grasp on what he really needs to do than either of the Jedi masters do–and maybe a better understanding of why it’s likely to be fatal to him. For Luke, unlike the others, it’s NOT about facing the past. He couldn’t care less about the details of what happened. All he wants is his father back–regardless of who he was, what he did, or what he’s become. His test, really, is to resist being consumed by his anger over the injustice of it all while he’s at it.
Obi Wan and Yoda think it’s all down to lightsabers and death and settling old scores, but Luke sees his job as standing there and taking whatever undoubtedly awful things the Emperor throws at him while he talks his dad out of his terrible life choices. (And that’s exactly what he does. The one Jedi who doesn’t use violence to solve all his problems. They are so lucky he’s Padme’s kid.)
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1JhXVZY