Over the years, I’ve been in a multitude of conversations surrounding the Star Wars franchise. And, in a multitude of those conversations, the topic of favorite characters always seems to come up. People typically agree with my opinions (and trust me, I have a lot of them), but whenever I mention my love for Luke Skywalker, I’m met with mixed reactions. Why? Well, according to some teenage boys from my 12th grade English class, it’s because Luke is boring and doesn’t have the same intrigue/development as characters like Han Solo or Darth Vader. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love those characters too, but Luke is just as brilliant. He’s viewed as a generic protagonist, but his journey is anything but generic.
The best way I can explain my point is through the idea of destiny. When your average, run-of-the-mill hero is faced with destiny, it is usually the idea that they ought to be something more significant in the world than they think. And their facing of said destiny is becoming just that, significant.
But Luke? His destiny is centered around his desire to be a Jedi…a Jedi like his father. In A New Hope, that’s all well and good, because neither the audience nor Luke knew the truth; we just thought Anakin was a hero who was killed by Darth Vader. However, once we learn that Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker are one in the same (the film’s been out for 41 years, that’s hardly a spoiler anymore), Luke’s destiny is the same as his doom; becoming a Jedi like his father means becoming the same monster that his father became.
When it comes to facing his destiny, Luke is told by both his mentors to, essentially, do his duty as the protagonist and kill the bad guy. In the end, Luke does not win the battle through violence, but through compassion; he does not kill the bad guy, he saves him. Luke never believed that his father was beyond redemption. As a Christian, this is the primary reason why George Lucas’ Star Wars is such an impactful story to me. Luke isn’t generic, he’s a catalyst for hope and redemption, a man anyone can look up to. And, at least to me, he doesn’t feel like a fictional character, he feels human.
It’s heartbreaking to think that a character as beautifully and brilliantly written as Luke has been completely butchered by Disney in recent years. Well, you know what they say: it takes years for an artist to create a masterpiece, but it takes a minute for one idiot with a hammer to destroy it.
Now, if I’ve still not convinced you to view Luke Skywalker in a different light, that’s fine. I’m all for people having a right to their own opinion…but I also have the right to say that your opinion is wrong.
-Miss Sirius Lee
II Thess. 3:17
O I’m a good old rebel, now that’s just what I am. For this “fair land of freedom” I do not care at all. I’m glad I fit against it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon for anything I done.
It also doesn’t help that the idiot who plays Luke is a total raging shitlib.
Being in La-La Land is something we do NOT need right now.
We need real men, not phony “action heroes”.
We do need real heroes, absolutely!
And those heroes will come from men who are willing to become mythical.
But remember, all the heroes of our past emulated the heroes in history and legend they read about.
I have faith that those men and women who read ID will be the heroes they were meant to be.