A Jedi, Like His Father Before Him

As one of , if not often the , primary friend of Star Wars , the saga at turgid has often existed in various forms to ask one single question , with a thousand answers : who is Luke Skywalker ? Farm boy , original , Jedi , instructor , learner , master , fable , Luke has been so many things across his life , in so many level , that it ’s rare to see a function mismated to him . His latest tale might have recover one though .

take in myself re - run into Luke Skywalker this week as we see him training with Grogu inThe Book of Boba Fett ’s 6th chapter , “ From the Desert Comes a Stranger , ” was , much like his first “ return ” from the grave accent in The Mandalorian ’s time of year two finish , aheady mix of conflicting emotions . range away from its titulary protagonist again , The Book of Boba Fett focus in on a Luke we did not get to to the full see on cover , this evolutionary stepbetween the shining young Jedi Knight we leave behind in Return of the Jedi , and the haunted Master that Rey and we run into in The Last Jedi . We find a vernal homo in some ways cast in the shadow of his own teachers , as he himself becomes one to Grogu , and with it a pride of the legacy Luke hold as the time to come of what it mean to be Jedi . This is not the swordbearing wedge we view in flare of The Mandalorian , but , with echoes of Ben Kenobi and Yoda likewise , a man prove to go past on the lessons he read to a new propagation . Almost identically even , run through wooded timber , leaping from rock ‘n’ roll to rock , providing the wonderment of nature to allow his bookman to just see and breathe the living worldly concern around them .

All this feels raw and veracious . In a world where Luke does not have the structure of the Jedi Order to strike back on — even though , as we learn , he has made an acquaintance in Ahsoka Tano , someone who could very easily tell him thewarts and all detailingof the Order as it was — how else would he teach if not as he was teach himself ? In Star Wars ’ ever - present narration of cycles and generational reason , is it not wise to reason that Luke will communicate on everything he learned in such a similar manner ? If The Last Jedi is to give us a Luke who is an altogether different teacher , one traumatized by thelessons he re - enduredlosing Ben Solo , then it is perhaps suit that The Book of Boba Fett gives us a hopeful foil before that declension , a Luke who is coming to grips with being the protector of the Jedi ’s future .

Luke, in the aftermath of his most powerful act as a Jedi.

Luke, in the aftermath of his most powerful act as a Jedi.Image: Lucasfilm

And yet something did n’t posture mightily . By the end of “ From the Desert occur a Stranger , ” when the stage is set for Book of Boba Fett ’s finale , Luke ’s teachings with Grogu millions of light years by from the Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin of Tatooine come to a shuddering check , as Luke turn to his vernal Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth andoffers a choice : take the lightsaber of Yoda himself , and become the great Jedi Luke can teach him to be , or take the gift of a beskar chainmail shirt , and with it the symbolic acceptance of Grogu ’s connexion to Din Djarin . The Luke that offers this ultimatum is not get laid as he was teaching Grogu earlier , but in the moment cold . the reflexion of a Jedi tenet that Luke has never stand to before .

It ’s the reflexion of a man who very abruptly does not feel like Luke Skywalker . To discover Luke , of all the great unwashed , preach of the ailment of adhesion — of recognise the love multitude can have for each other — sent a frisson down my spine . After all , this is Luke Skywalker . A Jedi , yes , but not anything like the dogmatic warrior monks we saw fall with the Old Republic . A adult male who define himself , in his bright bit , by his connection to hisfriends and loved ones . In Empire Strikes Back , when Yoda and Obi - Wan — representative of that old Order and honest-to-god way of doing things — warned Luke not to face Darth Vader at Cloud City , he went anyway , because the citizenry he bang and cared for were in danger . In his greatest consequence as a Jedi Knight in Return of the Jedi , Luke barf his weapon system aside and refuses to come across his founding father down , because of not just his dearest for the man beneath Vader ’s mask , but because he has spend all of Return of the Jedi believing , hop , that if he hold back on to his father and tells him that he is not alone , the good in him will shine through .

Time and time again in Star Wars , we are told that what make Luke such a luminous force-out , the poor boy that he is , is his capacity to forge these bonds of love and care with the citizenry around him . From his fellow pilotsin Rogue Squadron , to his sister and his better friend , to a founding father feared and loathed by the galax , Luke was the foil toAnakin ’s own attachmentsproviding the path to his undoing , the Skywalker whose sexual love burned with the power of the Light in the Force . The Jedi who , decade later , confronted that attachment and the fear of it to great disaster , conduct to theloss of Ben Soloto the Dark Side and the destruction of his Jedi Academy . The Jedi who , when we return to him in The Last Jedi , is a piece who wish for others so incredibly much that the with child penalty he could fashion for himself wasspiritual and forcible expatriate , disregard off from the Force and the bond he had forged . One who then re - learned to open up himself back up to those connections for one final , beautiful ritual killing , seal off the fable of Luke Skywalkeronce and for allas a man who fought to the very end and beyond for the things he link up himself to .

Screenshot: Lucasfilm

To then see that man this week — in the middle of that evolution we ’ve already seen represent out — attempt to teach Grogu the nonstarter of attachment , that to accept it is to not be Jedi , can never feel right to me . There may be a lesson again in Star Wars ’ cyclical nature here , that just as Luke repeats the lesson that taught him to be a outstanding Jedi , he repeats the same mistakes Ben and Yoda made in teaching him . Star Wars is in many ways the chronicle of how hope and disaster bring forth each other repeatedly along those hertz , the ever - present concern that each genesis , no matter how it struggles , is in some agency doomed to fall back on the misjudgments of their elders . But Luke Skywalker is the mathematical product of those mistakes across generations , in ways genuine and ideological . He is the nipper of the select one , born from a honey hidden from the Jedi ’s tenet . He is the Jedi that testify himself to be in his father ’s footstep with an act of unparalleled faith in the ability of attachment . That is a lesson he never United Nations - learns , even at his darkest moments .

The Book of Boba Fett may have wanted to produce the feeling of a difficult choice for its small greens foundling by get Luke place Grogu at this moral crossroad , and with it a window into the future sputter the Luke of its timeframe has yet to front . But in framing that selection as a rejection or credence of the very thing that defines Luke ’s strengths , it only offered a shade of what Luke Skywalker has always been to Star Wars .

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Screenshot: Lucasfilm