Why Luke?
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| Title: | Why Luke? |
| Creator: | Jedi Skya |
| Date(s): | 1999 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Star Wars |
| Topic: | |
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Why Luke? is a 1999 essay by Jedi Skya..
It was published in Echo Three #3.
The topic was Luke Skywalker and how he needs to get a break.
Excerpts
Why not Solo, Lando, Vader or even Chewie? (watch out for those coughed-up hairballs!) Or Leia?
Well, I am as much a fan of Her Royalness as I am Sky, but my appreciation of him naturally differs in certain areas, as do their distinctively vibrant characters. Despite what many other fans-including Luke's own-have accused over the decades, Skywalker is not reckless, nor has he demonstrated selfish tendencies, save to pursue the paradoxically altruistic path of a Jedi.
And in seeking-and succeeding! -- that, he is called upon to give even more of himself: his life, jeopardize his very soul in ways we cannot begin to comprehend. Not once has he been seen to shy from this.
Following A New Hope, Luke was dismissed as a whiner. Yet when Obi-Wan had urged him to accompany the erstwhile Jedi a mere overnighter after complaining to his guardians. "Looks like I'm going nowhere," and even dangling tangible rewards such as his own, biological father's weapon, a lightsaber, Luke had turned down this call to adventure, replying, "They need me here.
Look, I can drop you off as far as Anchorhead..." Whom was Luke deserting here? The only parents he'd ever known at the most crucial time-harvest? Obviously not. Oh, he'd chosen to interrupt his training, all right-to attempt to help those beloved friends that he was urged to dismiss them to agonizing fates so torturous those mind- screams surpassed space and time to expand his growing Force-senses, touching not a single other. Yoda needed to discern just what had disturbed the puerile Jedi first.
So why these repeated attacks that he'd 'abandoned his training' from those same, numerous fans?
"Why didn't you tell me?"
People have made light of his cry to Ben after Kenobi's Dark-Side tactic to have the young man commit unwitting patricide was discovered before the final battle. This is whining, a trivial issue?
I seem to be among the minority of Luke's fans who does not wish to see him put through the wringer any more than he already has been, must be. Yes, this character's lifepath is destined for battles. Jedi vocation is a magnet for trouble! But does that mean he needs to be propelled to and over the precipice of madness, darkness? I still sadly recall with utter clarity a phone conversation back in '94 with a fellow Luke fan who'd gleefully replied to my half-jesting query, "But I like to twist him! It's such fun!"
I hereby make the case for Luke's competence, growth and innate goodness - though like us all not without conspicuous shadows, and he for better reason than most - which shines through even in direct adversity in the form of a tribute in fond hope that more fans will cease relegating him to the literary cardboard cut out many unfortunately do. Open deliberately occluded vision to that handsome, ice-blue eyed gem truly before them.
Neither one-dimensional, nor a beyond - tragic figure, but a man who seeks to do his best, (often accomplishing this) for the majority of their galaxy needing "A New Hope".