Luke Skywalker is one of the most famous fictional heroes in film history in one of the biggest film franchises of all time. Luke is popular though perhaps not the most loved with people generally having Han Solo as their favourite or the duo in C3-PO and R2-D2. When I was growing up my two favourite characters drifted between Han and Luke. In retrospect Luke grew on me more, it after all is his story and his journey. In an earlier blog post I discussed what makes a good story, and in it I was talking about the two different types of stories, plot driven or character driven, and plot driven is more it just happens to the characters and can be a straight up moral good v bad story. While character driven stories where characters seem to have more agency. I did say however that I can make a case for having a strong character driven story but still be a straight up moral good v bad story and there is no stronger case than Luke Skywalker. Luke is obviously born on Polis Massa with his twin sister, Leia and separated at birth and sent to live with his relatives on Tatooine. It’s one of the most used tropes in fiction, having also been used in Harry Potter, the Belgariad by David Eddings, Final Fantasy, the Dresden Files and many more. Though in Luke’s case it is subverted with Vader being his father and being alive but nonetheless Star Wars Episode 4 opens with Luke on Tatooine, living on the Lars moisture farm. Of course, he has gift, the force, but has yet to receive training. It is only when he encounters Obi-Wan Kenobi, that then shows him his father’s lightsaber. The first real impact though that Luke really feels, that drives Luke forward is when he comes back and finds that the empire has destroyed the moisture farm and killed Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. This is a real change in direction, and it drives the story forward, but it also shows loss. It shows the end of Luke’s old world and everything else that he has lived for for the past 19 years and has no choice but to go with Obi-Wan. Old Obi-Wan, Luke with the droids end up going to Mos Eisley and then encountering Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon. Once they make their journey off-world, aiming for Alderaan. Along the journey Obi Wan starts to train Luke and he begins to spar with the floating droid. It shows Luke being hit by the droid and then does better when he starts to rely more on the force with the helmet as instructed. It shows a character making mistakes and having someone being able to guide them along to be better. Then after a lengthy amount of time on the Death Star when they were about to leave, Luke witnesses Obi-Wan dying at the hands of the villain, Darth Vader and again Luke is unable to help. Once they escape, the Empire follows them with the death star to Alderaan. The battle above the death star soon begins and a squadron of star fighters and then the battle to destroy the death star and again Luke witnesses friends being killed like Darklighter unable to save them either, which seems to be a common thing throughout the film. However, Luke still leads the final assault on the death star and once again needs Obi-Wan to guide him along again before sending the final shot that destroys the death star. It shows again that even in Obi-Wan’s death, the need for training and learning isn’t over. Luke becomes a hero of the Rebel Alliance, he has taken the first stage in his journey, from farmboy to rebel alliance hero, but he’s still far from being a Jedi Master.
Episode 5 comes along, and it takes on a different tone to the previous film. It starts with the Empire searching for the Rebel base while the rebels are on Hoth. Luke, Han and the rest of the gang are on the planet. Luke while traversing the snowy wastelands gets attacked by a wampa, and then manages to escape but almost dies from exhaustion after traversing the snow plains. He receives a vision of Obi Wan Kenobi and he carries on, only to eventually be rescued by Han Solo. It illustrates that even though Luke might have been the rebel alliance hero, he was still not invincible. He was still a very flawed character that needed rescuing by a non-force sensitive human. It shows that even with the Force, you can still be vulnerable and weak. Even after being rescued and taken back to base, it is not long until the Empire begins its attack on the world. Luke is one of the snowspeeder pilots, and again it doesn’t go very well for Luke as he gets shot at and loses his co-pilot before crashing to the ground, but he single-handledly took down two walkers, showing great skill, tenacity and potential as a Jedi Master. Once the evacuation is in process, Luke then heads as told to go to the swamp world of Dagobah to seek out Master Yoda. Hitting the atmosphere Luke ends up crashing into the swamp and is forced to flee from it with R2-D2 as the X-wing. They set up a camp and they encounter a small green figure that turns out to be Master Yoda. Yoda takes him to his hut, and Luke at this point becomes very impatient with Yoda as he not yet revealed who he is to Luke, and the voice of Obi Wan appears then Luke realises he is the Jedi Master. Yoda does start training and it is one of my favourite scenes in the entire saga. The murky swamp of Dagobah is like an isolated forgotten world that is very different to the other planets in all the films—even Hoth, or even Mustafar seems preferable as Hoth has open space for habitation and Mustafar has natural resources for trading. Dagobah lacks resources, and space, it certainly fits the purpose of a planet to hide on from the rest of the universe and civilisation. The two most important scenes of the training is that Luke fails to lift up the X-wing and Yoda has to show him how it’s done, but the other important scene was the duel in the cave with a vision of Vader that turns out to be him that horrifies him. Luke then despite Obi Wan and Yoda’s warnings, Luke flies off to Bespin. This shows character agency that he is actively making a decision that goes against the guidance of his masters, yet in other scenes he has shown to follow the guidance willingly of Obi Wan. This decision though comes with its own consequences. Because of this decision it leads to not only Luke failing to save Han, but also engaging with a duel against Darth Vader, losing as well as losing a hand and then being told that Vader is Luke’s father. Luke manages to escape and then the film is soon over after that. The film is regarded as most fans favourite of all time, and yet at the same time, it’s a film of struggles and trials for the rebels with the loss at Hoth despite many escaping, but the capture of Han by Boba Fett. More so than that is one of trial and error for Luke throughout the entire film. Episode 6 , Return of the Jedi rounds off the saga. The scene with Jabba and Luke trying to convince the greasy Hutt to free Han fails and it ends up with Luke in the pit against a rancor but manages to defeat it. Then the battle goes out onto the barges and this time it shows Luke’s change to a fully-fledged Jedi as the whole thing was planned with patience. The over eagerness of Luke from the last film to rush off recklessly has gone from his character. Once the scene on Tattooine is over, Luke goes off to Dagobah one last time to witness Yoda becoming one with the force and then it eventually makes its way to Endor. Luke illustrates his force ability to make C3-PO seem like a god to the Ewoks, and that leads to them being freed. While Han is really impatient, Luke is calm the entire time. Then the battle eventually starts with Luke making his way to the death star and is taken to Vader before being taken to the Emperor. Palpatine starts his mind games and begins to try and break down Luke but there’s only two moments when Luke kind of shows weakness—pulling the saber after Palpatine tries to entice him to do so, and when Vader talks about Leia. Luke is able to disarm Vader showing that he is not the Jedi that fought him on Bespin but he is the Jedi Master now. However even with that, he still gets taken by surprise by Palpatine’s lightning and needs Vader to rescue him and defeat Palpatine. By then the war is over. Luke then is able to see Vader with his mask off and is able to escape the death star before it explodes. Then comes the celebrations. The music by the way is one of my favourite tracks of the saga. Luke during the trilogy rises from a farm boy to both a hero and Jedi Master. Throughout the saga he shows flaws as well as making mistakes, but by the final film he has matured into the Jedi Master hero. Even then he still shows those momentary lapses of the recklessness or striking out as he had in previous films. He is a well-rounded character, and as the audience you are fully able to relate to him, and empathise with him, which makes him a good but flawed character. He is certainly not a Mary-Sue character that is overpowered. He clearly can’t do everything even with the Force, and still shows different limitations, particularly in Episode 5 where it happens on more than one occasion where someone has to rescue him, whether its Han Solo, or Yoda raising his x-wing from the swamp. Good characters can be strong, but they have to have some kind of flaw, as flaws can be used to build up the relationship between other characters as well as drive the plot forward as the case in this saga. I hope to see more characters like this in the future, but unfortunately, we’re seeing more and more Mary-Sue type characters.