A Certain Kind Of Weird

They do try to blame it on Israel still, but hey, at least they admit to Hamas' crimes.

May the force be with you 💫

See, part of the conceit of the PotC trilogy is that all myths are true. Nearly every supernatural element in the franchise has a root in some real world mythology or pirate lore, although some of them are mashed together.

Another thing is that they take place at the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, and the more the map gets filled in, and the more the Royal Navy takes power, there less room there is for the mystical and supernatural in the world. This is explicitly called out in At World's End with the death of the kraken:

Barbossa: The world used to be a bigger place. Jack: The world's still the same. There's just... less in it.

The only way to access the world of the supernatural is through the supernatural itself. You can only get to the Isla de Muerta with Jack's compass that points to whatever you desire, or if you already know where its is. You need Tia Dalma's map to find the edge of the world. To access the supernatural, you need to already be immersed in it.

When we go to Tortuga (or any pirate controlled space) we leave behind the sensibilities of the real world and enter this bizarre perpetual revel of debauchery and violence that could never sustain itself in a world bound by sense.

That makes Jack our Puck character, a trickster of tricksters who can invert your fortunes just by letting him talk to you.

The ones that suggest that Luke makes that decision because he is giving in to his anger and he recognizes that it is more than his anger sound a little better. But reading it the way you put it "Winning is suicide because he would lose his soul"Oohhhh that was a direct arrow to finally clicking for me.

I can't explain it, I don't think you're saying anything different than other pro-Jedi speeches but you articulated it in a way that I can finally put it together in my head. Maybe because you link it to the cave scene and not to the conversation with Obi-Wan (which is part of that but makes more sense with the cave)

Luke lets go of his anger at that realization, that succumbing is a condemnation for himself not because anger=bad and he recognizes that this "death" (the metaphorical death from which Obi-Wan saw Anakin's death) would lead him to be like Vader and he is more than that and there was a time when Anakin was too.More than his anger, more than his fear, more than his hatred. More than the emperor's (replaceable) attack dog.

Luke was choosing a literal death over a metaphorical one because he decided he was going to trust his friends to succeed and realized that beating Vader was an empty victory.Vader changing his mind was no longer Luke's motive or goal, just a happy coincidence because Luke can't control things, he can only control himself.

Oh I'm glad it helped you! I had rewatched RotJ recently when showing the whole series to a friend who had never seen it. Allow me to indulge a bit and expand on the idea.

This is the post Anon refers to. I actually had more of that part, but realized it was a post about hanleia and it didn't really need more. I tend to go on and on.

But at the time when I wrote that post I had rewatched RotJ, and I had forgotten how Palpatine tries to do the same thing he did to Anakin. He's trying to get Luke afraid and tries to use attachments against him just like with Anakin.

And Luke gets drawn in. He is afraid, he is angry, he lashes out at Palpatine, but Vader is the one that catches his blade.

He fights Vader viciously. He's lost faith in Vader. He sees him as just a tool of Palpatine. An obstacle to Luke's hatred.

I would also like to add how this fight mirrors Mustafar! Luke is the one pushing forward and it's Vader that's the one giving ground (Yet another reason to love the choreography of that fight because RotS came later so they were mirroring this moment between Luke and Vader not the other way around).

Luke slams Vader with strikes and then cuts off Vader's hand.

And it's just like the hand he lost in Empire Strikes Back. A mechanical prostetic. The price Luke paid for acting on his fear. Going to Cloud City didn't save his friends, they escaped by themselves. It had only put himself at risk and in the end he had lost his hand and learned a terrible secret that he might not have been ready to face at the time.

------

And Luke stares at the hand and that's his moment of realization. The similarities between himself and his father. When Luke thought he was killing Vader in the cave, he actually killed himself, and now he can finally see it. He finally understands Yoda and Obi-Wan. They see his father in him in the best and worst ways. Yoda says he cannot be a Jedi until he faces Darth Vader again, but Yoda never says that Luke must defeat Vader to be a Jedi. He needs to face him, and in doing so facing the darkness in himself and his own fears.

Luke tells Obi-Wan that he can't kill his own father and Obi-Wan says then they've lost, but Obi-Wan isn't talking about killing Anakin Skywalker. He never has. He's always spoken about Vader. Now, I'm not saying he was speaking metaphorically in the moment, but Obi-Wan sees nothing left of Anakin. Darth Vader is fear when you think about it. He was created by fear, he causes fear. Darth Vader (fear) destroyed Anakin Skywalker, and if Luke can't kill that fear then he will be just as lost.

So in facing Vader, Luke faces himself and what could happen if he gives in to darkness and anger and hatred, just as Palpatine wants.

So Luke sees the hand and it all clicks as Palpatine laughs in delight at the blow. Luke and Anakin Skywalker are one and the same. Vader (fear) trying to consume him just as it consumed Anakin Skywalker.

Luke let's go of his fear, in doing so his hope in Anakin is rekindled. He accepts his friends might die, but he believes in them. He accepts Vader may not turn back to the light, but he still tries to get through to him. He lets go of his attachment and he is a Jedi Knight. He passed his final trial. He is no longer control by fear. So all that's left is love and hope.

Palpatine sees that. He's angry. He is going to make Luke afraid through suffering and death, and if he doesn't give in then he will kill him.

Luke calls out to Vader in pain: Father, help me, please. Because with true understanding of himself, he knows Obi-Wan is wrong. That Anakin isn't gone. He calls out because he has hope still. He believes Anakin is still there. He believes he can still reach him.

As for Anakin, it might seem like this is a continuation of a pattern. He betrays Palpatine because of his attachment to Luke you might say. I had got stuck on that for awhile. It seems like he hasn't changed at all. But.

But Vader wanted Luke to be like him for a reason. We already know he was willing to betray Palpatine. He offered Luke the galaxy at his side. What matters is that Luke joins HIM, not the other way around. He wanted his son beside him in darkness. He believes it's far too late for him to step back into the light, as he says to Luke when Luke surrenders: It's too late for me, son. Vader believes the only way he can have Luke is if Luke falls, so he'll do anything to see it happen. Even attack him.

I come into the fandom of the Guides Verses bearing gifts (only one piece of art but it sounds wrong when it’s not plural):

(To anyone who doesn’t know this is fanart for the stunning fanfiction, the Guides Verses by @jackdaw-kraai, this is set about a dayish after the last chapter in the bar fight one, I imagine the actual Suite would be much prettier but backgrounds)

Rocky hums. “Close. Skip first note.”

“Why? You always include that.”

“This means… of Rocky, possessive. Of the speaker.”

“My.”

“Correct. But only for names.”

“So you’re calling me…?”

Rocky repeats the word: “My Grace. Yes.” 

As mentioned above, he's efficient and absolutely brutal. That is not at all a criticism, by the way. There's none of the flourishes of prequel Jedi. He's straightforward, and gets it done. He goes for the kill shot every time. He fights a lot like Vader- which makes sense. His primary teachers in the force were Ben (with about two days of instruction) and Yoda (old, doesn't have a lightsaber anymore).

But he had at least two fights with Vader, blade to blade. I can see a lot of Vader's techniques in how he fights here. Between ESB and ROTJ he learned a lot, and I'm fairly certain some of his technique was adapted from how Vader fought in ESB.

Even his use of the Force was efficient- using it to throw boxes at the dark troopers, or push them around, or crushing that one dark trooper. It reminds me of how Vader used the force to throw things at Luke in ESB.