Dyad Symbolism and Jungian Psychology in The Last Jedi
belWhile re-watching The Last Jedi, I began to notice how often imagery of pairs appeared throughout the film (and I don’t think this is just a coincidence).
Rose and Paige’s medallion:
The legacy lightsaber (split in half):
the Twin suns, Leia’s Ring, The Supremacy (split in half), Snoke (split in half) etc…
I believe this was all very intentional symbolism that was suppose to lead our heroes to the resolution of the saga (and where I believe a Rian Johnson Episode 9 would have taken us) by finally bringing balance to the force.
TFA begins with the galaxy still in disarray as the dark side of the force perceivers through the rise of the First Order. Lor San Tekka states that this can only be stopped through the return of the Jedi as he says that “without the Jedi there can be no balance in the force.”
However, this is exactly why Luke wants the Jedi Order to end because he felt that his efforts to stop the Empire were wasted and that the legacy of the Jedi only ended in failure.
However, Luke soon see’s the error of his ways thanks to his pep-talk with master Yoda and sees that the solution to restoring order in the galaxy is not to end the Jedi but instead, to accept their (and his own) mistakes and learn from them.
Rian states that “If you think you are throwing away the past, you are fooling yourself. The only way to go forward is to embrace the past, figure out what is good and what is not good about it. But it’s never going to not be a part of who we all are. And that includes Rey, who grew up hearing the legends about the Jedi. So the notion of, ‘Nope, toss this all away and find something new,’ is not really a valid choice, I think.“ (Rian Studied works by Jun and Bly in preparation for writing TLJ, including Modern Man In Search of a Soul and A Little Book About The Human Shadow)
This idea of incorporating that dark parts of yourself into your identity comes from the concept of “the shadow” in Jungian Psychology, which involves examining our darker sides in order to become more consciously aware of the origins of our behaviors, motivations, and desires.
So to become whole or “balanced” we must incorporate our Ego and our Shadow together and that creates our concept of “Self.” (Every Thesis contains an Antithesis and by synthesizing both together you can see a larger “truth”)
And this is where Rey and Ben come in, as Rian states that “Rey and Kylo are almost two halves of our protagonist.” I think that TLJ was leading up to having Rey and Ben set aside their differences to come together and reform the Jedi Order.
As TLJ shows that when they work together they are an unstoppable force that can achieve harmony.
Where as when they are fighting against each other the world devolves into utter chaos.
Which is why even though TROS teased having Rey and Ben defeating Palpatine together. It didn’t feel like a satisfactory conclusion to the saga because in the end Rey ends up fighting alone once again balance is not restored.
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