Every so often sometimes Iâll see posts pop up on my dash talking about the scene in ESB where Yoda and Obi Wan are trying to keep Luke from flying off to Bespin after Han and Leia and everyoneâs always lauding Luke for being a âTRUE hero who sticks it to the meanie evil Jedi who just want him to blindly obey their evil oppressive orders and let his friends die >:(â
And itâs like. Okay. Okay, that sure is a funny way of saying âLuke blatantly ignoring his masters trying to tell him not to walk into the Obvious Fucking Trap Vader is purposefully using his friendsâ pain to set for him, walks smack into it anyway, fails to rescue one friend and needs to have the other rescue herself and then HIM after he gets his arm amputated and loses his lightsaber and nearly diesâ but OKAY.
o k a y . . .
Okay but like the two options arenât âit was a great choice with no flawsâ and âit was a horrific stupid choice that shouldnât have been made and ultimately was useless.â
In the scene on Dagobah, Obi-Wan and Yoda are in part talking about the practical âyouâre not strong enoughâ bit, but like, theyâre also saying that Luke needs to give up his friends for the greater good, that he needs to sacrifice the attachment of his friendship. âIf you believe in what they fight forâ Yoda says, âyou will let them die, and finish your training.â Obi-Wan literally says âI donât want to lose you to the Emperor like I lost Vaderâ - he is literally talking about his fear that Lukeâs love and fear for his friends will turn into spiritual corruption which will lend to the Dark side. Thatâs just, textual. They arenât saying âcome and become stronger, we understand youâre afraid, but itâs a trap, there are ways to do this which are clever, weâll make a plan.â Itâs a really blatant ultimatum - either your friends or your soul.
And Luke says no to that ultimatum existing in the first place! This is one of my favorite scenes in ESB specifically because youâre seeing so many facets of Lukeâs character - his brashness of rushing off right away, his arrogance in thinking he can take on Vader, absolutely 100%! But also, weâre getting a really lovely showing of - his refusal to sacrifice real people and real relationships in favor of The Cause (TM). Itâs actually really important that Luke DOES go, because what heâs demonstrating is his deep seated belief that people arenât expendable or replaceable, that The Greater Good cannot come at the cost of, as he sees it, the lives of those he loves. Thereâs a really fascinating and affirmative humanization heâs performing, where Yoda and Obi-Wan are sort of clinically evaluating Han and Leiaâs lives in terms of costs and benefits and - entirely correctly!! - decide that in this calculation, in this moment, itâs going to be more strategically advantageous to let them die. But Luke is saying, your algorithm is wrong, itâs fundamentally flawed, they arenât replaceable, their lives are worth saving because they are people, and because I love them, and that isnât meaningless, it isnât a trifle. Which like, is literally the entire emotional impetus behind the final scenes of ROTJ!! Thereâs a REASON Luke was able to bring Vader back to the light when no one else was. It matters that Luke has this personality core of choosing relationship over risk, because him making this choice with Vader is what sways Vader away from the dark side and against Palpatine. It matters that he ignores Obi-Wan and Yodaâs strategic calculation which leads to their ultimatum - especially because, his rejection of that ultimatum is, again, what ultimately allows him to help Vader become Anakin and thus end the war for good.
Anyways, obviously at the end of the day personal interpretation of art will always come up to the individual but like, whatâs happening here objectively has really serious thematic weight and itâs not just, Luke being pigheaded and ignoring his Correct and Unbiased teachers because he thinks he can take on the universe by himself lol
