#lulei

Before I dig into Luke and Leia, I wanted to nitpick a few things about Rian’s choices for Leia in particular (and Luke by extension). I already picked at my issues with Luke’s trajectory in my last post, so I won’t rehash that again here, but I also have issues with Leia and I’d prefer to get them out first rather than ruin a good ending (because there really is so much to love about Luke and Leia in this film). ;)

As with Luke, I love Leia’s general character development in this film. We see the heavy toll the loss of Han has taken on her--she’s no longer able to bear the weight of all the deaths around her. Han’s death changed something fundamental for her, and now she’s struggling under the burden of having to lose promising young lives and old friends. She’s clearly starting to wonder what the point of it all is and if it’s even worth it--what has she been fighting for all this time? Toward the end of the film, she even loses hope for the first time in her life--this too seems realistic to me in light of the destruction of her family and her life’s work. All her interactions with her resistance members are perfect, and the ending between her and Rey hits all the right notes.

One of my complaints with Leia in this trilogy is how passive she is about her son, who clearly places her above his father and uncle in his regard. Why is she still prioritizing the resistance rather than hunting her boy down and helping him come home? If she regrets losing him to Snoke, why is she not fighting for him? This is one of Leia’s deepest character flaws--she places her duties as a mother below her duties to the “greater good,” even when her duties as a mother were vital to ensuring the greater good. Both TFA and TLJ miss out on a great opportunity to show the greater ramifications of “small choices” like caring for your children--if you care for your children and are involved with their lives, they generally don’t go running off to join terrorist organizations in order to get your attention. This was a lesson Han seems to recognize at the end of his own journey in TFA, but too late to make a difference--had he chosen to be the parent his son needed, perhaps his son would have had a stronger framework from which to fight against his darker impulses.

So with the Leia Poppins sequence (which is an abysmal bit of filmmaking but I won’t burn your ears with my complaints), we find out Leia is clearly powerful in the force. If this is so, and given the reality that the resistance is losing badly and she knows her son is on the enemy’s side in the final sequence, why on earth is she not the one to walk out in the end sequence to face her son and buy the resistance some time to escape? I know Rian wanted this to be Luke’s film, but it honestly makes no sense that Luke is the one who does this--it should have been Leia! If her resistance members are so much more important to her than her son, she should have walked out there and taken the bullets for them from him. Why is she unwilling to face her son and put her own life on the line? Honestly, if she’d been the one who walked out there alone, as far as I’m concerned Kylo would have immediately buckled. The boy has no spine when it comes to his mommy. All she had to do was get out there and tell him to get his rear end down there right now like mother with good sense. He’d obey lickety split, and Hux would probably facepalm, and they could have at least worked out a ceasefire if nothing else. 

At the very least, I think it would have been better for Leia’s character if Leia had attempted to do this, and then perhaps have Luke stop her (that way she can be saved for the pivotal third film, which is what I know Rian and JJ wanted, because nothing beats a mother’s love). I can’t believe this got through the story group, but whatever. So many head scratchers got through the story group that at this point I can only throw my hands in the air in exasperation and wonder why they even have such a group at all.

All this being said, my complaints about Leia didn’t detract from my sheer enjoyment of Luke and Leia’s trajectory, which I felt truly matched the original trilogy’s natural trajectory just as well as Han and Leia did in TFA. But before I get into that, I’d like to step back a minute and talk about the original trilogy and my own experience with it.

Luke was one of my first crushes back when I was a kid, though I’ll freely admit I was more a Spock/Prince Phillip kind of girl on the whole. I’ve always been fiercely attached to Arthurian lore, and Luke’s narrative over the course of the three films of the original trilogy has all the hallmarks of the Arthurian tale, with Luke obviously placed in Arthur’s seat. Arthur has always been my favorite character of the original legends (with Mordred coming in a close second, perhaps unsurprisingly given who my favorite character in the sequel trilogy is, fufu), and even when I was a kid I understood clearly that Leia was “Guinevere” and Han was “Lancelot.” As such, even if Lucas hadn’t pulled the sibling reveal, Luke was doomed when it came to Leia. With the sibling reveal, something interesting happens to the Arthurian parallels--Leia becomes the embodiment of two central figures: Guinevere and Morgana. This is an element that makes the ending sequence quite interesting to me, but more on that later.

One thing always struck me in the original films was there was never a clear moment when Luke “got over” Leia. Leia easily accepted Luke as her brother, because in many ways he already was as far as she was concerned; her eyes had been only for Han since the moment she first saw him. When I first saw the original trilogy, I just wrote this off as a “nicer” variant of the Arthurian legend--Luke had to lose, and Lucas was just giving him an easy way out that wouldn’t leave him in tears, especially in the last film. But Vader still tempted him to the dark side by using Leia, even after the sister reveal, and Luke almost succumbed, which always seemed a bit over the top for a normal sibling reaction.

However, my perspective changed when I watched the prequels, many years later. Anakin attaches to Padme the instant he meets her, despite her barely taking notice of him, making clear a pattern which actually had been established by his children in the original trilogy: when Skywalkers “fall,” they fall instantaneously and forever. Anakin for Padme, Leia for Han, and Luke for Leia. Once I saw The Revenge of the Sith, my head canon (I had them even back then, go figure) for Luke solidified into the idea that Luke never “got over” Leia and that if the story had continued, he would eventually have had to separate from her and Han simply because his heart couldn’t take it and he, like Arthur in the legend, had too good a heart to cause trouble for people he loved.

Of course the EU canon didn’t support this, and I never considered myself a Star Wars fan (I’m a TOS Trekkie to the core and before the sequel trilogy would have been on the Trek side of the Star Wars vs. Trek debate XD), so I didn’t really think anything of it all. But when I heard Disney was tossing out the EU canon in the new trilogy, in the back of my mind I wondered if maybe, just maybe, they’d have the same vision for Luke that I did. With TFA, I had the first inkling that this might just be the case--Han and Leia had a clearly mutual, but realistically contentious relationship centered on their own personal friction and the loss of a son (which I loved and thought was spot on perfect for these characters--good on you, JJ), and Luke had “vanished” mysteriously. So far so good.

Along comes TLJ, and bless Rian for what he did with Luke and Leia. For this alone, I’d forgive him any flaw--this most important thing he got right. Luke’s off on the island, refusing to deal with Rey and running from Leia and Kylo, and when he finds out Rey came aboard the Falcon, he sneaks on board to revisit old memories. And R2D2 knows exactly what will move Luke and remind him of his youthful, idealistic self--the image of Leia he fell in love with during ANH. Luke may call it “cheap,” but it works like a charm--he immediately accepts the summons and goes to Rey’s side.

We see three instances in TLJ of what I consider to be the call of the eternal feminine--Rey calls Kylo (who rejects), Rose calls Finn (who accepts), and Leia calls Luke (who accepts). There is a similar thread throughout all of these moments, and that is the undercurrent of romantic tension. Traditionally, the lady giving the call would place her favor upon her chosen knight (and since Star Wars is heavily influenced by Arthurian legend and courtly tales such as Tristan and Isolde, you still see these elements sneak in every now and then even with Lucas gone). The fact that there are only two other calls from the eternal feminine, and that both of them have the romantic undercurrent, confirms for me that Luke still has a small flame in his heart for Leia, though he suppresses it because he’s a good man. Rather than hurting Leia with his feelings, he strives to honor his feelings for her by doing what he can for her.

This is, in my estimation, why there is a tinge of the romantic in their only two scenes in the film. When Luke reconnects to the force for the first time, he awakens Leia from her slumber as their minds connect. She speaks his name, and he speaks hers. It’s a scene that cuts straight to the heart of an original trilogy fan. Arthur returns to his Guinevere/Morgana in this scene, even if only via mental space, and hope arrives with him, giving her the strength to stand up again.

The big moment between them is, of course, when he arrives during Leia’s most desperate hour. Her lost son stands at the gates with all the hounds of hell at his beck and call, and her resistance is on its last legs. Who should arrive at the last hour but Arthur himself--Luke from the shadows, as once he did for Han in Return of the Jedi (great callback, Rian). Arthur has come to save his Queen from Mordred--the darkness he himself unleashed upon the world, though in this story Mordred is not his biological son.

Luke’s and Leia’s first exchange is a mirror of her and Han, but unlike Han, Luke has always had a gentle rather than biting sense of humor. She quietly teases him that she knows what he’s thinking--she changed her hair. Luke reassures her that it looks nice that way, acknowledging her attempt at levity, and then he apologizes from his heart. Leia, who is connected to him, understands immediately that he means it and extends her forgiveness and her love.

Luke announces he’s here to face Kylo. Unlike with Han, Leia doesn’t ask Luke to save her son--she instead mournfully admits she’s afraid he’s lost for good. Luke won’t let it end for her like that; he restores her hope to her when he says that no one is ever really gone--meaning both Kylo and himself. If he can return to her side, so can Kylo.

It’s fitting that she is the last person to see him before he faces his sins, and that he places the token of the man she loves in her hand before he goes--always, always, he acknowledges the love she bears Han and honors her choice. Then he honors his own feelings by placing a beautiful kiss on her forehead--a kiss containing the immortal depth of all forms of love, the parting of a King from his chosen Queen. It is the end of their story, but the beginning of her son’s, and the fight is not over.

Having said his goodbyes to Leia, he embarks to face Kylo. This moment is when the Arthurian legend begun by the original six films--from Anakin’s Uther to Obi Wan’s Merlin to Luke’s Arthur to Han’s Lancelot to Leia’s Guinevere/Morgana--comes full circle and we at last put the Arthurian story to rest in favor of the more traditional fairytale, which is the flavor of Rey’s heroine’s journey and the center of the new trilogy.

Luke as Arthur stands against Kylo, his Mordred. But because this isn’t the end of the tale, he has no intention of killing his Mordred; instead, he will do what he can to plant the seeds for Mordred’s return to the light, and he will journey to Avalon (the force) of his own free will. As in the Arthurian legend, Luke will never be truly gone, and he will always be waiting for the day when he is needed once more. He can lay down his burden, and close the curtain on the tale begun by his father. His Mordred will not die with him; by Luke’s own intention, Kylo will live on and face Rey once more--but this time, hope isn’t dead and Camelot can still rise out of the ashes once more.

Leia takes the gift Luke gives her, and with the renewal of hope burning in her heart, she plans the rebirth of the resistance through their new champion: Rey, the only person left who can take down the final Goliath.