#sw commentary

And when I say that this is a crazy-ass line, I’m attributing most of that to the “Soon I’ll be dead” part.” Skywalkers threaten death or destruction on others all the time, so that’s not anything special. And Skywalkers are notoriously blasé about putting themselves in life-threatening situations, but they’re also really hard to kill, so it doesn’t matter.

“The Force is strong in my family”

I find it fascinating that the Skywalkers’ existence as a Force-sensitive bloodline is a complete anomaly. Actually, Anakin’s progeny’s very existence, period, is something that “wasn’t supposed to be”, due to him being a member of the Jedi Order. It’s only through Anakin forsaking the Jedi Code and getting married anyway that the “Skywalker family” became a thing, beyond himself and his mother. If he’d been a staunch rule-follower (pfft) who wasn’t one to act on emotional attachment (pfffft!), the only “mighty Skywalker blood” would be his. 

But he wasn’t, and he was, so it’s not. And so they’re a successive, hereditary line of extremely Force-sensitive and preternaturally powerful people. Which is an anomaly in the gffa—the Force being strong in someone’s family isn’t a thing, apart from the Skywalkers—for two reasons: 1) Force-sensitivity isn’t normally hereditary, it’s random, granted as the Force wills, and 2) Even if it was automatically hereditary, it would’ve been pretty difficult to discern that, or to propagate a Force-sensitive bloodline, in the Galactic Republic era, considering a majority of Force-sensitives became Jedi, and Jedi didn’t typically procreate.

“Hidden, safe, the children must be kept. Foundation of the new Jedi Order, they will be.”  (M. Stover, Revenge of the Sith)

Ok, but how did they even know newborn Leia and Luke were Force-sensitive? Because, again, automatically hereditary Force-sensitivity isn’t a thing (in normal Force-sensitives), especially not with Jedi. So I guess they just assumed, based on Anakin’s extraordinary origins? They may have been iffy on if he was the Chosen One, on their interpretation of the prophecy, but they definitely knew he was conceived by the Force and had no biological father. So it’s reasonable to assume his offspring would likely be very strong in the Force, too (or you can headcanon that sometime between being born and being sent off, Yoda and Obi-Wan found the time and resources to test the twins’ midichlorian counts, but that seems really thin, so I’m just going with they assumed and turned out to be right, or sensed it naturally).

“less a human-shaped thing”

Yes, they’re of the human species, but they’re not normal humans. They’re not even normal Force-sensitives. They’re all partially made of the living Force, and the Cosmic Force is their ultimate forefather. If Anakin can be considered to be half Force, then Leia and Luke are one-fourth Force, and Ben is one-eighth Force. And interestingly, they seem to be growing in power and strength with each successive generation. In terms of levels or a hierarchy of Force beings, I’d say there’s the Force itself, then below that, The Ones—the Father, the Daughter, and the Son—who could be considered Force deities, albeit mortal ones. Below them, the Skywalkers, who could be considered Force demi-gods. Below them, normal Force-sensitives, then non-Force-sensitives.

Then there’s the fact that the Skywalkers remind me of something that was said about my other favorite epic fantasy family, in that the Skywalkers are very hard to kill. Except in their case it’s less ironic foreshadowing and more straight-up accurate. I mean, surviving a 3-limb amputation by lightsaber, full-body multiple-degree burns, and the subsequent (possibly non-anesthetic) surgery to be fitted with a buttload of life-supporting cybernetics? That’s not normal. Surviving a period of time in open space (including opening your eyes) without a space suit? Not normal. “Leia asked the Force to help her ascend that ladder and return to the broken bridge” (J. Fry, The Last Jedi). And the Force acquiesced. Surviving a bow-caster bolt to an area filled with vital organs, then being able to fight two people right afterwards? Also not normal. “And his abdomen ached where a bolt from Chewbacca’s bow-caster had struck—a blow that would have been instantly fatal if Kylo hadn’t instinctively contained its energy with the Force” (J. F., TLJ). Excuse me, wut? Can other Force-users do that?? I doubt it’s even normal to survive a prolonged, continuous barrage of Force lightning, but that’s also a thing that’s happened. “Sidious briefly relented his assault, believing that he'd done enough damage to kill him, but upon seeing that Skywalker was still alive, unleashed another, more powerful barrage of lightning upon him…” (Wookieepedia, Luke Skywalker). Even Palpatine was like, ‘Ok he’s gotta be dead by now… Oh wait nope, he’s not, oh ok, going again.’

And none of the Force-sensitive Skywalkers who’ve died were murdered. They sacrificed themselves, to save the life of another. These people are freaks of nature whose lives are supernaturally protected, and no mere mortal being is allowed to decide when those lives end. Once they’ve fulfilled their purpose(s) according to the Cosmic Force’s will, then and only then will the Force deem whether it’s their time to leave the mortal world and rejoin the living Force from which they were made. But never before. So lol at Luke’s exile plan to just hole away till he died. Wasn’t gonna happen. 

“…Kylo was its instrument, despite his determination to bend it to his will. He would learn that one day, she sensed—the Force wasn’t finished with him. And that meant Kylo’s life was not hers to take…”  (J. F., TLJ)

“In the end he was still Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he was still a Jedi, and he would not murder a helpless man. He would leave it to the will of the Force.”  (M. S., RotS)

Well, apparently, the Force wasn’t finished with its Chosen One yet, whether he was dark side or Sith or not (also, I feel like this was a bit of a cop-out on Obi’s part, since he was specifically ordered to execute Anakin, but whatever, lol). I mean, this is how much Anakin, even as a severely disabled Vader, could not be killed. Despite at least part of himself wanting to die. Via the comics, this one time when he was feeling especially bored and borderline suicidal, he asked Tarkin to take a bunch of his men and hunt him, Most Dangerous Game style, just to see if somebody could take him out. Which, of course, they couldn’t. RIP all of Tarkin’s men.

“Obi-Wan shook his head. This was completely impossible. No other pilot would even attempt it. But for Anakin Skywalker, the completely impossible had an eerie way of being merely difficult. He reflected that he should be used to it by now.”  (M. S., RotS)

Implying that Anakin did things no human being should be capable of, and he did them all the time (which is how he got a reputation for not being afraid of anything; which wasn’t true, he just wasn’t scared of anything people would expect a soldier in a war to be scared of). And “eerie” as in, not normal, oddly unusual and unsettling. As in, beyond human. Which he was, and all his descendants, too. Anakin is still the only human to finish, much less win, a podrace—aka, the gffa’s death races. Which he did before he even hit puberty. His daughter is the only human to have killed a full-grown Hutt with practically her bare hands. “The sheer strength it took to compress a Hutt’s neck to the point of asphyxiation—she had summoned that from somewhere deep inside…” (C. Gray, Bloodline). Such a crazy amazing feat, it earned her a badass and exalted nickname within the criminal underworld. And she’s just one of multiple Skywalkers who’ve acquired such monikers due to their famous (or infamous) reputed deeds. “Hero With No Fear”, “Huttslayer”, “Jedi Killer” (Anakin, Leia, and Ben, what a coincidence…). Then there’s Luke, who acquired an all-around mysterious and legendary reputation.

As for Obi-Wan thinking it was “eerie” how Anakin could accomplish such inhuman feats, that reminds me of the kind of things Han probably felt after joining this ridiculously weird family, especially as a previously staunch non-believer in the Force. For instance, in the scene near the end of Return of the Jedi where Leia tells him that Luke wasn’t on the Death Star II and he’s fine, she can feel it, while staring off serenely at nothing, Han gives this hilariously confused “wtf?” look. He then momentarily chalked it up to her maybe being in love with Luke, but at first he was like, “Uuuh, say what now…?”😕 Then he goes on to feel like kind of an outsider in his own family because of his wife and son’s mystical mother-son Force bond. And being with Leia is one thing, her being mostly a non-active Force-user. But then his son starts accidentally, telekinetically breaking and toppling things around the house when he gets upset—“whose anger had begun to manifest in malfunctions and breakdowns and objects that fell off shelves and shattered with no one near”—so I see how that could freak somebody out (J. F., TLJ). If even Obi-Wan and other Jedi were weirded out by or even feared Anakin’s abilities, Han was definitely feeling way out of his depth with Ben. And, of course, neither Anakin nor Ben had to be told this, they just knew. You can’t hide true, visceral feelings from a Skywalker, no matter how much you try to tiptoe around them.

In Their Eyes

“And through the cross of their blades he saw in Skywalker’s eyes the promise of hell…” (M. S., RotS)

^ During Anakin’s duel with Count Dooku, before he went full dark-side.

“…Owen never let me near the boy again. […] He’d been scared; scared of the look we’d both seen in his nephew’s eyes. The bravery. The defiance. We’d seen that look before, in other eyes.”  (C. Scott, ‘Time of Death’)

^ When Luke was three years old, by the way. He’d just thrown a toy starfighter at a Gamorrean bandit’s head, and it hit its mark. He basically saved Obi-Wan’s life. Again, he was three.

“Han had no idea how a two-year-old could have such ancient eyes. It was as if Ben had been waiting around for a millennium to show up at just this moment in history.”  (D. J. Older, Last Shot)

What does that mean? I don’t know, but it sounds mystical and fated as heck, so I’m here for it.

“the stars”

“Love can ignite the stars.”  (M. S., RotS)

“…his defiance will shake the stars.”  (C. Wendig, Aftermath: Empire’s End)

There is a bit of associating the Skywalkers with stars in the canon, which fits, for a family that was named for walking among the sky. The relationship that birthed the continuation of the Force-sensitive Skywalker line came to be from “across the stars”. Two people from opposite ends of everything, including the galaxy. But before that love burned out in a blaze of tragedy, it “ignite[d] the stars”. Specifically, two stars that shone so bright it was dangerous to keep that much powerful luminescence in one place, in a time when light was being hunted and snuffed out (and suns are also stars, so, “twin suns”).

So that’s what a Skywalker’s love can do. Their hate, rage, and pain can burn just as hot—“In the Force, Anakin burned like a fusion torch” / “he blazed in Luke’s sense of the Force, almost radiant with power”—almost literally, and cause serious damage (M. S., RotS; J. F., TLJ). Get on their bad side, or put them through emotional turmoil, and their “defiance will shake the stars”. So this is another of my favorite Skywalker things, especially on a thematic and mythological level. I love that they embody what’s now become something of a mantra around them in the extended canon—“The brightest light casts the darkest shadow” (M. S., RotS). That they have the ability to, metaphorically, either ignite the stars, or shake them right out of the sky, depending on the situation—and their mood, basically. That’s how mystically and thematically connected they are to the Force and to the cosmic ebbs and flows of the galaxy, and how those ebbs and flows are often affected or dictated by them, their actions, and/or their state as a family—however inadvertent that may be on their part. Going back to the original star-shaker--

“The tangled web of fault lines in the Force [Mace] had seen connecting Anakin to Obi-Wan and to Palpatine was no more; in their place was a single spider-knot that sang with power enough to crack a planet. Anakin Skywalker no longer had shatterpoints. He was a shatterpoint. The shatterpoint. Everything depended on him. Everything.”  (M. S., RotS)

As he becomes more and more clouded under turmoil, manipulation, and corruption over the course of the prequels, particularly Episodes II and III, so does the Galactic Republic. Then he destroys his own heart—Padmé—by breaking hers, descends into the Underworld, and drags the whole galaxy down with him. It’s only when he reemerges—with the help of his and his beloved’s own bright star—that the galaxy does as well (after the twins’ reunion set things in motion in the first place). Destiny fulfilled, balanced restored... Until it wasn’t. Because, a rather unfortunate yet inescapable side-effect of being born to this bloodline, is that…

The Dark wants Skywalkers, too

“…since the very day we met, my boy. I have watched over you, waiting as you grew in strength and wisdom, biding my time until now, today…”  (M. S., RotS)

“He had seen his apprentice’s enormous potential when he was still a child—the latent power of the Skywalker bloodline was impossible to miss.”  (J. F., TLJ)

They’re meant to be heralds of Cosmic Balance and beacons of light—“He is less a human-shaped thing and more a pulsing, living band of light” / “Ben in her womb…an ever-expanding radiance in the Force”—but their highly attuned power within the Force also acts as a beacon to malevolent dark-siders who want to harness, corrupt, and exploit their power, or just want them out of the way altogether (C. W., A:EE; J. F., TLJ). Either way, they’re near-perpetual targets, and breaking a Skywalker is considered a dark side achievement of the highest order.

“A magnificent jewel box, created both to protect and to exhibit the greatest treasure of the Sith.”  (M. S., RotS)

That’s what Sidious saw “Vader” as. That’s why, after he discovered “Vader” had a son, he tried to upgrade and replace him with a newer, shinier, able-bodied Skywalker model. And that’s why, when Snoke discovered “Vader” had a grandson, he wanted to make a new one and add him to his collection of prized dark side artifacts.

Because Skywalkers are cosmically favored, Skywalkers are of the Force, Skywalkers are Balance-bringers, and they have the galaxy-burning, star-shaking power to prove it. So if you’re someone who wants to control and dominate the Force, who wants it clouded and off-balance, in your favor, I understand needing to make the Skywalkers your “friends” rather than have them as enemies (I wouldn’t want a Skywalker as my enemy, either), as well as the necessity of bending them to your whim. Because going up against a Skywalker, at peak Skywalker? That is a fight you will lose, every time. And they know it. So, Therefore...

The Dark is afraid of Skywalkers

Sidious’s very first instinct upon learning of the existence of “the offspring of Anakin Skywalker” was to just take him out. “He could destroy us… The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi” (TESB). He was scared of Luke. Who he’d never even had any interaction with. Anakin, he’d broken into submission years ago, so he didn’t consider him a threat anymore. Ironically though, at this point, he probably should have, because Anakin was already secretly planning to recruit Luke against the Emperor. Which is how it’s only through Vader downplaying Luke’s potential and convincing him that Luke could be turned that the Emperor starts to come around to that idea instead. Which usually was his general method of apprentice and minion recruitment—always keep upgrading to the newer and better and stronger. Until he was confronted with a new Skywalker, then he was reflexively like, ‘Nope, just eliminate that one.’ And then he got tricked into not doing that. By a Skywalker.

“Anakin, do you think the Sith did not know of this prophecy? Do you think we would simply sleep while it came to pass?”  (M.S., RotS)

By manipulating the Chosen One to his side, Palpatine “ensured” his and the Sith Order’s survival, rather than being destroyed as the prophecy foretold. But in actuality, he only bought himself some time, as he would realize later. Because the Force always gets its way, one way or another. Especially regarding its intentions for its “children”.

So, of course, a generation later, Luke has another dark-sider Big Bad shook at the mere knowledge of his existence.

“If Skywalker returns, the new Jedi will rise.”  (The Force Awakens)

“One obstacle stood in his way—Skywalker… Like his father, Skywalker had been a favored instrument of the will of the Cosmic Force. That made it essential to watch him. And once Skywalker endangered Snoke’s design, it had been essential to act. And so Snoke had drawn upon his vast store of knowledge, parceling it out to confuse Skywalker’s path, ensnare his family, and harness Ben Solo’s powers to ensure both Skywalker’s destruction and Snoke’s triumph.”  (J. F., TLJ)

Because every dark lord worth their salt knows that their triumph—and their lifespan—is dependent on the current Skywalker(s) being either destroyed, or harnessed to their side.

Chosen Ones and New Hopes

“It was said that you would…bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!”  (RotS) “…what Obi-Wan’s really saying to Anakin is: ‘You were our only hope and you blew it. Now we don’t have any hope.’”  (The Making of Star Wars: RotS)“[Bail] stopped in the doorway, looking back. ‘Master Yoda, do you think Padmé’s twins will be able to defeat Palpatine?’ ‘Strong the Force runs, in the Skywalker line. Only hope, we can.’”  (M.S., RotS)

So basically, Luke and Leia were born with the weight of the galaxy’s and the Jedi’s and the Force’s futures on their shoulders—like their father before them.

“Skywalker lives! The seed of the Jedi Order lives! As long as it does, hope lives in the galaxy.”  (TLJ)

So the Skywalkers are like, hope personified, is that what you’re saying, Snoke? Because I agree.

“Then he is our last hope.”  (TLJ)

Anakin was thee Chosen One, and he did end the Sith, and he did bring balance back to the Force. Prophesied and fulfilled. George Lucas didn’t create a whole mystically weird arc of The Clone Wars all about “light”, “dark”, and “balance”, have the personification of Balance ask Anakin to take his place, and show Anakin telekinetically wrangling the nigh-deified personifications of Dark and Light, literally bringing them to their knees, for nothing. However, since the Force ended up getting a lot more than just Ani out of his miraculous conception, I believe that the Skywalkers, the “favored instrument[s] of the will of the Cosmic Force”, became a “chosen” bloodline. Specifically, they are the ones who guard the Balance, to paraphrase the Daughter. They are its keepers, its custodians. Perpetually, generationally tasked with either maintaining or restoring it, as the situation demands. You can tell by the way the Force never leaves them alone. Especially when the Balance is off-kilter.

The Force could’ve easily gone the way of what Obi-Wan was assuming would happen and let Anakin die on Mustafar. Just scrap him and start from scratch with a new Force baby, or completely move on to and put all hope of and responsibility for Balance on Anakin’s children, which is what Yoda and Obi-Wan did. But Yoda and Obi-Wan were mere mortals who did not fully comprehend the magnitude or immovability of the Force’s ultimate will. Anakin may have fallen to the Dark, and been karmically punished for it, but in the end, that didn’t matter, nor did being able-bodied or not. And Force order affiliation was certainly irrelevant.

“But I have scanned this prophecy; it says only that a chosen one will be born and bring balance to the Force; nowhere does it say he has to be a Jedi.”  (Obi-Wan Kenobi - M. S., RotS)

And indeed, Anakin was not a Jedi when he finally did what he was created to do. Not technically, anyway. Either way, he’d definitely taken a severe and prolonged swerve away from the path Qui-Gon Jinn had believed he had to travel in order to fulfill the prophecy. Also, he had help from another Skywalker, whose own destiny was to be the key to his father reaching his own.

“He is to teach one that will save the universe from a great imbalance.”  (a Force Priestess about Yoda - The Clone Wars, ‘Destiny’)

So, not the Chosen One, but the Chosen One couldn’t have done it without him.

The Cosmic Force is patient, and it will wait. But it’s not passive. If a situation is dire enough, it’ll direct and nudge things along. Whether the Skywalkers like it or not. Why else would it have sent exiled Luke an ominous AU dream to let him know that, no, he was not doing the right thing by hiding away and forsaking his Skywalker responsibilities?

“The Force was at work here—it had cloaked itself in a dream, to slip through the defenses he’d thrown up against it. But was the dream a promise? A warning? Or both?”  “…the Cosmic Force. It had an awareness, and a purpose, and a will. A will that had been silent, dormant after the demise of the Sith, only to wake again during Luke’s exile.”   (J. F., TLJ)

So, basically, after Anakin ended the Sith and brought Balance, the Cosmic Force was at peace, in its rightful state, fine and dandy. Until Ben’s fall and Luke’s exile. When Snoke’s machinations knocked two Skywalkers away from their rightful place in the Force’s design, at the same time. Which, them being Skywalkers, is what knocked the Force itself out of Balance again. That’s just how it is with them. Anakin goes down, the galaxy goes with him. Ben and Luke are pulled astray, so is the galaxy. Same script, different cast. The only way the Dark can rise so high is by taking Skywalkers out of light-sided commission first.

And losing two Skywalkers at once, that the Force could not abide. So, it awakened. Darkness had risen again, so the Force provided a “light to meet it.” But since the whole entire family was in shambles, that new light literally could not be another Skywalker this time. Even Snoke assumed it would be Luke again, which is understandable, considering the family’s history. But Luke was (a major) part of the problem this time, so, no. That wasn’t his purpose anymore.

“I loved you, but I could not save you.”  (Obi-Wan - M. S., RotS)“I’ve got to save you.” // “You already have, Luke.”  (RotJ) “I came to face him, Leia. And I can’t save him.”  (TLJ)“The Force had sent Rey, of that Luke was now certain.”  (J. F., TLJ) “I’ll help you.”  (TLJ)

So, why did Ben Solo get a Force-chosen, Force-empowered soulmate with whom to replay, reverse, and “correct” his grandparents’ tragic love story? And why was he able to kill his father, but not his mother, even though it ‘should’ have been much easier under the circumstances? Because (apart from all the male Skywalkers being mama’s boys) not only was it now his responsibility to pick up the Skywalker Balance-bringer mantle and finish what Anakin started, he was also the narrative vessel through which the rifts in Anakin’s relationships to the two most significant women of his life—his mother and his wife—should have been thematically and spiritually mended, since those rifts were the major cornerstones and catalysts in Anakin’s fall, and so, the two original wounds of the Skywalkers’ generational trauma. 

The canonically accepted excusereason is that Luke wasn’t ready. And ok, during A New Hope, I can buy that. But when exactly would he have been “ready” to hear such news? After he’d killed his father without knowing he was his father? (my au headcanon for that is Luke would’ve felt so betrayed and fucked up and furious he would’ve gone dark; they would’ve ended one dark Skywalker only to create another; seriously, if someone writes that fic, I’ll read it) Or would Yoda and Obi-Wan have dropped that bomb on him and scrambled his mind right before sending him off to confront and exterminate his father? Because that’s what they were plying him to do—finish the job Obi-Wan didn’t on Mustafar. Because, remember, Battle of the Heroes wasn’t just a final duel out of nowhere. Obi-Wan was specifically ordered by Yoda to execute Anakin/baby Vader. He didn’t. He had him laid out right there in front of him, one solid strike and that would’ve been it. But he couldn’t bring himself to take that final step because, despite the fact that he’d “let go” of his attachment to Anakin in order to earnestly fight him, he was still his brother and he still loved him (even if he did pointedly phrase it in the past tense). So he just yells this tortured, heart-wrenching monologue at him, and leaves him there limbless and burning like, The Force will take care of it, the Force will take care of it…. Spoiler alert: The Force did not take care of it. Not in the way he was expecting, anyway.

So 22 years later, he and Yoda start molding Luke into their personal Vader assassin—without informing him of the huge conflict of interest there, and knowing good and well that he’s built up three years of hatred for this man after what happened to his aunt and uncle and Obi-Wan. Which, when you really look at it, is just all kinds of not ok. But within the context of the entire Saga, also makes complete sense on Yoda and Obi-Wan’s part. Because you look at the prequels and The Clone Wars, and yes, that is exactly the kind of underhanded shit Jedi of the prequel era would pull, usually in the name of “the greater cause”. Remember that time the Council ordered Anakin to commit treason, and used Obi-Wan as the messenger to take advantage of their relationship, and he went along with it even though he knew it was shitty and Anakin would feel betrayed and probably never trust them again? Because that’s a thing that happened. “It was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the…creation of Darth Vader”, indeed…

And that’s not even getting into the whole Ahsoka mess that caused her to leave the Order, or that time the Council and Obi-Wan faked his death for a mission and didn’t let Anakin in on this, partially because they wanted to use his very real grief to help sell the ruse. And they knew how Anakin was when it came to attachments and his emotions.

Anyway, back to the OT era. Personally, I believe that if there was ever a “perfect” opportunity for Yoda and Obi-Wan to tell Luke the truth, it was when they were trying to stop him from going to Bespin. If anything might’ve made him reconsider the whole thing, or at least get him to avoid confronting Vader, it would be that bit of news that it’s his dad, who’s alive, btw. Obi-Wan and Yoda had a pretty perfect card to play there, and they didn’t play it. They just watched Luke fly off to most definitely get his ass handed to him—by his father; who, as far as they knew, would be trying to kill his own son, unbeknownst to him also—like, ‘Well there’s a decent chance he’s not gonna make it out of this…but we have a spare!’ And honestly, that is just some peak prequel era Jedi mentality right there, lol. 

So they had their chance, and they didn’t take it. Anakin did, though. And it serves them right that he did. Especially ‘Ben’, because it was made clear in both TESB and Return of the Jedi that it was his dishonesty that stung Luke the most.

He was the one who was closest to Anakin, who first told Luke about his father being a Jedi and a pilot in the Clone Wars, who gave him Anakin’s lightsaber and introduced him to the “larger world” of the Force, and he was the one who had three whole years to tell him the full truth, but chose not to. And although Luke eventually forgave him for the deception, I don’t think he ever forgot it, or completely let it go, judging by the fact that it seems to have fed into his recent bitterness towards the Jedi (”hypocrisy”), and especially how he threw Obi-Wan specifically under the bus.

#SHADE, lmfao!

Speaking of which, I find it interesting that in all Luke’s anti-Jedi tirades, he never spoke ill of or against Anakin. If anything, he was kind of defensive of him, with the “It as a Jedi Master who was responsible…” comment. Or at least, it can be read as being somewhat defensive (that’s how I choose to read it, lol; he was partly speaking up for his dad, ok??). He blamed the Order for Sidious’s rise, the Empire, even their own genocide. He blamed Obi-Wan for Vader. But not a negative thing to say about Anakin himself. Part of that is probably because he now knew firsthand how a “Vader” situation can happen due to the actions and mistakes of others. Another factor is probably because, unlike his Jedi mentors who were all about their larger goals above transparency, Anakin, regardless of his motivations at the time, at least told him the hard truth he had every right to know. And, while this is some speculation and extrapolation on my part, I think that eventually became one of the things Luke appreciated and positively attributed to his father in his memory. Anakin never lied to him.

Which is why it’s an especially disappointing instance of history repeating itself via Luke—but also another way to cleverly slot him into the “Obi-Wan” position—when he becomes yet another lying Jedi mentor. Namely with that bs “I went into Ben’s hut just to talk and he attacked me for no reason” story. That wasn’t even a figurative “certain point of view”, that was a straight-up lie. A lie that he, like Obi-Wan and Yoda before him, got caught in when the dark-sided Skywalker with a personal connection to the mentee called him out on it and told the mentee the truth.

And no, Ben’s version of The Incident is not another incorrect version of events on the same level as Luke’s first telling. Ben told Rey everything he remembered about that night, exactly as he remembered it, with no editing. It was his whole truth. Whereas Luke purposely left out a huge chunk of that story, because it made him look really bad and he was, rightfully, ashamed. But with Ben’s version, the only things that were off about it were the exaggerations of Luke actually bringing the saber down, and having crazy-murder face. Everything else was basically what happened (except without Luke looking into his mind, since he was asleep and wouldn’t know about that; again, Luke, wtf). Luke had sensed Ben’s raw power (and growing darkness), and it did scare him, and out of that fear he did consider murdering him, and Ben did not “turn on” or attack Luke without provocation, he defended himself against a—kinda perceived, kinda legitimate—attempt on his life.