#the force

The aforementioned haunting, an interlude in Tales from the Death Star, follows Wilhuff Tarkin through the final hour(s) of his life. En route to Yavin, in command of the planet-destroying superweapon he used to reduce Alderaan to space dust, the Grand Moff begins to unravel; he hears voices, snaps at subordinates, and sees things that aren’t there. This downward spiral culminates in a vision of Tarkin’s victims, including the recently-dispatched Orson Krennic, who offers the following cold comfort: “You’ll be with us soon enough.”

But Krennic’s is not the only voice Tarkin hears. The first (“Wil?”) belongs to a frightened child: Gideon Tarkin, the brother a young Wilhuff abandoned to a grisly death on Eadu. (Yes, that Eadu: the “storm-stricken planet” where Krennic later enlisted former friend and classmate Galen Erso to harness the destructive potential of kyber.) Gideon, we’re given to understand, is the first death on Wilhuff’s conscience—his original sin. And in Wilhuff’s dying vision, Gideon and Krennic are holding hands.

It’s a fitting end, I think. In his final moments, Wilhuff Tarkin is compelled by the Force to face the human cost of a lifetime of ruthless ambition, beginning with his brother’s death and ending with his own.

WHAT IS THE FORCE?

This is a fool’s errand, but we’ll start with the company line: The Force is the Galaxy Far, Far Away’s colloquial term for a two-part “energy field” comprising the Living Force—“the energy of all life”—and the Cosmic Force—“the wellspring from which the Living Force […] sprang into all living things, and into which all life [feeds] upon death.” This energy field is believed to have a will; this will is believed to be communicated by “microscopic organisms” known as midi-chlorians; the concentration of midi-chlorians in a host organism’s body is believed to determine said host organism’s natural sensitivity to and aptitude for harnessing the energy of the Force.

Religion in Star Wars, on the whole, tends toward a sort of panentheism. While a variety of in-universe belief systems center the Force, the most noteworthy—for Lucasfilm storytelling purposes, at least—are the Jedi and the Sith. Risking oversimplification: the Jedi follow a path of peace and compassion, listening for and surrendering to the will of the Force, whereas the Sith follow a path of power and domination, manipulating the world around them to suit their ends; the Jedi are seen as servants of the “Light side” of the Force, while the Sith are seen as masters of its “Dark side.”

Much ink has been spilled over this duality. Some Star Wars fans—particularly those enamored with Dave Filoni’s gods of Mortis detours in The Clone Wars and Rebels—are very committed to the view that the Force itself is split, somehow, an essence with opposing wills locked in an eternal power struggle. I’m aware that I’ll be making those fans very unhappy when I say that I think this view is bogus. (And a misunderstanding of Filoni’s perspective. But that’s beside the point.)

There are no Light- and Dark-side midi-chlorians. This may seem like a non-sequitur. I assure you, it is not.

[LEFT: THE LAST JEDI, illustrated by Rory Kurtz. / RIGHT: Excerpt from “THE LAST JEDI’s Theology of Power” by Kathryn Reklis.]

If the Force has a will (singular), and the Force communicates this will through a particular kind of organism, the midi-chlorian, which the Force has created specifically for this purpose, then logic suggests that conflicting interpretations of its will are not the fault of inconsistencies within the Force itself, but the result of a multiplicity of interpreters.

In cheekier terms: the Force is one, and in it all things live and move and have their being—it just so happens that those things living and moving and being have minds of their own. Light and Dark aren’t aspects of the Force; they’re simply ways to wield it.

You may be wondering what all this has to do with the Force-agnostic commanding officers of the franchise’s planet-destroying superweapons. Quite a lot, I think.

WHAT ABOUT THE SUPERWEAPONS?

In 1 BBY, the Death Star, by order of Wilhuff Tarkin, fires on Jedha, Scarif, and Alderaan before its destruction by Rebel forces. The death toll is staggering, in excess of 2 billion sentients across three planets. Nearly 35 years later, Starkiller Base, by order of Armitage Hux, fires on the Hosnian System before its destruction by Resistance forces. The death toll is roughly 75 times that of the Death Star, in excess of 150 billion sentients across five planets.

Earlier, I made the case that the Light and Dark “sides” are not inherent, dualistic halves of the Force but rather categorical distinctions made by those who wield it. I want to clarify that this does not mean that I interpret the Force as a neutral entity content to watch the galaxy tear itself apart generation after generation in the name of “balance.” Far from it. Balance is crucial to the Force, yes, but the balance in question is not that of a seesaw teetering between “good” and “evil.” It’s the balance of cycles, reflected in the natural world. As The Last Jedi puts it:

Luke: What do you see?

Rey: The island. Life. Death, and decay—that feeds new life. Warmth. Cold. Peace. Violence.

Luke: And between it all?

Rey: Balance and energy. A Force.

Death is not an affront to the Force any more than life is an affront to the Force, because energy cannot be created or destroyed. Every soul that perishes in the beam of the Death Star or Starkiller Base returns to the wellspring from whence it came, so when the Force is wounded, the dying, in and of itself, is not the thing.

Why, then, does Tarkin get the Ebenezer Scrooge treatment?

[THE HAUNTING OF GRAND MOFF TARKIN: A Force-vision transports Tarkin to Eadu, where he faces the ghost of his father…among other things.]

The Haunting interests me not just because of Ingo Römling’s chilling visuals or Cavan Scott’s tightly-written dialogue, but because it posits that the Force has an intrinsic sense of morality. And this moral Force plagues Tarkin because what he’s done with his life—sacrificed countless souls (each of whom appears to Tarkin fully themselves, even if we can reasonably assume that Tarkin did not know all of them personally) on the altar of power—is wrong.

Wilhuff Tarkin survives roughly one standard week after the initial firing of the Death Star, and his final hours are a waking nightmare, courtesy of the Force. How much worse, then, might the Force’s judgment be for Armitage Hux, who survives roughly one standard year after the firing of Starkiller Base? We may not see the impact of the Hosnian Cataclysm on its architect, because current Disney/Lucasfilm seems profoundly disinterested in the interiority of its non–Force-wielding First Order villains, but that doesn’t mean there’s no story to tell.

Somebody really should get on that.