In the Star Wars movie saga, the fate of the entire galaxy often rested in the hands of the Skywalker family, both for good and for ill. In the prequel trilogy, Anakin Skywalker turned to the Dark Side and helped wipe out the Jedi Order, but a generation later, his son Luke Skywalker helped bring back the Jedi and the Light Side of the Force.
Luke Skywalker is considered an action hero, and not without reason. It was he who flew an X-Wing in the battle of the Death Star and famously blew it up, and he clashed with Darth Vader in two different lightsaber duels before finally defeating his fallen father. However, the times when Luke truly changed the course of Star Wars, he did it with pacifism and the peace of the Light Side, not a clumsy blaster or a battle fleet.
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Luke Refused to Kill Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi
Luke Skywalker was indeed an action hero in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, and he soon learned from both Master Yoda and Obi-Wan’s Force ghost that facing Darth Vader was his destiny. But that didn’t necessarily mean destroying Darth Vader; Luke was merely told to face him, and that he did. During the events of Return of the Jedi, Luke was a full-blown Jedi Knight, and he understood that peace and compassion always trumped violence and hate. Luke handed himself over to Vader on the forest moon of Endor, and even when in the lion’s den, Luke was brave and made an emotional appeal to his fallen father. It nearly worked, and Vader’s terrifying aura faded away as he admitted that it was “too late” for him.
Then, aboard the second Death Star, Luke managed to resist the call of the Dark Side, defeated Darth Vader, then refused to finish the job, despite Palpatine’s urging. Luke was ready to die to resist the Dark Side and spare his father, who had been the Emperor’s tool and victim all along. Peace was the Jedi way, not anger or revenge, and a frustrated Palpatine decided to destroy Luke instead. But Luke didn’t fight back; instead, he made another emotional appeal to his father, and at last, Luke got through to him. Anakin Skywalker was back, and at the cost of his own life, Vader/Anakin threw Palpatine over a ledge and seemingly destroyed him, then admitted that Luke was right about him after all. Thus, Luke won through pacifism in the original Star Wars trilogy.
Luke Tricked Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi
Another generation passed, and once again, the Dark Side and the Light Side came into conflict. By this time, though, Luke was in exile, having determined that the Jedi way was simply not viable any longer. He had failed to train Ben Solo as a Jedi Knight, and so long as the Light and Dark Sides continued their feud, the galaxy suffered, and Luke, ever the pacifist, couldn’t accept that. But everything changed when a desperate Rey visited Luke on Ahch-To, and convinced him to give her some basic training. Then, as Luke had once done, Rey rushed off to save her friends, despite having much more training left to complete.
The First Order cornered the Resistance on the salt world of Crait, and without a Jedi on hand, the galaxy’s last hope was nearly wiped out. Luke refused to visit that world and fight, however. Instead, he confronted his fallen nephew, Kylo Ren, with a Force projection. Doing this was terribly exhausting, but it allowed Luke to grab Kylo Ren’s attention and hold off the entire First Order assault team while the Resistance fled the planet with Rey’s help. Luke spent the last of his life force to keep this up, and he succeeded without shedding a drop of blood. Once again, peace and pacifism won the day, and Kylo Ren could only watch as Luke faded away. This bought Rey and the Resistance time to recover their strength, recruit new allies and face Palpatine one last time on Exegol, where the Light Side triumphed at last and brought Star Wars‘ sequel trilogy to a close. None of that could have been possible without Luke’s final act of compassion and peace.
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