Lit "Superman" Luke of the EU

Luke acts dark in LOTF because he is actually pushed into darkness-by Jacen's actions and visions swirl around of a dark Luke ruling the Galaxy.

In FOTJ Luke is cynical because he failed to redeem Jacen, has burned his bridges with the current head of state, and is just tired in general-weary

 

I would argue that providing a reason doesn't mean it's well executed -- which is precisely the argument being made against TLJ.

 

LOTF and FOTJ may have not executed it well but the reasons are there.

 

It depends on the reason. Lex Luthor went bad because (in the Silver Age), Superman destroyed his hair accidentally. There's a reason no one uses this reason in current depictions.

Magneto went bad because he lost his family to WW2, watched his wife abandon him after angry villagers prevented him from saving his daughter, saw his best friend enter into an unethical relationship with a patient and then have same best friend lecture him on morality, tried to do good catching ex-Nazis only to have his sponsor kill his current Brazilian girlfriend and then try to kill him for being a mutant, and found out his government was building robots to destroy his species.

TLJ Luke went bad because of one bad day with Ben. (How fitting that Mark Hamill plays the Joker in the Killing Joke movie).

Legends Luke went bad due to multiple horrifying wars, his nephew's betrayal, his wife's death, and tons of other stuff that just kept piling on. Yes, he went bad--if any of us were in his position, we'd have snapped and gone full villains years ago.

 

As they are for TLJ.

 

One bad day that lead to his entire order being destroyed, the rise of a new Dark Side acolyte, and inadvertent contributions to a new Empire. The way you explained it is inherently disingenuous and misleading.

 

While Ben may be a lost cause, I didn't get the impression those other students who may have been forced to join him were. They were a reason to keep fighting.

 

We never meet any of those students, and they all contributed to the pillaging of the temple and murder of their classmates. They may still be redeemable, that's basically the whole point of the movie, but whether they could be redeemed or not isn't really what matters in this discussion.

 

I got the impression Luke acted first and drove Ben into darkness. Hardly the same happened in LOTF

 

you know there's six years between the flashback and the film in which Luke could have made an effort to save Ben and failed prior to going to Ahch-To

"Luke couldn't reach him" and "This isn't going to go the way you think" both lend credence to that

the movie is pretty clear about what happened

Luke noticed Ben had an inner darkness during moments training

He went to read his mind one night while Ben was asleep

While reading his mind, Ben was much worse than he thought and he instinctively activated his lightsaber

He realized what he had done but before he could turn it off, Ben woke up and drew his lightsaber and then collapsed the hut on Luke knocking him out

Luke very much blames himself for what happened. Luke Skywalker, the legend, failed.

 

Luke obviously has good reasons to hide, but the problem I think for a lot of fans (including me) is that we have so many other franchise heroes to compare him to now.

spoilers for Star Trek Discovery

Spoiler

Gabriel Lorca killed his entire crew of the Buran to save them from Klingon torture. He could have given up the Federation after this. But he fought on.

Doctor Who continued to fight evil after believing he wiped out his entire people. And he's done despicable things that would make Legends Luke blush (torturing the Family of Blood for eternity, etc.)

Drizzt Do'Urden continues to fight even after all the Companions of Mithral Hall have died.

There are other heroes in other franchises that fought on even after they inadvertently caused themselves to lose everything, it may be why it's harder for some to deal with running Luke.

The fact that Leia and Han didn't even know about "the incident" (obvious from TFA) leads me to believe if he tried, he didn't try very hard. The first thing Luke needed to do was to be honest, so Han and Leia can tell Ben we were sorry we gave you to Luke and it won't happen again.

 

Or they were immobilized by Ben (that's his shtick, remember) and forced to watch as he cut down anyone who refused to bend the knee and then they did so out of fear.

Plenty of directions in which to go.

And we still don't know how many people this involved. There were thirteen students, including Ben, and it may be that's that... or it may be that some of those students actually achieved knighthood and took their own pupils and Ben was as messed up as he was because he was the only one of the first group (was it even the first group?) not to graduate.

Luke says he'll never train another generation of Jedi. Does he mean has never successfully trained any Jedi, or does he mean he'll never train a second generation knowing what happened to the first?

Again, plenty of directions in which to go.

 

this is a nonsequitur and based on your own assumption

Ben slaughtered students that did nothing to him. A mea culpa from his parents isn't bringing him back.

 

There's an interesting thread in Lord of the Rings. Before Gandalf casts Saruman out in Isengard, he tries to redeem him. He even tells the hobbits it isn't going to work, but he tries anyway.

Galadriel and Gandalf then try again after Sauron was destroyed. Even after Saruman has destroyed the Shire and killed countless hobbits, Frodo lets him leave in the hope he may one day find redemption.

So yeah, a mea culpa from Ben's parents probably wasn't going to bring Ben back. But that's not the point. The point is one needs to try. Comparing Luke with heroes in other franchises like LOTR in the past he was head and on level with them. Now it seems like with nuLuke it's finding one explanation after another on why he didn't do this and that.

 

maybe if he apologized for Luke's actions that wouldn't have happened, I see your point

 

Probably the closest comparison to LOTR in this regard with the old eu in mind is Luke giving DE Palpatine a shot at redemption-it's pointless but Luke does it anyway.

Anyway if I may ask how much worse would a dark Luke have been than Darth Caedus?

 

All of the other students used to laugh and call him names.

. . .

They never let poor Solo join in any Jedi games.

Then one foggy Live Day eve, his uncle did betray...

And Solo, son of dark and light, had to slay the would-be Knights.

Then how his fellows loved him (mainly since they couldn't flee)

"Kylo, Our Lord and Master -- please, please don't you murder me!"

 

You're about a month late.

But I know what I'll be singing next December.

 

guys if Han and Leia apologized to Ben for shipping him off to Luke's boarding school he wouldn't have killed Han

 

I'm confused as to why you're saying Luke went "bad" in either of those timelines. Becoming cynical/running away/losing hope does not mean being "bad."

 

I'm not surprised. Apparently Legends Luke let bullying run amok at his school too. Desann said he was being bullied and Havet Storm said Desann was the one doing the bullying (before Desann killed him).

I guess one just needs to decide if Kylo and the Knights of Ren were the bullies or the bullied. And like the Desann/Havet situation above, we probably will get a different story depending who you ask.

Yeah, bad word choice.

Hey, Kylo spared R2. R2 probably told Kylo that he agreed Luke was a terrible teacher and was sorry he didn't help Kylo flee the school years ago.

Also, note Kylo's hesitation in killing Leia that he doesn't have with Han. I'm guessing Kylo's a Force elitist. Like Voldemort, he looks down on his muggle ancestry but is easy on his Force using parent. He's a self hating mudblood.

 

*Woosh*

 

Ulicus' posts are canon

 

They'll model Kylo's conversion of his fellow padawans after Maul's Black Sun recruitment in The Clone Wars:

(Kylo kills Corran Horn, Kyle Katarn, Jaden Korr, Raltharan, Streen, Tionne, Mander Zuma, and Mara Jade in one saber throw).

Kylo (to remaining students): It would seem the decision to join me is now yours.

Rosh Penin: After careful consideration, we will join you.

 

Yeah, Kylo hesitated in killing Leia on the Raddus...but he has no problem continuing to fire on the transports, or assault the base on Crait, or order Hux "no quarter, no prisoners" after they crack the shield door open.