Lit Kylo vs Luke - Military victory vs Moral victory

That's not the kind of thing Luke is saying, of course. He's saying that Kylo's going to lose the war, and the seeds of that have been planted at Crait. And Kylo knows he's right.

 

The First Order has taken some heavy losses, it's true. But they've still won. The Republic is no more, the last Jedi Master is dead and the Resistance is down to a single freighter with a handful of crewers.

The First Order has won. They still have at least several dozen Star Destroyers, probably more. There is no military force left to oppose them.

All Supreme Leader Ren has to do now is take the Finalizer to Coruscant, occupy the Imperial Palace and declare his dominion over the Galaxy.

The Supremacy can probably be saved, the two halves looked relatively intact. Starkiller Base was a loss but it got off the one shot that really mattered. If the Resistance had killed Starkiller before it obliterated Hosnian, then the playing field would be radically different. We saw what a single bomber did to the Fulminatrix.

Luke Skywalker lost. The Resistance lost almost everything. The war is over, for now.

Kylo Ren now rules the First Order and soon will have the Galaxy itself.

The hope for the Galaxy isn't in a failed legend, but in the young and promising. Rey is a new hope for the Galaxy.

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Or at least "Nobody's asking or expecting you to do that, all we want to just a little bit of help, you can do that much, can't you?"

 

There is a great moment in the book which I do give them props for.

Luke makes a "joke" about raiders attacking the village and that even if they stopped them, they'd just be back.

Then is stunned that Rey runs down to defend them anyway.

It leaves him at a loss.

It reminded me of an episode of Superman: The Animated Series where Doctor Fate has abandoned being a hero because evil never stops.

Then Superman reminds him...neither does good.

 

I've been slow to finishing the novel, but Luke's rationale to Rey does make some sense in the scene in the film. I'm surprised that in the novel it leaves him stunned - in the film it almost seems like the point.

 

It really doesn't.

Luke's basically saying that the raiders will keep coming and that if Rey stops them this time, they'll just come back in greater number in a month when she won't be here. The problem is, we already saw this scenario in the Clone Wars. On Felucia, a Jedi Master, Knight and Padawan defended a village of peaceful farmers from pirate raiders. The key was that they didn't just protect the villagers, they trained them to defend themselves. That was the key. The Jedi with the help of the villagers smashed the raiders so badly that only their leader escaped and having taken such a beating, he didn't return.

Luke's just using that fallacy of an argument to justify his apathy and lack of conviction to act.

Jedi defend innocent life whenever they can. This notion of acting only when "balance" can be maintained is something new and really doesn't make sense.

 

But if anything, it's a pyrrhic victory; they defeated one Resistance Fleet, but at the cost of Supreme Leader Snoke, their Capital Ship, and some of their best Star Destroyers. Their new leader, Kylo Ren, has the strength to keep Hux in line, but it's plainly obvious neither man respects each other, and I have little doubts Hux and other FO Officers are going to try to Starscream their way to the top. Kylo Ren wanted the throne, but has yet to demonstrate the skill to hold it. The First Order will start to divide, while the Resistance is more United then Ever.

 

Check out the deleted scenes on the blu-ray

 

While that's the case, the fact is the Resistance is literally Rey, Leia, Carrie Fisher's Daughter, Finn, Rose, Poe, and Chewbacca.

Also, Poe is an idiot and a horrible leader.

 

The Resistance had already lost way before Luke came into the picture. You could argue that it started with the Hosnian system being wiped out because with that went the Resistance's primary if covert backing. Everything after that is a mopping up operation on the part of the First Order. So yes, Militarily the First Order is in the "W" column.

That being said though if viewed through the lens of "battle vs. war" it remains to be seen. The current crew complement of the Falcon will not be enough to take on the war machine of the First Order. There is going to have be a rallying of systems to come together for a common cause a-la the rebellion to do this. Just because Leia's call for help was not answered in the TLJ, does not mean it won't have been answered come EP IX. That transmission being allowed to be sent will be what brings the First Order a great deal of pain and will make Kylo's failure complete.

"Military" victory is too broad a brush to paint with. There are a couple of columns in the tally sheet that can be used as metrics. In it's simplest terms we will go with Tactical vs. Strategic. Tactically the First Order was triumphant in the events of the TLJ.

Strategically they suffered heavily and those strategic losses will echo heavily and have an effect:

1. Insurgents killed their commander in chief.
2. Loss of several capital ships and their crew complements.
3. Luke Skywalker is now greater to the galaxy than Macarthur was to the Philippines. Remember that call Leia put out? People will be rallying now.
4. Resistance is still out there.

 

If we assume leia is dead, who will the Resistance rally around? No one knows rey, finn, and poe really. How will people know rey is Luke's appointed successor? She could just be a Force sensitive fraud with books for all they know. Luke's projection didn't single out Rey by name as the new last Jedi.

The catch is that Rey killed snoke, but it's unclear if the galaxy even knows snoke, and from their point of view she didn't finish the job by killing kylo.

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Its more of a flaw in the new trilogy than either of the old ones. Motti was a man influenced by Imperial propaganda, and actually bought into what the Emperor was selling. Meanwhile what Rey's saying makes no sense, unless the New Republic also engages in historical revisionism, but about its own heroes? Why?

 

I agree with you that it's a fallacy (though not that it's something new: I think there's shades of truth in what Luke is saying about the Jedi) but when he talks to Rey about it later the point of the lesson appears to be have been to goad her into running off to save the village in order to prove how much better it is for her to not be a Jedi. He praises her, and says that her forthrightness is what the Resistance and the galaxy actually need.

 

To be clear, when the First Order lost the Supremacy they lost more than a really big expensive warship. They lost their beat R&D facilities, shipyards, munitions factories, foodstores, ore and mineral reserves, and, most importantly, their capital.

Assuming the story of Crait and Skywalker's Last Stand spreads throughout the galaxy, not to mention Holdo's Leap, and sheer tenacity of Leia Organa... the First Order may be likely to be less powerful at the start of IX than they appear to be at the end of TLJ.

What remains of the Resistance actually isnt limited to th hundred or so on the Falcon. Snap Wexley, Jess Pava and quite a few others from TFA not seen in TLJ were out trying to rally the remaining New Republic military commanders to the fight. If they are successful, especially with the story of the Battle of Crait to inspire, the First Order could be in for a massive Resistance.

The FO has accrued *massive* losses over a few days from a relatively small paramilitary. Their major military victory isnt Crait, it's Hosnian Prime and they paid dearlt for it.

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It's a weird lesson, "Go act like a Jedi not to be a Jedi."

 

Acting when balance can be maintained is the central teaching of the Jedi. It's the entire point of Luke's training on Dagobah. The more natural Jedi lesson re: the Caretaker village is "dont run off in a fit emotional pique, stay calm and listen to and trust the Force." Luke could have given Rey a legit Jedi lesson there, were he trying to teach her to be a proper Jedi, and had her turn to the Force for knowledge of the situation. Had she listened to the Force, she would have known before running off that it was a celebration.

"A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense"

"You will know when you are calm, at peace, passive."

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I never really cared for that particular line of Yoda's. It's clearly one that the Prequel Jedi didn't ascribe to. Hopefully Rey can see past that dogma. Sometimes you need to attack to defend. If you simply defend and never return the blow, eventually you'll be overwhelmed and fall.

Luke's Jedi failed in their entirety and the Galaxy doesn't need them. It was a Jedi Master who responsible for the training and creation of Kylo Ren.

Rey can build something new from the ashes of Luke's failure. She's untouched by the failures of the past and can rise above their mistakes.

 

A counterstrike would still fall under defense.

Nevertheless, this is an expression of philosophy, not strategy in a fight.

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I agree with you about the potential for a real Jedi lesson in this - the issue is that Luke is being cynical and unfair about the Jedi. Luke's fallacy is more that he's being reductive and dismissive about what balance and foresight really mean, here - not because he doesn't know better, of course, but because he doesn't want Rey to be a Jedi.

The specifics are a little more legible: Luke is really hung up on the Jedi of the prequels, and the ways he feels he's repeated their particular failure. He's not really against being a hero he just doesn't think the Jedi religion can encompass what the galaxy really needs. (Also, he's lying to himself.) Yoda burns down the trees and the texts and tells him he's being too precious.

Rey gets mad at him for making fun of her, saying "I thought they were in danger, I was trying to DO something." And he responds: "And that's what the Resistance needs, not some old failed husk of a religion. Do you understand now?" To which Rey, rightly, responds, "Do you understand that all over the galaxy our real friends are really dying?"

 

This. Luke in TLJ seems to waffle back and forth some things and is looking at the whole picture with one eye closed. He denigrates the Old Jedi Order for letting Palpatine rise, calling their legacy a failure. He conveniently forgets that the Old Jedi Order preserved peace for a thousand years and only fell due to the machinations of the greatest Dark Lord of the Sith in history. He also seems say one thing while wanting another. That whole scene with the tree and the flame is just ridiculous. Luke says he wants to burn the whole thing down and he lights flame and brings it close to the tree...and just can't do it. When Yoda does what he couldn't, Luke tries to dive into the flames and save the very books he said he wanted to burn.

We know from the novel that Luke tried many times to burn down the Jedi Tree and texts and could never bring himself to do it. He says he wants the Jedi to end, but the end he seems to want is a peaceful, easy end. He's not willing to act on his words and end the Jedi permanently, he's just using as an excuse to avoid facing up to his actions and the responsibility he bears to correct his errors. It's really quite petulant and childish, actually. Luke Skywalker procrastinated for decades when it came to rebuilding the Jedi Order and following his Master's last instruction, to pass on what he had learned. When he finally got around to doing it, he did it all wrong from the start and when it all burned down around him, he fell into depression and gave up. That's where we see Luke in TLJ, a broken man who tried to bring back the Jedi once, and upon failing he gave up and ran away to the farthest corner of the Galaxy to hide in shame until he died.

 

I was with you until this. I don't think any of this is easy or peaceful for him.

 

But he'll fight for freedom wherever there's trouble....

. . .

G.I. POE IS THERE!

Spoiler: Full Theme

G.I. POEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
A Real Galactic Hero
G.I. POE IS THERE!

Its G.I. Poe against Kylo the enemy,
Fighting to save the day.
He never gives up, he's on the case,
Fighting for freedom through all of space!

G.I. POEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
A Real Galactic Hero!
G.I. POE IS THERE!

[G.I. POE is the codename for the Resistance's daring, highly trained, special mission force. Its purpose: To defend all freedom against the First Order, a ruthless, neo-Imperial organization determined to rule the galaxy!]

He never gives up, he'll stay till the fights won -
G.I. POE WILL DARE!

G.I. POEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
A Real Galactic Hero
G.I. POE!!!!

 

I think part of the point of Luke's arc in TLJ *is* that he's waffling. I wish they would have had him running to Rey after re-opening to the Force shouting "I'm coming with you!" Because he definitely wanted to join the fight... right up until he sees her Forcetiming with Kylo and the emotional trauma crushes his new resolve.

He had failed to burn the tree just prior to Rey's arrival, and he cant bring himself to do it at the end of the film either. He is teetering back and forth between his doubt and guilt, and his knowledge that he *can* help and indeed *must* help. He closed himself from the Force because he didnt want to hear it nagging him for shirking his responsibility... probably through the voices of his teachers.

This seems rather far afield of the thread topic, though.

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I suspect the party scene was cut in part because, without it, we see more or less this trajectory: Rey is succeeding in getting Luke to open up, until he walks in on her with Kylo.

That said, from a pure storytelling standpoint, I'm with you. I would have liked to see how it feels to reconnect with Leia, how it might feel for him to twirl his lightsaber around in his hand a few times. He shows up at the door because he feels Kylo, right? Imagine that old instinct kicking in, he ignites his saber, and runs to protect Rey...only to see her chatting amicably with him, and to wind up confronting him about his failures.

 

Now I have that gi joe cartoon theme song stuck in my head