Compassion is for those who deserve it

Luke wasn't exactly in front of the Jedi Council, a class of apprentices or making a speach on the holonet.

Considering that you don't know how the Pope behaves when he's not infront of a camera I don't see how this works at all.

It's not a good line, but its also getting completely blown out of proportion.

 

The problem is that the comment is so divergent from his fundamental character even considering its context, intended audience, and even previous character development that it lacks any compelling justification for occuring.

 

Again, people change, even at fundamental, core levels. A person will not necessarily hold the same exact views at 60 that they did at 30. I personally think it was for the best for Luke to get a little ice in his veins. Seriously, how many times does he have to get burned to drop the Wide-Eyed Idealist routine? What would have been better is Luke actually being aware that he's changed and commenting on it. That way, it doesn't seem like outright character derailment.

 

That is an outright false dichotomy that plagues most of the morality of Star Wars. That to be ruthless, you have to be stupid and insane as well.

 

That would mean that his character was devolving not evolving getting more ruthless is a pretty dark side thing to do.

 

Choosing to become more selective with one's emotional sympathies and resources is not an indication of growing ruthlessness or some kind of ethical failure. Luke is saying that there's nothing he can do for the random Lost tribe members who are little more than cogs in the great Sith machine at the present moment (which when he said it was justifiably true).

That Luke is gradually becoming less willing to expend himself in largely futile efforts to save people from themselves is actually consistent with where he's been going for a long time. While Luke will still risk everyone to save the deserving soul or to stand up to those he believes where manipulated by outside forces into terrible mistakes or even outright evil (his whole FotJ plotline exists because he took a legal bullet that was meant for Kyp Durron) he is much more willing now to swiftly move on when he determines (which through the Force he can do practically just by looking at someone) they will reject his overtures utterly and completely. That is, rightly or wrongly, one of the lessons of Jacen Solo. Luke was overly compassionate with Jacen, and he attempted to dissuade, guard, and defend his nephew in the hope of saving him for far too long and other people, most critically his wife and his son, suffered terribly because of it.

That is perhaps what Luke really meant by this somewhat flippant remark: sometimes, by extending the helping hand instead of the barred blade you risk not just yourself, but the innocent standing behind you.

 

Divorced from Luke Skywalker, the statement is without any worth; and the various reinterpretations and displays of logical gymnastics exhibited to make it remotely palatable are as impotent as they are calamitous. Not to mention to casual appealing to critic's motives. The idea that compassion can justifiable be withheld simply because one is convinced it will not bear the desired result is insipid thinking, lacking in all moral worth. As someone stated earlier in this thread, the only answer to "Who deserves compassion?" is "Everyone". I'll add that the answer to the question "When?" is "Always."

But that's only one facet of the matter at hand. Let us remove the general repugnance of the statement at face value and focus only on context in which is was said. Even attached to the speaker, their recent history, the context of when it was being spoke and what caused it to be said, and their intended audience, the statement is so wildly "off" that all the applied intellectual sophistry in the world could not truly give it even an iota of congruity with the character.

 

I guess the reason it's being dismissed is because, aside from his saying it, it doesn't seem to have any bearing on anything.

 

To each his own on that matter, I suppose.

 

I'll ignore the generally combative tone and say that you misunderstand my meaning. For myself, the statement is so egregious that it negatively affects my ability to accept the character. Take that for what you will, rail against that sentiment all you want, mock it if you feel the need. But I do not exaggerate when I say that the moment I heard Luke Skywalker put forth the idea that there was a condition to be met for an imperative duty to be warranted, he ceased to be worthy of my admiration regardless of anything else that followed.

 

The Expanded Universe sure has fallen a long way from such lines as:

"You need not like someone to love him. Love is nothing more than the recognition that two are one. That all is one."

OR

"If I defeat them aggressively, if I hate them for who they have become, then I will have separated myself from the Force, and permitted my ego to triumph over my desire to merge and expand my consciousness. I will have corrupted the light with my darkness, stained it forever. Self-awareness tricks us into believing that there is us, and that there is the other. But in serving the Force we recognize that we are all the same thing; that when we act in accordance with the Force we act in accordance with the wish of all life to enlarge itself, to rise out of physicality and become something greater."

OR

"The Jedi are trained to let go. They're trained from birth. They're not supposed to form attachments. They can love people -- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith."

I'm not surprised.

 

Yeah, well, apparently that was evil. Who knew?

 

Edit: You know, I feel my point is more effectively made in my prior post, and what I previously wrote here detracts from it with its bluntness.

 

I think Sinre's point was that, considering his actions (which are generally agreed to speak louder than words, no?), this is a poorly written line on the part of the author and nothing more, because it doesn't have any bearing outside of the moment he says it.

 

So when he killed Lumiya you were good with that, but when he says I few poorly written words he ceased to be worthy of your admiration?

I just have extreme difficulty trying to understand how this one moment made you dislike the character of Luke Skywalker.

During the Black Fleet Crisis he basically murders what he thinks is an Imperial agent(not knowing that its an illusion), and this one line is the moral straw that breaks the camel's back? I just don't get it.

 

You can kill someone out of necessity and still feel compassion for them -- hence the prior quote I posted about the Jedi feeling compassion for the Sith. That's not to say I think Luke felt compassion for Lumiya when he killed her, and to be honest that was the moment that I lost investment in the character of Luke Skywalker. What *I* don't understand is that there's other Star Wars characters that have done less heinous things and are widely disliked and reviled here, presumably because people don't already have investment in their character and judge their actions less favorably that they do Luke's.

As for the illusion he kills in Shield of Lies, IIRC, they were attacking Akanah and he was defending her. I don't recall if he used what would be considered "excessive force," as I seem to recall that there were two and one survived and committed suicide, so it's not as though he mercilessly cut the illusion down.

 

Some people seem to forget that Luke Skywalker is a human being, not Jesus.

 

If we are to accept this it's what's called a Freudian slip- when one accidentally let's the darker hidden thoughts come out. Sadly what can be taken away from this is that Luke is a very dualistic being. There's numerous ways to phrase that it's not possible for him to save everyone, this one was very disturbing coming from a Jedi let alone the Jedi Grandmaster.

 

Nah, that's just the Sith - the mindset you're invoking is closer to that of your standard psychopathic CEO so - Xizor.

 

i see nothing wrong with the comment, and i am a huge luke fan and love his compassion. darth vader was obsessed with padme, and FELL to the dark side because of it. These sith that luke addressed did not FALL to the dark side, they embarce it totally as the way of life, and are NOT redeemable. Vestara being younger may be redeemable, and we see luke open up to that later.

 

Yeah but every character has their own unique backstory. Anakin had attachment that lead him to falling to (or embracing) the dark side. It's not really his fault. He was raised in a way that the idea of attachment stuck with him. Any other Sith is the same.

Does Luke not see himself as lucky to be on the Jedi path he's been on? His reward is that he's not chained by the insatiable,cancerous darkness. From his view Sith should be pitied rather than a subject of further hate. Palpatine would be grinning happily hearing Luke say that.

 

Pity doesn't mean you'll try to save them. You can still feel bad for someone, even if you judge gunning them down to be the best course of action. Luke simply said that the willingness to do so had to be earned, and he believed Vader was capable of changing. A lot of the suffering in LOTF was because he applied that same standard to Jacen, at the expense of people who were neither evil nor requiring of redemption.