CT You Must Confront Vader

Watched ROTJ yesterday (thank you Show Case marathon). Yoda tells Luke, "One thing remains: Vader. You must confront Vader. Then, only then, a Jedi will you be. And confront him you will."

Why is this? If Luke how somehow killed the Emperor while Vader wasn't around, would that not have completed his training? Or is it because of the threat of attachment Vader poses to Luke, if he overcomes this than he is truly selfless?

 

There seems to be this thread carried through the OT (well, TESB and ROTJ at least) that the PT never really comments on about Obi-Wan thinking that the only way to defeat the dark side is by training Luke to kill his father. It all feels like the tail end of threads that Lucas planned on setting up in the PT, but then just didn't bother with.

But I will say that Yoda telling Luke he has to confront his father in order to be a Jedi just seems weird. Like, how is that the final step? I can picture Luke asking, "Wait, do all Jedi have dark side parents that they have to confront? How am I not a Jedi until I do this? How did YOU become a Jedi, Yoda? Did you... did you kill your parents?!"

 

I think it is because Luke has to come to terms with this, and do his duty if he must and not give in to anger. He confronted Vader in ESB, but it was not exactly a smashing success.

 

It's not as specific as that, but it seems that Jedi have to face some sort of big challenge to ascend to full-fledged Jedi Knight. Obi-Wan's challenge was facing Maul. I think it was suggested that Ahsoka's situation with solving the temple-bombing frame job had earned her ascension to JK, but she declined it. Anakin had some kind of vision quest if I remember right.

That was a pretty nasty high bar they set up for Luke. Other Jedi had to win trivia night for their Jedi Trials, and Luke must face the no.1 Jedi killer in the universe for his.

 

and his dad.

 

Precisely.

 

From what I gather, upon the threshold of entering into Knighthood, each Jedi has to face their own unique perilous trial in which they are challenged at their core in their ability to overcome fear, anger, hate, hubris, attachment etc. and act on compassion and selflessness. Luke's happened to be that his father was a Sith Lord.

I inferred this from watching the OT, and as Elle-Wan pointed out, the cartoons, both CW and TCW seem to have corroborated it. Also taking into account Yoda's trials before undergoing Force Ghost training in Season 6 of TCW.

In CW, Even Piell stated that Anakin had one last trial to undergo, "facing the mirror". In a lot of ways Vader is Luke's mirror, or shadow self, that he must face.

 

Vader, I could understand. The Emperor? Even Yoda struggled against the guy, and he thought this barely trained whelp could fight him?

 

Yoda could be going senile...

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Yes, he needed to confront Vader (and the Emperor) in order to show that he had control of both his powers and himself, and was therefore ready to take on the mantle of being a Jedi. But I think it's pretty clear it also means, "Vader (and the Emperor) have to be stopped, and you've got to stop him/them." And, given that the Emperor is the tyrannical ruler of the Empire, and Vader is so evil and irredeemable in their eyes as to no longer even be Anakin Skywalker, stopping them can only mean killing them.

 

Fight your father, you must. ...and a dragon! And get me smokes! Only then a Jedi will you be.

 

the message is not that Luke is supposed to kill his father to become a Jedi

the message is that Luke has to overcome the temptation of falling to the dark side himself

that’s the whole point of the cave scene on Dagobah, the scene shows that if Luke gives into fear and anger then he will fall to the dark side just like his father, he fails that time

then in ROTJ when he’s hacking on Vader with his lightsaber, he’s again giving into fear and anger, only this time he overcomes that and chooses a different path the, light side, the path of the Jedi, and that’s why he has to confront Vader, to show to himself that he can overcome the temptation of the dark side

 

Obi-Wan wants Luke to kill his dad. Plus, considering Luke is now the last Jedi, maybe put him in a situation where, if he fails, he doesn't get murdered by two Sith Lords.

How about sending him back down into that cave?

 

it's classic mythology/psychology , the boy must confront his father to become a man etc.

 

Kenobi is wrong in his thinking that Vader can’t be brought back from the dark side, the film makes that very clear, however Kenobi and Yoda are still correct that Luke must confront Vader

the point in confronting Vader and the Emperor is that Luke must face his fear and anger, to be successful in defeating the Empire he must overcome the temptation to join the dark side

the cave is a test, not the real thing, if Luke doesn’t actually confront the real Vader then he would be forever living in fear that Vader will eventually find him

 

See, I disagree. I don't think any part of a Jedi lesson should be setting off on a path that will purposely lead to violence. I think this is one of those issues where philosophy has to get brought in. If a Jedi is supposed to use the force for knowledge and defense, never for attack... but that Jedi consciously starts off on a path where he knows he will be putting himself in harms way and will thus have to defend himself... it's like how certain Jewish faiths aren't supposed to do certain things on certain days so they invent self dialing phones and all that jazz. It's like, you're kind of dancing around your own rules.

 

I’ve never viewed the Jedi as pacifists, they are knights and guardians and peacekeepers, and in my mind that means actively resisting an authoritarian Empire like Palpatine’s

I mean, the way the Empire is presented in the films, that’s not something you can just be neutral about in my opinion

 

I agree. But the Jedi stance is that you use the force for knowledge and defense, never for attack. That's why I say this is a philosophical argument. If you purposely put yourself into a situation where you know you'll be attacked... is that still only defending yourself? And if you're allowed to defend others, then why does Luke feel any hesitation about striking down the Emperor? You're defending the entire galaxy with one swipe of your lightsaber and yet Luke faces this moral conundrum.

I guess if Luke kills Vader and Palpatine while not being upset, that's okay. ROTJ gets very muddled for me because it seems like Lucas looks at philosophy as a math problem.

 

In ESB Luke races to confront Vader and fight him , but notice in ROJ he actually surrenders himself , gives up his weapon and is prepared to die. Plus he's hoping to draw attention away from the mission on Endor , unfortunately he underestimates the Emperor.

 

It's comic-book morality. Luke can't kill Palpatine because Superman and Batman and Captain America don't kill people, ever, even in cases where that would lead to fewer deaths and suffering overall. Because it would make them eeeeeevil or something. Early comic-book movies didn't always buy into this idea, and even now there's the occasional exception (as in the 1989 Batman where he kills the Joker at the end, or Man of Steel where as I understand it Superman kills Zod after much angsting) but it's much more frequently featured now that superhero films are so common.

 

Doesn't make any sense in this context because Luke has been killing people in a war for years by this point.

 

There's a line between war and murder. Luke killed a lot of people, but it was never personal, and he never did it out of hatred or anger. Palps deliberately set things up so that if Luke struck him down, he'd be doing it while filled with dark emotions. He made it personal. And the effect on Luke would have been just as personal. That was made crystal clear when Vader pushed the 'sister' button.

 

That's what happens in the movie, but that doesn't mean it had to. Luke could have calmly struck down the Emperor to free the galaxy. Just because the Emperor wanted to make it personal didn't man Luke had to let him.

That's why I'm saying comic book morality doesn't fit here because Luke has already killed people. He has no personal rule against it. This isn't batman.

 

I kinda think he did have to. The Luke we were watching through 3 movies cared about people, a lot. It's one of his defining characteristics. He had to rescue the princess from her holding cell, he had to throw himself in front of the Death Star, he had to go to Cloud City and Jabba's palace; he even came right out and said, "I care." He takes things personally. All his training with Obi-wan and Yoda did nothing to change that.

Could he have pushed all that away and struck down Palps with total self-control? Theoretically, yes, but IMO that would have been a major shift in his personality. That would have made him very different from the Luke we had gotten to know through the trilogy. It would have been as jarring to me as TLJ Luke.

Besides, the story as we know it is so much more interesting and satisfying the way it worked out.

 

Palpatine is armed with a planet destroying death laser and is using it to vaporize fleet ships. Jedi are able to kill if it's in defense of self or others. Luke's conundrum doesn't stem from killing, it stems from the fact that Palpatine has made Luke angry and now that anger is clouding Luke's judgement.

That means it isn't comic book morality. Which was the point I was making in the first place.