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Revenge of the Jedi (2/17)
This is irrelevant to Revenge, but I was just flipping through Splinter of the Mind's Eye -- the novel which (1) introduced me to the EU, and (2) transformed my feelings about Luke/Leia from "omg no BRAIN BLEACH" to "ahahahahaha you know when this will stop being funny? NEVER."
And there are all these hilarious passages where Luke and Leia angst that ~their love can never be~ because -- allow me to wipe away a crystal tear -- their parentage is just so different.
Well, guys, there's good news and bad news about that.
I am mildly curious what level of canon this exists at. You know, with lines like Their proximity engendered a wash of confused emotion. It would be proper to disengage, to move away a little. Proper, but not nearly so satisfying or the even purplier Luke rolled clear, coming to a panting stop on her chest. For a long moment they lay like that, suspended in time. Then their eyes met with a gaze that could have penetrated light years.
Wookieepedia amusingly describes it as something "which, in retrospect, would be considered inappropriate in most countries." Ah, my fandom.
Seriously though, for all the lulz, I'm really glad this isn't film canon.
-----------------
Title: Revenge of the Jedi (2/17)
Fanverse: Revenge of the Jedi
Blurb: Obi-Wan explains himself, after a fashion, and Luke meditates.
-----------------
And there are all these hilarious passages where Luke and Leia angst that ~their love can never be~ because -- allow me to wipe away a crystal tear -- their parentage is just so different.
Well, guys, there's good news and bad news about that.
I am mildly curious what level of canon this exists at. You know, with lines like Their proximity engendered a wash of confused emotion. It would be proper to disengage, to move away a little. Proper, but not nearly so satisfying or the even purplier Luke rolled clear, coming to a panting stop on her chest. For a long moment they lay like that, suspended in time. Then their eyes met with a gaze that could have penetrated light years.
Wookieepedia amusingly describes it as something "which, in retrospect, would be considered inappropriate in most countries." Ah, my fandom.
-----------------
Title: Revenge of the Jedi (2/17)
Fanverse: Revenge of the Jedi
Blurb: Obi-Wan explains himself, after a fashion, and Luke meditates.
-----------------
Chapter Two
The next morning, while Yoda was still asleep, Luke wandered off to meditate by himself. He hadn’t done it since he’d left.
Last week, he thought in some amazement, and tried to put the feeling away.
It only took a few minutes before he sensed the familiar, boundless presence of the Force, clustered brilliantly around him. Luke blinked, struggling to see past himself. There. Just on the edges of his vision, he glimpsed a few shining threads, spinning out from the tangled web that always seemed to surround him.
There was Yoda, bright and clear, even in sleep. The swamp, dimmer, chaotic. Artoo, trailing discreetly behind him. Something shadowy in the distance -- far, very far now, but easier to sense than nearer, brighter sparks.
The Dark Side? It had felt different at Bespin -- close, of course, but amorphous too, like a great smothering mass. This seemed cleaner, somehow, an orderly, calculated menace that almost reminded him of Yoda and Obi-Wan.
Oh! Just Father then. He almost snickered at the thought, or vomited, but instead he pushed it, too, out of his mind, as far as it would go. If Vader was his father -- since Vader was his father, that tie would always be there. He just had to remain . . . unreceptive. Not like he’d been on the Falcon, confused, shivering, helplessly responding to his father’s call.
But that wouldn’t happen again. Not once he understood everything. He just had to stay away until the rest cleared itself up.
“That would be wise, Luke.”
He yelped and fell over, the Force slipping out of his grasp. By the time Luke managed to scramble to his feet and glare in the direction of the voice, Obi-Wan Kenobi had already materialized on a nearby stump.
“It’s nice to see you too,” he said, scowling. “Yes, my hand’s coming along nicely. Thanks for asking. And how is the Netherworld treating you?”
“Quite well,” said Obi-Wan.
Luke gave up. “Obi-Wan, why didn’t you tell me? You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father!”
“Your father was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force,” Obi-Wan replied, as steady and imperturbable as ever. He met Luke’s eyes without a moment of hesitation. “He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed.”
Luke stared.
“So what I have told you was true -- from a certain point of view.”
“A certain point of view?” Luke cried. He gave his old mentor a derisive look and turned away.
After what had happened at Cloud City, he didn’t think he could be placated by any explanation Obi-Wan might offer. But he had at least thought there would be one.
“Luke,” Obi-Wan said, “you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own points of view.”
Luke fell speechless. He didn’t even dare glance back. Rage is a path to the Dark Side, he chanted at himself. Rage is a path to the Dark Side. Rage --
He could feel the ghost’s eyes on him, studying him. Then Obi-Wan said, “I don’t blame you for being angry.”
Don’t blame me -- !
“If I was wrong in what I did, it certainly wouldn’t have been for the first time.” Finally, something other than calm or resignation coloured his tone. Regret, and something more. Grief. Loathing. Self-loathing. Luke couldn’t look at him, not yet, but he listened.
“You see, what happened to your father is my fault.” Obi-Wan gave a sigh, and added wistfully, “Anakin was a good friend.”
Luke couldn’t help himself. He turned back towards him, sitting on a stump, and listened eagerly.
“When I first knew him, your father was already a great pilot,” Obi-Wan said, “but I was amazed at how strongly the Force was with him. He couldn’t have been much more than fourteen, and already he had more power than many of the greatest Jedi.” He shook his head. “No idea how to use it, of course.”
It all sounded so -- innocuous, Luke thought. So much like him. He closed his eyes, drawing a deep, shuddering breath.
Something nudged his knee and Luke glanced down. Artoo, abandoning all attempt at subterfuge, had joined him and was now emitting reassuring beeps. Luke managed a weak smile.
“Thanks,” he said, resting his hand on the droid’s dome, and turned back to Obi-Wan. “What happened? How was it your fault?”
“I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi,” Obi-Wan said heavily. “I thought I could instruct him as well as Yoda.”
Luke’s eyes widened. “Yoda wanted to train him?”
“The Jedi were in a rather -- singular position at the time,” said Obi-Wan. “We had been driven underground by the Empire, many years before, when I was still a young man. Most of us lived in the open, hiding our loyalties behind normal careers in the military, as I did. Yoda, however, advocated leaving the Empire entirely, and dedicating ourselves to the Force. His students were -- not soldiers.”
“Wars not make one great,” Luke murmured.
“Exactly. It was not a popular sentiment, even then, and few sought him out. Even fewer were accepted. But when I discovered Anakin, Yoda offered to train him. He felt very strongly that Anakin should be kept out of the Empire, and even more strongly that he should be taught to serve the Force alone. I was convinced, however, that Anakin’s potential should not be wasted on useless mysticism, that I knew better than my old master.”
Luke flinched.
“I was wrong. But the other masters agreed with me, and I was chosen to instruct him. I brought him to Alderaan and taught him about duels, battles, war, tactics. Everything I knew. He was a good student,” Obi-Wan added somberly. “He learned.”
He stared at his glimmering hands. “By eighteen, he was a fierce, brilliant warrior, and I was . . . so proud of him. Of myself. I paid no attention to his dissatisfaction, his distaste for much of what I taught him. He was young; it would pass, and I could feel that something terrible was going to happen. I knew he would need every skill at his disposal.”
“And then he turned to the Dark Side?” Luke asked blankly. Obi-Wan laughed.
“Oh, no. Then the wars came.”
Luke felt foolish. Even back on Tatooine, he’d heard of the Clone Wars, and knew what it meant that Obi-Wan and Anakin had fought in them: they were heroes.
“It was customary for a new Jedi to be mentored by his former master. So even then, we were still together, and I was still teaching him. He had so much left to learn.” Obi-Wan shook his head. “Well, the fighting dragged on. Anakin had always detested anything that smacked of chaos or corruption, and we saw little else. The battles grew more brutal, and Anakin -- he loathed the wars, the court, the government, everything. Before he fell, he wanted nothing more than to save the entire galaxy, to put it right.”
We can end this destructive conflict, and bring peace and order to the galaxy.
Luke swallowed. “What happened?”
“He was already devastated by the war,” Obi-Wan said slowly. “He had become harsher, more ruthless, in his determination to end it, furious that for all his strength in the Force, he didn’t have the power to do so. Many of our fellow Jedi had died, including his wife, and he had . . . ”
With a rush of horror, Luke understood.
“. . . a child to worry about. If my mother was dead, I must have been born by then. I must have been there, with him.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “The wars, ending the wars, became an obsession with him. I was exposed as a Jedi and forced to flee, but he had learned his lessons. He continued to win battle after battle, and so was sent to win more of them. The HoloNet hailed him as the hero of the Empire.”
Beeping mournfully, Artoo rocked back and forth. Luke felt sick.
“Anakin had none of the knowledge that Yoda would have given him,” Obi-Wan said, his voice thick with remorse, “that Yoda gave me. I never thought to pass any of that wisdom on to him. I taught him war, and I taught it well, and in the end it broke him. He fell under the sway of the Dark Side, and . . . ”
“It destroyed him,” said Luke. “That’s what Yoda told me.”
Obi-Wan gave a brief, pained nod.
Luke wished he knew what to say to him. I’m sorry, but that didn’t mean much. The entire galaxy was sorry. He could offer forgiveness, but that didn’t seem right either. Obi-Wan had apologized for what he had done to Anakin, not Luke, and Luke didn’t exactly see Anakin forgiving him in the near or distant future. Vader. Whoever he was.
“Well, it won’t destroy me,” Luke said finally. “I’m here with Master Yoda, and I’m going to learn everything he has to teach me. And I won’t fall.”
Yoda’s teachings had never involved the lightsaber, and he didn’t seem to care that Luke didn’t have one now.
“Weapons not bring one closer to the Force,” he scoffed, and told Luke to stand on his right hand.
“There isn’t a hand any more,” Luke told him, dropping his gaze.
“My old eyes deceive me?”
“It’s a prosthetic, like . . . it’s not real.”
“Hm!” said Yoda. “Then stronger now, it should be.”
Luke sighed and flipped his body into the air, reaching out to the Force as he landed. He instantly felt it wrapped around him, no clearer than it had been this morning. He didn’t need to worry about any visions today, at least.
“Feel the Force around you,” Yoda ordered. “Around the plants, the animals. In the earth. Connecting everything. Even your friend here.”
Luke grinned. “Sorry, Artoo,” he said, focusing on the little droid. Artoo floated into the air, beeping indignantly all the while, and Luke tried to keep some part of his mind fixed on them both, even as he moved his attention to nearby rocks and frogs. He felt stretched thin, perhaps as much from Obi-Wan as from this, and didn’t dare reach further.
Yoda had been right about the prosthetic. It seemed scarcely to feel his weight. The muscles in his arm trembled, but Luke only registered the sensation without much feeling it. He let himself fall deeper into the convoluted web, watching it spread further and further out, binding him to the rest of the galaxy.
Artoo. Three frogs. Seven stones. Only a little further off, Yoda, shining in the Force. Luke’s ship. Maybe he’d be able to lift it next time. Father, dark, focused, sharp: so far and so close. Luke moved on to the most mundane object he could find. A hydrospanner in his supply box. Grease smeared its handle.
Luke looked further. There was a vine wrapping around a tree, perhaps a hundred feet behind him. The cave that marked his first great failure, shadowed and malevolent. Beyond them all, an impenetrable emptiness, illuminated only by an occasional, half-familiar glimmer. He might even been able to study it, if he hadn’t exhausted his energy on other matters.
Reluctantly, Luke withdrew back to himself. The parts of his mind that attended to the here and now were swiftly tiring; he closed his eyes and sent the droid, frogs, and rocks drifting back towards the ground, releasing his grip on them. With one last burst of energy, he dropped down himself, falling back on the flesh hand.
The Force stayed with him for another moment, but it was dimmer than he remembered from the morning, and he felt less entangled in it than cocooned. Then it faded away, and Luke was blinking into twilight.
Luke glanced around wildly. “Master Yoda? What happened?”
“Heh, the usual,” said Yoda, and smacked him with his cane.
“Ow!”
Yoda cackled. “Better, today,” he said. “Now, time for dinner it is, and then sleep, and tomorrow -- tomorrow, you will practice again.”
“Again?” Luke cried. “But, Master -- ”
“Again! Again, and again, until mastered yourself, you have. Only then can you learn what you must know.” He permitted himself a small smile. “But for now, good rootleaf stew you have earned, and rest.”
“Thanks,” said Luke, and stumbled after him.
Last week, he thought in some amazement, and tried to put the feeling away.
It only took a few minutes before he sensed the familiar, boundless presence of the Force, clustered brilliantly around him. Luke blinked, struggling to see past himself. There. Just on the edges of his vision, he glimpsed a few shining threads, spinning out from the tangled web that always seemed to surround him.
There was Yoda, bright and clear, even in sleep. The swamp, dimmer, chaotic. Artoo, trailing discreetly behind him. Something shadowy in the distance -- far, very far now, but easier to sense than nearer, brighter sparks.
The Dark Side? It had felt different at Bespin -- close, of course, but amorphous too, like a great smothering mass. This seemed cleaner, somehow, an orderly, calculated menace that almost reminded him of Yoda and Obi-Wan.
Oh! Just Father then. He almost snickered at the thought, or vomited, but instead he pushed it, too, out of his mind, as far as it would go. If Vader was his father -- since Vader was his father, that tie would always be there. He just had to remain . . . unreceptive. Not like he’d been on the Falcon, confused, shivering, helplessly responding to his father’s call.
But that wouldn’t happen again. Not once he understood everything. He just had to stay away until the rest cleared itself up.
“That would be wise, Luke.”
He yelped and fell over, the Force slipping out of his grasp. By the time Luke managed to scramble to his feet and glare in the direction of the voice, Obi-Wan Kenobi had already materialized on a nearby stump.
“It’s nice to see you too,” he said, scowling. “Yes, my hand’s coming along nicely. Thanks for asking. And how is the Netherworld treating you?”
“Quite well,” said Obi-Wan.
Luke gave up. “Obi-Wan, why didn’t you tell me? You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father!”
“Your father was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force,” Obi-Wan replied, as steady and imperturbable as ever. He met Luke’s eyes without a moment of hesitation. “He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed.”
Luke stared.
“So what I have told you was true -- from a certain point of view.”
“A certain point of view?” Luke cried. He gave his old mentor a derisive look and turned away.
After what had happened at Cloud City, he didn’t think he could be placated by any explanation Obi-Wan might offer. But he had at least thought there would be one.
“Luke,” Obi-Wan said, “you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own points of view.”
Luke fell speechless. He didn’t even dare glance back. Rage is a path to the Dark Side, he chanted at himself. Rage is a path to the Dark Side. Rage --
He could feel the ghost’s eyes on him, studying him. Then Obi-Wan said, “I don’t blame you for being angry.”
Don’t blame me -- !
“If I was wrong in what I did, it certainly wouldn’t have been for the first time.” Finally, something other than calm or resignation coloured his tone. Regret, and something more. Grief. Loathing. Self-loathing. Luke couldn’t look at him, not yet, but he listened.
“You see, what happened to your father is my fault.” Obi-Wan gave a sigh, and added wistfully, “Anakin was a good friend.”
Luke couldn’t help himself. He turned back towards him, sitting on a stump, and listened eagerly.
“When I first knew him, your father was already a great pilot,” Obi-Wan said, “but I was amazed at how strongly the Force was with him. He couldn’t have been much more than fourteen, and already he had more power than many of the greatest Jedi.” He shook his head. “No idea how to use it, of course.”
It all sounded so -- innocuous, Luke thought. So much like him. He closed his eyes, drawing a deep, shuddering breath.
Something nudged his knee and Luke glanced down. Artoo, abandoning all attempt at subterfuge, had joined him and was now emitting reassuring beeps. Luke managed a weak smile.
“Thanks,” he said, resting his hand on the droid’s dome, and turned back to Obi-Wan. “What happened? How was it your fault?”
“I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi,” Obi-Wan said heavily. “I thought I could instruct him as well as Yoda.”
Luke’s eyes widened. “Yoda wanted to train him?”
“The Jedi were in a rather -- singular position at the time,” said Obi-Wan. “We had been driven underground by the Empire, many years before, when I was still a young man. Most of us lived in the open, hiding our loyalties behind normal careers in the military, as I did. Yoda, however, advocated leaving the Empire entirely, and dedicating ourselves to the Force. His students were -- not soldiers.”
“Wars not make one great,” Luke murmured.
“Exactly. It was not a popular sentiment, even then, and few sought him out. Even fewer were accepted. But when I discovered Anakin, Yoda offered to train him. He felt very strongly that Anakin should be kept out of the Empire, and even more strongly that he should be taught to serve the Force alone. I was convinced, however, that Anakin’s potential should not be wasted on useless mysticism, that I knew better than my old master.”
Luke flinched.
“I was wrong. But the other masters agreed with me, and I was chosen to instruct him. I brought him to Alderaan and taught him about duels, battles, war, tactics. Everything I knew. He was a good student,” Obi-Wan added somberly. “He learned.”
He stared at his glimmering hands. “By eighteen, he was a fierce, brilliant warrior, and I was . . . so proud of him. Of myself. I paid no attention to his dissatisfaction, his distaste for much of what I taught him. He was young; it would pass, and I could feel that something terrible was going to happen. I knew he would need every skill at his disposal.”
“And then he turned to the Dark Side?” Luke asked blankly. Obi-Wan laughed.
“Oh, no. Then the wars came.”
Luke felt foolish. Even back on Tatooine, he’d heard of the Clone Wars, and knew what it meant that Obi-Wan and Anakin had fought in them: they were heroes.
“It was customary for a new Jedi to be mentored by his former master. So even then, we were still together, and I was still teaching him. He had so much left to learn.” Obi-Wan shook his head. “Well, the fighting dragged on. Anakin had always detested anything that smacked of chaos or corruption, and we saw little else. The battles grew more brutal, and Anakin -- he loathed the wars, the court, the government, everything. Before he fell, he wanted nothing more than to save the entire galaxy, to put it right.”
We can end this destructive conflict, and bring peace and order to the galaxy.
Luke swallowed. “What happened?”
“He was already devastated by the war,” Obi-Wan said slowly. “He had become harsher, more ruthless, in his determination to end it, furious that for all his strength in the Force, he didn’t have the power to do so. Many of our fellow Jedi had died, including his wife, and he had . . . ”
With a rush of horror, Luke understood.
“. . . a child to worry about. If my mother was dead, I must have been born by then. I must have been there, with him.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “The wars, ending the wars, became an obsession with him. I was exposed as a Jedi and forced to flee, but he had learned his lessons. He continued to win battle after battle, and so was sent to win more of them. The HoloNet hailed him as the hero of the Empire.”
Beeping mournfully, Artoo rocked back and forth. Luke felt sick.
“Anakin had none of the knowledge that Yoda would have given him,” Obi-Wan said, his voice thick with remorse, “that Yoda gave me. I never thought to pass any of that wisdom on to him. I taught him war, and I taught it well, and in the end it broke him. He fell under the sway of the Dark Side, and . . . ”
“It destroyed him,” said Luke. “That’s what Yoda told me.”
Obi-Wan gave a brief, pained nod.
Luke wished he knew what to say to him. I’m sorry, but that didn’t mean much. The entire galaxy was sorry. He could offer forgiveness, but that didn’t seem right either. Obi-Wan had apologized for what he had done to Anakin, not Luke, and Luke didn’t exactly see Anakin forgiving him in the near or distant future. Vader. Whoever he was.
“Well, it won’t destroy me,” Luke said finally. “I’m here with Master Yoda, and I’m going to learn everything he has to teach me. And I won’t fall.”
Yoda’s teachings had never involved the lightsaber, and he didn’t seem to care that Luke didn’t have one now.
“Weapons not bring one closer to the Force,” he scoffed, and told Luke to stand on his right hand.
“There isn’t a hand any more,” Luke told him, dropping his gaze.
“My old eyes deceive me?”
“It’s a prosthetic, like . . . it’s not real.”
“Hm!” said Yoda. “Then stronger now, it should be.”
Luke sighed and flipped his body into the air, reaching out to the Force as he landed. He instantly felt it wrapped around him, no clearer than it had been this morning. He didn’t need to worry about any visions today, at least.
“Feel the Force around you,” Yoda ordered. “Around the plants, the animals. In the earth. Connecting everything. Even your friend here.”
Luke grinned. “Sorry, Artoo,” he said, focusing on the little droid. Artoo floated into the air, beeping indignantly all the while, and Luke tried to keep some part of his mind fixed on them both, even as he moved his attention to nearby rocks and frogs. He felt stretched thin, perhaps as much from Obi-Wan as from this, and didn’t dare reach further.
Yoda had been right about the prosthetic. It seemed scarcely to feel his weight. The muscles in his arm trembled, but Luke only registered the sensation without much feeling it. He let himself fall deeper into the convoluted web, watching it spread further and further out, binding him to the rest of the galaxy.
Artoo. Three frogs. Seven stones. Only a little further off, Yoda, shining in the Force. Luke’s ship. Maybe he’d be able to lift it next time. Father, dark, focused, sharp: so far and so close. Luke moved on to the most mundane object he could find. A hydrospanner in his supply box. Grease smeared its handle.
Luke looked further. There was a vine wrapping around a tree, perhaps a hundred feet behind him. The cave that marked his first great failure, shadowed and malevolent. Beyond them all, an impenetrable emptiness, illuminated only by an occasional, half-familiar glimmer. He might even been able to study it, if he hadn’t exhausted his energy on other matters.
Reluctantly, Luke withdrew back to himself. The parts of his mind that attended to the here and now were swiftly tiring; he closed his eyes and sent the droid, frogs, and rocks drifting back towards the ground, releasing his grip on them. With one last burst of energy, he dropped down himself, falling back on the flesh hand.
The Force stayed with him for another moment, but it was dimmer than he remembered from the morning, and he felt less entangled in it than cocooned. Then it faded away, and Luke was blinking into twilight.
Luke glanced around wildly. “Master Yoda? What happened?”
“Heh, the usual,” said Yoda, and smacked him with his cane.
“Ow!”
Yoda cackled. “Better, today,” he said. “Now, time for dinner it is, and then sleep, and tomorrow -- tomorrow, you will practice again.”
“Again?” Luke cried. “But, Master -- ”
“Again! Again, and again, until mastered yourself, you have. Only then can you learn what you must know.” He permitted himself a small smile. “But for now, good rootleaf stew you have earned, and rest.”
“Thanks,” said Luke, and stumbled after him.
no subject
Okay, now that sounds interesting.
all well and good if you're running a contemplative order of warrior-monks who maybe go out in the galaxy and do good according to their personal callings within the Force. It is utter crap if you are trying to field a peacekeeping-and-special-operations force in service to a galaxy-spanning government
Exactly! That's, um, kind of my entire issue with them. In fact, in my headcanon, Luke and Leia sets up the Jedi Order during the messy time between everything going to hell on Coruscant and the Alliance consolidating their victory, and after awhile starts gathering Force-sensitives, and after five years of like a dozen governments trying to unseat them, the new Jedi refuse point-blank to be part of ANY government and certainly to be soldiers, and carry on without doing much more than liaising with the new Senate.
no subject
YES. THIS. To all of this. (And Stihl? Is awesome. That said, I don't know if the rest of the book will be nonsquicky for you.)
And I love the idea of a Jedi order that relies on the Force, rather than a temporal authority, for its direction, oh yes.