Growing up on the Lars Homestead on Tattooine

Young Luke didn't like living on the Lars homestead. When Threepio showed up on the Lars homestead and asked Luke where they were Luke answered "Well, if there's a bright spot in the center of the Galaxy, you're on the planet farthest from it" or something like that (too lazy to look up the quote).

Luke wanted adventure. He got the moisture farm instead.

All the Jedi trained from an early age for adventure. Luke did chores.

All the Jedi were taught to fight with lightsabers. Luke was taught to haggle with Jawas.

All the Jedi learned the ways of the Force. Luke learned his uncle and aunt needed him to do the hard work they were getting too old to do themselves.

And every Jedi who stood up against the Empire lost. Luke won.

Maybe we've overlooked something about the Lars homestead.

Luke didn't win by being more Jedi than the Jedi. He won by seeing the good in Darth Vader that nobody else could see and by getting Vader to see the good in himself. And I suspect growing up with chores and responsibilities, with people expecting on you to fix a vaporator and get grease on your hands and sand in your clothes, had a lot to do with why Luke managed to do what no other Jedi could do.

You've heard the expression "When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail", right? Well, when the only tool you have is a lightsaber, and you've trained since you were a youngling to use it as a weapon, then your options are probably limited by the fact that every problem looks like a lightsaber target to you.

Luke toppled the Empire by bringing a new perspective to the fight. We usually think of it as a father/son dynamic, and certainly that's the biggest part of it. But I think the Lars homestead is part of it, too.

Luke was raised differently than the Jedi and I think he was free of the martial mindset that lead to the Jedi's destruction. The chores he hated may have helped him free the Galaxy. The simple farming life in a harsh environment may have opened his mind to the goodness in others, but a combat education in an Order of Knights taught the Jedi to see the Sith as irredeemable.

So quit talking back and wash the damn dishes, Hon. It might help you save the Galaxy someday.

 

Yes! Luke understood family!

The Jedi didn't. They couldn't. They weren't raised by family, they weren't allowed to raise families of their own. When Ben and Yoda got hold of Luke they trained him with a lightsaber so he could kill his own father because they couldn't understand what Luke could - that family can put up with the worst of you and still love you anyway. They told Luke not to face Vader before his training was complete but they didn't understand. All the training Luke needed was already given to him by Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru.

More lightsaber lessons? More levitating rocks in a swamp? More of what every other Jedi died trying to do, fighting against the might of the Empire? That's not what Luke needed. What Luke needed was to see Darth Vader as a conflicted soul, a man with goodness inside him that the Emperor hadn't driven out completely, a man with a conscience. And we can thank Owen and Beru for that, not Ben's ghost and Yoda.