SPECULATION Luke didn't go into hiding: he stayed still

So, I'm just going to throw something out there which I think could serve as an interesting way to kick off a conversation I haven't seen on here yet, if not as an interesting theory itself: Luke Skywalker never left to go into hiding, suddenly vanishing from the known galaxy, because his Academy was on Ahch-To all along.

Now, here me out: I don't think this is going to get too complex, simply because it's my perspective of an image that brought this to mind in the first place, growing out from there, and so if you don't see it, that's totally fine.

To begin with, I think the events in Bloodline and their implications cannot be understated. In the novel, which takes place roughly six years before the events of TFA, Ben Solo had been travelling with Luke Skywalker for what we can assume was years, collecting Jedi artefacts, learning more about Jedi history, etc., or so the book suggests, but most interestingly of all, Leia had absolutely no idea where in the galaxy her brother and son were, nor what exactly it was that they were doing.

Nobody in the galaxy knew exactly where they were or what they were doing in this time, except them and anyone who was travelling with them.

Later on in the book, the galaxy-shifting news that Luke and Leia are the children of Vader spreads throughout the galaxy via the Holonet, and Leia shows concern as to how Ben will react to this news, and is taken by many as strongly implying that this was the point at which Ben's descent either began or came to a head (alternatively, their lack of communication before this, which is noted in the book, could be used to argue that Ben had already began his descent and shutting out his parents, or perhaps even that the slaughter of Luke's academy had already taken place).

In TFA, as we all know, Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren lay waste to Luke's academy, slaughtering, more than likely, all of his other students in the process.



In the same sequence, during Rey's Forceback, many have spotted that a large structure can be spotted towards the top right of a wide shot:


This structure, of course, lines up almost perfectly, in terms of general shape, to the Temple seen in the teaser trailer for The Last Jedi, and is likely an early Jedi Temple in the event that it is not specifically the very first.



On a side note, this shot of Luke kneeling seemingly leads perfectly into the shot of him with his hand on R2 by the light of fire in Rey's Forceback (shown in the second teaser trailer for TFA):

I have mentioned and shared this elsewhere, but the shot of what we can assume to be the Journal of the Whills from the TLJ teaser trailer appears to show the book to have been burnt (towards the bottom of the book, on the bottom right corner of the below frame), implying that it was in the Temple during the fire and recovered by Luke.



This is probably why Luke's collection of books appears so small in the trailer: many were lost in the Temple fire, and this is all that he could salvage/save.

So, at this stage, without any major speculation, we have determined two key things:

• Luke and Ben, as well as potentially others, went quiet for a significant period of time, and so no-one knew of their location, nor exactly what they were doing.

• the Temple in Rey's Forceback vision is the same Temple seen burning in the teaser trailer for TLJ.


Now this is where I think it becomes pretty interesting.

Through sharpening, enhancing and adjusting the lighting of the shot of the burning Temple, this image can be produced:



Luke kneeling next to Artoo? Normal. The burning Temple? Looks pretty much the same. That wooden structure to the right of the frame? Clearer - a lot clearer - but nothing much to phone home about.

Of all the things in this beautiful shot, I want you to stare at the most mundane of things: the floor. Because notice how patchy the grass is on the craggy and rocky floor, especially towards the left and middle of the frame?

Well...it seems pretty similar to the patchy grass on this craggy, rock floor in this, especially towards the top right of the frame, don't you think?



Another piece of evidence becomes apparent when one considers the basics of the water cycle and the planet of Ahch-To, which is covered in water...



...being that the sheer amount of water in the oceans being evaporated by the thermal energy of the nearest star would produce a LOT of water vapour, which would then condense at higher altitudes (where the temperature is lower), condensing into clouds, and probably causing extremely heavy frontal rainfall (extremely common in isles, such as the Caribbean or those found in Eastern Asia) like this:



Yes: I am suggesting that Luke has been on Ahch-To since before Ben Solo turned towards/accepted the Dark Side to adopt the mantle of Kylo Ren.

Nobody knew where he was - on Ahch-To, because, as Han told us, he told them that he was going to be searching for the first Jedi Temple: only Luke found it a long time before TFA, and never got back to them - nor what he was doing - attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order by doing things such as seeking out Force sensitives, collecting Jedi artefacts, etc., with the aid of Ben, as well as Lor San Tekka - during this period of time.

After the Temple was left to burn and his academy left in ruins, Luke likely tasked Lor San Tekka with, eventually or immediately, returning to the known galaxy so that his sister would have a chance of finding him if she ever searched hard enough; alternatively, Lor San Tekka might have visited Ahch-To before, as according to some sources "there is no sacred or Jedi site that he hasn't visited", so when word reached from Leia that she had reason to believe that Luke was heading off to the first Jedi Temple, he handed over the location of Ahch-To in hopes that it would help them find Skywalker and bring him back into the fight.

It's also worth pointing out that rebuilding the Jedi Order at the site of the first Jedi Temple is largely symbolic, and can be read into with great detail. It will be interesting to see whether the shot of Luke and the burning Temple or Kylo and the Knights of Ren out in the rain comes first, simply because of who would be where at a given time in any particular order; I think it's possible that Snoke tasked Kylo with destroying the Jedi Order, which Kylo might he has fulfilled by burning the Temple and therefore destroying the majority of the Order's known history, along with the murder of each and every fellow pupil, and perhaps, if given the chance - which is likely: Luke was in the mindset of a broken man and was likely despondent and paralysingly upset at this point - chose to spare Luke, as he viewed the Order as defunct already (and, of course, didn't account for Rey - the thought of another Force sensitive and the rise of the Jedi Order, and thus failing Snoke, could be why he reacted in the way he did in TFA to the news that a girl was aiding Finn's and BB-8's escape). There has been a lot of talk about whether it will be the Praetorian Guards or the Knights of Ren that will accompany Kylo in this film simply because of how strange it is that a similar group has been thought of for this film too; if the latter are not present throughout the film, I get the feeling that they might have not heeded Kylo's choice to spare Luke, and so either Luke or Kylo could have wiped them out as a result of this.

To add some context to my main theory, I'm going to suggest that Luke was either aware of the growing First Order presence in the galaxy - he also knew that going through the political system likely wouldn't work, much like his father before him - and so decided to rebuild the Jedi Order without anyone's knowledge of the fact, or that he knew that opinion was already divided on the Jedi, but knew that they must make a return to the galaxy to keep the peace after the Galactic Civil War. Personally, I prefer the latter thought, as it ties in nicely with Lor San Tekka's statement that the Jedi are required to keep peace in the galaxy.

In my mind, at least, it would make sense for these nun-type figures to be another religious group that trusts in and follows the guidance of the Force, and therefore, of course, are likely fans of the idea of the Jedi Order being rebuilt, but Luke's failure - and consequently his conservative lifestyle of a broken man - might be what cause them to "tolerate" his presence.

But why would Luke stay on Ahch-To and not go anywhere but there to hide if this was the case? Well, for one, perhaps the planet's connection to the Force could play a role in cloaking his presence from the rest of the galaxy: if Snoke and Kylo were at most as Force proficient as Luke was in TESB (when he senses that his friends are in trouble all the way over in Bespin), they would have likely located him much sooner otherwise. For any Rey Skywalker theorists out there, perhaps Rey went missing, and so the rebuilding of the Jedi Order was a task he undertook both because Yoda advised him to and because he needed a distraction from the awful things that had happened; once his life's work had crumbled before his eyes, Luke became a broken man on a lonely planet. Another reason is that Luke would be returning from his travels a lost and broken man: no rebuilt Jedi Order, no nephew, all of his pupils dead, etc.

Furthermore, after years of hard work and teaching ultimately turning against him - after years of study - with the destruction of his academy, perhaps Luke is found by Rey in the mindset that the Jedi Order must end because rebuilding it seems impossible to him: he did everything right, from studying to rebuilding on a symbolic site, etc., and yet it all went horribly wrong.

What do you guys think?