SPECULATION Timeline of Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy destruction

Luke's guilt is complicated, but the primary reason for it seems to be that he had the one split second of thinking he should kill Ben and stop the horrible things Luke sees in Ben's future--and that split second, though Luke never follows through (and in fact the thought that he even could have makes him ashamed), is what opens the floodgates of Kylo Ren, because Ben misunderstands what he sees that night. IMO Luke is beating himself up for "creating" Kylo Ren, which is what Rey accuses him of doing. And not sensing Snoke's influence earlier, letting Han and Leia's kid entrusted to him fall to the Dark Side--those are eating at him too. Mixed in with that is his bitterness at his own hubris for thinking he is a legend...which, ironically, he truly becomes when he rises above these "poor me" feelings. It's up to Yoda to point out that failing doesn't necessarily make Luke a failure. (As Yoda would know!) It's wallowing in the failure and refusing to learn from it that does it.

TBH, I don't see that Bloodline or the Vader reveal has impacted the TLJ story at all. Maybe it will come into play in IX, but it doesn't seem to matter in TLJ.

 

I think its clearly after Bloodline. Bloodline very clearly implies Ben is with Luke at the time. You would also think Leia would sense something like Ben destroying the academy.

 

Honestly, this is the best explanation of Luke's TLJ status that I have ever heard of. I found it impossible to believe that the man who would consider Darth Vader worthy of redemption (even after being dehanded by Vader!) would just suddenly feel like killing his nephew just for being "dark" and not even having done anything evil yet! It makes him feel like a completely different character than OT Luke. But, between the ideas in your post and the idea that his "split second' of temptation was created by manipulative Force telepathy from Snoke and/or Palpatine...I can accept that. Thank you for your post.

 

You're welcome! And thank you for keeping an open mind--it's not easy to do.

 

Considering he might kill his nephew is not really what happened though. Luke was in the midst of a vision of future horror, pain, death, catastrophe. For an instant he felt he could stop "it". He doesn't say that he felt the need to stop "him".

Luke is not even really conscious of his physical surroundings at that moment. Remember Rey's vision in TFA? It was like a VR experience with her having to navigate heaving landscapes, dodge falling obstacles and flee from strange pursuers. I wouldn't say she was considering flying backwards out the door of Maz's storage room on her backside. But that is what she wound up doing while reacting to her hallucinatory waking nightmare. I can imagine if the sabre was in Rey's hand the whole time, she might have eventually been compelled to use it against those pursuing her while experiencing that vision. But that doesn't mean she was willing to use it on Maz, who in reality was standing a few foot away at the time. Because Rey wasn't conscious of her presence until she came back to her senses.

Rather than reeling out the room backwards on his butt in response to his nightmarish vision. Luke turned his saber on for one second. Then immediately switched it off again once he'd come to his senses and "back in the room" as they say.

I like the circular nature of comparing those two moments:

- Rey's vision is initiated by her touching the saber. The things she's confronted with compel her to flee in terror until it ends.

- Luke goes to confront what he fears most about Ben, and the vision he initiates prompts him to take up his saber. At which point the vision ends.

Taken a bit further, we're comparing Rey's introduction to the realm of the Force with the event that prompts Luke to cut himself off from the Force in its aftermath.


You have to consider also that the destruction of Luke's academy came about because Luke envisioned it. The reason he envisioned it is because he went into the hut to try and put his fears about Ben to rest. I think it can be inferred that none of it might have happened if Luke hadn't been insecure about Ben's feelings of jealousy, which were actually Ben's fears, nurtured by Palpatine, about Luke's jealously, and not gone to search Ben's feelings. So it's not like it was already destined that Ben would destroy Luke's academy for anyone with the vision to see. The whole thing was a trap for Luke and Ben.

It's for similar reasons that Anakin's closest friends and colleagues could not foresee the terrible things that he had visions of.

Rey never accused Luke of creating Kylo Ren. She asked if what Ben said was true. And it was not. But from Luke's perspective he's guilty. And the only result possible from his continued pursuit of his nephew is further guilt for the one who winds up destroying the other.

Luke's despair comes from his sense of guilt of course. But also from the sense of inevitability of how things happened and how they will turn out.

As for squaring the Luke who believed in Vader's redemption with Luke being trapped in ANY situation where he's set against his nephew. It wasn't just a matter of blind faith in his father that Luke was following in ROTJ. He "saw" his father's goodness. He felt the conflict. The reason for that was Luke was the one who would play an active role and his father belatedly embracing that goodness and settling that conflict.

But in the case of his nephew, Luke does not possess that vision. He has seen the terrible things that will happen. (and those things come about partly because Luke envisions them so he has an indirect role in them happening). So for Luke, the only outcome he can anticipate if he intervenes further, is one of them destroying the other. I don't think Luke's role in his father coming back is necessarily and indication of how he can be expected to behave in ANY similar scenario. There were specific reasons why Luke insisted, beyond reason, that he must try and save Darth Vader. And why he must not fight him.