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Anakin Skywalker could never free himself from his past, leading to his downfall. His son Luke mirrors him with his dedication to the old Jedi Order.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers from Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett “Chapter 6: From the Desert Comes a Stranger,” streaming now on Disney+.
Star Wars creator George Lucas once said of his repeating parallels: “It’s like poetry – they rhyme.” At the heart of the major Star Wars stories lies the Skywalker family. Anakin’s fall to become the feared Darth Vader was chronicled by the entire first two trilogies, while the latter two followed the Skywalker legacy and his son Luke’s journey.
Luke, whose name’s literal Latin derivative means “light,” is the galaxy’s great New Hope: the highly Force-sensitive child of Anakin who can restore balance to the Force and bring about the rise of the Jedi once more. He represents a new path forward — or at least he should. In The Book of Boba Fett “Chapter 6: From the Desert Comes a Stranger,” viewers are reunited with Luke when he continues Grogu’s Jedi education. But it soon becomes apparent that Luke doesn’t intend to make a new, better way forward. Rather, he tries to instill in Grogu the same dogmatic Jedi views that became the Order’s own downfall. In doing so, Luke follows in his father’s footsteps.
The old saying “The sins of the father fall on the son” rings truer and truer for Luke. The tragedy of Anakin was that he never escaped his past and his refusal to let go of it ultimately pushed him to the Dark Side. While Luke isn’t harboring old wounds and slipping into the Sith, he mirrors his father without knowing it. They both let the past dictate their choices and cling to outdated ways and motivations.
Anakin was forever haunted by his childhood as a slave, the losses of his mother and wife, and the inability of the Jedi to understand his psychological trauma. Though Obi-Wan coached his padawan to be mindful in the present and not dwell on dreams and memories, Anakin never could. Rather, he internalized them while always clinging to the past as his motivation for future actions. When he fatefully killed Mace Windu in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, it was out of fear that he would lose Padmé the same way he remembered losing his mother. As long as the past dictated his future, it drove him to make wrong decisions.
When Din Djarin — Grogu’s foster parent for two seasons — sought out his foundling child in The Book of Boba Fett, he ultimately left without completing the visit. Instead, he left behind an adorably tiny piece of beskar chainmail armor for Grogu. Luke then offered that present to the child but with an ultimatum: it wasn’t a gift, but a choice. Grogu could accept Master Yoda’s lightsaber from Luke and cement his fealty to the Jedi, never to reunite with his foster father again, or he could accept the Mandalorian’s armor and return to Din Djarin, but he would no longer be a Jedi. It was a choice of absolutes mired in centuries of Jedi failure.
While Luke was actively rebuilding the Jedi, he, too, was a slave to the past. In his quest to fulfill his new Chosen One mantle, he was determined to adhere to the mythos Obi-Wan and Yoda instilled in him. Yet for all their wisdom, Obi-Wan and Yoda should be used as cautionary tales, not absolute role models. They represent the fall of the Jedi and of the Republic — a fall that was spurred on by the Jedi’s own blindness, rigidity and hypocrisy. If they had relented enough to allow Jedi pupils love and attachments, would Anakin have fallen to the dark side? If they had allowed more freedom and lives outside the confines of the Order, would public opinion have turned on them so much? And yet Luke was creating a carbon copy of the Order.
Ahsoka Tano, who spent time as both a Jedi and a citizen and who saw firsthand how the Jedi’s own narrow views failed them, hinted that she knew this was a bad idea. She was careful to take no part in rebuilding the Jedi herself. Ahsoka had seen it all before: the Jedi insistence on absolute devotion and absolutely no personal or outside attachments tormented her former Master and pushed him from the light. Their dogmas affected her so much, too, that she ultimately left the Order for good. If anyone knows that the Jedi were flawed, it’s her.
In the Legends books, specifically the New Jedi Order series, Luke learned that lesson following Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. He opened up a new school for Jedi that allowed and encourages friendships and affection. He remained close to his sister Leia and best friend Han, reveling in community and healthy attachments. He even had a wife, the iconic Mara Jade. His Jedi pupils thrived, and when there was a tragic falling to the Dark Side, it was because of new circumstances and not the mistakes of the past. The Luke of Legends was emotionally healthier than the Luke of canon is set up to become by the final trilogy, which drastically underscores the Jedi’s failure in their approach to the past and to attachments.
This leads to the Luke of Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, who was haunted by his past. He sees the mistakes that he made with Ben Solo, pushing him to the dark and into becoming Kylo Ren, were dictated by outdated dogmas and a fear of the past. He realized, finally, that the old ways weren’t right and the Jedi shouldn’t be rebuilt but rather reimagined. The Luke seen in The Book of Boba Fett, though, isn’t there yet and his future failings are foreshadowed. The tragedy of Anakin will become the tragedy of Luke until Luke learns to “let the past die.”
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