Star Wars fans are wondering why Luke Skywalker failed to take his own advice when it came to the survival of the Jedi Order.
The discussion arose in the /starwars subreddit, when YaaaScience asked fans why they think Skywalker (Mark Hamill) willfully ignored a key vulnerability he observed about the Jedi training methodology when he founded his own school, Yavin Praxeum.
Severing the relationships between Younglings and their families sometimes caused such catastrophic psychological damage to the students that two in particular were left with an all-encompassing need for connection and personal power; Luke’s father Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) and his nephew Ben Solo/Kyle Ren (Adam Driver).
Cootator did not mince words in their assessment of the reason for the dichotomy between Luke recognizing the importance of familial connections in Return of the Jedi, and his decision to maintain the status quo in The Force Awakens.
However, another fan argued that Luke’s ideas about Jedi family ties were likely to have become more nuanced over time.
Optimal Carpenter took the view that with very few exceptions, the Jedi training programs had been successful, meaning it was misguided to blame the order for the fall of the Anakin Skywalker.
Another Redditor, Ace Of Diamonds, agreed with the former take, adding that Anakin exemplified why the Jedi instituted the rule against forming attachments in the first place.
The jury is still out on whether or not the onus for the departure of Darth Vader and Kylo Ren to the Dark Side falls on the practices of the Jedi Order, or if they were personal failures on the parts of the men themselves. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the middle.
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