#would die of old age and have to choose in mandos what happens to their soul (eventual reembodiment or the gift of men)

[an-eldritch-peredhel]

*ignoring the paper thrown at me by Tolkien's ghost as I post this* I think that the elf default of the Choice of the Peredhil is stupid and that Arwen (Elladan and Elrohir too, this post just isn't about them) continues to very slowly age up until she makes her final choice once and for all, so by the events of LotR she looks somewhere between late-20s to early-40s. She's gorgeous and elfly-ethereal and she has laugh lines and grey hairs and her neck hurts when she sleeps on it wrong. In this essay I will-

[ariainstars]

Luke, You're a Dumbass...!

Thoughts on The Book of Boba Fett, Episode VI

For a Start…

I get it that Mando is a bounty hunter. He knows how to track people down. But still: how did he suddenly know the name of his son’s teacher? And where he actually lives when Luke went into hiding on a remote planet? Luke can’t have told him because once he arrived, he pointedly kept Mando away from Grogu. At least a short explanation would have been nice.

No, I Didn’t Like It.

This is not the Luke we knew from his trilogy. This is “I’m being the perfect Jedi” Luke.

So, Luke has gone all “no attachments” now. Great. I wonder what Leia, Han and little Ben think about it. Or Chewbacca, or Lando. Or his other friends from the Rebellion. When we left Luke in Return of the Jedi, his attachments were strong. They actually were his strength. Where, when and why did he choose not to have any and to be all cool and aloof? We’re not told. We’re just expected to accept that this is the Jedi way.

Did he just say that he is not even in contact with his own family any more - the family he practically brought together? The people he repeatedly risked life and limb for - literally, since he lost a hand when he ran to rescue them on Cloud City? I know many fans are out of their minds with glee now, but how can one even think of rejoicing when Luke Skywalker of all people becomes so cold and detached?

Luke’s greatest strength always was that he was not like the other Jedi but first and foremost himself. Obi-Wan all but killed Anakin and left him to burn in a lifetime of torture although Anakin had repeatedly saved his life, because he was “the perfect Jedi”. It was the Jedi thing to do, not the good thing to do. Luke forgiving although Anakin had done nothing for him, on the contrary, had hurt him and his friends repeatedly, was not the Jedi thing but the right thing to do. It’s all plain to see in the movies.

The Last Jedi was all about the failure of the Jedi. This episode is not epic, it’s tragic because it sets up Luke’s failure, and without an explanation. Why did he change so much during the last years? Where is the sweet, fun, affectionate young man we knew? Did he choose to isolate himself, did Ahsoka or someone else tell him that he needs to be like that, or did something happen that made him decide it would be better this way? The “no attachment” rule was not even mentioned in the classics. It must hurt to get away from everyone you love. Yet Luke seems to be totally fine with it.

Ahsoka is in contact with Luke? When she first met Mando she didn’t even know he existed. Well, since she saw Anakin as an older brother, in a way she’s his aunt. But how did they meet? How did she even learn Anakin had had children? How did she react to that? Did she talk to him about how his father was like before he fell?! She met Vader in Rebels and was horrified on realizing that the man behind the mask was Anakin. Finding out that he has a son who is a good man would have been the foil to that. So much potential for a great story, a great first meeting between them. Nothing.

“So much like your father.” Argh. Dear Ahsoka, Luke is terrified of being like his father. You’re not encouraging. You might have pointed out that he has his mother’s sweetness, too. And that he has his father’s strength and stubbornness but not his violence.

“He was small, but his heart was huge.” Aha. Did Ahsoka not tell him how she was framed once and all the Jedi she had fought and risked life and limb for from age 14 believed she was guilty? Yoda was her sternest accuser. Ahsoka left the Jedi temple after that, that’s why she is living on her own and doesn’t identify as a Jedi. Or does Luke suffer from amnesia? Yoda, like Obi-Wan, expected him to kill his own father and to just let Han and Leia die.

Luke reawakens Grogu’s trauma from the execution of Order 66 and then doesn’t offer any comfort. He tells Grogu that he needs to learn to defend himself, but he doesn’t ask how Grogu survived that night at the old temple in the first place. Someone must have rescued him. Who, when and how? We still are not told. Besides, defending yourself is not always necessary or right. Sometimes you will need and get help and rescue. Learning how to find friends would be more to the point. And Luke used to be good at that.

Luke gives Grogu a training pod and the child rolls it towards him. He wanted to play with that stupid ball, not be shot at. He had to learn how to jump to get out of its way. Great. This is a child, Luke! He wants to do what other children do at that age - be safe, play, eat, sleep. It’s what you most probably did at that age. And you have a nephew who’s roughly the same age. Why don’t you know such simple things? What a sad contrast to the episode “Sanctuary” of The Mandalorian, where Grogu is welcomed by the other children as one of them and there also is Omera, a motherly woman.

Luke did not let Mando near them because he might “tempt” the child with their attachment. For Force’s sake, the man is jetlagged, burnt out with worry, expelled from his fellow Mandalorians, has the impossible task of rebuilding an unknown planet at hand, and you won’t even talk to him? Nice compassion Mr Perfect Jedi, really. R2, a mechanical creature, at least offers him a place to rest.

Grogu is now supposed to choose. Luke all but says that he can’t become a great Jedi master if he doesn’t teach him how to be one. Luke had been trained for a few days, perhaps weeks. How does he know that he is a great Jedi master? He doesn’t. It’s what the Jedi apologist fans believe. They don’t see that Luke was great because he was himself, they’re in awe of his Jedi persona. At least he gives Grogu a choice, all right, contrarily to Anakin who only could remain a slave, and also to himself who was all but pushed into it, “You must learn the ways of the Force”, “You will go to the planet Dagobah to find Master Yoda” etc. Still, the choice is wrong in itself.

Luke doesn’t say so, but it is plain that he wants Grogu to become like Yoda. Which is wrong because the attitude Yoda had and taught in his time was at the bottom of the Jedi’s ultimate downfall. Luke obviously doesn’t know that, at least not yet. Grogu could learn from Luke that being in balance and being compassionate is being more important than letting things float. But except for their short trip, Luke didn’t show him balance, he only made him remember the tricks he had already learned at the old temple.

In one scene Ahsoka asks Mando, “Are you doing this for Grogu, or for yourself?” Why does she ask him? Why doesn’t she ask Luke the same question?

If Grogu chooses Mando, everyone will be like, „How can he not want to be a Jedi?” If he chooses to stay with Luke, „Oh dear, Luke’s nephew is going to kill him!” Grogu does not appear in the comics The Rise of Kylo Ren, and they’re officially canon - but he couldhave died there, because whatever else happens, Luke’s temple will end badly. Whether because he stays with Mando or due to some other reason: Grogu will not carry on Luke’s legacy. Then what was the point of Grogu meeting Luke at all?

Grogu is still a child. He could have trained for a few years and then gone back to his father. There is no reason why he couldn’t have both. We all have to go to school, but we always return home afterwards, to relax and to play. And Grogu is far too small to make such a life-changing decision. He can’t even talk yet.

Luke knows the pain of losing a father you’ve just bonded with. He grew up as a normal child, and he had years where he learned to be a strong and confident person supported by his friends. And yet he openly said to Grogu that if he chooses the Jedi way, he will most probably see his father no more, because it seems that’s the choice he made.

You know from where you recognize a bad teacher? When you expect your pupil to become like you (or someone else) instead of helping him learn to become himself. Obi-Wan was a prime example for that. Luke is making the exact same mistake. And we already learned in The Last Jedi how that set up his failure with Ben, when he openly said to Rey, "In my arrogance, I thought I could pass on my strength."

I don’t mind Luke being back in the story. What I do mind is that he serves no purpose, except, for some viewers, long-awaited fan service. I can hear millions sigh in rapture and saying “This was the Luke Skywalker I wanted to see all my life.”

Really? Episode VI of TBoBF is foreshadowing Luke’s failure. It’s consistent with the sequels, not with the headcanon „the Jedi are always right and do nothing wrong“. Jedi fans and apologists may be out of their minds with joy on seeing Luke being an emotionally detached Jedi master, but this is the set-up for a tragedy.

Had he still been the Luke we know from the classic movies instead of going all „I’m the perfect Jedi“, he wouldn’t have failed. He hadn’t failed his father because at the time he still was Luke from Tatooine. He failed Ben because he had become a Jedi, refusing to give his nephew solace when he would most have needed it. Luke of all people ought to know that there is a huge difference between compassionate and possessive attachments. So should Ahosoka.

Obi-Wan and Yoda were older, had nothing to leave behind and had to keep in hiding when they exiled themselves; Luke is hardly 30 here, he has a family and friends and the galaxy may be in need of him. After his nephew feall to the Dark Side due to his misstep he is in exile because of his shame and guilt; but that will be 25 years from now. As of now, here is no reason at all for him to exile himself and turn his back on everyone he loves. Luke is not being „a great Jedi“ here, he is literally digging his own grave; the grave where his and his family’s hopes will be buried. It’s very fitting that his temple is being built by droid ants: anthills are homes but also graves. Luke is not reforming the Jedi Order the way he apparently did in the Legendsnovels, he is doing the same (wrong) thing they did. And many fans, among them a lot of those who hated Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi and pretended it was a character assassination of Luke, are rejoicing over this. The Luke we see here and now, preaching that for a Jedi it’s wrong to love anyone individually and that emotional detachment is necessary for a Jedi to reach greatness - this is character assassination. What a bitter irony.

Don’t Let Me Get Started: Wasted Opportunities

From the books we learn that Luke founded his temple when his nephew was eleven, which is five years from now. Five precious years wasted when he could have been an uncle to Ben, a teacher to Grogu, a friend to Mando. Before he finally shuts himself up in his temple, rejects his emotions and everything goes to s***.

Bringing Luke back to the story could have been a great opportunity. He could do so much for the galaxy and leave a good legacy so that it won’t all be lost when his nephew falls to the Dark Side.

He could help Mando rebuild Mandalore. He could make Mandalore, “the glass planet”, blossom again with the help of the Force. He could at least teach Mando how to use the Darksaber.

What does he do instead? Make frogs float. Show off with his light saber. Run in the woods flipping over.

There are plenty of other ways he could have left a positive legacy to the galaxy before he handed it all over to Palpatine’s granddaughter of all people, with his blessing. Luke used to be the light of the galaxy, the personification of hope. Then why does he retire to a remote planet far away from everyone he loves, doing nothing to help the populations of the galaxy? Nice hope indeed. All he does is make us Grogu & Mando fans hope that they will come together again, and if that hope is crushed, we will only be all the more heartbroken.

Ben Solo wasn’t even mentioned until now. He’s basically Grogu’s age, they could have become fast friends. From the books we learned that Ben was a good kid, like Anakin used to be. It would further explain his tragedy if he had Grogu as a friend (since both are Force-sensitive) and then suffer from the loss of letting him go. Luke could witness Ben’s “mighty Skywalker blood” when the boy does something desperate with the Force to save his little friend. They could agree never to tell Leia what her son is capable of so she won’t worry, which would explain why she never knew what actually happened that fatal night at the temple. We could hear Snoke’s evil whispering in Ben’s head telling him that he shouldn’t trust Luke.

And if he comes back, Ben could be the one who finally brings Balance. Anakin fell to the Dark Side never to come out, Luke didn’t fall. Ben fell and came back. If he lived, and Grogu and he met again, he could realize that Ben might be the key to Balance - because he knew all three Skywalkers. Ben could be the good father Anakin wasn’t (Ben even looked like the opposite of Vader). Mando could be an example for him, saving and protecting foundlings. Ben could have witnessed that. And he could have witnessed Luke playing with the foundlings instead of being aloof. This would all lead the path to a fabulous father figure. Grogu could found a new Jedi Order where attachments are not forbidden but Jedi are taught to love and have attachments in a compassionate, not obsessive way.

Ben obviously loved his uncle, else he wouldn’t have been so furious after he felt betrayed by him. The two of them in a relationship while he was small would also have brought out Luke’s playful side again. We didn’t see Leia and didn’t witness her lingering trauma after what she had gone through at Vader’s hands, resulting in her terror of (and for) her son; the big elephant in the room is still not approached. Neither did we see Han Solo being a father.

I know, this is not about them and there isn’t much time in one episode alone. But now that Luke is all set as “the perfect Jedi”, thinking only of his temple, no attachments whatsoever... the door to all of that is closed.

A good Star Wars story inspires viewers to dream, and there is no place for dreams here, because, again, it is all about the past. Ahsoka and Luke speak only about how the Jedi, Yoda and Anakin used to be. Grogu is a child and instead of being the window to a better future, he’s supposed to simply step into their shoes.

So Much for Context

Luke has no connection with Boba. He comes from Tatooine but that is never addressed; if he was meant to be an addition to Boba’s book he could have come to his old home for a while. Maybe meeting Peli, a woman he possibly knew from the past. Or helping Boba and Mando defeat the syndicate. Instead, he’s there as simple eye candy.

Honestly, I was waiting for Boba to meet Omega, who is his sister by blood: Star Wars is about family after all, and this would tie in with The Bad Batch. Instead, we get a Mando and a Luke episode who both have only a very weak link to Boba.

Either Talk Sense, or Be Quiet Everyone

Luke talks a lot about nothing new. Luke and Ahsoka talk and we learn nothing. Cobb Vanth in his first scene: talks way too much. Cobb Vanth in his last scene: is shot at and falls to the ground without a whimper. This time Cad Bane is the one who talks saying nothing.

You know from where you can see that Star Wars is essentially written by men for men? Because people hardly talk with each other. The entire episode is one long monologue - Cobb, Luke, Cad Bane all talk and talk but don’t communicate. So much suffering could be avoided in the saga if people knew how to communicate properly. Maybe some woman could teach them, but women are expected to be badass fighters here. They’re not diplomats, mothers, they’re not wise and learned. A “strong woman” always carries a weapon ready for the kill. Some kind of feminism, really.

Ahsoka could have told Luke that Anakin was prey to an unhealthy attachment. That Yoda was not as wise and good as he seemed. That the Jedi all failed her. Luke could learn from that and indeed reform the Order. Mando could have told him about the Mandalorian who also was a Jedi, so Grogu wouldn’t be compelled to make a choice.

Sigh. No, this wasn’t a good episode. Not by a long shot.

What I Liked

If the planet Luke has chosen for his temple reflects his inner life, it’s a very beautiful analogy. In particular comparing it to Obi-Wan’s desert and Yoda’s swamp. I also liked the contrast for Ahsoka, last time she was on a grey planet all surrounded by dying trees. 😊 But in old age, Luke will be on a green but foggy, distant island, with a destroyed temple in the middle, not a newly built one. And this only adds to the depressive mood of the episode.

[thevalleyisjolly]

AU where Elrond and Elros never choose between mortality and immortality because what’s one good reason for choosing?  To make Mandos’ paperwork a bit easier?  Surely the Valar can sort that out themselves, it’s not like there’s a whole race of half-elves that there needs to be a precedent for.  Plus, it seems very divisive after thousands of years of conflict and war to maintain such a clear distinction between Elves and Men.  This is a new age of peace and cooperation!  Why can’t elves and humans help each other rebuild the world after SOME PEOPLE tore up and drowned half the known continent?

Elros goes off to help some of his mortal friends build a ship so that they can explore the new coastline, while Elrond flags down a passing Sylvan ranger to talk about cartography and properly mapping out the lands beyond Lindon.  Eönwe does not facepalm, because that would be highly undignified for the banner-bearer of Manwë, and silently curses the first mortal that ever looked at an elf with lascivious intent.

(It’s really not Bëor’s fault if an incredibly handsome elf with a beautiful voice just wanders into your camp one day, like what are you supposed to do, not fall instantly in love?)

And Elrond and Elros don’t really know what’s going to happen.  They assume they’ll die eventually.  For a good cause, hopefully, because when was the last time someone in their family died peacefully of natural causes?  Anyways, even if they don’t die valiantly fighting against a Dark Lord (fortunately, the other leading cause of death in their family -unfortunate side effect/consequence of your family members’ questionable decisions- is a great deal more unlikely now due to most of their relatives being dead), what is the natural lifespan of a half elf anyways?  They’re the first half elves that they know of other than Lúthien to survive past 40.  They never knew Dior, their grandfather, Eluréd and Elurín, their uncles.  The last they knew of their mother was that she leapt off a cliff with a Silmaril.  They’ve only seen their father from afar, a brilliant star against Ancalagon the Black, and who knows what he is anymore?  This is the legacy they inherit, learned not at their parents’ knees nor in their grandparents’ arms, but from the tongues of strangers, distant relations with piecemeal bits of legend for the last heirs of more lineages than surviving relatives.

Elladan, Elrohir and Arwen went thousands of years before choosing their fates.  It’s not a mortal lifespan, whatever it means to be a half elf.  But they’re still mortal, and as the Ages pass on, the first signs of age begin to appear.  The beard that Elros insisted on growing, partly because his human friends were doing it and mostly because it’s been a lifelong goal of his to rival Círdan’s beard one day, starts seeing grey hairs near the end of the Second Age.  The warmth and welcome and jollity of Elrond’s house (because there is no world in which Elrond does not create a home again and again and again amidst grief and loss and despair) appears in the crow’s feet of his eyes, the laugh lines around his mouth.  Elros’ new favourite thing is to complain loudly about his creaking joints every time someone beats him in a duel, don’t you know what these old bones have seen?  Celebrían loves to tease Elrond that if he gets any more silver hairs, the two of them can start matching.

All this to say that by the time the Istari show up in Middle Earth in the Third Age, everyone and their mother knows about the “not-elf wizards” (Elrond was the one who bothered to study up on magic from Galadriel, but Elros was the one who fully committed to the aesthetic of the big beard) who give excellent advice and throw legendary parties.  By comparison, these enigmatic wizards with their cryptic riddles and mysterious ways are less fun to have around.

(Saruman fully sulks about it for the rest of his tenure in Middle Earth, Radagast is too delighted with the family of hedgehogs he found to care, and Gandalf decides that the perfect cover for travelling around Middle Earth is to be a professional party wizard, with fireworks for some added zing.  Everyone and their mother soon learns that Gandalf’s parties are also legendary, if a good deal more dangerous than you might expect parties to be)

[vardasvapors]

I started writing separate answers but realized I was repeating myself so I hope it’s okay that I combined these to spare my dash! Anyway SORRY THIS IS LATE I wasn’t quite sure how to word it concisely….also thank u for giving me an excuse to scroll up to a great convo I had months ago for reference >_o

re: Luthien’s song passage. It seems to be creating one phenomenon out of dual experiences of how painful it is for these two races to meet one another and bewitch one another and be doomed to different fates? The two closest peoples, like it’s described, on the world among the innumerable stars. And yet Mandos responds to this lament by…uh, enabling the peredhil, who are both, yet choose one fate. The grief and sorrow of this weaving-together isn’t removed – if anything it’s forced into continuing manifestations, yet Luthien transmuted this grief into song and by dint of it made it beautiful, and Mandos acknowledged its enormity, so people in-universe who know that story have a foothold for meaning. As part of the peredhil’s overall fates, they choose which anguish to endure, since they, unlike most elves and men in most eras, can’t avoid the perilousness — as Tolkien put it using this word so many times — of the contact between mortality and immortality, whichever side they view it from.

I guess one of the most interesting things about Tolkien elves for me is how life- and character-altering an influence and bond something as brief as a friendship of years or months with a mortal has had on multiple different elves. It’s pretty weird imo! It’s not like some stories where there are creatures that are very sheltered apart from contact with humans and get super-attached that way, you can’t really apply that particular revelation-factor to those Tolkien elves’ things for mortals. But I guess you can kind of reverse-engineer it from the way elves are a weird wish-fulfillment for humans – to be immortal, yeah, but the wish-fulfillment also extends to wanting to know immortals. I was just reminded of that passage from The Seafarer! Remember me! The most universal of desires that bargain with, rather than deny or rage at, death. If I must go, remember me! Remember my presence! Remember my deeds! Those people and places are gone, yet their presence remains, albeit subjectively and incompletely: “And so it is for each man / the praise of the living, / of those who speak afterwards, / that is the best epitaph.” That imprint they left is expressed in words, but it’s really the kind of shape they carved in the minds and lives of people left behind – which in this setting include immortal lives, of elves who can still speak of them centuries and millennia after. Not so unlike, those archeology discoveries? where we can be reached, one-way, from across the vast abyss of time, by ancestors from 10,000 years ago, via footprints of ancient peoples made in soft clay that hardened into stone. Sometimes a small bit of evidence of someone’s existence, and their imprint on their times, is immortalized. I will never forget you. So the other passage–

–I would say, if Elwing chose to become immortal because of Luthien, she chose to become immortal because Luthien became mortal. Doriath is gone, Luthien is gone, her parents and brothers are gone, but as long as Elwing lives, that tale of Luthien still lives, including her choice to become mortal and leave the world, and all the hope that may lie therein. ‘I’m alive! I survived, I survived everything, even the waters themselves, I risked everything and survived it, and I’m still here, I’m still alive, and I will be here to prove it and to be alive until the end of time, as Luthien could not’ Or something like that. I guess the distinguishing rub of being an elf – even if most elves aren’t super self-aware of it – is that if they wind up in such a situation by choice or chance, then in a world subject to death, or entwined with people fated to death, all that is part of an elf’s life will hold an echo of fleeting things and their very fleetingness forever, because that elf’s life goes on forever.

For Elwing it’s probably not much about humans, outside of her pride in Luthien, just as elves aren’t always the source of these issues for mortals, Bilbo whisked out over the water under a strange moon by the dwarves’ song. It’s just that elves/humans are used as a proxy for the whole arda marred crossed-signals problem a lot – the myriad roads and not enough time to take them all versus the impermanence that will crumble them all beneath their very feet. But as humans are to inherit the world, elves are tied to it – not observing it or performing on it, but being part of it, letting its fluctuation leave its mark on them so it becomes part of their immortality – eternal life is just the prerequisite. Like you know, normal human life, but for keeps. Memory’s cool! Pls listen to me mix my metaphors about it.

With the Luthien and Elwing passages together, as Elwing choosing immortality “because of Luthien” makes no sense as imitation, I like to think the other peredhil’s choices aren’t always only (or at all) about a connection to one heritage over another, or feeling like one race and not the other (like Eärendil), which is a totally legit interpretation that can definitely be supported, but I’m not super interested in it and have a hard time buying it as how the characters think about this stuff, when a mortal/immortal fate is so much more overwhelming a factor. What strikes me more is the element of choosing which role they want to have re: Luthien’s song thing. This is just my two cents so if it’s not you guys’ thing just ignore it, but I really love the concept of choosing one fate being intimately associated with the potential relationship with the alternate fate, not a lack of interest in it. Although with Elwing it’s more about loss in arda marred generally, and comes while poised on the brink of apocalyptic war that she believes might well wipe out all memory of her people, rather than in the aftermath of war’s costly victory, the more human-adjacent role of elves I described above is very much how I interpret the choice for Elrond, and headcanon-predict the choice of Elladan and Elrohir, and perhaps to some extent, Tuor (tho Tuor’s a whole other issue /)_o). There is a folded-in heroism of immortality in such a frame, though I don’t think of it as a mainly dutiful thing for those characters above, but – like and yet unlike Luthien, and Eärendil, and Arwen – done for love, but in the other direction: for who and what they loved and grieved for and most fiercely desired to keep alive in the world in the form of word and deed and memory, by immortalizing it within themselves:

Then Andreth looked under her brows at Finrod: ‘And what, when ye were not singing, would ye say to us?’ she asked.

Finrod laughed. ‘I can only guess,’ he said. ‘Why, wise lady, I think that we should tell you tales of the Past and of Arda that was Before, of the perils and great deeds and the making of the Silmarils! We were the lordly ones then! But ye, ye would then be at home, looking at all things intently, as your own. Ye would be the lordly ones. “The eyes of Elves are always thinking of something else,” ye would say. But ye would know then of what we were reminded: of the days when we first met, and our hands touched in the dark. Beyond the End of the World we shall not change; for in memory is our great talent, as shall be seen ever more clearly as the ages of this Arda pass: a heavy burden to be, I fear; but in the Days of which we now speak a great wealth.’

Anyway….uh….I forgot that 12 year old me was much smarter than current me. You know the LOTR timeline, with character after beloved character inevitably dying, after the end of their awesome happy life, until Legolas and Gimli sail? That was my thought as a kid – the kind of, elves in LOTR are a lot of what gets the weight of backstory and context to materialize for the mortal characters, and hey if we swing around the timeline from backstory to what-happened-after, the fellowship all eventually die, on earth they would eventually be forgotten, but Legolas would never die, and he would never forget them.