Why Grandmaster Luke Locked Himself In Vader's Castle to Study the Dark Side - Star Wars Explained

what happened when Luke Skywalker decided to lock himself away in Darth Vader's Castle greetings my friends and welcome back to the archives the idea that Luke Skywalker would ever get so afraid as to run away and hide removing himself from the Galaxy is a subject of hot contention but it did indeed happen not only just in Canon but also in Legends continuity as well however in Legends there was a much more nuanced reason as to why Luke decided to shut himself off from the rest of the Galaxy at large and interesting enough it was n't a peaceful Island that he chose to Exile himself to but instead the dead and crumbled Retreat of Darth Vader today's holocron comes from a lesser-known Legends novel entitled before the storm this takes place almost 12 years after the battle of Endor in the year 16 AB fearing the dark side Luke would make a very mysterious Choice by Vanishing from the Jedi Academy deciding to spend an indefinite amount of time sealed inside one of his father's many houses so why exactly did Luke do this and why did he Exile himself to Vader's castle and Homestead on corusant the beginning of the book has Luke resting on the roof of the Jedi prium on Yavin 4 lost in thought and analyzing the Stars Luke is met by one of his first students streen and the two have a short conversation about the ancient masasi tribe the ancient species that used to live on Yavin 4 after a moment of silence Luke drops the massive Revelation that he has decided to leave his students and his Academy behind Luke explains to a shocked stream that he has somewhere that he needs to go deciding to leave things rather vague and stating that he may never return to the life of the Jedi or the Jedi priia even more shocking than this he relinquishes the title of the grandm to Jedi stream calling his students together for one last meeting and conversation he explains to them that he will be leaving and that his time as a Jedi let alone the Jedi Grandmaster may be at an end following this Luke disappears completely strangely enough Luke doesn't tell anyone else other than his students that he is leaving this leaves Han and Leia to have to find out about his disappearance from Luke's Jedi students though Luke wouldn't be too far from everyone else in the Galaxy he made his journey to the world of corusant and far outside of the former Imperial City to a cliff facing a beach this was the site of Vader's Fortress Retreat one of the last houses that Vader ever had constructed according to Luke there was no record of whether Vader ever actually lived here but the small Fortress was built according to his specifications however the entire Fortress had been destroyed by a b-wing during the new Republic's takeover of corusant leaving the home in shambles it was here where we get to see just how powerful in the force Luke has become as after a decade of dedicating himself to the study and experience of it he meditates and reaches out through the forest feeling every piece of the debris every chunk of rock and scrap of metal that once made up Vader's Retreat the stones cracked foundations and archways all swirl around Luke together in his mind as as well as physically as he meditates on the once proud Fortress of the dark lord Luke then literally begins putting the entire Fortress back together using the force and the strength of his mind by simply picturing the castle in its completion and extending his will over the debris Luke caused each Stone to fuse with the other and even deaged the rock to make it structurally stable soon Luke set it within the Cliff face and it was completed the home of Vader restored but Luke's work at the homestead was far from finished Luke would proceed to cast a powerful force illusion to completely and permanently obscure The Fortress from the eyes of anyone who would stumble upon it the novel says this the last task was to inspect his Retreat from the perspective of any Outsiders whose gaze might fall upon it from the sky it appears as a part of the beach from the sea as a part of the cliffs from the beach as a part of the sky from The Cliffs as a part of the sea it was not a trick of camouflage but a simple matter of allowing the essence of its substance to be seen the retreat was one of the sea and of The Rock and of the sand and the sky in harmony with them rather than imposed upon them by the way Luke does all of this with no strain within his mind or strain to his body all it took was his concentration I love when we get to see the force used in such detail and finely tuned ways as Grandmaster Luke wields it according to what we've seen in the Darth Bane novels Master Level Jedi and Sith are capable of influencing things in the force to a subatomic level this also encapsulates Yoda instance that size does not matter and that the only limitation is what the Jedi places on themselves within their mind Luke by this point has faced impossible odds including the Resurgence of the Clone Emperor Palpatine so his confidence in his ability in the force is not a question he is able to construct an entire Palace out of debris restore it to its original form and then obscure it from sight without straining himself whatsoever but it is not all Harmony as Skywalker wishes this massive power in the force is foundation as to why Luke is even in this Palace in the first place and why he has chosen to Exile himself the novel explains that Luke has achieved a massive boost in power and at this point things are getting strange because of all of his power in the force Luke is acting paranoid and refuses to let Han even have his navigation computer when he flies his speeder to a meeting point between the two of them Luke brings Han into the Fortress and the two have a discussion where we finally get our answers as to why Luke has been acting so strange to the lengthy conversation Luke basically tells Han that he realizes how much he's solving everyone's problems how he's defeated the Sith and the Empire more than once and is now ushering a brand new era of Peace yet Luke says that he has not been able to find peace within himself and that his deeds are never enough everyone in the galaxy is constantly wanting his attention and his help was something and he has stretched himself far too thin but this goes beyond just burnout or being overwhelmed Luke actively feels as though all this responsibility is bringing him closer to the forces of the dark side itself in essence Luke explains that he realized the stronger one becomes in the force the more the expectation they'll have on their shoulders and the more people will need from them and when one is stretched to their limit especially a Jedi with massive power like Luke they have to make a decision either control their environment by any means necessary or surrender to it and let all responsibility go in a sense Luke Skywalker has now reached the threshold that very few Jedi or Sith ever have he has the ability Now to control the entire galaxy based on his own merits and the force and this scares him in Luke's mind this constant nagging for attention is going to cause him to snap and give into the control of the dark side in order to maintain everything around him as he sees fit Luke puts it this way the essence of the dark side is using the force to control others I know of this temptation firsthand if you Champion that idea you're thinking just as Palpatine and my father father did I have the power and it's mine to use as I wish should this be the code that we live by should the Jedi rule the galaxy simply because we can Luke obsesses over this concept that it causes him great strain Luke believes that because he is the most powerful being in the force in the Galaxy that he is aware of that the dark side will tempt him even stronger now he Compares his chosen exile to Yoda and Obi-Wan stating that it wasn't just hiding that they hid in a swamp or a desert but rather it was the relinquishing of control and that they had to hand over the Galaxy to somebody else learning to surrender it Luke states that he's doing the same thing for the good of those around him Luke believes that he is capable of repeating the same mistakes as his father but this time he has achieved the might of the chosen one he is extremely dangerous all of this perfectly brings us back to why Luke chose to Exile himself within Vader's Castle this is to serve as a constant reminder of who his father became and the evils that resulted of the desire to cond control Han's understanding of this but Leia is angered at Luke despite all of this though Luke decides to remain in the castle shut away from everyone for months on end Luke spends extraordinary amounts of time in deep meditation he learns a lot about how the force interacts with the universe and focuses strongly on never giving into the fear that he feels deep within himself but this is when a strange woman suddenly appears in Luke's Chambers she announces herself as fasi and would read Luke's fears like an open book she then claims that she knew his mother and that there was a chance she too could still be alive Luke still having no idea who Padme was at this time Luke decides to believe her and to Aid this woman in her search of course though in the end this proves to be a grand lie however Luke comes to the conclusion that shutting himself away and closing himself off from the rest of the Galaxy was not the answer to this fear instead the answer was to confront what he was afraid of and deal with it himself it is pretty out of character for for any version of Luke to hide from the Galaxy considering the virtue of hope that the character represents in Legends at this point Luke knows a lot about not only the Jedi but the Sith as well he learned more about the force and its intricacies and through this time locked in his father's Castle he's learned more about the force that He commands on such a massive Monumental scale now he believes that its Mysteries are no longer lost to him and it's not that he has become jaded more so that he is no longer naive this loss of naivity has led him to ponder more on his role as the Jedi Grandmaster he saw what power did to those who weren't able to handle it or use it to solve all of their problems Darth Vader had all the powers of the universe is the chosen one and yet the weight of that responsibility crushed him to the point where he chose to destroy everything Luke at this point wasn't able to accept his status as a hero a champion and the grandm he fears the power that turned Anakin he feels the temptation to the dark side and he feels that he is not perfect Luke even admits that this is why he had a great fear of marrying or having children as he was worried that this would repeat the cycle in the following generation with his own son rising to kill him and turning to the dark side this is a very developed and mature Luke he's not thinking cynically but he worries from the perspective of a man who has endured unimaginable trauma the memories of having to fight his father to the death haunt him even though he will never admit it and it is the stress of keeping the entire galaxy in balance and the Jedi in line that is leading him to a moment that he is afraid that he will snap that he will become what Darth Vader did instead Luke is attempting to be selfless and in some way selfish shutting himself away from everyone he believes that he's protecting them from himself and what he could become it's an incredibly tragic line of thinking but one that fortunately Luke does break from in an amazing turn of events he overcame his father's fears of the Dark Side by using the Fortress of Lord Vader a symbol of the Dark Lord's tyranny and by meditating on the force he became at peace with not only it but his father and himself but anyway my friends I do hope you enjoy this video and a look into the mind of Luke Skywalker one of the most powerful beings in the entire galaxy and how the weight of that power is not always as pure as one may think thank you so much for visiting the archives today my friends and May the force be with you

Channel: The Stupendous Wave

Views: 73,868

Keywords: Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Vader's Castle, Jedi, Sith, Dark Side, Sith Shrine, Luke vs Vader, Luke vs Palpatine

Id: AE2J3nSXYMw

Length: 11min 21sec (681 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 05 2023