My Father Before Me

RETURN OF THE JEDI

by Matt Brown
July 13 2005

We'll always be back there. We'll always be on the forest moon, on Endor.... The dawn will always be coming, the forest will always be wet and dripping with life not yet roused, the great events of tomorrow will always be a few hours away. Some part of us will always be there - in that little corridor on the enemy base, taking the deep breath before the plunge, trying to make sense of 40 years of family history that are colliding together now, at last, and for the last time.

We'll remember it forever, the final lesson: surrender. Give up, give in, give over. It was how we got to that corridor - not with fighting, not with Jedi heroics, but by simply giving ourselves up to the enemy. It's how we were brought before our father, in chains of seeming helplessness. It will be how the villains try to lure us over to their side, it will be the umpteen-repeated rallying cry: "Give yourself to the Dark Side." "Give in to your anger." Let go, Luke. It will ultimately be how we win: by surrending.

We want to kill him. We've all wanted to kill him. Who hasn't? What adolescent male hasn't wanted to kill Darth Vader? Kill his father? What hero comes through the emotional violence of puberty without finding it meshing perfectly with the screen violence of Return of the Jedi? Here's the chance, now; the vivid green of life sailing precipitously against the vile glowing red of pure evil. Guided by vigilance, by morality. We are right, we are righteous, we are powerful and potent. We are killing a Dark Lord of the Sith. We are killing our father.

We are wrong.

When did it happen? When did we turn left when we should have turned right? And what now? What do we hold on to? Laser swords and teddy bears and foundling kid sisters all grown up? Will they help? Will they save us when all has failed, and the last candle glimmers and goes out?

We were in the underworld, where we fought captivity-maddened beasts and sluggy slum lords; where we fought through a menagerie of denizens and returned Jedi justice to a galaxy long driven by apathy. We were in the swamp, where we saw our master die, and took cold counsel from a ghost's uncharming words about shades of grey and points of view.

We were in the ship, watching the shadow of the Death Star grow larger and larger before us, until we were nearly swallowed by the great, dark war machine, escaping on a scarce trick and what seemed like luck. (In my experience, there's no such thing as luck.) We were on the bikes, shrieking through dappled green wilderness, lost but prepared, ready but uncertain.

We were in the Endor base, pleading with our father, trying one last time to finish the work that Obi-Wan began, near the river of fire all those years ago. And then we were gone.

We saw the darkest moment in a story full of them, a moment where we realized that the vagaries of Empire were relatively bouyant when compared to this time and place's utter, enforced hopelessness:

We were on the Death Star, captured, and falling inexorably towards the Dark Side. We were on the forest moon, with Han, Leia and Chewie taken by the enemy. We were in space, with the great fleet arriving, and the Imperial Navy lying in wait to snuff the fire of rebellion once and for all. And we were with our lovable, hapless droids, as they too surrendered... gave themselves up, and found themselves surrounded by an entire legion of the Emperor's best troops. We felt the sky darken, we heard the ever-rousing Star Wars music itself - the heartbeat of all we have seen and done - complete what has been a 90-minute process of funnelling downwards, like water escaping out of a drain. All of the themes - Luke's, Leia's, Vader's, Yoda's, even the Ewoks' - have slowly grown darker, more turbulent, with greater and greater perversions and frustrations of their original forms. And as all was finally lost, there was a moment of perfect, complete silence.

And then, the bears jumped out.

Beautiful, unstoppable life, bless you. We've been given another chance, a bit of time. Stall a bit longer and the cavalry will get through that shield, destroy this station, and we'll all be saved. We won't have to kill him, won't have to face him, won't have to face and get past the door that Anakin went through. One big flash, and oblivion beyond; victory by merciful inaction. No more Vader, no more Emperor, no more Jedi. The end of all things. Balance to the Force, at last.

But stalling is dangerous, too. He knows that, our father; vague, unformed, half a man, but he understands destiny. Worse: he knows what lured him, so he knows what will lure us. He penetrated our shadows, pulled us out by threatening the one last thing we will die to protect. Silky words of deception and despair, and now we're ready, now we don't care any more. Now the line between right and wrong seems as clear as the shadow of a blade in full sunlight, and we're up, and we're out, and we're driving the dark force back with the sheer strength of our will,

And pushing. And hacking, and slicing, and cutting... The choirs of angels are behind us, we are vigilant, we are Right. We are unstoppable. We are victorious. We do not need to be a Jedi.

No.

The hand.

It happened to him, too, all those years ago; it happened to us, by his will and our mistakes; it's right in front of us, right now, scorched wires and black leather. He is a machine. We are a machine. We are all machines, we have all fallen, all begun to slink from fervent life to an existence entombed in circuitry and desperation.

He is our father. He made us. He is still making us. And what once seemed like a curse, now becomes inevitable truth. We are all him... and he is not all bad. And now, we no longer need to kill him. We're already past the door.

"I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

We surrender.

It was never a trick. It was never a ruse. There was no guile in it at all, nothing for the Emperor to sense other than our own, victorious Self. We are one. We are all. We have chosen, and he has failed.

What the Emperor couldn't know, what nothing evil could ever know, is that by our choice alone do we redeem the fallen. Obi-Wan knew: by dropping our blade, we become more powerful than evil can possibly imagine. By making the choice and abandoning ourself to fate, we move beyond temptation - we simply Are, and even in death, cannot ever be destroyed.

It will be enough for Anakin. It will be enough to save us all. At the end of the story, the simple morality will remain instructive. Star Wars only asks us to answer one question: what kind of Jedi are you going to be?