Dark Handiwork
In Return of the Jedi, in Emperor Palpatine’s throne room on the second Death Star, Darth Vader tries to lure Luke Skywalker to the dark side by making him act on his aggression. Luke eventually gives into Vader’s goading, snapping and hacking off Vader’s hand in a moment of anger. He then comes to himself and has a moment of troubled reflection, looking at the hand he just used to commit this violent act.
This moment is echoed in The Rise of Skywalker. On Pasaana, Kylo Ren tries to lure Rey to the dark side by making her act on her aggression. Rey eventually gives into Kylo Ren’s goading, snapping and shooting Force lightning in a moment of anger, destroying the First Order transport ostensibly holding Chewbacca and thus apparently killing her friend. She then comes to herself and has a moment of troubled reflection, looking at the hand she just used to commit this violent act.
Both Luke and Rey let their enemies provoke them into aggressively using their hands for violence, and in both scenes, the offending hand becomes an image of an inherited tendency towards the dark side. Luke’s hand connects him to Darth Vader. Vader also has a black-gloved cyborg hand, and by cutting off Vader’s hand, Luke has become like Vader, doing to Vader what Vader did to him on Cloud City. Similarly, the Force lightning that shoots from Rey’s hand connects her to Palpatine, who also has a penchant for shooting bolts of Force lightning from his fingertips.
Luke and Rey want to be good Jedi, but they must reckon with the evil tendencies that have been passed down to them through their biological families and are, as it were, ingrained in their physical bodies.
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Characters: Darth Vader / Luke Skywalker / Palpatine / Rey
Films: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi / Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
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Concepts: aggression / anger / family / hands / good and evil
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Ah, a very good connection. Notice also that, in The Last Jedi, Luke uses his robotic hand to ignite his lightsaber when he briefly considers killing his nephew.