Help Me, Obi-Wan Kenobi
In each act of The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker is on a different planet, and on each planet, he talks with or calls out to the ghost of his mentor, Ben Kenobi. In the first act, Luke is stranded in the frozen tundra of Hoth. Ben’s ghost appears to tell him to seek out Yoda for training, and Luke calls out to him as he vanishes. In the second act, Luke is preparing to leave Dagobah to go face Darth Vader, abandoning Yoda’s training. Ben’s ghost reappears to warn him it’s a foolish decision and that he won’t help him. In the third act, Luke’s confrontation with Vader leaves him wounded and hanging from an antenna underneath Cloud City on Bespin. When he calls out to Ben, Ben does not answer, just as he warned him. After he is rescued by the Millennium Falcon, Luke calls out to Ben again, asking why he didn’t tell him the truth about his father.
In the previous film, A New Hope, Luke trusted Ben completely and always deferred to his wisdom, but these scenes in The Empire Strikes Back chart a drastic change in their relationship. On Hoth, Luke listens to Ben and follows his counsel to go to Yoda, but on Dagobah, he ignores Ben and disobeys his counsel to stay with Yoda. Finally, on Bespin, he regrets ignoring Ben, but at the same time, he no longer trusts him to always give wise counsel. The next time Luke speaks to Ben’s ghost, in Return of the Jedi, it will be to challenge this father-figure for lying about his real father and to question Ben’s counsel that the only way to defeat the Emperor is to kill his father, too. Ultimately, he will prove Ben wrong for believing that Vader can’t be saved.
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Characters: Luke Skywalker / Obi-Wan Kenobi
Films: Episode IV: A New Hope / Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back / Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
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Concepts: fathers / ghosts / teachers and students / wisdom and foolishness
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