The Wolf on the Ghost
In Jack London’s novel The Sea Wolf, a young idealist named Humphrey Van Weyden is shanghaied onto a ship called the Ghost. The captain of the Ghost, a rough materialist named Wolf Larsen, takes it upon himself to give “Hump” an education – not just in the ways of sailing and seal hunting, but in what he sees as the true nature of the world. “Ghost” is another word for “spirit,” and it is telling that, in The Sea Wolf, a man named Wolf commands a ship named Ghost: in Wolf’s philosophy, and on his ship, the brutal and animalistic side of man rules over his moral and spiritual side.
In Star Wars Rebels, the young Ezra Bridger is shanghaied onto a ship called the Ghost, where he meets Kanan Jarrus, a man associated with wolves (the Lothwolves of Lothal). Like Wolf Larsen taking Humphrey Van Weyden under his wing, Kanan takes it upon himself to give Ezra an education – not just in the ways of the Jedi and the Rebels, but in what he sees as the true nature of the world. However, this dynamic is almost the exact inverse of the dynamic between Wolf Larsen and Humphrey Van Weyden: it is the teacher, Kanan, who believes in morality and spirituality, and it is the rough-and-tumble pupil, Ezra, who – after being introduced scrabbling like an animal to fill his belly – must learn that matter is not all that matters.
In both stories, the “wolf” goes blind. In The Sea Wolf, this is a bitterly ironic twist of fate for Wolf Larsen, a man who spent his life relying on his physical strength and denying the reality of the spirit: his spirit is trapped, still thinking and conscious, in a powerless body it cannot control. In Rebels, Kanan’s blindness is a challenge to truly live out what he has been teaching Ezra: that the body and the physical senses are ultimately less powerful than the spirit.
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Characters: Ezra Bridger / Kanan Jarrus
Shows: Rebels
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Concepts: animals / materialism / names / nature and technology / power and weakness / sight and blindness / teachers and students
Influences: Jack London
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