(this is a work in progress based on a twitter thread)
Thesis: the Jedi Order’s blindness about the Force is not a misunderstanding of the Dark Side, but a misunderstanding of the Light.
The Jedi sort of define the light side the way old christians define virtue, as a form of abstinence from certain viceful behaviors one engages in when one yields to temptation. To be a Jedi is to avoid “sin” by refusing to wield power for reasons of passion or greed.
-But-
The Jedi will participate in wars, and they will use the Force to do harm to others. They claim to wield lightsabers and the Force in self-defense, but when you put yourself in a war, it’s hard to claim that the killing you do is purely defensive. The Jedi won’t use red lightsabers in their wars, though. They won’t kill with Force lightning. They won’t execute prisoners (unless they’re threatening enough, like handless Dooku).
Let’s back up and look at the Light side of the Force in action.
My claim is that when Luke leaves his training on Dagobah to save his friends on Bespin, against the judgment of two Jedi, Yoda and Obi-Wan, he is making a Light Sided choice, i.e. to act selflessly in the face of uncertainty and danger based on trust in the Force. He doesn’t know what he’ll find when he arrives, but he knows his friends are in trouble, and he believes he has the best chance to save them.
At this point in the story, Luke doesn’t know Vader is his father. He sees Vader as a fallen Jedi, but all he knows of what a Jedi is supposed to be he learned in the context of stories from Obi-Wan, an unreliable narrator, and his Uncle Owen’s scorn. Vader isn’t the Chosen One, he’s just the guy who “betrayed and murdered his father.” Luke sees Vader as the most dangerous general of the Empire, the Big Bad who killed his dad and wants to harm his friends.
Luke bravely/naively sets off against impossible odds and succeeds through the union of the Dark and Light sides of the Force.
Hubris is one aspect of the Dark Side of the Force, and Vader’s hubris in thinking he could turn Luke to his side is what allows Luke through the Imperial fleet to a safe landing on Cloud City. As Luke tells Palpatine in Return of the Jedi, “your overconfidence is your weakness.”
Critically, Palpatine responds, “your faith in your friends is yours.”
This is where Palpatine fails. As the Sith who has perhaps the greatest mastery of the subtleties of the Dark Side, he completely misses the power of the Light Side of the Force. He knows it only as the Jedi do, a more limited, defensive, disciplined version of the Dark Side that can only ever hold it at bay.
Luke’s faith is actually the secret great strength of the Light. It reminds me of the Elven ring Narya, allegedly worn by Gandalf, which (quoting The One Wiki to Rule them All) has “the power to inspire others to resist tyranny, domination and despair, as well as having the power (in common with the other Three Rings) to hide the wielder from remote observation (except by the wielder of the One) and giving resistance to the weariness of time.”
Luke cannot have known that he’d make it to Cloud City or survive his encounter with Vader. His choice despite that known-unknown is that type of courage that walks hand-in-hand with ignorance, and which cynics call naive. It’s the courage that allows Leia to stand proud and verbally spar with Tarkin, even with Vader breathing down her neck.
It is the Light side of the Force that connects Luke and Leia without Vader being able to detect them, and brings Leia back to Cloud City to rescue Luke.
Lando protests, and rightly so: he’s given up everything for a failed chance to rescue Han Solo, and now that they’ve barely escaped the Empire, Leia is asking him to turn around and return to the same trap that has ensnared Luke, their would-be rescuer.
They succeed in saving Luke (minus a hand and a lightsaber) and limp off to the literal edge of the galaxy to recover and fight another day. Han is not rescued. Things look grim. Luke can’t use the Light side of the Force to telekinetically rip apart Vader’s suit or throw a Star Destroyer into the sun.
A Jedi uses his power for defense, never for attack. This is a rule that Luke manifests in his confrontation with Vader in a way that the Jedi of the clone wars cannot perceive.
Luke chooses death rather than evil, a final heroic sacrifice after his attempt to triumph over evil by force fails. But when he falls, Leia is there to rescue him.
The Light side of the Force has protected our heroes, letting them get away with their suicidally heroic antics until they can find a way to win.
The reason Luke Skywalker is a great hero isn’t about him being a powerful Jedi, or being the son of a powerful Sith. It’s his strength in the Light Side of the Force, the exact strength Leia exhibits long before she knows she can wield the power of a Jedi.
The Last Jedi tried hard to make a point about how anyone can be a Jedi, how it isn’t about being in the Skywalker family. I think this thesis is good, but it misses a message that the Original Trilogy shows so clearly: being a hero was never about being Luke Skywalker, or being a Jedi. Being a hero, using the Light Side of the Force, and being Good are all the same thing. It’s a choice we all make, to act in the service of others, even without knowing what the outcome will be, even when there seems to be no chance we can win.