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Exploring the intersection of sacred and secular.
Last week, I wrote about a type of powerful healing that — despite being accessible to us all, feels all-too-rare — the healing that comes from loving ourselves and others. In writing that, I also wrote a segment that didn’t make the edit, but it’s been on my mind all week because it contains a powerful reflection on fate and the paradox of power.
Tariff is Apparently George Lucas’ Favorite Word, Too
Despite the wild assertions of certain skeptics who blindly insisted that the labyrinthine macroeconomic tensions underpinning a tariff-laden conflict between a bloated bureaucratic regime and an enigmatic pan-galactic trade syndicate could never hold a child’s attention, the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy got something very right about why the dark side of the force is so seductive. I think the broader narrative of the first eight (and only canonical) movies shows that both the Jedi and the Sith greatly misunderstand the Force. The Light Side’s true gift isn’t detachment. The Dark Side’s true gift isn’t unlimited power — despite Palpatine’s monologuing about it.
Both Jedi and Sith fall prey to the same hubris — they think they can thwart fate.
One to Crave It
The way the Star Wars expanded universe gets right what the movies manage to get so wrong is interesting. Darth Bane, who established the Sith Rule of Two, understood clearly that power is a function of careful orchestration, not inheritance or favor. Two there should be, no more and no less: one to embody power and the other to crave it. It’s funny that if you really stop to think about it, the Rule of Two is kind of a perverse rendering of the real power is the power of friendship from My Little Pony.
Unfortunately for the galaxy, the Sith who followed Bane understand power better than most — certainly more than most Jedi. In particular, they understand wielding power isn’t as much about using a tool as it is a toolbox. Palpatine, in particular, honed the most important tool in his toolbox to the finest of points — patience. He also used people’s hubris to contort them to his will by offering whatever carrot their ego desired as he played the long game until his story canonically ends when he dies in Return of the Jedi. Full stop. It isn’t that the carrot and the stick are unique to Palpatine, and he’s not unique in his ability to use others’ ego to control them through manipulation and fear. What makes him stand out is his preternatural knack for standing in the right place until the opportunities he orchestrated arrived conveniently at his feet.
Fully committed to the idea that the galaxy should be run like a business, with compensation that would make Bezos blush to boot, Palpatine navigated the intricacies of his rise to power with disturbing cunning. His downfall was that he ultimately mistook his cunning for fate. As the self-possessed frequently do, he learned the hard way that he wasn’t omnipotent as he believed.
The (Anti)Hero’s Journey
Anakin Skywalker’s rise, fall, and redemption is the core narrative arc of the first six movies. He began life enslaved to a mosquitodillo, then “freed” by two sharp-dressed monks with laser swords. In their wisdom, they decided the most prudent course of action was to make him an accomplice to abandoning his mother to a life of slavery immediately before hauling him in front of the Jedi Council for evaluation because he was super Forcey. After being tested and found lacking, he was shoehorned into training and bearing the weight of a prophecy, learning that he was the chosen one in a stunningly nuanced bit of dialogue when Qui Gon Jinn gawks at the Jedi Council and says, He’s the chosen one! Can’t you see?
With this in mind, it’s not terribly surprising that he spends his life lashing out after enduring survivor’s guilt after being ripped away from his only family, then facing the anguish of needing to prove a worth he’d never felt. In fact, I don’t think it’s a stretch to claim that Anakin wasn’t seduced by power as much as he was groomed by Palpatine’s false fruit — the promise that only by becoming ever-more-powerful could Anakin become worthy enough protect his loved ones, and finally atone for abandoning his mother.
What brought this to mind last week is that Anakin Skywalker’s story is an interesting foil to Superman’s in the sense that he also had so much raw capacity, but chasing his own worth through power rather than compassion ruined him completely until he learned a valuable lesson when Luke taught him the power of friendsh — erm — the light side of the Force.
Mediocre Expectations
Though I don’t think George Lucas himself realizes it, the kernel of Star Wars is the frustrating reality that we’re all, always, dealing with forces far beyond our control. We’re all, always, facing moments that feel unbelievably massive that make so little difference to those outside of our own circle — and when we see the impact of people who can make a bigger wave, they frequently choose to help themselves.
Like last week, the paradox of power is a matter of coming to terms with our own capacity to affect change. We can make big waves around us, and though they seldom reach the whole pond, the good we can do for the whole can be felt as a ripple in the force of our efforts.
Eric Wolf is a local Lutheran pastor, and he’d love to buy you a coffee, tea, or beverage of your choice to tell him about your faith, your ideas about meaning, or whatever “sacred stuff” means to you. Reach him at [email protected]! To learn more about Eric and his writing, visit his blog at Love Sees Color.