By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Luke Skywalker pulls off many amazing feats in Star Wars thanks to his mystical abilities, but his most impressive accomplishment had nothing to do with the Force. We’re talking, of course, about his ability to escape the second Death Star despite the fact that it was still crawling with Stormtroopers who could have easily killed him while he was toting Darth Vader’s body to the nearest shuttle bay. However, one fan theory may explain how Luke survived: simply put, all of the Imperials would have left Luke alive because they assumed that he had just murdered both Vader and Emperor Palpatine.
Luke Skywalker Is Terrifying
As viewers, we know what happened near the end of Return of the Jedi: after nearly giving in to his anger and destroying Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker throws down his lightsaber and surrenders. In turn, Palpatine begins zapping the young Jedi with Force lightning, and he is only stopped by Darth Vader throwing his boss down the shaft. Vader subsequently dies from the lightning that went coursing through his body, but since none of the Imperials witnessed either the throne room confrontation or Vader’s deathbed redemption, they would have concluded that Luke Skywalker is the most terrifying foe in the galaxy.
Think about it: to the Imperials onboard the Death Star, Luke entered the throne room of Emperor Palpatine, their biggest boss and the scariest guy they know. The movie begins by showing us how the very idea of Palpatine coming to the space station reduced Moff Jerjerrod to a quivering mess of anxiety and fear. The Imperials saw Luke walk into Palpatine’s throne room in chains and emerge alive and free…the only reasonable conclusion is that he somehow managed to kill or overpower Palpatine, and no rank-and-file Stormtrooper is going to want to fight the guy who successfully took on the Emperor.
At this point, skeptics will point out that not everyone aboard the Death Star knew about Luke Skywalker’s presence; it was, in fact, a closely guarded secret. Therefore, very few Imperials would clock that the young warrior had done the impossible and escaped the clutches of the galaxy’s most powerful man. It would be impossible to miss one other major detail, though: that Luke Skywalker is dragging what appears to be Darth Vader’s dead body.
Darth Vader’s Body
Palpatine was a very abstract threat to most Imperials, but Vader was quite tangible. This is the guy who commands Star Destroyers and visits military bases, instantly killing even the highest-ranking officers who annoy him. He was the scourge of the entire Imperial service, the kind that anybody onboard the Death Star would be terrified to see. Yet here comes some young whelp dragging the Sith Lord’s body to the shuttle bay like he’s simply taking a big garbage bag to the trash compactor.
None of this is to demean Luke Skywalker’s powers or his many accomplishments, but the abiding lesson of the Star Wars prequels is that all it takes to kill even the most powerful Jedi is enough people firing blasters all at once. Luke could have easily been killed at any time on the Death Star, but he survived because everyone thought he just murdered the most powerful people in the galaxy. He’s alive because of a simple misconception, though some would say this is merely proof the Force works in mysterious ways.
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