One hour and twenty minutes into The Last Jedi, Rey stands over Luke, who lies prone on an ancient stone stairway overlooking the sea. The rain pours. The night is dark, pierced occasionally by flashes of lightning. Rey pleads with Luke to help her turn Kylo Ren back to the light side of the Force. Luke tells her not to and says, “This is not going to go the way you think.”

What happened to Luke?

If you’re like me, a Star Wars fan for as long as I can remember, then you might have been a little disappointed by The Last Jedi. Two years after its release, it remains a controversial movie. Many fans continue to debate about various aspects of the film, especially whether Luke Skywalker’s character was handled properly by Disney writer and director Rian Johnson.

Like many of you, I grew up watching Luke Skywalker journey from farm boy to Jedi Knight with great delight. I especially admired his hopeful attitude and strong spirit. He was a young man willing to give his life for something greater than himself and always willing to put the lives of his friends before his own. Luke Skywalker has been a great role model and hero. A modern day white knight.

I expected him to return to the sequel trilogy much the same as he had been before, but now having grown into a powerful and wise Jedi Master. I understood that Luke and the original cast would have to step aside to make room for new heroes. I imagined he would play the role of the wise old sage and teacher, like Obi-Wan and Yoda had done before him. Even though Luke would no longer be the center of attention, I thought for sure that I would see him wield his lightsaber and do some other pretty cool Force stuff in the new movies.

When The Last Jedi finally played on big screens, though, it was a shock to many. Over the years that had passed since Return of the Jedi, our good natured hero had seemingly become a pessimistic, foolish and somewhat disgusting (think of the green sea creature milk dripping down his beard) old hermit. We learned that the optimistic man who began his quest with such great love for his friends cut himself off from the Force and was refusing to help the people of the galaxy in their greatest time of need. How could this happen?

Managing mythology

Notwithstanding what I say below, I want to make a few things clear.

First, the people in control of Star Wars have a responsibility to handle Luke Skywalker, who is probably the greatest mythological figure of our time, with care, not only for Disney’s shareholders, but because Star Wars is part of who we are. Star Wars is ingrained in our culture just as the old myths, folktales and legends have been for different cultures around the world for hundreds and thousands of years.

Second, modern-day stories differ from stories of old in a major way. There may have been reasons concerning intellectual property rights, royalties and future plans for the Star Wars business as to why the creators of The Last Jedi decided to write Luke’s character the way they did. Ancient storytellers didn’t have to worry about licensing, investors and commerciability. Today’s storytellers do.

Third, and finally, Star Wars movies aren’t the proper place for pushing political ideology. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Star Wars poetry

In one of the “making of” videos from the prequel movies, George Lucas said Star Wars is like poetry because the episodes rhyme. But, is that true? Well, remember that Obi-Wan and Yoda went into hiding before Luke did. Obi-Wan and Yoda remained in the background to train a new hero before Luke did. Obi-Wan and Yoda became one with the Force on their own terms before Luke did. So, did Luke really go off on some crazy nonsensical path, or was everything we needed to predict Luke’s fate right in front of our noses the whole time?

Here’s another question to consider. Is it possible that many fans were disappointed with The Last Jedi, not because who Luke had become didn’t make sense in the overall story (afterall, we haven’t seen Episode IX yet to learn how the story will end), but because many of us living in this broken world NEEDED Luke to be a certain kind of hero? I admit, I am one of the people who NEEDED Luke to be a certain kind of hero. A noble, wise and powerful Jedi Master who would storm Snoke’s throne room himself and single-handedly take down the First Order’s leader and his minions to exact perfect justice and bring peace and order to the galaxy if the younger generation could not do it alone.

However, looking back on the Star Wars story, we see that Obi-Wan didn’t do that in Episode IV. Yoda didn’t do that in Episodes V and VI. And so, should we be surprised that Luke didn’t “walk out with his laser sword and face down the whole First Order?” Instead, Luke did something which was unexpected, but not really. He used his Force powers to delay the First Order so that the remaining Resistance fighters, including his sister, could escape to live and fight another day. This is almost exactly what Obi-Wan did in Episode IV when he delayed Darth Vader and his troops, ultimately giving up his life, so that Luke and his friends could escape the Death Star to live and fight another day.

The Fool Archetype

In her book, Awakening the Heroes Within, Carol S. Pearson discusses twelve different archetypes, including the Fool. Carl Jung believed that archetypes are primordial images, symbols of psychic energy, which reside in the collective unconscious of humanity. They are common to all people and rise out of our unconscious in myths, fairytales and other stories. Jung believed that archetypes also surface in our dreams. Joseph Campbell used Jung’s work to develop the Hero’s Journey, a storytelling template, which was used by George Lucas to write the original Star Wars trilogy. Though it does not seem that the Hero’s Journey template has intentionally been used by Star Wars creators since Episode VI, it is nevertheless useful to view Luke Skywalker from an archetypal perspective to gain a better understanding of who he is in The Last Jedi.*

According to Pearson, the Fool is a free-spirit who responds to problems by playing tricks on them. Note that each archetype has a shadow or negative version of itself. Pearson says the shadow Fool, rather than being free-spirited, is irresponsible. The Fool archetype is the beginning and the end of the Hero’s Journey, according to Pearson, which is a continuous cycle of death and rebirth. When we start something new, our knowledge and experience are limited. We must become fools to try something new. So, each time the hero “dies” and rises again he is operating within the Fool archetype. The Fool is psychologically whole, though he may appear to be crazy to others. Luke seems to possess attributes of both the Fool and the shadow Fool in The Last Jedi.

Some examples of Luke being an archetypal Fool in The Last Jedi include the following. When Luke meets Rey and she hands him Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber, his own father’s weapon and great Jedi artifact, he simply throws it over his shoulder. On the first day of Jedi “training,” Luke tells Rey to close her eyes and reach out. When she does, with her hand, he uses a leaf to tickle her hand. Rey, thinking she is feeling the Force, becomes excited … until Luke slaps her hand with the leaf bringing her back to reality. Does this sound at all like that playful green Jedi Master who lived in the swamps of Dagobah? Poetry?

And, how does Luke save his friends at the end of Episode VIII? In the spirit of the trickster Fool, he tricks Kylo Ren, and everyone else, into thinking he is on the battlefield on Crait when he is actually millions of miles away on Ahch-To. This deception buys the Resistance enough time to escape the First Order so that they can live to fight another day. And, Jedi Master Luke, the one responsible for causing Ben Solo to turn away from the light, avoids the possibility of having to kill his nephew in combat. The loss of Han Solo must have been too much for Luke to bear, which made facing Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel an impossible option.

The Last Jedi shows us that the archetypal Fool has his purpose in stories. In fact, as Christians, we are called to be fools. “We are fools on Christ’s account” (1 Cor 4:10), for proclaiming Christ crucified is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentile” (1 Cor 1:23). Being a Fool then seems to be just part of the journey for Christians and Jedi Knights alike.

“This is not going to go the way you think”

After stepping back and analyzing The Last Jedi, we see that, despite some poor storytelling and the insertion of political ideology where it doesn’t belong, Luke, as the archetypal Fool, played his role in poetic harmony with the rest of the Star Wars story. Though Luke did it in a way that was unexpected for many fans, he ultimately did what we wanted him to do. He faced down the whole First Order with his laser sword and single-handedly saved the Resistance. And then, like a heroic Fool at the end of one journey and the beginning of another, he died to what was old and was reborn anew, becoming one with the Force. Buckle up and get ready for The Rise of Skywalker, and as you do, ponder the wise words of an old Fool: “This is not going to go the way you think.”

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*Though Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell were not practicing Catholics, J.R.R. Tolkien said of myths, which are closely tied with Jungian archetypes, that they are “the best way–sometimes the only way–of conveying truths that would otherwise remain inexpressible. We have come from God and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God.” Father Robert Spitzer, in his book, The Soul’s Upward Yearning, has said myths are meant to “express ultimate truth and meaning … ultimate reality.” Furthermore, Father Spitzer distinguishes himself from Jung in his understanding of archetypes in one important way. Jung believed that archetypes derive from a common inherited human memory, but Father Spitzer believes archetypes derive from a transcendent reality, from our soul (i.e., from God).