Luke Skywalker is only alive because of the Empire’s misjudgment

Pa Chris Snellgrove
| Published 14 seconds ago

Luke Skywalker accomplishes many amazing feats in Star Wars thanks to his mystical powers, but his most impressive achievement had nothing to do with the Force. Of course, we’re talking about his ability to avoid the second Death Star despite it still being crawling with stormtroopers that could have easily killed him as he dragged Darth Vader’s body to the nearest shuttle bay. However, one fan theory may explain how Luke survived: Simply put, all the Imperials would have left Luke alive because they assumed he had just killed both Vader and Emperor Palpatine.

Luke Skywalker is terrifying

As viewers, we know what happened at the end Return of the Jedi: after nearly succumbing to his rage and destroying Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker drops his lightsaber and surrenders. In turn, Palpatine begins to strike the young Jedi with Force lightning, only to be stopped by Darth Vader throwing his boss into the shaft. Vader is later killed by lightning that shot through his body, but since none of the Imperials witnessed the confrontation in the throne room or Vader’s redemption from his deathbed, they would conclude that Luke Skywalker is the most feared enemy in the galaxy.

Think about it: For the Imperials aboard the Death Star, Luke walked into the throne room of Emperor Palpatine, their biggest boss and the scariest guy they knew. The film opens by showing us how the very idea of ​​Palpatine coming to the space station reduced Moff Jedgerod to a quivering mess of anxiety and fear. The Imperials saw Luke enter Palpatine’s throne room in chains and come out alive and free… the only reasonable conclusion is that he somehow managed to kill or overpower Palpatine, and no rank and file Stormtrooper would want to fight a guy who successfully the emperor took over.

At this point, skeptics point out that not everyone aboard the Death Star was aware of Luke Skywalker’s presence; in fact it was a closely guarded secret. So very few Imperials would think that the young warrior had done the impossible and escaped the clutches of the most powerful man in the galaxy. It would be it is impossible however, omits another important detail: that Luke Skywalker is dragging what appears to be the dead body of Darth Vader.

Darth Vader’s body

Palpatine was a very abstract threat to most Imperials, but Vader was quite tangible. He’s a guy who commands star destroyers and visits military bases, instantly killing even the highest-ranking officers who annoy him. He was a scourge to the entire Imperial service, the sight of him would be terrifying to anyone aboard the Death Star. And yet here comes some young tomboy dragging the Sith Lord’s body to the shuttle bay like he’s just carrying a big bag of trash to the trash compactor.

None of this is to diminish Luke Skywalker’s abilities or his many accomplishments, but the constant lesson of the Star Wars prequels is that it takes enough people firing blasters at once to kill even the most powerful Jedi. Luke could easy was killed sometime on the Death Star, but he survived because everyone thought he just killed the most powerful people in the galaxy. He is alive because of a simple misconception, though some would say this is simply proof that the Force works in mysterious ways.