So, force ghosts
Every so often I get stuck on a Star Wars question and can’t let it go. Recently it’s been the concept of Force Ghosts, or maybe just ghosts in general.
So obviously we know that powerful Jedi can retain their individuality after they die and appear to the living as sparkly blue ghosts. And that is very satisfying to me in many ways! It means a lot of my favourite characters – Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Anakin – got to live on and hopefully, ya know, sort out their various issues while hanging out in the afterlife.
But. Buuuuttttt… what about all the people in the Skywalker Saga who weren’t Jedi? Padme, Shmi, Han and so on. Do they get an afterlife? Do they get to appear to people they cared about the way the Jedi do? I mean, there was this scene-
-but are we meant to assume that’s all in Kylo’s head? Does Han still exist somewhere as Han?
And also – does this mean that relationships between force-users and non-force-users are doomed to the most depressing of endings, one party living on forever with the other permanently dead? Was Anakin right in more ways than one when he thought that death would seperate him and Padme?
July 20, 2020 @ 8:56 am
I’d always believed Han was a figment of Ben’s imagination at the point he appears in TROS. I think Yoda made a remark in ROTS that people who die transform into the Force, but what that means is very vague.
July 20, 2020 @ 10:39 pm
Yeah I always sort of suspected, not least because Han doesn’t show up all blue and sparkly, but… Hmm, I guess a part of me is saddened that non-Jedi don’t seem to get a “Ghost” option.
July 20, 2020 @ 6:25 pm
Han was definitely a figment of Ben’s imagination. It was his way of dealing with the loss of his mother as well as a bit of survivor’s guilt because he had killed Han and Rey had just saved him. So I think at that point in the film he was extremely emotional and vulnerable and his true emotions were able to come through which could never happen when he was Kylo Ren. As Ben, he was embracing being his true self for the first time after so long in the darkness. It was one of my favourite and most heartbreaking scenes but testament to the power of great acting with Harrison Ford and Adam Driver.
July 20, 2020 @ 10:52 pm
Oh yeah it’s an excellent scene! I was so happy to see Han again. But I wonder what happened after that I guess. When Ben died, was he ever able to see his father in the afterlife? Or is life after death entirely based on how strong you were with the Force, so no afterlife for poor old Han? This is a wee bit metaphysical I know… but the movies never gave me an answer!
July 20, 2020 @ 10:58 pm
Technically, it’s formed by a force bond. So if only one of the participants can use the force, physically it’s impossible for them to connect after death. So I think that’s why that scene was so important to Ben’s character development. He would have known there was no way to tell his father how sorry he was and that he loved him so he fabricated that meeting in his mind of how he thought it would be. Which to me, is even sadder lol…
July 21, 2020 @ 6:11 pm
Man, it really is so sad. On the other hand, if you accept Star Wars canon as being… kinda fluid, it makes GREAT fanfiction fodder!
July 21, 2020 @ 6:27 pm
Hahah yeah this is true :)