The Last Jedi, or SOMEONE REALLY SHOULD HAVE EXPLAINED HOW ANAKIN FELL TO LUKE IN A WAY THAT WASN'T SPOKEN IN RIDDLES.

Spoilers ahead but also some meta. I don't know how to add a line break/cut on mobile.

I loved the last Jedi but some stuff about luke's character bothered me. He felt ooc from what his character arc ended with in ROTJ. Granted this is a man haunted by failures and the death of legit everything he worked for, but I even then it felt out of character for Luke Skywalker, the Jedi who brought anakin back from the dark side, to believe that killing his nephew was the only thing he could do to stop his fall. That's not the man who almost died because he believed his father had good left in him, even after all the crimes Vader committed.

So here's my theory: back when sidious was manipulating anakin, the Jedi council missed HUGE signs that something was up with Anakin. They knew there was sith involved, but didn't suspect it was palpatine. (Despite the FLASHING NEON WARNING SIGNS). All they knew was that anakin was a shatter point, a dangerous one (still should have trained him harder and maybe not let him get all cozy with palpatine in ways NO OTHER JEDI WAS REALLY ALLOWED, but I digress.) But not how he played into it. Or how palpatine played into it. This is because palpatine was able to manipulate the force enough to cloud even the foresight of yoda. He was virtually untraceable in the force. This made him able to plant seeds of doubt in anakin's mind that over the course of the clone wars were one by one confirmed.

Seed one: padme would die. Palpatine manipulated anakin's force visions to constantly torment him with visions of padme dying. Anakin's love for her, which was a good thing and could have done wonders for the order, became instead a tool of control. Anakin would do anything for her.

Seed two: the Jedi were corrupt and wanted power, and didn't think him worthy enough to be a Jedi knigt, and that the Jedi were turning from their own code and becoming hypocritical. Palpatine manipulated the way anakin viewed the council and its actions. As more and more death came of the Jedi actions throughout the war, anakin slowly began to have his doubts confirmed. The loss of his padawan, Ahsoka Tano, to the machinations of another padawan who had lost faith made anakin even more wary of the Jedi. Palpatine used the destruction of the war to frame the Jedi order in an even worse light. When Obi-Wan was no longer immediately at Anakin's side to ground him and help him see clearly, Anakin was weak to Palpatine's influence. It came to a head when the council tried using him as a spy on palpatine, because by then Anakin believed palpatine to be a loyal and sympathetic friend who shared his doubts about the order and would listen to his problems. He saw the jedi council's caution as hypocrisy and a power move. This escalated when, upon revealing the identity of the sith lord to them, mace windu did as Jedi usually do with sith and IMMEDIETLY went to confront him. Anakin saw this as betrayal- a peace keeping order that supposedly fought for justice was going to murder a man that had otherwise been a good person and strong leader throughout a bloody and destructive war. There would be no trial, no negotiations. Just straight up slaughter. This confirmed what palpatine had been feeding him about the Jedi order; they wanted power. This is why he was so quick to jump to Palpatine's aid. The jedi had been lured into a position where they looked like the villains.

Seed three: isolation. Because the war was wrapping up by episode 3, the Jedi were spread out. Anakin didn't have his padawan to distract him as she left the order herself. He wasn't always able to see padme, and despite the fact they were unstoppable together, He and Obi-Wan were not put on the same campaigns. The lack of friends around himto bolster his bonds and make him stronger in the light side allowed for palpatine to slip into anakin's mind. He slipped seeds of distrust and doubt about Obi wan and Padme , both of whom were taking stands against palpatine in ways the chancellor manipulated in anakin's mind to look sinister. Obi-Wan was a Jedi loyal to the council; padme was one of the senators most outspoken against the chancellor's draconian laws and regime and the sudden powers he's was wresting that seemed to turn him autocratic. ( mind you that Anakin was a long time soldier in the war and saw all of palpatine's increased powers and official decrees as necessary. The war was bad. )

So though the failure of the jedi to perceive the manipulations of palpatine, both the force influenced ones and ones he manipulated through his actions ad grand chancellor and leader of the Republic army, the jedi had fallen into a trap where their most powerful student felt utterly betrayed by the order that saved him. It didn't help that they had somewhat alienated him during his training, treated him with less respect than he believed he deserved, and many high council members straight up didn't trust him. It also didn't help that by that point in the war the Jedi had become more combative than peace keeping. Mace windu struck first, asked questions later. It seemed a far divide from how Jedi were supposed to do things.

Now, one would think that yoda would have passed this knowledge onto Luke during his training so that Luke didn't make the same mistakes. But luke fell for the same trap as his teachers.

1.) He saw ben's power and aggression and instead of teaching him proper ways to handle it, reprimanded it, which created tension between himself and his nephew that Snokes could easily manipulate from frustration between student and teacher to outright hatred.

2.) He failed to sense Snokes manipulating ben's mind through the force. And even then failed to adequately guard his students from the dark side.

3.) Snokes was able to use ben's frustration and growing resentment to begin to isolate the teen just as palpatine did to anakin. We see ben in his own little shack, with o other students. This is not how Jedi typically function, where every student was together in shared spaces. Luke seemed to contribute to the isolation of Ben, which made him easy prey for snoke.

3.) Snokes planted seeds of doubt into Ben's mind that distanced him further from luke. He no longer saw luke's lessons as helpful or even purposeful. He began to see the training of the Jedi as laughable to those teachings of the sith. The more luke struggled to reign in Ben and teach him, the more hypocrisy Ben saw.

4.) I'm of the opinion Snokes manipulated luke himself. Luke failed to see the struggled Ben was undergoing, the torment Snokes was putting him through. Instead he saw a teenager falling deeper and deeper into the darkness. He began to believe that Ben could not be saved. This is out of character for luke, who we saw struggle with the dark side and draw anakin back to the light. I feel like, as with mace windu, whose mind was clouded and who could not sense the deeper machinations of sidious, only that there was a sith and they needed to be disposed of, luke was lured into believing the only way to stop Ben's descent before it reached critical mass was to destroy him. That sort of thinking is dark side thinking l. The nagging doubts in luke's mind that told him killing was the only answer? That's the dark side. That's fear taking control and manipulating him. Only, luke realized too late that he was falling dangerously close to the dark side. He realized it only when he went to slay his nephew while he slept, stopping at the last minute with a "Holy shit wtf am I doing?"

5.) Unfortunately he still walked right into the trap because at that moment Snokes pulled the strings. Luke never got the chance to explain because Ben woke up to find his uncle standing over him with his lightsaber. In that moment all the lies and manipulations and doubts snokes had been feeding him were confirmed. He defended himself against his attacker and betrayed by someone who was supposed to guide and protect him, fell to the dark side.

So yeah. Luke fell to the same trap the Jedi Order did. Let's hope rey doesn't do the same. Like, yoda confirming that everything Rey needs is inside her ND also she took the Jedi texts, things that CLEARLY no one has read in a damn long time, might actually help prevent this from happening again. I like how yoda is like "we were meant to pass on our successes, and our greatest failures." And honestly I think Rey will be able to actually learn something from Luke's failure. I'm not sure if she will be able to destroy Kylo Ren by bringing Ben Organa-Solo back to the light side (or to the light side for the first time ever). It was kind of clear Kylo Ren, now turned loose without Snokes pulling his strings, is now completely chaotic. He truly is the dark side made manifest; driven by passionate hate and lust for revenge, out of control and hell bent on destroying everything to dominate it all. But at least Rey will know the true extent of what a sith lord can do, and how deep manipulation goes. At least now she knows personally that the dark side is tempting, it promises answers, but what it delivers really conclusions she could have drawn for herself and eventual ruin. She fell for 2.5 seconds, and found that the dark side did not answer her questions, did not give her what she wanted, and only left her with the conclusion she had already known, but didn't want to admit to herself.