Guest Blog: What if Ben Solo Trained With Anakin Skywalker’s Lightsaber...?
Before the final fight scene of The Force Awakens, Finn picks up Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber to prepare to duel with Kylo Ren, Ren then says to Finn “That lightsaber, it belongs to me”. To me this implies fully that Kylo Ren knows all about that lightsaber and who it belonged to in the past. Now Kylo Ren has shown himself to be a pretty big fan of Darth Vader, who is his grandfather, and is probably well versed in Vader’s history. So it’s totally plausible that he also knew a great deal about Anakin’s life as well. But can we say that he knew so much that he could recognize a lightsaber that hasn’t been seen in over 30 years? Unless of course it had!
Now what do we know about Kylo Ren? We know that he was born Ben Solo to Han Solo and Leia Organa. We know that at some point in his life his parents sensed “Too much Vader in him” and sent him off to learn the ways of the force from his uncle Luke Skywalker. We know that some point after that Ben Solo was seduced to the darkside by Snoke. And we know that Ben becomes Kylo Ren and destroys Luke’s attempt at creating a new generation of Jedi
What do we know about Anakin’s lightsaber? We know it was made by Anakin at the start of the Clone Wars. We know that after Anakin became Darth Vader he used it in a duel against his old master Obi-Wan Kenobi where he lost the lightsaber, his limbs, and probably all his self esteem. We know that Obi-Wan took the lightsaber to Tatooine where he would keep it in a box until he could give it to Anakin’s son Luke and train him to become a Jedi. We know that Luke used this lightsaber for a few years until his duel with Darth Vader in Cloud City when Vader chopped off Luke’s hand, the same hand that was holding the lightsaber, and the hand and the lightsaber were lost as far as us Star Wars fans knew. Then in The Force Awakens the lightsaber is found in Maz Kanata’s cantina calling out to Rey.
When Maz presents the lightsaber to Han and Finn, Han says “Where’d you get that?”. To which she responds “A good question, for another time.” Now it’s totally possible that Han recognizes the lightsaber as Luke’s because they went on many adventures together while Luke possessed that saber, hell Han even used it himself to cut open a Taun-Taun, but what if the last time Han saw that lightsaber was in the possession of his son Ben?
More facts we know are that Luke was trying to train a new generation of Jedi after the fall of the Empire, but when the Empire first rose to power after the Clone Wars and the Jedi purge, Palpatine had all the lightsabers in the Jedi temple destroyed. The Empire also harvested kyber crystals, the jewels that power lightsabers, for their own weapons including the Death Star, so by the time Luke got around to training his Jedi there wasn’t a whole lot of lightsabers or kyber crystals left in the galaxy.
So what if Luke had gone back to Cloud City and found his lightsaber, or what if Lando Calrissian or one of his workers in Cloud City came across the lightsaber, and he returned it to Luke. And what if Luke handed this lightsaber down to Ben Solo when he came to train with him. Keeping it in the family while also presenting it to Ben similar to the way Obi-Wan had given it him. But what if when Ben touched the lightsaber he was given a Force vision similar to Rey’s but his was darker, adding clarity to the line Kylo Ren says while speaking to Vader’s burnt mask “show me again, the power of the darkness. And I will let nothing stand in our way. Show me, grandfather, and I will finish what you started” and which lightsaber did Anakin have when he STARTED his career as Darth Vader and STARTED to kill all the Jedi? The same one Luke had just given Ben Solo. So Ben learned and trained with this lightsaber until his fateful turn into Kylo Ren. At which point Luke and Ren had their own duel and Luke was able to beat Ren and take the lightsaber back into his possession. Now Luke is destroyed by the loss of his new Jedi Academy and the death of all his students so he goes into hiding, but not being able to keep Anakin’s lightsaber because of the pain it brings him he takes it to Maz for safe keeping.
And the next time Luke sees that lightsaber is at the end of The Force Awakens when Rey presents it to him and the look on Luke’s face doesn’t seem to happy to see it and he should be. Obi-Wan Kenobi gave him that lightsaber, it belonged to his now redeemed father, that was Luke’s first Jedi weapon that was lost and now it’s found! Why wouldn’t he be happy? Because he remembers giving it to young Ben Solo at the beginning of his training, the training the culminated in the worst defeat of Luke’s life. Seeing Anakin’s lightsaber again reminded Luke of what became of Kylo Ren and Luke’s old students.
If you’re not already convinced here’s some icing on the cake... in the visual guide to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren’s current red lightsaber is said to have a “crude appearance suggesting it was constructed by an inexperienced hand”. An inexperienced hand... he was inexperienced because he never had to make a lightsaber before because Luke gave him Anakin’s at the start of his training and took it back when he turned to the dark side.
I rest my case!!!
Reviewed by Mikey from The Big Screen Breakdown Podcast
Twitter : @BigScreenPod
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