Can Jedi Be Rebels?
In the Star Wars original trilogy, Luke Skywalker is a jedi knight in the Rebel Alliance, but is he truly a rebel? Albert Camus’ The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt provides a lens to answer this question and examine a much larger question: can a jedi ever be a rebel? This requires taking a look at two jedi that are typically considered rebellious: Anakin Skywalker and his son, Luke. Anakin is often seen by fans as the rebel jedi who fights against the Jedi Order in the prequel trilogy and Luke as the rebel jedi fighting with the Rebel Alliance against the evil Galactic Empire. As we will come to see, Anakin cannot be a rebel because of his obedience to the ways of the Jedi and eventually to those of the Sith. Luke does not start out a rebel, but there is evidence to suggest that he will be revealed as the only true rebel jedi in the Star Wars universe in the upcoming film, Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi.
In his philosophical essay, “The Rebel,” Albert Camus defines what it means to be a rebel, which can be applied directly to the Star Wars universe. “A rebel is a slave who has followed orders all his life and then suddenly decides that he will not follow a new order,” (Camus 6). Camus’ rebel can extend beyond this definition as well. A rebel does not have to be a lifelong slave or even a slave in the traditional sense, but rather anyone who has no choice but to follow unjust commands. This slave has put up with the injustice of his oppressor until a point where he decides that he can endure no longer. Camus points out the influence that religion has when examining rebellion. Camus asserts that rebellion cannot occur within the context of religion because religion has such strict, absolute values that cannot be abandoned. In Camus’ world of the rebel, the values that support rebellion are relative to the one who is rebelling. Each rebel will not have the same values entering a rebellion, whereas members of a religion adhere to the same absolute values and ideas about something according to Camus. There are only two experiences possible, “for the human mind: the sacred (or, to speak in Christian terms, the world of grace) and the world of rebellion,” (Camus 12).
Camus’ claim that members of a religion adhere to the same absolute values does not hold up in the real world where unorthodoxy exists. Members of a particular religion are expected to all follow the entirety of the dogma but that doesn’t necessarily always happen, seen in Catholics that support abortion or the death penalty. However, Camus’ claim does fit in the context of Star Wars where jedi, lightsaber-wielding Force-users, only exist within the Jedi Order or the Order of the Sith. There is no realm of unorthodoxy in the Star Wars universe and so members of religion must adhere to absolute values.
In Star Wars, there are two “worlds of grace” or religions that jedi can belong to: the Jedi Order or the Order of the Sith. The Jedi Order is one such religion that sees a “world of grace,” and one that has absolute values (Camus 12). The Jedi use the light side of the Force and teach peace, hope, and tranquility. The Jedi follow a strict moral guideline, the Jedi Code, and completely disavow the dark side of the Force in all their teachings due to fear that any interaction with the dark side will cause a jedi to fall from the light. This is where the Jedi see the world in absolutes: a jedi can only belong to the light or the dark with no middle ground in the world of the Force. The Sith are the counterpart to the Jedi absolutes. They use the dark side of the Force and adhere to values of anger, fear, and hate to fuel their power and have their own teachings such as the teaching of there can be only one master and one apprentice (“Rule of Two”). The best explicit evidence of the absolutes of the Jedi and Sith is seen at the end of Episode III, before Anakin and Obi-Wan square off on Mustafar.
Anakin’s statement here is an absolute, but Obi-Wan responds with an absolute of his own. This demonstrates that the Jedi and Sith are two sides of the same coin: religion. Being confined to religion prevents Jedi and Sith from being rebels because they live in a world that only deals with absolutes and absolute values. A rebel does not deal in absolutes as the Jedi and Sith do because the values of rebellion are relative, they change with each rebel.
There are many who would argue that Anakin Skywalker rebels against the Jedi Council, and there is plenty of evidence to support this. He cannot understand the Jedi Order’s fear of emotional attachment, and feels betrayed when he learns of the Council’s plan to spy on the Chancellor and that the Jedi have kept information from him that could save the life of his wife, Padme (Lucas, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith). He fights against this oppression by destroying the Jedi Order and joining the dark side as Darth Vader, completing his revolt as a rebel. The problem with this is that Anakin is still oppressed by a religion of the Force. He simply flips his point of view, seeing the Jedi as evil instead of the Sith. As soon as he decides to join the dark side, he drops to his knee and pledges his allegiance to the Emperor and the dark side (Lucas, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith). To be a rebel, Anakin would have to escape the established religions that are the Jedi and Sith while still maintaining his faith in the Force.
With much anticipation surrounding Episode 8 of the Star Wars saga, rumors of Luke Skywalker’s role in the film could paint him as the only true rebel jedi in the Star Wars Universe. The assumption of Luke’s role in the upcoming film is that he has found an old Jedi temple that may be the first temple ever. Inside are books that describe the Force in a much different way than as absolutes of light and dark that exist in constant conflict. In the teaser trailer, Rey says she sees “the balance” with a shot of these sacred books (“Star Wars: The Last Jedi Official Teaser”). This would mean that these texts have shifted Luke’s perspective of the Force as a combination of light and dark, not a separation between the two. This change of thinking would mean that Luke is rebelling against the traditional ways of the Jedi Order. He sees the way the Jedi have been doing things as an injustice to the Force and so he says no more, just like Camus’ rebel, and wants the old way of the Jedi to come to an end (“Star Wars: The Last Jedi Official Teaser”). Luke finally becomes a rebel by having a unique, relative perspective of the Force where he uses however much of the light and the dark that he deems necessary.
Luke abandoning the ancient religion of the Jedi signifies a rebellion against a flawed system. While Luke has not been a slave to this religion his whole life, he has been during his entire life as a Jedi. This rigid structure of the archaic Jedi Code caused Anakin, the Chosen One who was supposed to bring balance to the Force, to fall to the dark side and throw the galaxy into darkness. Unlike Anakin, who continued under the traditional religions of Jedi and Sith that depend on the absolute values of light and dark, Luke goes against this mentality for a more flexible view of the Force that involves a spectrum of gray.
This is the idea behind the Gray Jedi Theory in the Star Wars universe. These are not traditional jedi in the sense that they are members of the Jedi Order or the Order of the Sith, but rather they are the jedi that walk the line between the light and the dark without giving into either side (“Gray Jedi”). The theory suggests that they act more favorably towards the light, but are able to use the dark side when necessary. While this type of jedi is only seen in the Star Wars expanded universe and not the films, Luke’s role in Episode VIII will likely bring the Gray Jedi Theory to the big screen. Luke exhibits his first movement towards becoming a Gray Jedi when battling Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, where he begins the fight the way the Jedi always have: calm and focused. 
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Screenshot, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, 01:49:40).
However, when Darth Vader mentions that he wants to turn Luke’s sister, Leia, to the dark side, Luke loses control and gives way to absolute rage which gives him the power to defeat Vader (Lucas, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi).
(Screenshot, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, 01:53:20).
Feelings of anger and rage have always traditionally been thought by the Jedi to lead to the dark side. However, Luke sees that he is able to control his feelings and is only able to defeat Vader because of these powerful emotions. This evidence portrays Luke as a Gray Jedi who is able to walk the line between the light and the dark without completely abiding by one or the other. If his father, Anakin, had not been taught under the strict rules of the Jedi and been forced to fight his feelings at every turn, it may have been possible for him to express his feelings in a more constructive way rather than hiding his passion from the Jedi and allowing it to eat away at the light inside him until he gave in to the dark.
Albert Camus’, “The Rebel,” gives an idea of a rebel that can be examined through the Jedi in the Star Wars universe. “The Rebel,” emphasizes that a rebel cannot exist within a religion’s absolute values because the values of a rebellion are relative. The ways of the Jedi and the Sith are full of absolutes, with emphasis on strict adherence to the light and dark sides of the Force respectively. Anakin Skywalker represents both sides of this adherence as both a Jedi and a Sith Lord. As a Jedi, Skywalker was confined by total adherence to the light, which meant disconnecting attachments from those he loved and it ultimately led him to the dark side. As Darth Vader, he relied on hate for power and abandoned all the principles of the Jedi and the light, which showed a stark contrast between the light and the dark. His son, Luke Skywalker, is able to see past this strict contrast and is the only Jedi in the Star Wars films that is actually a rebel. Luke sees the Force as a spectrum that can be used together rather than as total absolutes that are in conflict. His discovery of ancient texts leads him to rebel against the traditional ways of the Force and to no longer see the world in black and white, but in shades of gray.
Works Cited
Camus, Albert. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. Vintage International, 1991.
“Gray Jedi.” Wookieepedia, starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Gray_Jedi
Lucas, George, director. Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Lucas, George, director. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
Lucas, George, director. Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. 1983.
“Only A Sith Deals In Absolutes.” Youtube.com, 3 Mar. 2010.
“Rule of Two.” Wookieepedia, starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rule_of_Two
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi Official Teaser.” Youtube.com, 17 Apr. 2017.
Great essay. But one issue I see with your claim that Luke is the only Jedi to rebel once he finds the ancient texts is that Luke was never really a part of the Jedi Order or any order, for that matter. I do not think that Luke was ever in a position to rebel, or if he was, it came much earlier than the events of Episode 8. The Camus quote you used, “A rebel is a slave who has followed orders all his life and then suddenly decides that he will not follow a new order,” could apply to Luke’s desire to leave Tatooine, against the wishes of his uncle and aunt, but when he does leave, it is not at a direct violation of their orders, but because they were killed by the Empire. In this situation, he did not consciously decide to rebel against them, their authority was merely removed from his life. A similar situation occurs again when Yoda dies, leaving Luke as the last Jedi. The Jedi Order has long been destroyed, with Yoda as the last vestige of its authority, but once he dies, Luke no longer has any orders to follow. Again, it was not his decision to disobey Yoda’s authority, Luke was just no longer at Yoda’s behest after his death. Meaning that, though you could interpret his usage of emotional attachment and Dark Side force powers as rebellion against both the Jedi and Sith, you could also categorize his actions as not rebellion, as there was nothing for him to rebel against. Luke had barely learned the intricacies of the Jedi’s force ideology from Ben and Yoda by the time of either of their deaths, so with such limited knowledge of the Jedi’s force powers, Luke’s only option was to learn the Force on his own and forge his own force ideology. Could that force ideology, no matter how much it differs from Jedi and Sith dogma, really be considered rebellion? One point Alex makes in his essay, The Nature of Governing Bodies in Star Wars and Their Similarities to Soviet Russia, is that Luke was trained by Ben and Yoda not primarily to be part of the Jedi Order, but mainly to defeat Darth Vader and the Empire. In this sense, Luke does not rebel against Ben and Yoda’s orders because he accomplished what they trained him to do: defeat Darth Vader. Thus, Luke was never really a rebel, according to Camus’s quote. If he does find ancient force texts in Episode 8 and defy Jedi teachings, it cannot be considered rebellion because he was never really held under the Jedi Order’s authority. Though, one instance of him rebelling against an order could be in Episode 5, when Luke leaves Dagobah to go help Han and Leia, disobeying Yoda. At this point, Luke is officially Yoda’s apprentice, and his disobedience against his master could be an act of rebellion.
I agree with your analysis of Anakin as lifelong slave to different orders, but I think that Luke, in a sense, was the complete opposite. He is a character who yearned to serve under a greater cause to achieve greatness and pursue adventure, but in the chaos of the war against the Empire, he never had the chance and he trailblazed his own destiny out of necessity, not of his own volition.
In Lance Tebay’s essay “Can Jedi be Rebels?” I feel like focussing on rebellion from solely a religious view is too narrow a scope when discussing whether or not a character is a rebel. Looking at Albert Camus’ definition of a rebel, the term can be used pretty broadly as there are a lot of different sources that can provide orders in one’s life. It is also unfair to use the Jedi’s religion as a reason that they cannot be rebels when we have little to no insight into the religions of the other characters, including those in the rebellion. If they were religious, would the rebellion have no rebels in it? I think when judging a character on their rebelliousness, their life must be assessed as a whole, not by one factor. While Jedi and Sith tend to stay within the limits of their religion, there are other ways in which they can rebel. For example, Kylo Ren killing Snoke is definitely an act of rebellion as he is killing his master and source of orders, but I do not think that action was an act of rebellion against his religion because it was an act of passion, encouraged by the Sith code, and Kylo did not flip to the light side despite Rey’s attempts to turn him.