Cacique-Borja, Toying with the Dark Side

 Toying with the Dark Side

In both movies we mostly see the concept of the Dark Side only apply to Luke, Darth Vader and the Emperor.  Luke’s relationship with the dark force is highlighted because he is the new generation coming to power. The Dark Side holds two main attractions for Luke; it offers him power and his father.

 In the movie The Empire Strikes Back, Luke begins to be truly acquainted with the force. During his training with Yoda, Yoda doubts Luke’s success because of his lack of maturity and his excess of anger. Yoda knows that what drives Luke to train is his anger towards Darth Vader, thus he cautions Luke that the same anger that has allowed him to win battles in the past will make him succumb to Vader. Part of beinga Jedi is being able to tap the force without using anger. Yoda explains to Luke that a Jedi never uses the force to fights only to defend. A concept that does not entirely manifests its way into Luke’s head until he is facing the emperor. Thus during his time with Yoda, Luke plays with the Force, routinely taping into his anger for Vader to complete the tasks Yoda gives him. It is not until Yoda lifts Luke’s aircraft that he realizes he does not need anger and the dark force to achieve complex tasks that he had seen Vader do which he had consequently thought as the only way to beat Vader. Momentarily Luke ceases to play with the Dark Side.

In The Return of the Jedi, the scene when the emperor makes a final case for the upsides of joining the Dark Side Luke puts a stop to toying with the Dark Side by figuratively putting his foot down. As Vader did, the emperor tries to convince Luke that his destiny is to join the Dark Side. The emperor makes Luke agonize by watching his friends battle the imperial fleets and thus tempting Luke to tap into his anger. During a stressful five minutes and a fight with Vader Luke ceases to use anger as a main access point to the force consequently winning against the Dark Side.

Another character that battles against his own Dark Side is Han Solo. For two consecutive movies we see Han try to leave the rebellion to go find Jabba the Hut to pay him. There is always a sort of inner struggle that manifests as soon as he announces he is going to find Jabba. Jabba represents the Dark Side for him for he knows that the moment he pays Jabba he will have no other option but to return to his old ways. Thus he toys with the idea of paying a debt to keep living his old life or continue to life he had created for himself. This struggle is most evident in The Empire Strikes Back, when at the beginning of the movie he announces he is leaving the rebel station. On one side he does this to make Leia proclaim that she loves him. He ends up not leaving Leia because the empire strikes and returns out necessity. This is a huge distinction between Luke’s dismissal of the Dark Side and Hans. Luke makes a choice to not join the Dark Side while Han does so out of necessity. In Pfeiffer’s The Films of Harrison Ford, Ford “initially balked at becoming part of an ongoing series” (Pfeiffer 105). In a figurative sense, Ford toys with the Dark Side of abandoning the film similarly to Han’s repeated try to abandon the Rebels.