Luke Skywalker
He is the son of Senator Padmé Amidala and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, the slightly elder (by just a few seconds) twin brother of Princess Leia, and Obi-Wan Kenobi's and Yoda's final Jedi Padawan learner. In Revenge of the Sith, a Force-choked Padmé Amidala gives birth to the twins at the Polis Massa asteroid before she dies, where she is comforted by Obi-Wan Kenobi. Bail Organa, the viceroy of Alderaan, adopts Luke's sister Leia in order to hide her on Alderaan and Obi-wan provides sanctuary for Luke at the Lars Homestead on Tatooine so as to protect both them from their corrupted biological father and the evil Sith. Despite being in "hiding" from his father and the Emperor, Luke is brought up as the son of Anakin Skywalker, by his father's nearest surviving kin (his mother's stepson and his wife) Owen and Beru Lars, and under his father's surname "Skywalker". As an orphan, he is raised on the desert planet of Tatooine for the first nineteen years of his life, where his uncle Owen Lars and aunt Beru Lars try unsuccessfully to discourage all tendencies towards the Jedi Order from him. He is told by his uncle that his father was "a navigator on a space freighter." Despite this lie, he is still an adventure-seeking youth. Luke possesses talents in droid repair, piloting, and the Force— he is very much his father's son. Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Luke that his father was killed by Darth Vader, a rogue Jedi Knight.In the seminal Star Wars movie (A New Hope), when Darth Vader intercepts Leia's spaceship carrying plans for the superweapon/battlestation, the Death Star, she sends droids R2-D2 and C-3PO to meet Kenobi. However, on their journey they end up in the service of Luke himself, who follows the droids to meet Obi-Wan. After the deaths of his aunt and uncle at the hand of the empire Luke decides to follow Obi-Wan (now known as Ben) to help Princess Leia. Joining with Kenobi, they depart from Tatooine on Han Solo's ship, the Millennium Falcon. They travel towards Alderaan, and Luke takes the time to allow Obi-Wan to begin the first stages of training as a Jedi. They arrive at Alderaan, only to find that the planet has been obliterated into mere rock and debris by the Death Star, a huge, weaponized battle station. After being captured in which their ship was taken in by tractor beams, they barely escape the Imperials after saving Princess Leia from being terminated by her captors. Obi-Wan Kenobi is apparently killed by Darth Vader, but in fact vanishes, ascending to a higher plane of existence and becoming one with the Force. (His cloak, as it falls to the floor, is unsinged by Vader's lightsaber.) They travel back to the Rebel base at Yavin 4, but are tracked by an Imperial tracking beacon. The Death Star follows and the Empire prepares to destroy the moon with its superweapon. The Alliance uses the stolen plans of the station to lead a final attack on the Death Star. Luke pilots an X-wing starfighter, and under the guidance of Obi-Wan's spiritual voice, uses the Force to send a proton torpedo into the narrow reactor shaft, destroying the Death Star.Following the Rebel victory at Yavin, Luke is promoted to the rank of Commander and founds the elite Rogue Squadron starfighter unit with Wedge Antilles, another young Rebel pilot.Desperate to find Luke, whom he recently learned is his own son, Darth Vader sends probe droids to thousands of planets across the galaxy in search of the Jedi hopeful. When a droid discovers the Rebels' new base on the icy planet Hoth, Vader brings the hammer of the Empire down on the planet. Luke demonstrates his burgeoning power as a potential Jedi when he plays a key role in the defense, leading Rogue Squadron in battle using Snowspeeders, and especially when he singlehandedly downs an AT-AT using his father's lightsaber, before escaping in his X-wing.Luke Skywalker, with Mara Jade and his trusty self-made Green Lightsaber Following advice from the spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi, he travels to Dagobah to learn the Jedi arts under Jedi Master Yoda. The old Jedi Master has little confidence in the young man's potential, but is persuaded to train him. However, Luke eventually has a vision of his friends being captured by Vader, and against the warnings of Kenobi and Yoda about confronting the Sith Lord prematurely, he travels to Bespin to save them, only to be trapped by Vader. In an intense lightsaber duel that follows, Luke learns that Vader is his father, and loses his right hand in combat with the Dark Lord of the Sith. (Ironically, Vader (Anakin) had lost his right arm in combat with Count Dooku when he was younger. Vader also lost his left arm and both legs in his battle with Obi-Wan Kenobi on Mustafar.) Faced with this horrifying claim and the even more fearsome temptation to join Vader, Luke finds the moral courage to choose death instead of evil in which he allows himself to fall down a long shaft. However, fate allows him to survive, and he escapes aboard the Millennium Falcon. Thus, Luke himself ends up being rescued by the friends he had intended to save while R2-D2 proves his usefullness by repairing the Falcon's hyperdrive's just in time to escape. After Luke was defeated at Bespin, and losing his father's lightsaber in the process, his affinity with the Jedi traditions grows more serious. One of the significant events between the end of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi was that Luke managed to construct his very own lightsaber, exactly in the tradition of Jedi training. The ability to construct a lightsaber is one of the most important and unique skills of a Jedi, and Luke managed to do just that. Arriving on Tatooine, and going to the hut of his former master Obi-Wan, Luke found materials Kenobi had kept and constructed a new lightsaber. Not surprising Luke's new lightsaber was of a design that while unique, closely resembled that of the final lightsaber owned by the old Jedi. However, Yoda made it clear that Luke still will not be a Jedi until he successfully confronts Darth Vader. During his return trip to Dagobah (Luke kept his promise to return to Dagobah in Return of the Jedi), Luke confirms from the dying Yoda and the spirit form of Ben Kenobi that Vader is indeed his father, Anakin, a former Jedi Knight who turned to the Dark Side of the Force. They wanted to keep this terrible fact from him until they felt he was ready for the burden of such knowledge. Furthermore, Luke realizes that Leia is his twin sister and would be in terrible peril from their father should he find out as well. Arriving on Endor as part of a Rebel commando squad, Luke surrenders to Vader in an attempt to bring the Dark Lord back to the Light Side of the Force. However, while Luke manages to skillfully sidestep his father's emotional trump card, he ultimately becomes a prisoner of the Emperor on the half-completed second Death Star in orbit around Endor. Once there, the Emperor and Vader attempt to corrupt Luke with promises to save his friends from their trap if he joins the Dark Side. As a backup idea, the Emperor goads Luke to strike him down to save the Rebels who were losing the Battle of Endor. Luke, in a moment of weakness, momentarily lashes out but Vader stops his strike, and father and son duel each other one final time. Despite the clash, Luke manages to keep emotional control, much to the frustration of his enemies. However, that control is lost when Vader telepathically senses the existence of Luke's sister and threatens to concentrate on corrupting her instead. Enraged at this threat, Luke attacks Vader with full fury, and just manages to regain control while at the verge of slaying Vader outright. At the realization that he was able to control himself in the face of the most profound provocation, Luke turns his lightsaber off, throws it into the ground, and proudly declares his allegiance to the Jedi Code. Luke: "You've failed, your highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me." Emperor (Realizing his failure): "So be it, Jedi..." In retaliation, the Emperor unleashes Force lightning against Luke in an attempt to kill the young Jedi. It is not revealed whether or not Yoda had specifically trained Luke to defend against force lightning or if Yoda had even mentioned its existence to Luke, although Yoda had experienced it first-hand in both Episodes II & III. The novelization of Return of the Jedi implies that Luke knew how to deal with force lightning, but was simply overwhelmed by the power of the Emperor's attack. Seeing his son dying, and perhaps remembering the mercy shown him, compassion finally breaks Vader's stony heart. In an act of self-sacrifice, Anakin Skywalker re-emerges to destroy the Emperor once and for all. On the deteriorating Death Star, at the foot of Vader's shuttle, Luke removes the former Vader's mask and looked upon his father's eyes for the first and only time before Anakin becomes one with the Force. The prophecy of the Chosen One is finally fulfilled as Anakin had brought balance to the Force and destroyed the Sith. Luke escapes the Death Star's destruction with his father's body. Back on Endor, in the manner of a Jedi's funeral, Luke burns the last vestiges of the father that had been Darth Vader, and joins in the celebration of the apparent defeat of the Empire; thus Luke comes full circle both as a Jedi and as a person. Luke Skywalker, even through the little training he received, became a powerful Jedi Master. His skills and abilities with both the Force and lightsaberare remarkable and are even greater than those of the greatest ancient sith lords such as Marka Ragnos, Naga Sadow, Exar Kun, and Revan. In the Young Jedi Knight series, he made a school for Jedi Knights and defeated a knew threat called the Second Imperium. In the New Jedi Order novel series, Luke Skywalker in the final Yuuzhan Vong battle uses a powerful ability of the Force known as "Emerald Lightning" by fans of the series. This technique has been described to look like "green sparks", which can instantly kill its victim. Also throughout the Expanded Universe, he displayed an amazing mastery of the Force, by manipulating black holes, gravity, and planets. Even in Luke's Jedi Knights years he was a powerful element. On his own he destroyed the cloned Emperor's Force Storm, which had the ability to destroy massive ships. Also in the Return of the Jedi script, Luke blocked the Emperor's Force Lightning with only the Force at the stage of a Jedi Knight, a feat only done by Jedi Master Yoda, Count Dooku, and throughout the Star Wars saga. His niece, Jaina Solo describes him in the final Yuuzhan Vong battle as a maelstrom of Force energy so calm and focused that he was unstoppable. She also said his lightsaber looks to be like ten or twenty blades all moving at once. Luke's abilities with a lightsaber and the Force allow him to prevail over thousands and thousands of Yuuzhan Vong warriors and other enemies as well. Luke defeats the Supreme Overlord (The Yuuzhan Vong's leader), which on his own could destroy many Jedi.
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