Touching the Dark Side Within Us All (Star Wars: The Last Jedi)

In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rey (Daisy Ridley) is on Ahch-To and has finally convinced Luke (Mark Hamill) to train her in the Jedi ways. Her very first lesson is an invitation to sit on the mountain side and “reach out.” She experiences the force—peace, violence, life, death, new life rising—and the balance of it all. As she meditates she is drawn to the dark side, it invites her and calls to her. She goes. Luke is terrified of her power and her willingness to reach out to the dark side so easily.

This revelation of Rey’s power and inclination could be devastating to fans who expect her to be a Luke Skywalker figure. A savior who is fully light “and in him there was no darkness.” We expect this spunky, pure girl to be fully light and to be the much-needed counterpart to the First Order’s darkness. But she’s not pure light. No one is.

During Rey’s time on Ahch-To she seeks out the dark side of the island. She heads to the underbelly hoping to find out who her parents are and effectively, who is she. The dark side of the island is a cave with a towering glass wall. Rey once again reaches out to the darkness touching the cloudy wall. Instantly, she experiences past and anticipates future in a long series of Reys upon Reys. Her actions reverberating as if in a chamber.

As she allows herself to move closer to the darkness, the foggy, frozen wall begins to clear as figures move closer on the other side. However, it is Rey she sees and not her parents. She is the only one revealed to herself.

Later in the film, Kylo Ren and Rey have an exchange about her parents. They’ve been connected by the powers of the Force through Snoke and have seen hidden parts of each other. He encourages her to name who her parents were because, perhaps, she’s always known and just hidden it away.

“They were nobody.”

Perhaps she had always known that. She had lived on Jakku long enough to ask around about her origin. It’s easier to compartmentalize and tuck it away. Of course, she reached to the dark side hoping for answers to her question. The identity of her parents and the hope of their return consumed her in the first film. Their identity consumes her still.

In the dark side of Ahch-To, she didn’t reach out to the darkness to be consumed by it as others have been. She reached out to touch it, to feel it, to understand, to know. There will always be feelings of loneliness, anger, abandonment, jealousy, or bitterness. We always have those emotions within our reach and they will come and go in our lives. Rey is allowing herself to touch her dark emotions, but not to be consumed by them. She touches her loneliness and doubt about self-worth, but she does not remain there.

In Christianity, we suffer from the same fears of the dark side as the Jedi. Our common metaphors for goodness center around light and light banishing out darkness. We feel comfortable centering our worship and praise around these things. Light is good and dark is bad.

Historically, this has led to awful theology which has driven white supremacy and the separation of the races. It’s a theology which permeates our Christian life today and white supremacy ideology continues to influence our institutions. What is the redeeming theology of darkness that we have been too afraid to touch?

Star Wars: The Last Jedi invites us into this theology in many ways. Those people which we have always anticipated as solidly good are not as we imagined. Those people which we had believed to be solidly bad are not necessarily so. The balance of the Force, the balance of life is that bad and good reside in all of us. Dark and light reside in all of us.

Just as the sun passes from day to night, we cannot have light always. The writers of the Old Testament understood the complex nature of life, injustice, hardship, and the need for lament. The range of human emotion is experienced in the Old Testament and the dark side of the soul is touched. Our own savior, Jesus Christ, had to enter darkness in order for resurrection and new life to be possible. That is the balance of Christian life that is the balance of the Force.

As Rey entered the dark side of Ahch-To to truly understand herself, so we must be willing to enter the dark parts of our own soul. If we’re not careful, we can be consumed by rage and harden our hearts. But it is not wrong to reach out and allow ourselves to truly feel the dark side of the soul. It is what we choose to do with those emotions that makes us somebody.

If you’re looking for a prayer that will help you acknowledge and truly feel “dark” emotions or “light” emotions, I would suggest the Welcoming Prayer. Here are some helpful resources for practicing Welcoming Prayer in your own life.