Star Wars: When Force Ghosts Don’t Make Sense
Space, as it turns out, is haunted. But that’s okay because the ghosts are nice. Unfortunately, the ghosts are also made of plot holes.
There are plenty of scary things in Star Wars. Haunted planets, gigantic creatures that can exist in the vacuum of space, and fascism are all terrifying parts of the series. Meanwhile, Force Ghosts, an established and hugely important part of the movies, isn’t nearly as spooky as its name would imply.
Only Light Side Users Can Become Force Ghosts
“Thank you for tuning in to Force Ghost Coast to Coast.”
Before Darth Vader strikes him down, Obi Wan Kenobi says that he will become “more powerful than you can possibly imagine,” in death. We’ll come back to this quote later, but apparently force users can train hard enough to come back as hyper-powerful ghosts of themselves.
Power is the entire Sith thing, so the idea that they couldn’t master this ability is unlikely at best. Sure, the argument could be made that only a pure-of-heart and attachment-free Jedi has the ability to master this power. But Anakin “attachments-and-youngling-murderer” Skywalker managed it in the end. So, y’know. What the heck?
Force Ghosts Are Powerful. But Are They Though?
Kenobi seemed pretty sure that he was going to dramatically leave his robes on the ground one last time and turn into a galactic super being. But then he whispered some niceties to Luke about believing in himself, sent him to Yoda, and then more or less took a Force Nap.
Becoming a Force Ghosts takes a lot of pre-death training. And it seems to have a post-death learning curve. So needing a little time to evolve from a disembodied voice into a person-shaped ghost is outside the realm of making sense. But where is the power we were promised?
Ghost-Yoda sets a tree on fire at one point, but besides that, there is no Force Ghost training. Why is there no Force Ghost intervention or help during key battles? Where are the Force Ghost secret inside part-of-the-force pro-tips? The entire Force Ghost trump card seems to be whispering encouragement to undertrained apprentices in the eleventh hour.
When Exactly Did Anakin Train To Be A Force Ghost?
Qui-Gon had to train extensively to master the Force Ghost power. And even then, he only appeared as a disembodied voice at first. Obi-Wan and Yoda had to be trained by the disembodied voice of Qui-Gon, and then Kenobi was also only a voice for a little while.
Yeah, Yoda seemed to skip right into visable ghost-hood, but he’s one of the most powerful Jedis ever to live! He had many more years to train before taking the great Force Nap.
But when exactly did Anakin have a chance to train this power well enough to become a Force Ghost? And how did he skip over the disembodied voice step? Even if a Sith Lord could master the power, it’s unlikely that the Empire gave him enough free time to plan for his retirement. And it’s not as if any of the former Jedi ghosts in the know were going to teach him.
And speaking of Anakin’s Force Ghost abilities–
Why Didn’t Anakin Put His Grandson Back On Track?
“A little help? No? Just a pep talk? Cool. Coolcoolcool.”
Where the heck was Anakin when Kylo Ren was following in his footsteps to another Death Star in the name of copying Grandpa? A quick visit to have the “stay in school and don’t murder your dad” talk would have saved a lot of galactic heartache (and lives). I know the answer is simply ‘bad writing’, but I’ll never stop being the tiniest bit mad about it.
Who’s your favorite Force Ghost? How about your favorite appearance of a Force Ghost? Do you prefer Force Ghost in canon or in Legends? Let us know in the comments!
May The Force Be With You, Adventurers!
