Star Wars' Saga

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IN LUKE MORE THAN LUKE: FAMILY ROMANCE AND NARCISSISM IN THE 'STAR WARS' SAGA

Blue Aslan Philip Profitt

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

May 2019

Committee:

Erin Labbie, Advisor

Blue Aslan Philip Profitt

Erin Labbie, Advisor

The Star Wars epic has been important for popular culture since its emergence in 1977; it is relevant for film and popular culture analysis (both of which I tend to in this thesis), and it is a crucial epic tale that contributes to a model of literary and psychoanalytical history. In the four decades in Star Wars’ debut, fans and scholars alike have been interested in the saga’s ostensible depiction of incest and the Skywalker family romance, but I maintain that incest has become a more palatable metaphor for the characters’ respective narcissisms, and that these narcissistic affects in fact provide evidence of little-to-no erotic interest in one another and do not support the incestuous metaphor that is common to readings of the films.

In this thesis, I engage the original Star Wars film trilogy as well as the work of Sigmund

Freud, Jacques Lacan, and other prominent psychoanalysts to offer my own critique of psychoanalysis’s overreliance on the Oedipal complex: In order to effectively de-Oedipalize psychoanalysis, we need to first recognize and reconcile the problem and ugliness of narcissism.

I apply this paradigm to examine the character of Luke Skywalker and his relationships with his father, Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, and his twin sister, Princess Leia Organa, though this framework can be used to de-Oedipalize other literary and filmic texts. Part One of this thesis traces Luke’s relationship with Darth Vader through Lacan’s concept, the “Name-of-the-Father,” to argue that Luke’s superficially Oedipal desire to become his idealized father is a disguise for his narcissistic desire to turn his father into a facsimile of himself. Similarly, Part Two examines

Luke’s relationship with Princess Leia through Lacan’s “The Agency of the Letter in the iv Unconscious” to argue that the twins rely so heavily on the signs and signifieds of sexual difference that they fail to recognize that they are in a narcissistically competitive dialogue. v

“Unknowingly he desires himself, and the one who praises him is himself praised, and while he

courts, is courted, so that equally, he inflames and burns. How often he gave his lips in vain to the deceptive pool, how often, trying to embrace the neck he could see, he plunged his arms into

the water, but could not catch himself within them! What he has seen he does not understand,

but what he sees he is on fire for, and the same error both seduces and deceives his eyes.”

- Ovid, Metamorphoses vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My grandmother, Debbie Frankovich, likes to remind me that we are of the same tribe, and that as I learn, grow, and experience more than my home, I will find others to join it, too.

After two years of graduate study, which were often troubling beyond campy films, theoretical texts, and coming to terms with my own writing and research, I want to thank the tribe that has come together to support me through these two years and through this project. I cannot say that this thesis exists only because of them—after all, I wrote it. But without their love and guidance,

I would never have become the kind of thinker and woman capable of undertaking this task.

Firstly, I owe a great debt to Erin Labbie, whose mentorship and friendship has been a gift, both to this project and to my life. Thank you for teaching me that theory is a form of self help, for listening to me when no one else seemed to register that I was speaking, for helping me to realize that I am a psychoanalytical thinker and to stop pretending I was anything else, and for standing by my scholarship even in its most hideous and clichéd mutations. You know that too often I doubt the sound my voice and measure it against the sounds of others’. You have always been there to remind me that my voice is mine, anecdotes and all, and I can stop apologizing.

Most importantly, you and Sophia have become my family in a place where I could have been alone. I am so grateful to count the two of you as part of my tribe. Thanks as well to Jeff Brown, whose guidance on film theory and popular culture analysis has been invaluable. His recommendations of Mary Ann Doane, Christian Metz, and Steve Neale helped me to develop a new, more complex understanding of the gaze on film and the role of gender difference in the

Oedipal complex. His feedback has helped me to see the difference between film and story more clearly than before, which has shaped this thesis and will continue to shape my future scholarship. vii I don’t think even I quite know how much I owe to Debbie Frankovich. Gugu, you are one of the bravest women I have ever known—possibly one of the bravest women in the universe. Thank you for valuing women’s education and for encouraging your daughters and granddaughters to be well spoken and well read. Your constant belief in me is what has always kept me going in my research, and I hope this thesis makes you proud. Without your support, I don’t know what I would have grown up to do and be. My sister, Tex Profitt, is an incredible feminist thinker, fellow queen of satire, and friend. Her brilliant readings of texts I thought I knew intimately fuel this thesis and my career whether or not she realizes it. Tex, you are my favorite person in the world. When I was four, I wished for you to be born, but I never could have imagined I would meet someone as funny, artistic, and wise as you.

Lastly, I need to thank my parents for their unwavering involvement in my life and career, even if I did keep them up one night as a small child reciting every word I knew

(Imagine how long we’d all be awake now.). Thank you for driving me to and from Bowling

Green so that I could still spend time with all of you, and especially thank you for that time we drove all the way to my apartment in Ohio only to discover that I forgot my keys on your couch in Michigan. Thank you, Daddy, for reading every Harry Potter book for me, for making me watch Star Wars just a couple months before I started my master’s program, and for offering wonderful feedback on my ideas and analyses during our car rides to and from home, and thank you, Mom, for teaching me how to read twice, stressing the importance of naming, for letting me make smart-alecky comments in eighth-grade literature class, and for never letting me forget the etymology of the word passion. When I am especially funny, you joke that you never should have encouraged me to speak. You have no idea how grateful I am that you’ve always taken the time to speak with me. viii I am who I am because my tribe has taken the time to hear me, to speak to me, and to listen. Let’s keep listening. Let’s keep speaking.

I’ll start. ix AUTHOR’S NOTE

Since the Star Wars saga is a non-linear temporal beast, I want to note the way that Star

Wars, as a title, is used in this study. I acknowledge the fact that upon its initial theatrical release in 1977, the film that is now called Star Wars: A New Hope, was simply titled Star Wars. This thesis respects George Lucas’s 1981 re-titling of the saga’s inaugural film. Thusly, I will refer to this individual film as A New Hope in my discussion. A proceeding glossary will further explain the uses and abbreviations of the individual film titles. Moreover, I reserve the title of Star Wars as a blanket term to describe the entire film franchise. On a related note, this thesis concentrates solely on filmic installments in the Star Wars saga. Although I recognize that books, comics, and games from Star Wars Legends (1976-2012) and Disney (2012-present) provide supplementary material on the characters and events in and surrounding the films, I have limited my discussion to what are arguably the most famous texts in the Star Wars mythos. x GLOSSARY

The following glossary contains the full and official titles for the ten currently released and one impending live-action Star Wars films as well as the abbreviated titles I will use in this thesis. The films are listed in linear story order, not alphabetically or in order of their theatrical releases. As Disney and Lucasfilm eliminated the official usage of episode numbers in mid-2017

(e.g. “Episode V”), I will eliminate episode numbers from this glossary as well. In this thesis, I will refer to a given film by its complete title only the first time I reference it. In all proceeding occurrences of that title, I will use the abbreviation noted here.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace…………………………………………...The Phantom Menace

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones……………………………………..…………..….Attack of the Clones

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith……………………………………………………….Revenge of the Sith

Solo: A Star Wars Story……………………………………………………………………...... Solo

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story………………………………………………………………..Rogue One

Star Wars: A New Hope………………………………………………………………….……A New Hope

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back………………………………………….The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi……………………………………………………..……Return of the Jedi

Star Wars: The Force Awakens……………………………………………………..The Force Awakens

Star Wars: The Last Jedi……………………………………………………………...…….The Last Jedi

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker………………………………………………..The Rise of Skywalker xi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION. “I LOVE MUTTON STEW:” STAR WARS, INCEST, AND PALTABLE

METAPHORS………………………………………………………………………...... 1

“Why Would You Pick Star Wars?”...... 5

Oedipal Criticism ...... 6

Gender Studies ...... 12

Religious Studies ...... 14

Fan Studies ...... 16

What Star Wars and Psychoanalysis Mean to Each Other ...... 18

Part Summaries ...... 27

PART I. “I AM SON-FATHER:” LUKE, DARTH, VADER, AND THE NARCISSISTIC

“NAME-OF-THE-SON” ...... 31

“Name” and “No” of the Father ...... 36

The Homoerotic Oedipal ...... 41

A Narcissistic Hope ...... 44

PART II. “I HAVE MYSELF SEEN:” LUKE, PRINCESS LEIA, AND THE NARCISSISTIC

MIRROR ...... 64

Leia at First Sight ...... 70

Narcissistic Kissing ...... 75

A Boy, a Girl, a Universe, and a Mirror ...... 79

EPILOGUE. “I MAKE AN IMAGE:” AESTHETICS OF NARCISSISM AND THE FUTURE

OF DE-OEDIPALIZATION ...... 94 xii

The Future of De-Oedipalization ...... 100

Conclusion ...... 105

WORKS CITED ...... 107

INTRODUCTION. “I LOVE MUTTON STEW:”1 STAR WARS, INCEST, AND PALATABLE

METAPHORS

This will begin to make things right.

- Lawrence Kasdan, J.J. Abrams, and Michael Arndt, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

It is my hope that by the time you reach the end of this thesis, you are able to reread its title, In Luke More Than Luke, with your tongue in your cheek.2 The title obviously parodies

Jacques Lacan’s final presentation in Seminar XI, The Four Fundamental Concepts of

Psychoanalysis, “In You More Than You,” but I use this title for more than its phonetic similarity to a recognizable Lacanian theory. This title refers to the prevalence of incestuous narcissism in the original Star Wars trilogy; yet, it is in Luke more than Luke—that is, incestuous narcissism is important to psychoanalysis, not merely the scholarship on the Star Wars films.

In the presentation from which this thesis takes its name, Lacan discusses the popular confusion and conflation between desire and transference, essentially claiming that transference is the primary reason for desire and love. Principally, Lacan uses this presentation to discuss the complicated dialogue between the analyst and the analysand, arguing that the analyst has to possess something—the Lacanian objet petit a, or the unattainable object of pure desire—that the analysand believes he needs in order for the treatment to be effective. According to Lacan, the analysand is able to express love for his partner or his analyst by essentially saying, “I love you,

1 This subtitle refers to a question Jacques Lacan answers in The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis about the difference between the object in the drive and the object in desire (243). 2 My unique and open rhetorical style is noticeable from the first sentence of this thesis, and it only continues from here. Rather than attempt to conform to traditionally academic prose, I recognize my style as my own écriture féminine. Hélène Cixous writes, “woman must learn to write her self: must… bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies” (875). This style, which carefully braids humor and theoretical deftness and inquiry, is myself, and I will not deny myself the opportunity to write me. 2 but, inexplicably because I love in you something more than you—the objet petit a—I mutilate you” (268, italics in the original). In other words, the goal of love is to destroy the other in search of that something the other is unable to provide. Lacan introduces and explains this paradox

(“Loving is to give what one does not have” [147].) in Formations of the Unconscious and

Transference, as he argues that the definition of love is being able to accept the places where one’s partner lacks (147). Yet, although this thesis ostensibly focuses on the depiction of incest in the beloved Star Wars films, my interest in this quote from The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis does not peak at the use of the word love. Below the surface of family romance, this thesis aims to locate and define the objet petit a in this paradox of love. Explicitly, this thesis argues that in any presumably loving relationship, the objet petit a is the lover himself, as he destroys the other and narcissistically falls in love with the wake of his destruction and its sole survivor—himself.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past forty-two years, in which case you are probably a painfully elderly cricket and consequently unable to comprehend English words, let alone complex psychoanalytic and film theory, you likely understand that the Star Wars film saga (which began with George Lucas’s film, the now-retitled Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977) is one of the most culturally significant texts ever produced. At the same time, unless you have been living under that same rock since the early 1980s when the first two Star Wars sequels (Star

Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi in 1983) were released, you may struggle to remember a time when you did not know that Darth Vader was

Luke Skywalker’s father or that Princess Leia Organa was his twin sister. With this knowledge, of course, come the Oedipal jokes—the Internet memes of that famous paternity reveal scene in

The Empire Strikes Back superimposed with words like, “Luke… you have an Oedipal 3 complex!” and fan-made videos of the moment in Return of the Jedi in which Leia kisses Han

Solo and tells him that Luke is her brother edited to illustrate Han’s now-horrific memory of

Luke and Leia’s earlier kiss. The oral history of the Skywalker family, particularly their supposedly incestuous underbelly, has become almost synonymous with this idea of popular culture. Consider, for example, this exchange from the comedy-superhero film, Deadpool 2

(2018). The film’s protagonist, Wade Wilson, and his girlfriend, Vanessa, are planning to have a child, and Wade expresses his anxieties in this way:

Wade: But here’s the thing. Isn’t that how it always works? Like in Star Wars, men are

destined to become their father… and then have consensual sex with their sister.

Vanessa: I think you missed big, big chunks of that movie.

Wade: No, I’m pretty sure Luke nailed her.

Vanessa: Baby, that’s Empire (11:00).3

This joke lands because the audience is supposed to know that Star Wars is the “incest franchise,” fraught with awkward brother-sister kisses and father-son phallic duels that are, in retrospect, worth a giggle or two. The joke (and others like it) is emblematic of our oral history and popular understanding of the Star Wars mythos. Like any oral history, the relevance of Star

Wars and the Skywalker family corrodes with each retelling, and now, it has reached the point where even the average filmgoer assumes that Star Wars is “Oedipus in space” (Marche).

Despite my engagement with Lacanian psychoanalysis and Oedipal rhetoric in theory and fiction, this thesis does not aim to further substantiate an incestuous reading of the Star Wars

3 It is interesting that due to the audio/visual medium the interpretation of this last joke (“Baby, that’s Empire.”) is especially in flux. On one hand, we might interpret it as a joke about which movie in the Star Wars saga Luke supposedly becomes Vader and has sex with Leia (It would have happened in The Empire Strikes Back, not A New Hope, originally just called Star Wars, as Wade says here.), which encourages the popular assumption of incest in the original trilogy. Then again, the joke may also serve as commentary for the incestuous nature of imperial government. 4 saga. Instead, I argue that the incestuous underpinnings among the Skywalker family are not suggestions of sexual desire; rather, these incestuous moments function as screens for the characters’ greater problems with narcissism. Incest is an eroticized preoccupation with the self,

--therefore it is difficult to separate the two phenomena. To this point, psychoanalytical Star

Wars scholarship has been limited to an Oedipal framework, regardless of whether the critic argues that the films support or subvert the Oedipal myth and complex. I maintain that incestuous sexuality has become a more palatable metaphor for the characters’ respective narcissisms, and these narcissistic affects in fact provide little-to-no evidence of erotic attraction among the characters and do not support the incestuous metaphor that is common to readings of the films.

This notion of palatable metaphors brings us back to the subtitle for this introduction, “I

Love Mutton Stew.” Lacan uses the example of a man loving mutton stew in The Four

Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis to explain the difference between the object in the drive and the object in desire. According to Lacan, we do not always immediately want what we desire, as the object in desire is often at odds with the object in the drive, or a screen for the objet petit a. His example, “I love mutton stew,” refers to a customer who says he loves the stew when underneath the diction itself, he is saying, “I love Mrs. X,” or the “beautiful butcher’s wife” (243, italics in the original). Lacan argues the subject edits his speech in regard to love and desire because “love is essentially deception” (268). The desire for love appeals to the subject’s narcissistic wish to “see himself, as one says, as others see him” (268, italics in the original).

According to this logic, we assume that others have a higher opinion of us than we have of ourselves; therefore, we distill our most vicious desires into something admirable or, at least, not suspicious. The mutton stew, then, is a palatable metaphor for the desire to commit adultery, just 5 as incest has become a palatable metaphor for narcissism in Star Wars. My goal in this thesis is to cleanse the critical and theoretical palate by extracting incest and other sexuality from the original Star Wars trilogy in order to concentrate on the unrealized tenor in this paradigm: the ubiquity of narcissistic relationships in popular film and fiction.

“Why Would You Pick Star Wars?”

I have endured this question since I undertook this project almost two years ago, and though I see no point in apologizing for the text I chose, it is important to explain why, in a vast body of texts where incest features more prominently, I view Star Wars as the worthiest candidate to illustrate my theoretical schema. In truth, this paradigm of incestuous narcissism could apply to any number of important texts in the literary canon and the canon of popular culture. For example, in the literary canon, the Gothic works of Horace Walpole, Anne Radcliffe, and Henry James4 rely on moments of incest or incestuous longing to establish their untrustworthy or villainous characters. On the other hand, in the canon of popular literature, each significant problem in V.C. Andrews’s novel, Flowers in the Attic (1979), is a direct result of debatably consensual incest, the plot of Tracy Letts’s play, August: Osage County (2007), is to determine which family members are fair sexual game (First cousins are acceptable; half siblings are not.), and Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex (2002) explains that the novel’s protagonist is intersex because their parents were siblings. Furthermore, some audience members become invested in incestuous pairings after locating incestuous subtext within a certain relationship.

Some popular examples of glorified incest include the pairing of brothers Dean and Sam

Winchester from the long-running fantasy television series, Supernatural, as well as twins Jason and Cheryl Blossom from the Archie comics. Finally, we must consider a current popular text

4 Specifically, incest and narcissism occur in The Castle of Otranto, The Mysteries of Udolpho, and The Turn of the Screw by each of these authors, respectively, though Radcliffe invokes non-biological incestuous desire and power dynamics in, essentially, her complete bibliography. 6 that is quickly surpassing Star Wars as “the incest text:” the HBO series Game of Thrones.

Though both texts are infamous for their depictions of incest, Game of Thrones differs from Star

Wars in the degree of incest committed by the characters. That is, while Luke and Leia share a kiss in The Empire Strikes Back before they are cognizant of their familial relationship, characters like Jaime and Cersei Lannister5 on Game of Thrones have carried on conscious, consensual incest since childhood, ultimately resulting in several children. Incest is largely accidental in the Star Wars films, whereas on Game of Thrones, incest is a mindful provocateur.

At this point, the questions ask themselves: Why would I choose to illustrate incestuous narcissism through Star Wars when other texts intended to depict incestuous relationships? Why would I choose Star Wars when, technically, none of its characters commit incest at all?6

I have two basic answers as to why Star Wars is the model for my theoretical framework: a., to diverge from the four most popular subcategories of Star Wars scholarship (Oedipal criticism, strict gender studies, religious studies, and fan studies) and b., to critique our nostalgic bias toward Star Wars as a beloved text ineligible for criticism so as not to “ruin” it.

Oedipal Criticism

Star Wars and Oedipal criticism have been essentially synonymous since Darth Vader reveals Luke’s paternity in The Empire Strikes Back. Admittedly, a great deal of the Oedipal criticism concerns the prequel and sequel film trilogies, particularly the characters of Anakin

5 A few details on Game of Thrones and incest are worth noting. Firstly, like Luke and Leia, Jaime and Cersei are twins. Second, another famous union occurs between Jon Snow and his aunt who are unaware of their familial connection. I make these notes to stress that my paradigm could very well expand beyond Star Wars, as narrative intentionality is an interesting dimension to incestuous narcissism that I may explore in a future project. 6 According to the law in every U.S. state (which I consider because Lucas’s filmmaking is primarily rooted in American culture), kissing—the only physical expression of incest in the Star Wars saga to date—does not technically constitute the commitment of incest. In this thesis, I label any and all metaphorically erotic moments between Luke and Darth Vader or Luke and Leia as incest regardless of the term’s various legal definitions. 7

Skywalker/Darth Vader and Kylo Ren, the son of Princess Leia and Han Solo.7 Of course, since family politics and drama in the Star Wars films began with Luke Skywalker, so does the

Oedipal criticism. One of the earliest examples of this type of criticism occurs in Ben Gibson’s article, “All This… And Superman Too,” published in 1981, one year after the release of The

Empire Strikes Back and Vader’s paternity reveal. In this piece, Gibson reviews father/son relationships in both the Superman comics and the Star Wars films, arguing that Superman and

Luke Skywalker must “mature quickly toward [their] oedipal destiny” in order to save their respective universes (91). In the historical context of this article, Gibson’s assumption about

Luke is somewhat logical. It would still be about two years before the release of Return of the

Jedi and the conclusion of the original trilogy, and the fate of Luke and Vader’s final confrontation was obviously ambiguous. I do not reference Gibson’s piece to criticize him for being potentially incorrect about what happens between Luke and Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi, especially because a number Oedipal readings of the relationship are textually sound, which I will address more thoroughly in this literature review and in Part I. Rather, I call attention to Gibson because his Oedipal prediction for Luke and Vader in the years between the paternity reveal in The Empire Strikes Back and his subjugation to Luke’s will in Return of the

Jedi may have helped to establish the Oedipal tone that, to this day, persists in Star Wars scholarship.

Two notable examples of Oedipal Star Wars scholarship, specifically as the myth and complex pertain to Luke, are Herbert H. Stein in Double Feature: Discovering Our Hidden

Fantasies in Film and Steven A. Galipeau in The Journey of Luke Skywalker: An Analysis of

7 For more on Oedipal readings of Anakin Skywalker and Kylo Ren, see Daniel Bernardi’s “Star Wars Episode I-VI: Coyote and the Force of White Narrative,” Douglas Brode’s “‘Cowboys in Space:’ Star Wars and the Western Film,” Susan Hatters-Friedman and Ryan C.W. Hall’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Forensic Teaching about Patricide,” and Jonathan Rowe’s “We Need to Talk about Kylo.” 8

Modern Myth and Symbol. Primarily, this thesis engages with Galipeau’s reading of the original trilogy, as his book focuses exclusively on reading Star Wars through a psychoanalytic lens, while Stein invokes Star Wars as an example of Oedipal desire in cinema. In particular, Stein uses Luke as an example of the “‘family romance fantasy,’” which he defines as the common fantasy children have “that they are secretly of royal or special birth, merely biding time with the

‘ordinary folk’ who happen to be acting as parents” (par. 65). Interestingly, Stein begins his argument with a clear signpost about whether or not Star Wars is Oedipal when he writes, “On the surface, the ‘Star Wars Trilogy’ is a very obvious Oedipal tale” (par. 59). Throughout his argument, Stein remains ironically loyal to an Oedipal framework. He recites the classical hallmarks in Oedipal criticism as they play out in the original three Star Wars films: The Oedipal child fears castration and is ultimately castrated by his threatening father (though Stein makes the point that because Luke appears in Return of the Jedi with a replacement hand, “castration may be reversible” [par. 63]), and he, like the character of Oedipus himself, learns that he descends from a powerful and royal bloodline. Ultimately, Stein uses Star Wars to illustrate the transition from latency to adolescence and creating a non-biological family with a group of friends. He correctly notes that girls, including mothers, are exempt from Luke’s interest in the original trilogy. Yet, while Stein claims that he is not conducting an Oedipal reading on the text, he hardly moves from Oedipus. According to Stein, one of the most important themes in the saga is

“if friends stick together, they can defeat the frightening Oedipal father” (par. 67). This is not a departure from the Oedipal framework that has become annoyingly common to incomplete readings of the Star Wars films—it supplements the reading by discussing the importance of castration anxiety in the genital phase. 9

As aforementioned, Steven A. Galipeau focuses exclusively on the Star Wars films in his psychoanalytic analysis, and his reading is interesting because while Galipeau claims to conduct a Jungian reading of the text, Freudian theory is occasionally still embedded within his subtext.

This incidental use of Freud is especially clear when Galipeau discusses the Oedipal complex and images in the films that evoke its superficial focus on the genitals. In his book, Galipeau interprets many of Luke’s most defining moments like dreams, including and especially the fantasy Luke has in a cave in The Empire Strikes Back, a scene I discuss at length in Part I. Much like Stein, Galipeau consciously attempts to separate Star Wars from Oedipus. Nevertheless, his reading falls into a traditionally Oedipal trap. For instance, in a flaccid critique of Freud’s reliance on Oedipus, Galipeau writes, “… there are many other father-son-mother paradigms in myth,” listing characters like Odysseus and his son, Telemachus, as well as Abraham and Isaac

(198). In this chapter, Galipeau discusses the gravitas behind the father/son sacrifice and how we do not need to Oedipalize this conflict without offering textually supported solutions to this psychoanalytic dilemma. He is, instead, unconsciously bound to the same rhetoric he consciously realizes he ought to reject.8 Galipeau’s Oedipal indoctrination is especially clear in his various analyses of Leia. Namely, Galipeau refers to Leia as Luke’s “anima, his inner sister…” the person whom he needs so that “his masculine identity can be formed” (203). Admittedly,

Galipeau does not explicitly refer to Leia as Luke’s maternal supplement, but his suggestion that he needs to know her, a woman, in order to fulfill his masculine potential, is Oedipal in and of itself. If we follow Galipeau’s logic as presented here, we are forced to infer that Leia only exists to remind Luke that he is a masculine man, bold and courageous enough to overthrow their

8 The basic conceit of Galipeau’s book is to reevaluate our use of myth in psychoanalysis, using Star Wars as his example. His goal is a noble one, though Oedipal indoctrination is made clear throughout the duration of the text. Additionally, Galipeau’s incorporation of non-Oedipal myths to explain psychological phenomena is independently intriguing. In my view, the problem is that he never addresses narcissism in a series that is a treatise on narcissism and its consequences. 10 wicked father and assume his place so as to protect her. Galipeau does not mention Oedipus directly in this passage on Leia as the anima. His suggestion that she is present primarily in order to teach Luke about his masculinity still indirectly follows that “Star Wars as Oedipus Rex” tradition that Ben Gibson suggested in 1981.

In the midst of scholars who conflate Star Wars and the Oedipal complex, however, are some marginally subversive scholars who question the legitimacy of Oedipal criticism in Star

Wars. These scholars include psychologists Sandra Hatters Friedman and Ryan C.W. Hall as well as Roger Kaufman. Similarly to Galipeau, Friedman and Hall employ classic myths and allusions to the Star Wars saga as a way to teach their students and analysands about various personality disorders—a list that, again, does not include narcissism. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the list considers the ways in which we can use Star Wars to explain the Oedipal complex, and they examine Luke’s story in order to make their point. Specifically, Friedman and Hall refer to another therapist, who successfully treated an Oedipal patient by making references to the relationship between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. They call attention to the realization of castration anxiety in The Empire Strikes Back when Vader cuts off Luke’s right hand (the hand in which he wields his penile lightsaber) and tells him that he is his father while also pointing out that Oedipus may not be the best myth with which to associate the Luke/Vader relationship.

Rather, Friedman and Hall posit the relationship between Zeus and his father, Kronos, as more accurately analogous to Luke and Vader. Both Zeus and Luke “knowingly [kill their] tyrannical

[fathers]” without marrying their mothers, and in both stories, “the child proves he is the better man and learns from his father’s mistakes rather than repeating them” (730). Through my lens of incestuous narcissism, this comparison is imperfect because it compares the plot of Zeus and

Kronos’s relationship to the plot of Luke and Vader’s without examining character personalities 11 or motivations. If this is the classical comparison we want to make, we have to acknowledge that both Zeus and Luke Skywalker are narcissistic heroes. Friedman and Hall ignore characterization, providing instead an overview of the various Oedipal layers the Star Wars films have to offer. Later in the same essay, in fact, they refer to Luke’s experience as “the Kronos

Oedipal complex,” clearly indicating that they are unwilling to relinquish the traditional Oedipal reading of Star Wars even after they discovered a more fitting myth to explain the relationship between Luke and Darth Vader (731).

Roger Kaufman, an LGBT psychologist based in Los Angeles, has written at volume on the Oedipal dynamics between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, chiefly arguing that the only way Luke can become a complete person is to acknowledge his erotic affection for his father

(“Roger Kaufman, LMFT”). Of Kaufman’s contributions to Star Wars scholarship, the piece that is most influential to this thesis is the essay, “How the Star Wars Saga Evokes the Creative

Promise of Homosexual Love: A Gay-Centered Psychological Perspective.” This essay draws attention to the homoeroticism inherent to the Oedipal complex in general and comments on the

Oedipal reversal between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Kaufman is interested in the idea that unlike in the traditional homoerotic Oedipal complex, Vader-the-Father attempts to seduce

Luke-the-Son to the dark side (149). Regardless of Friedman and Hall’s or Kaufman’s points that

Star Wars presents something slightly different than the traditional Oedipal complex, these arguments still exist within that Oedipal dichotomy. In this thesis, I seek to remove Star Wars from an incestuous or Oedipal conversation altogether and extract the narcissistic reading from the palatable metaphor of incest.

Gender Studies

Though it is difficult to discuss incest and the Oedipal complex without discussing gender, there is a glut of Star Wars scholarship that focuses exclusively on gender roles in the galaxy far, far away. These essays principally examine the saga’s scant number of female characters, such as Princess Leia and her biological mother, Padmé Amidala, and they ask themselves whether or not Leia or Padmé are progressive or regressive models of femininity, both in their fictional universe and in our understanding of popular culture and film. This common way of discussing Star Wars and gender is, much like the Oedipal criticism, reductive of the films’ narrative and psychological complexities. Typically, these essays lack the appropriate level of nuance, opting instead to declare, “thing bad” or “thing good” as it pertains to gender (especially femininity) in the Star Wars mythos. And perhaps no character and no scene in Star Wars is placed on this problematic tribunal more than Leia—in particular, Leia in the gold metal bikini in Return of the Jedi.

To summarize, the legend of Leia’s bikini begins in this way: The first act of Return of the Jedi focuses on Luke, Leia, and their friends as they attempt to rescue Han Solo from crime lord Jabba the Hutt. In the midst of the rescue, Jabba foils their plan and takes Leia captive as

(the audience assumes) his sex slave, dressing her up in a gold metal bikini and chaining her to his flesh. Eventually, the Rebels are able to escape Jabba’s clutches, only after Leia strangles him with the chain he used to bind her. Since this scene debuted in 1983, there are feminist Star Wars fans (not scholars) who are outraged by the bikini, as evidenced in November 2015, one month before the release of The Force Awakens, when Disney decided to “phase out” merchandise depicting Leia in the bikini (Jacobs par. 1). In general, these fans argue that the scene further 13 supports Laura Mulvey’s paradigm of the male gaze in cinema.9 Such fans, however, indirectly support the Oedipal reading of Star Wars, inadvertently diminish the character of Leia, and entirely misunderstand what constitutes (and, perhaps more importantly, does not constitute) the male gaze.

Academic critics, generally, are able to provide a slightly more nuanced reading of Leia’s character, especially in this act of Return of the Jedi—that is, at least these readings more accurately adhere to Mulvey’s paradigm. Arguably the most famous defense of Leia in the bikini comes from Diana Dominguez in her essay, “Feminism and the Force: Empowerment and

Disillusionment in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.” In her defense, Dominguez admits that when she first viewed the scene, she assumed it conformed directly to Mulvey’s theory of the male cinematic gaze (117). However, Dominguez actually argues that Leia, even as a sex slave in a skimpy bikini, manages to subvert the Mulveyian male gaze almost entirely. Specifically,

Dominguez writes, “although the scene is rife with titillation for the primarily male audience of the film, it can be read as a moment of great empowerment for the females in the audience”

(117). Dominguez recognizes that by breaking the chains that bind her, effectively freeing herself and her friends from their doom, Leia embodies the “victim-turned-victor” archetype, regardless of how she is dressed (117). Although Dominguez’s reading of the bikini scene is fairly complex and considers Leia as more than an object for Oedipal fantasies, the problem with this focus on the bikini is that it is tired. This tiredness, by extension, applies to most other

“problematic feminist” readings of Star Wars and gender as well. When critics repeatedly ask themselves, “Is Princess Leia a positive female role model? What about her mother, Padmé?” there is a finite sum of answers they can provide. Beyond the first few feminist analyses of Star

Wars characters (of which Dominguez is a part), viewing the films through a gendered lens is

9 See Mulvey’s famous 1975 essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” 14 repetitive.10 Even Dominguez’s reading, which addresses the complex and contradictory consequences of depicting Princess Leia, the only main female character in the original trilogy, in sexualized clothing, seemingly lacks nuance or originality when we consider how many virtual imitators this essay has had in the years since its publication. Thusly, while it is important for me to consider gender in a de-Oedipal reading of the original trilogy, especially when I argue that Luke and Leia confuse their narcissistic mirroring and competition for erotic attraction, these

“problematic feminist” readings of Star Wars are limiting and therefore provide very little to our understanding of the saga’s theoretical and cultural resonances.

Religious Studies

Though largely unrelated to this thesis, studying Star Wars through the lens of religious traditions and imagery is also exceptionally common. These pieces usually focus on the Christian elements of characters like Luke and Anakin Skywalker. Occasionally, scholars will address

Taoism, which, according to Chris Sunami, is “the most important source for the Jedi Way” (par.

3). Some entertainment journalists and filmmakers have even studied a small sect of people in the United States who claim “the Jedi” or “the Sith” as their official religion (McDonald).11

Arguably the most prominent scholar in religious readings of the text of Star Wars is John C.

Lyden. While Lyden acknowledges that Star Wars fans regard the films with dogmatic protection and devotion, he also examines the coding of Western religions (perhaps unsurprisingly, mostly Christianity) in the stories themselves. One of Lyden’s essays examines

Star Wars as an analog for apocalyptic determinism in late 1970s/early 1980s Christianity.

10 Some examples include Noah Berlatsky’s “The ‘slave Leia’ controversy is about more than objectification” (2015), Erika Travis’s “From Bikinis to Blasters: The Role of Gender in the Star Wars Community” (2013), and Mara Wood’s “Feminist Icons Wanted: Damsels in Distress Need Not Apply” (2016), all of which were published several years after Dominguez’s 2007 essay. 11 For more on the magnitude of practicing Star Wars as a literal religion, see Laurent Malaquais’s 2017 film, American Jedi. 15

Lyden reminds his reader that Star Wars and “the Christian Right (courted by [Ronald] Reagan),

Fundamentalism, and [the] apocalyptic” were on the rise in the United States in the same historical moment, and Star Wars may have appealed to this audience because of the films’

“triumphalist optimism and easy dualism” (48). Lyden’s observations on obvious moral codes in the Star Wars films are, albeit indirectly, connected to my overarching argument about the series, specifically the original trilogy. The moral message of Star Wars is superficially simple: Good triumphs over evil. But the simplicity of Star Wars, whether we discuss its depiction of clear morality or of arguable Oedipal relationships, is deceptive. The “easy dualism” in the films is only easy in the most reductive summary of the saga as an epic of good versus evil (48). In regard to morality, Star Wars ultimately questions the belief that people are either good or evil.

Most famously, Darth Vader, who spent the latter half of his life committing genocide and torturing members of the Rebel Alliance, including his own daughter, sacrifices his life for his son, illustrating to the audience that even the most wicked people can perform noble deeds.

People are complicated and contradictory, and Star Wars addresses moral contradiction within the deceptively simple rhetoric of “good versus evil.”

A similar case can be made for our understanding of Star Wars and the Oedipal complex.

As I mentioned earlier in this introduction, Star Wars scholars traditionally divide their Oedipal scholarship into two oppositional categories: Oedipal adherence and Oedipal subversion. The issue with stark contrasts in Star Wars is that the characters are more complex than what scholars assume based on their popular understanding of Star Wars. When we consider Star Wars as a complete narrative beyond the unfeeling moral dogma that Yoda preaches in The Empire Strikes

Back, we come to realize that in this series, dichotomies are erroneous. In fact, the goal of Star

Wars as a saga is to balance the light and dark sides of the Force, and the light and dark sides are 16 agonizingly obvious shorthand for good and evil.12 The simplicity and duality of Star Wars is deceptive, whether we examine its moral coding, illustrations of gender roles and expectations, or depictions of an alleged family romance. In other words, scholars who write about Star Wars need to consider the idea that ultimately, it is not a simple story with archetypal characters ripped directly from Joseph Campbell’s mythic playbook.13 Its characters, particularly the Skywalkers, are more psychologically complicated than this popular belief in Star Wars and dichotomy would have us believe. The Skywalkers are conflicted characters who continually question unambiguous thinking; suitably, their internal conflicts make them apt examples for my interrogation of Oedipal ubiquity in theory and film criticism, as the question is no longer whether or not Luke Skywalker is an Oedipal child or an Oedipal subversion. Instead, we must wonder if Oedipus ever permeated the text at all and how much of that Oedipal permeation is no more than a palatable metaphor for the ugliness of narcissism.

Fan Studies

It seems unfair to dismiss fan studies or reader-response theory when we study a text as popular as Star Wars; however, because reader-response is inherently subjective, it can be difficult to reach any definitive argument in a single piece of scholarship. Additionally, because popularity waxes and wanes so rapidly, it is possible that once scholars publish their work on audience response to a popular text, the audience has lost interest in that text or a once-popular way of reading it or participating in it. Even Star Wars, a text that has never faded from the

12 Although this thesis concentrates on the original trilogy, and the idea of bringing balance to the Force is not explicitly addressed in any of the films until Star Wars: The Phantom Menace in 1999, Luke’s continual temptation toward the dark side and his ultimately controversial decision to forgive Darth Vader, all while being revered as the galaxy’s ultimate hero, suggests that the notion of moral balance has always been a conversation in Star Wars. 13 I cannot rightly compose a thesis on Star Wars without briefly acknowledging the fact that George Lucas was inspired by Joseph Campbell’s 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which delineates Campbell’s theory of the monomyth and story structure. Nonetheless, because this thesis is more concerned with interrogating the Oedipal complex by developing a theory of incestuous narcissism than with the history of myth or quest literature, I do not engage with Campbell’s structure in my work. 17 cultural consciousness in the forty-two years since its debut, sees its fans change their general opinions of the films as time passes. In essence, fan studies is a field that must rely too heavily on trends and cultural epochs, making it seem nearly impossible for any fan analysis to retain relevance in relationship to the text.

For instance, consider Mark McDermott’s essay, “The Menace of the Fans to the

Franchise,” which examines fan reactions to the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005) with special emphasis on The Phantom Menace. This piece carries some nostalgic value since its intended audience likely remembers the upset surrounding the prequels, and in its defense, it provides thorough, albeit non-revolutionary, commentary on auteur theory and the death of the author.14 McDermott questions the right of the director to revise a beloved film and remarks on fans who believe that if George Lucas can retroactively alter his work, then they are entitled to alter the same work by producing parodies and edited versions of the existing films. In particular,

McDermott discusses the impact of 2001’s “The Phantom Edit,” which trimmed appearances of the reviled Jar Jar Binks and much of nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker’s clunky dialogue (254).

With regard to Star Wars and fan parody, McDermott references the 1998 fan film, Troops, which “[followed] the mundane routine of the Imperial Stormtroopers on Tatooine as they investigated a report of two stolen droids,” rehashing the exact plot of A New Hope from a different perspective (249). McDermott’s commentary on the obsessive investment in the Star

Wars fandom provides a thorough explanation of the kinds of content created in the late 1990s and early 2000s. For scholars in 2019, who will see the conclusion of the Skywalker saga in

December, his examples are noticeably dated. Regardless of McDermott’s overarching argument that it is problematic for such fans to break into the entertainment industry by riding Star Wars’

14 For more on the ownership of texts see, of course, Roland Barthes’s landmark essay, “The Death of the Author” (1967). Additionally, for the genesis of the three-pronged auteur theory in film studies, see Andrew Sarris’s “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962.” 18 coattails, his examples of fan-made media have not aged well. This is clearly not McDermott’s fault, given the unpredictably fast-paced nature of online fan communities. Instead, his essay exemplifies why “fan studies” is usually too fickle a subgenre of popular culture and film studies.

What Star Wars and Psychoanalysis Mean to Each Other

Ironically, my consideration of fan studies is an ideal segue into why Star Wars and psychoanalysis need one another. Earlier in this introduction, I mentioned that one of the most significant reasons I chose Star Wars to illustrate my theory of incestuous narcissism is because of the nostalgic and cultural value attached to it. If I had chosen a marginally less popular text, even Game of Thrones, the universality of this de-Oedipalization theory would not resonate.

Both Star Wars and the Oedipal complex are indelible in our cultural consciousness and, as both theater and therapy attendees can attest, our attachments to both appear never-ending. A text like

Game of Thrones may be a mainstream critical darling in the contemporary moment. Regardless of other texts’ current popularity or relevance, it seems unlikely that any text, especially in the epic genre, could rival the indelibility of Star Wars. Accordingly, this idea of incestuous narcissism and debunking the Oedipal complex could be easily forgotten if paired with a different story.15

Yet, as aforementioned, that indelibility has translated itself into oversimplification. Star

Wars is not a story where the heroes always make noble choices and find an uncomplicated way to triumph over their wicked counterparts. I consider the apparently controversial Star Wars: The

15 Of the eight currently released films in the Skywalker saga, two (A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back) are featured in the Complete National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. While a number of genre and franchise films, such as Jurassic Park and Blade Runner, are also featured in the registry, Star Wars is the only film franchise represented with more than one installment. Its impact on American culture and storytelling is essentially unparalleled; much like the effect the Oedipal complex has had on modern psychoanalysis (“Complete National Film Registry Listing”). 19

Last Jedi (2017) to be a treatise on narcissism, as it depicts Luke Skywalker, now an old man, who has renounced the Jedi Order because he regrets his narcissistic attempts (or, as he aptly phrases it, his hubris) to train and later kill his nephew, Kylo Ren. By extension, the audience can also assume that Luke regrets his decision to forgive Vader in his youth, evidenced by this exchange with his hopeful new student, Rey:

Luke: At the height of [the Jedi’s] powers, they allowed Darth Sidious16 to rise, create the

Empire, and wipe them out. It was a Jedi Master who responsible for the training and

creation of Darth Vader.

Rey: And a Jedi who saved him. Yes, the most hated man in the galaxy, but you saw

there was conflict inside him. You believed that he wasn’t gone, that he could be turned.

Luke: And I became a legend (59:27-59:52).17

While Luke spends the majority of this film contemplating and criticizing the mistakes he made in his youth, no other scene encompasses his narcissistic regret more than this scene, likely because it is the only moment in the film when Luke explicitly mentions his father. Luke and

Vader’s relationship has always been the saga’s linchpin; every film in the franchise either directly or indirectly contributes to their father-and-son connection.18 What is especially interesting about this conversation in The Last Jedi, however, is that Luke, who referred to Vader strictly as Father in Return of the Jedi, now refers to the same man as Darth Vader. His

16 Darth Sidious is the name Emperor Palpatine takes when he becomes a Sith lord. As the Star Wars films do very little to distinguish the Sidious personality from that of Palpatine, I refer to the character as “Emperor Palpatine” in the remainder of this thesis. 17 Luke’s tone of voice is lost on paper, but it is noteworthy. He speaks with an inkling of sarcasm; a blunt contrast from his behavior in the original trilogy, in which becoming a legend was his nearly always his foremost desire. Luke’s regret illustrates that after decades of narcissistic heroes, narcissism is on trial in the Star Wars mythos. 18 Though Lucas did not initially intend for Vader to be Luke’s father, the audience senses some sort of connection between them in A New Hope. The prequel trilogy builds toward Anakin becoming Vader and Luke’s birth, and their common lightsaber returns in The Force Awakens. Even the anthology films, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Solo: A Star Wars Story find a way to reference the impending family story. Rogue One delivers the Death Star Plans to Leia, which eventually leads Luke her way, and Han travels to Luke’s home planet, Tatooine, in the last scene of Solo. 20 resurrection of his father’s Sith moniker suggests that Luke, disillusioned by his nephew’s obsessive worship of Vader’s cruelty that he once saw fit to forgive, wishes to distance himself from the father he tried to save. From here, the question is simple: If Vader’s redemption in

Return of the Jedi was nothing more than an act of love on Luke’s behalf, why has he taken extreme lengths to prove he rues the day it happened?

When Luke refers to his father as Darth Vader after addressing him as Father in the entirety of Return of the Jedi (and the last moments of The Empire Strikes Back), he acknowledges that he never knew his ideal father and that Obi-Wan Kenobi was correct: “He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man that was [Luke’s] father was destroyed” (46:14-46:22). It is not precisely Vader’s fault that the

First Order19 took root in the galaxy, but Luke is somewhat culpable in the creation of the First

Order. His nephew is now the leader of the First Order, and his desire to depart from Luke and the Jedi Order may not have been possible if, years earlier, Luke had opted to kill Vader rather than pardon him. Though Luke has no children of his own, Kylo Ren is the offspring of his youthful narcissism. Luke did not forgive Vader because it was the morally upstanding choice.

He forgave Vader because he wanted to become a hero and turn his father into an idealized version of himself. Similarly, Luke did not attempt murder on Kylo Ren because he was worried about the fate of the galaxy; instead, he freely admits, “He… would bring destruction, pain, and death, and the end of everything I love because of what he would become, and for the briefest moment of pure instinct, I thought I could stop it” (1:19:07-1:19:15). From here, an interesting pattern emerges. Two of Luke’s most severe decisions (to forgive his father and to consider murdering his nephew) are ostensibly concerned with his family, though at his core, he makes

19 The fall of the Empire inspired the creation of the First Order, or the villains of the sequel trilogy, a fascist system that efforts to emulate the destruction committed by the Empire (e.g. Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens, which was a larger version of the Death Star in A New Hope). 21 these decisions to narcissistically indulge himself. Family romance and narcissism are not on separate trials in this thesis. They are inseparable.

With this prolix discussion of The Last Jedi as a frame, I can more clearly answer why

Star Wars and psychoanalysis are so important for one another: As theorists and critics, we need to change the way we interpret family stories in literature and film, and because of its cultural significance and continual reliance on the theme of family, Star Wars is the superlative text to convey my theory of de-Oedipalization. Star Wars’ audience clings to the Oedipal myth, evinced by the glut of Oedipal scholarship as well as the public outcry when Rey, the protagonist of the sequel films, was revealed not to be a member of the Skywalker family. The idea that this familial line and, consequently, the audience’s dependence on Oedipus, may come to an end, enrages even casual viewers. Their absorption of Star Wars and Oedipal rhetoric has gone on for long enough that they have learned to love it. This thesis seeks to efface that love by suggesting that incest and the Oedipal complex were never truly in the text. We superimposed them onto the story because incestuous relationships were more palatable than narcissistic heroes.

If we adhere to Freud’s theories on the Oedipal, it becomes increasingly clear that Luke

Skywalker was never an Oedipal child. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud proposes the concept of the Oedipal complex by first summarizing Sophocles’ play, Oedipus Rex, and draws attention to the idea that the incestuous resonance was the same in 1899 as it was in Ancient

Greece (86). According to Freud, we are compelled toward Oedipus because he, in killing his father and marrying his mother, represents “the fulfillment of the wish of our childhood” (86-87).

Freud contends that as children, we all experience sexual attraction toward our mothers and jealousy toward our fathers. It is precisely his establishment of the triangle that causes Oedipal readings of Star Wars to fall flat. Luke Skywalker cannot be an Oedipal child because he never 22 had a mother and a father, or (as I elaborate upon in Part I) surrogates for a mother and a father.20

Freud complicates the theory of the Oedipal complex in “Medusa’s Head,” in which he attempts to explain castration anxiety, a crucial component to Oedipal disavowal. Again, Freud alludes to

Greek mythology, this time describing the gorgon Medusa’s head as “a representation of the female genitals,” while her hair of snakes “[mitigates] the horror, for they replace the penis, the absence of which is the cause of the horror” (212-213). Superficially, Oedipal disavowal and castration anxiety appear to align more closely with Luke’s character trajectory in the original trilogy, as he loses his lightsaber-wielding hand to Vader in The Empire Strikes Back only to mutilate his father in the same way in Return of the Jedi. More importantly, Leia, the closest thing Luke ever has to a maternal supplement, is at the core of both instances of castration. Yet,

Luke cannot experience Oedipal disavowal and castration anxiety because he was never close enough to a woman; consequently, he was never in the position to understand the threat of castration anxiety. When Vader slices off his right hand, Luke is not unconsciously thinking that if he had better protected Leia, he would not have lost a limb. Instead, when Vader slices off

Luke’s right hand, he is only thinking about how much it hurts and how he will manage to escape.

In my view, Star Wars, as a complete narrative (perhaps especially the original trilogy, as forbidden romance is a significant plotline in the prequel films) is non-genital and almost repulsed by sex. Lucy Place’s excellent essay, “George Lucas and Freud’s Anal Stage

Manifestation of Excretory and Vaginal Fear in THX 113821 and Star Wars,” details the films’ apparent disgust with expressive emotions and sexual characteristics. Place examines the scenes

20 For that matter, Anakin Skywalker cannot be an Oedipal child, either. According to his mother, Shmi Skywalker, in The Phantom Menace, “There was no father... I carried him, I gave him birth” (47:23). Anakin was raised without a father or a paternal supplement. Resultantly, that lack of traditional reproduction exempts him from paternal power structures altogether. 21 THX 1138 was George Lucas’s first film, a science-fiction story that can also be read through a narcissistic lens. 23 in A New Hope in which Grand Moff Tarkin destroys Leia’s home planet of Alderaan and the scene in which Luke discovers that Stormtroopers have killed his aunt and uncle. She focuses on the fact that Leia’s scene “immediately cuts away from [her] anguish” and Luke “wastes little time before moving on with Obi-Wan” (110). Place’s skillful analysis reminds the audience that because the films do not allow space for extreme emotional reactions, then there is no jouissance in Star Wars. Furthermore, Place acknowledges the films’ treatment of vaginal symbols by arguing that Star Wars draws virtually no distinction between the vagina and the bowels. For example, she describes Jabba the Hutt’s body as “a pile of excrement that endlessly consumes and imposes control on others without even moving from his pedestal,” and remarks, “It is fitting that one can only reach his home by traveling through a vagina-like cave” (111). On the rare occasion sex is acknowledged in the original Star Wars trilogy, it is paired with images of disgust and waste. Luke does not experience horror and the fear of castration when he encounters vaginal symbols. These are images of refuse and uselessness, not desire and power. To be an

Oedipal child, one must have some fearful fascination with the vagina and with castration. For

Luke, the vagina is scatological, not frighteningly fascinating. Without effective allusions to sex—those that do not equate sex with joyless garbage—it becomes increasingly challenging to make a case for an Oedipal Luke Skywalker or an Oedipal Star Wars.

From here, we must ask ourselves where to go from Oedipal and incestuous assumptions in Star Wars, and in this thesis, I consider the connection between common incestuous readings of the films versus reading the films through the lens of narcissism. Freud is likely the first psychoanalyst to incorporate narcissism as a concept into his work in his 1914 essay, “On

Narcissism: An Introduction.” Freud contends, “We say that a human being has originally two 24 sexual objects—himself and the woman who nurses him22—and in doing so we are postulating a primary narcissism in everyone” (88). Here, incest and narcissism are clearly connected, as the child’s supposed sexual interest in the mother is what influences his narcissistic development. On the one hand, this narcissistically incestuous connection is logical. The mother expresses seemingly exclusive interest in the child’s body through food, waste, and touch, which encourages the child to inflate his own importance. Moreover, the child transfers his interest in himself onto his mother, the person he believes to be most similar to himself based on their shared interest in him. He accepts his supposed Oedipal fate (as Sophocles and Freud imply that we cannot escape the Oedipal tragedy) because incestuous preoccupation is more palatable and easier to understand than a confrontation with narcissism. Though this belief in Oedipal inevitability has only grown strong since Freud, people almost certainly revered Oedipus before, as the play itself tells the story of “a tragedy of fate” (Freud 85). This phrase is interesting, as it only ostensibly defends Freud’s theory of the universal Oedipal complex. Per the Oxford English

Dictionary, the word fate is defined as “[the] principle, power, or agency by which, according to certain philosophical and popular systems of belief… some events… are unalterably predetermined from eternity” (s.v. “fate”). According to this definition, the Oedipal complex appears unavoidable because it dismisses a more important word in the definition: belief. The word belief can be defined as the “[acceptance] that a statement, supposed fact, etc., is true… an opinion, a persuasion” (s.v. “belief”). In other words, the belief that we are fated to be Oedipal children is a choice. The Oedipal complex is a belief, not a factual destiny, and our opportunity to reject it is equal to our opportunity to immerse ourselves in it. Yet, we choose to be Oedipal or to disavow Oedipus—which is basically identical to being Oedipal—because we can blame the

22 Perhaps Freud does not consistently agree with the strict maternal laws of his own Oedipal complex. Because he refers to the woman who nurses the child and not precisely the child’s mother, Freud indicates, regardless of his cognizance, that Oedipus is not the universal model of sexuality he argues for in The Interpretation of Dreams. 25

Oedipal complex on an external party. We can blame our Oedipal feelings on the mother who loved us “too much.” It is more difficult to blame narcissism on others because narcissism is individual and expertly hides itself from the narcissist, who wants to perceive himself as flawless. We cannot accept narcissism as our flaw, so we allow our narcissistic expectations to dictate our often aggressive and competitive relationships with others.

Lacan, in particular, discusses narcissism as an interpersonal and competitive concept, which is, in turn, related to seemingly incestuous relationships. In Seminar I: Freud’s Papers on

Technique, Lacan agrees with Freud’s assertion that there is some distinction between

“egotistical libido and sexual libido,” which he calls the two narcissisms (114). The egotistical libido represents the shift from primary to secondary narcissism, as the child’s awareness of the mirror splits him into two halves: “the specular I and the social I” (98, italics in the original).

This awareness of the mirror and of observation creates a competitive relationship between people, and that competitive jealousy and aggression is so intense that it feels sexual despite the fact that it is egotistical—what Lacan calls “‘narcissistic passion’” (94). Essentially, then, we form relationships not for the sake of knowing another, but rather, for the sake of recognizing we are not other, a preoccupation that may become so narcissistic it is confused for libidinous attraction. Therein, however, is the contradiction. Lacan uses the libido as a metaphor for narcissism because we are apparently incapable of understanding something non-sexual without a sexualized component. Admittedly, because sex is a fairly universal phenomenon, I can forgive

Lacan’s dependence on the term libido to describe narcissistic competition and aggression.

Nonetheless, this metaphoric conflation of libido and narcissism has corrupted the way we read fiction and film, almost reaching the point where libido effaces narcissism. We need to regard 26 the relationship between libido and narcissism as a simile: two concepts with strong similarities who stand apart from one another at a reasonable distance.

Of course, I am not first scholar to acknowledge that narcissism and the Oedipal complex are linked. Their connection is biologically obvious, as incest is (as I have noted in this introduction), a sexualized obsession of one’s external self. In a similar vein, the Oedipal complex between a parent and a child is symbolic of a dominant/submissive relationship, as the parent is always older and consequently more powerful than the child. Finally, parenting— regardless of incestuous attraction—is inherently narcissistic because parents can use children as an excuse to transform their external DNA into a facsimile or an improvement upon themselves.

This dynamic is one that some Star Wars scholars, namely Roger Kaufman, assume Luke and

Darth Vader share, as Vader’s goal in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi is to convince Luke to renounce the Jedi Order and become his Sith apprentice. Since Vader’s goal fails before he can manage to take any significant action toward it, however, this case loses much of its credibility. Additionally, in “Aggressiveness and Psychoanalysis,” Lacan explains that narcissistic aggression is caused by the “sublimation” of the “secondary identification by introjection of the imago of the parent of the same sex” (95, italics in the original). Children adopt the characteristics of the parent with whom they compete while holding the narcissistic belief that they are the superior version of that parent, establishing a (perhaps unconscious) narcissistic attraction to their alleged rival. On a smaller scale, Sanja Borovečki-Jakovljev and

Stanislav Matačtić analyze “the meaning of Oedipus’ self-blindness,” arguing that it does not represent castration, ensuring instead that he will “avoid narcissistic hurts and the accompanying shame” (358). If Oedipus has no understanding of the mirror and the competition, then he is incapable of making further narcissistic decisions. 27

There is, however, a difference between acknowledging that the Oedipal complex is a narcissistic issue and the critique of the Oedipal complex I offer in this thesis, which is that while other scholars seem to agree with Freud that we cannot avoid Oedipus, I argue that the Oedipal complex is, at its most basic essence, a choice. The Oedipal complex is an ostentatious play, disguising the issue of narcissism. After all, it is easier to love mother’s mutton stew than it is to admit that we love ourselves more than mother. If our objet petit a is someone or something outside of ourselves, then we give ourselves the illusion of loving another more than the self.

Though, if we accept what Lacan says about love (We love the thing our partner lacks.), then we must also accept that what our partner lacks is us. We are our own objet petit a, which is especially clear in ostensibly Oedipal relationships. Once we acknowledge that we feel we are incestuous because we are truly narcissistic, and not the reverse, we can resolve the ubiquity and controversy of the Oedipal complex in psychoanalysis and literature.

Part Summaries

As opposed to traditional chapters, this thesis is divided into two parts, mimetic of the

Lacanian mirror, which is an integral symbol in the remainder of my study. Part I describes the incestuously narcissistic relationship between Luke and his father, Darth Vader, while Part II focuses on a similar dynamic between Luke and his twin sister, Princess Leia Organa.

In Part I, “I Am Son-Father: Luke, Darth Vader, and the Narcissistic ‘Name-of-the-Son,’”

I trace the relationship between Luke and Vader through Lacan’s concept, the “Name-of-the-

Father.” Here, I argue that Luke’s superficially Oedipal desire to become a Jedi like his father (a line that he reiterates, in some fashion, at some point in each of the original films) is a screen for his narcissistic desire to turn his father into himself. He is initially obsessed with understanding his ideal father and appropriately filling the legacy he supposedly left behind, and while this 28 obsession is often interpreted as Oedipal anxiety or incestuous desire, Luke’s horror to discover that his father is his “enemy” is more representative of his narcissism than an erotic desire for

Vader. During this portion of the study, I provide a traditionally Oedipal reading of Luke and

Vader’s relationship by placing Leia in the role of the maternal supplement, Vader in the role of the sexually jealous father, and Luke in the role of the child who must restore phallic power to the mother/maternal supplement. Additionally, I supply a homoerotic Oedipal reading of the relationship, this time placing Leia as a mediator between Luke and Vader’s eroticized desire for each other, not for her. The bulk of my original reading, however, is primarily concerned with two scenes: Luke’s confrontation with an imaginary Vader in The Empire Strikes Back and his final battle with Vader in Return of the Jedi. Ultimately, I maintain that when Luke discovers that he and Vader are related, and therefore, Luke may carry his father’s capacity for wickedness, he panics and narcissistically decides to “save” Vader so that he can save himself from becoming anything other than a hero and a legend. Vader was not the idealized father about whom Luke fantasized on Tatooine, but in his quest to find that father, Luke effectually became him, and now, he sees it his responsibility to subjugate Vader to his narcissistic heroism.

Part II, “I Have Myself Seen: Luke, Princess Leia, and the Narcissistic Mirror,” concentrates on the more obviously “incestuous” relationship between Luke and Leia, which I primarily read through Lacan’s “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious.” Luke and Leia, much like Lacan’s allegorical brother and sister characters in this essay, rely on the signs and signifieds of gender and sexuality to determine their identities and respective relationships to one another; thus, before they learned they were siblings, Luke and Leia knew it seemed logical to develop a romantic relationship between them. I argue, however, that their awareness of their twinship is irrelevant, as they never felt true romantic attraction for one another. Their 29 assumptions that they should feel attracted to each other were a disguise for their narcissistic mirroring and competition—in essence, I love mutton stew, not the butcher’s wife. When Luke first gazes on Leia as a hologram in A New Hope, he is not attracted to her body. He is attracted to the adventure she possesses and that he lacks. His desire was for Leia’s world, not her embrace. I also investigate the infamous kiss between the twins in The Empire Strikes Back, and

I argue that because Leia understands that she and Luke are extremely similar (similar enough to be siblings without even knowing the truth), he is her most practical choice to evoke jealousy in her true love interest, Han Solo. Luke and Leia understand that their similarities outwardly translate into romantic potential. Yet, overall, they use each other for competitive measurement and gain. As twins, Luke and Leia are external versions of themselves with whom they can actively compete, and the screen of Oedipal desire between them prevents them from fully recognizing their narcissistic dialogue. In this portion of Part II, I conduct an excruciatingly close reading of the scene in Return of the Jedi in which Luke tells Leia that they are twins. The mirror imagery and competition between Luke and Leia is clearest in this scene than almost any other in the Star Wars films,23 and it is fitting that it is the last exchange they share in the original trilogy.

My final note in this introduction is the following: I want to refer back to my epigraph, which simply reads, “This will begin to make things right” (2:55). It is the first line in The Force

Awakens spoken by an expendable character, Lor San Tekka, and because the character matters so little to the plot, it is simple to assume that the line is also disposable. Yet, this line is important to both the conclusion of the Skywalker saga and the remainder of this thesis. I have already written about The Last Jedi (the immediate sequel to The Force Awakens) as a treatise on the Skywalker family narcissism. In a way, the line foreshadows Luke’s acknowledgment of a

23 Presumably, the last scene Luke and Leia will ever share in the Skywalker saga occurs in the last moments of The Last Jedi. During this scene, that mirror imagery, which I discuss in greater detail in Part II, is present again, though not as prevalently as in Return of the Jedi. 30 narcissistic past and how it may have indirectly catalyzed the First Order’s reign.24 Similarly, I hope that this thesis, as a critique of narcissism, incest theory, and our overreliance on the

Oedipal complex in literary and cultural studies, begins to make things right.

24 After all, in this scene, Lor San Tekka hands Poe Dameron, one of the sequel trilogy’s lead characters, a piece of the map to Luke Skywalker. It is Luke and his admission of his mistakes in The Last Jedi that have begun to make things right in this fictional universe. 31

PART I. “I AM SON-FATHER:”25 LUKE, DARTH VADER, AND THE NARCISSISTIC

“NAME-OF-THE-SON”

Vader is decapitated… [the] metallic banging of the helmet fills the cave as Vader’s head spins and bounces, smashes on the floor, and finally stops… The black helmet and breath mask fall away to reveal… Luke’s head.

- Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett, The Empire Strikes Back

With their stringent adherence to the monomyth and rabid infiltration into Western popular culture, the Star Wars films, on their surface, are not particularly difficult for the average filmgoer to follow. The scenes do not usually require a great deal of rewinding and pausing to contemplate the metaphorical significance of a specific word or glance between characters unless one decides to compose a master’s thesis on the role of the incestuously narcissistic gaze in the saga. Apart from the hammy dialogue in the original trilogy, overcomplicated political jargon in the prequels, and the irritatingly unanswered questions in the sequel films, I estimate that the average viewer is rarely nonplussed by the basic narrative beats of the Skywalker saga.

There is, however, one scene, which occurs midway through The Empire Strikes Back and is the scene that made this thesis possible. It is so seemingly bizarre and confounding that when I screened it as part of a “Summary vs. Analysis” activity in an introductory composition course, a student raised her hand and asked, “What if we have no idea what just happened?” I

25 This title refers to a song by Georgius, “Je suis un fils-père.” Yves Lugrin points out that it colloquially translates to “I Am an Unmarried Father,” but Jacques Lacan uses the denotative translation “‘I am son-father’” to discuss transference (Lurgin 30, Lacan 159). Here, I invoke the reference to emphasize the blending of Luke and Darth Vader’s narcissistic characters and the phrase’s hierarchal and almost chronological binary. The son is first. He is the dominant term. 32 speak, as my epigraph indicates, of the infamous scene in the cave, which occurs in the midst of

Luke’s Jedi training with Yoda on the planet Dagobah.

Although my epigraph already reveals its climax, I will provide a brief summary of this scene. During his training, Luke notices a cave and is immediately compelled toward it; especially after Yoda claims that this cave is “[a] domain of evil” (1:02:57). When Luke asks what he may find inside this cave, Yoda replies, “Only what you take with you,” which immediately cautions Luke, regardless of whether he recognizes it, that he is about to witness a physical manifestation of his unconscious desire (1:03:11). Apparently, that desire is a phallic lightsaber duel with his father. Luke and this imaginary Darth Vader deal a few blows at one another until eventually, Luke decapitates Vader, watches his helmet split open, only for Luke to see that his head is under the mask—to see that his head may have always been under the mask.

Luke stares at the mask in abject horror, and no one ever speaks of this moment again. It is left on its own, independently eerie and perplexing in comparison to the majority of straightforward scenes in the saga.

There is a superficial understanding of this scene,26 particularly within a culture where

Luke Skywalker’s paternity is probably common knowledge. In terms of the film’s narrative order, the scene foreshadows Vader’s admission of paternity, and it feels absurd because the initial audience had no preconceived notion of Luke and Vader’s relationship apart from the archetypal struggle between a hero and a villain. This glib observation carries at least some

26 Perhaps the most extensive and traditional interpretation of this scene can be found in Steven A. Galipeau’s 2001 book, The Journey of Luke Skywalker: An Analysis of Modern Myth and Symbol. Galipeau examines the entirety of the original Star Wars trilogy through the lens of Jungian psychoanalysis. Still, even his Jungian interpretation of this scene is imbued with Freudian elements. For example, Galipeau describes the cave as a “psychological chamber of initiation” (126). Although he does not explicitly reference the vagina here, initiation implies a birth (or, in Luke’s case, a rebirth), and Luke uses a penile weapon to battle his father for space inside the vaginal cave. Admittedly, Galipeau acknowledges that when Luke sees his own head in his enemy’s helmet, he recognizes that “he, too, could be lured to misuse the power of the Force” (126). Yet, the brevity of this remark is reductive of the effect this scene has on Luke’s narcissistic character, both before and after the fantasy occurs. 33 technical merit, but it does not explain why the post-1980 Star Wars scholar may still be unsettled by the content. Yet, the goal of this thesis is to try to answer that disquieting question and others like it, and I argue that the primary reason this scene is off-putting is because it is the first suggestion of incestuous longing and narcissistic tension between the “heroic” Luke and

“villainous” Vader. Simultaneously, it is the first suggestion of my overarching argument that

Luke Skywalker is a deeply narcissistic character as well as my specific argument in this part: that although the incestuous suggestions between Luke and Vader in the original trilogy can be read through Jacques Lacan’s “Name-of-the-Father” concept and successively indicate Luke’s

Oedipal desire to become precisely like his father, these suggestions are merely metaphors representing Luke’s narcissistic wish to convert his father into a replica of himself.

Though the scene in the cave is my framing device for Part I, I cannot yet provide my analysis of it and explain why it is so important to the incestuous narcissism in the films. In order to understand the incestuously narcissistic resonance of this scene, I have to go further back: to wistful farmboy Luke Skywalker in A New Hope, his ill-informed desire to emulate a father he has never known, and the Freudian/Lacanian assumptions previous scholars have made about the

Star Wars saga and, in particular, the character of Luke.

As noted in my introduction, an obvious yet piecemeal reading of Luke’s character is through the lens of Lacan’s concept, “the Name-of-the-Father.” When I initially undertook this project in August 2017, I identified Luke as the exemplar for this concept, and I contend that

Lacan’s theories are superficially analogous with Luke’s experience until a very specific filmic volta: the scene in the cave. In order to explain how Luke deviates from the concept he is so frequently attached to, I want to review Lacan’s theories on the father and the Oedipal complex and the ostensive ways in which these concepts are applicable to Luke’s character trajectory. 34

Evidently, Lacan’s concept is born from Freud’s theory of the Oedipal complex. While

Freud thinks of Oedipal disavowal in terms of the biological penis, Lacan instead asserts the notion of the phallus, an intangible object with which, in their earliest years, children of “both sexes consider the mother be endowed” (576). Eventually, when children realize that the mother is presumably castrated, they realize that the father has the phallus, hence the common conflation of phallus and penis. Neither the father nor the penis is the phallus. Nevertheless, because the father possesses the penis and the mother’s love, children want to assume his place. Their understanding of the phallus changes between the maternal and the paternal, ultimately believing that “the mother’s desire is for the phallus [so] the child wants to be the phallus in order to satisfy her desire” (582). According to Lacan in Seminar III: The Psychoses, the father has

“rightful possession of the mother,” which is why he is essential to the development of the

Oedipal complex in children, especially (at least in the discussion of Lacan and Star Wars) young boys (204). At this point, it is important to note that when Lacan invokes the term father, he does not refer exclusively to biology. Instead, Lacan uses father27 to describe the “order that prevents the collision and explosion” that would result from an incestuous union between mother and child (96). In French, the “Name-of-the-Father” translates to “Nom-du-Père,” which bears a strong phonetic resemblance to “Non-du-Père,” or the no of the father. This prohibition and paternal interference is what makes the Oedipal complex a triangular dialectic rather than a simple relationship between mother and child. Lacan writes, “The father has no function in the trio, except to represent the vehicle, the holder, of the phallus” (319). The child does not particularly care who the father is or what relationship he shares with the mother. He only cares that the father possesses the phallus he wants to present to his mother. In his desire to become the

27 In the remainder of this thesis, I will use the term father to conflate Darth Vader’s purely biological and symbolic significances. Vader is simultaneously and congruently an individual character as well as a synecdoche for the paternal symbolic order. 35 phallus and restore that power to his mother, the child must determine how to supplant the father in his mother’s life. The ultimate goal, then, would be to accomplish what Oedipus does in his eponymous myth—kill the father and marry the mother.

A more metaphorical interpretation of the myth and the Freudian theory (one that involves little-to-no bloodshed or commitment of incest) is that it becomes the child’s fantasy, fixation, and duty to replace his father through mimesis. That is, he will assume the characteristics in his father that he likes best—or that he perceives his mother may like best—so that he may become another version of the father to attract the mother. This obsession with knowing the father closely enough to effectually replace him then raises an additional and important question: In what way does this resulting obsession with the father signify homosexual desire in the relationship between father and son?

Though popular psychology stresses the relationship between mother and son in its discussion of the Oedipal complex, Lacan reminds us that we cannot dismiss the father’s role, as it indicates homosexual incestuous desire as well. He notes that homosexual desire “is an essential component of the Oedipal drama” because the boy fears that he will lose his penis to his father (196). While the result of the anxiety is that the boy will have no penis or phallus to present to his mother, there is a homoerotic underpinning to the complex’s midpoint: The father will have to touch the boy’s penis in order to eliminate it. The act that is meant to prevent incest is ironically coded incestuous, and without some sort of homosexual preoccupation, the Oedipal drama is incomplete. Lacan furthers his discussion of homosexual desire in the father-son bond by reiterating Freud. Specifically, Freud and Lacan agree that almost immediately as the boy realizes, “I love him, a man,” he creates a defense against his homosexual desire (311, italics in the original). Rather than admitting that he loves the other man, he convinces himself that he 36 hates him. That defense is born of narcissistic transference because the boy is anxious that his father will hate him, so he denies his desire by pretending that it does not exist. The Oedipal complex hinges on the homoerotic undercurrent of the castration complex and the ensuing denial of that desire. Additionally, Lacan notes that for Freud, the defense against homosexual desire

“begins with a narcissism under threat” (312). In order to become the perfect love object for his father, the boy would have to subjugate himself to another man. He would have to surrender his phallic power to procreate, which is, according to Freudian/Lacanian psychoanalysis, a fatal wound to male narcissism. Throughout the text of the original Star Wars films, both of these

Lacanian points (the “Name-of-the-Father” and the homoerotic Oedipal drama) are addressed through Luke’s character trajectory. At this point, I will illustrate the scenes in which Luke is the

Lacanian exemplar for these ideas, and though I do not entirely disagree with any of these interpretations, I argue that they are incomplete interpretations. In other words, they scratch

Luke’s narcissistic surface without admitting it is narcissism they are scratching.

“Name” and “No” of the Father

Superficially, Luke’s character is defined by the “Name-of-the-Father” (and, in some cases, the “No-of-the-Father”), which I concede is textually accurate until the cave scene in The

Empire Strikes Back.28 From almost the moment he appears in A New Hope, Luke is obsessed with learning about his ostensibly deceased father. I trace Luke’s character journey through one line he speaks in A New Hope and reiterates at least once in The Empire Strikes Back and Return

28 I do not, however, argue that Luke quite recognizes the change in his motivation immediately following that vision. He, like many Star Wars scholars, is confused by what he sees in the cave. Here, I want to look at two scholarly interpretations of the scene: one by Steven A. Galipeau and the other by Roger Kaufman. Galipeau reads the scene as Luke’s realization that he must learn to “[gain] control over destructive impulses that are acted out in the body” (126). Roger Kaufman argues that Galipeau’s reading is a “homophobic lacuna” (134). He instead interprets the scene as a homosexual reversal of the Oedipal complex where boys fall in love with their fathers, and their fathers “cruelly reject” them, although Kaufman acknowledges the subversion that Vader is trying to seduce Luke into joining him (149). There is no definitive interpretation of this scene in the scholarship or in the films themselves. With respect to the varying scholarship and the character’s own confusion, my traditional Freudian/Lacanian interpretation covers scenes that occur both prior to and after the cave. 37 of the Jedi: “I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father” (42:19-

42:22). This line, which Luke says to Obi-Wan Kenobi after his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru are murdered by Stormtroopers, is both the foundation of a Lacanian interpretation and my eventual departure from Lacan. Important in both interpretations is the three-word qualifier at the end of the sentence, like my father. At this point in the narrative, Luke has no interest (or, rather, believes he has no interest) in discovering himself. Instead, he conflates his intense desire for adventure and excitement for his even more intense desire to develop some sort of kinship with the father he has never met. A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back place a great deal of emphasis on Luke’s wish for a true father, to the point where he superimposes his paternal loneliness onto what feels like every conversation he has. For instance, in A New Hope, after

Luke tells his Uncle Owen that their new droid, R2-D2, belongs to Obi-Wan Kenobi, the two men share the following exchange:

Owen: That wizard’s just a crazy old man. Tomorrow I want you to take that R2 unit into

Anchorhead and have its memory flushed. That’ll be the end of it. It belongs to us now.

Luke: But what if this Obi-Wan comes looking for him?

Owen: He won’t. I don’t think he exists anymore. He died about the same time as your

father.

Luke: He knew my father?

Owen: I told you to forget it (24:00-24:22).

At first blush, this scene is dull and expository—necessary yet unspectacular. After tens of rewinds, however, I notice that it indicates how often Luke must talk about his paternal fantasies.

Until he discovers that his father is alive and his “enemy,” Luke superimposes his paternal desires onto anything he can. This otherwise ordinary conversation with Owen is no exception. 38

When Owen says that he thinks Obi-Wan “died about the same time as [Luke’s] father,” Luke does not miss a beat before excitedly asking, “He knew my father?” even though Owen said nothing to suggest that he did (24:17-24:20). Understanding his paternity is what he cares about most at this epoch of his life, but that desperation to know his father is not the most interesting aspect of this scene. What is interesting is that based on Owen’s gruff, immediate response (“I told you to forget it” [24:22].), the viewer is left to infer that Luke’s talking or asking about his father is not something he does occasionally. It is constant—constant enough so that Owen can casually and unkindly dismiss it. This brief exchange establishes Luke as a character who obsessively and persistently longs to understand and emulate his father, which easily lends itself to a traditionally Oedipal reading of the text.

In a traditionally Oedipal reading of Star Wars, Luke’s desire to become “a Jedi like [his] father” is ignited when he sees Princess Leia in A New Hope because his attraction to her is part of what motivates Luke into leaving his home planet of Tatooine and finally pursue an adventure—something of which his imaginary and idealized father would be proud (42:21).

Before he accidentally stumbles upon Leia’s message to Obi-Wan, Luke has resigned himself to an unexciting life as a moisture farmer. From the moment he sees Leia, however, he recognizes that there may still be more opportunities for him. Because Luke’s original opinion of Leia is eroticized (He remarks, “She’s beautiful” even though she is clearly under severe duress

[21:35].), she may assume the role of maternal supplement in Luke’s life. Admittedly, in A New

Hope, there is little textual evidence for this claim apart from the fact that she is female. In light of the later films, the interpretation remains valid. Eventually, Leia is famously revealed as

Luke’s twin sister who bears a striking physical resemblance to their mother. His attraction to

Leia as a maternal metaphor is what motivates his specific desire to be a hero. She is a beautiful 39 woman asking for help, and Luke, as a wannabe Oedipal son, considers it his responsibility to provide her with that help. In fact, the aforementioned conversation between Owen and Luke occurs after Luke first sets eyes on Leia, so a desire for the maternal supplement is, in this reading, what influences Luke to seek out the Rebel Alliance and to embody his idealized father’s best and most heroic traits, just as in the Freudian/Lacanian view of the Oedipal complex.

With knowledge of the later films in mind, I want to consider another way in which

Luke’s decision to rescue Leia in A New Hope is potentially Oedipal in that Luke’s father has kidnapped and tortured her, granting Luke the space to be her hero. Vader’s abuse of Leia is reminiscent of Freud’s theory of the primal horde. To develop this theory, Freud borrows from

Charles Darwin’s study of apes, arguing that the father suffers from “sexual jealousy” and keeps the women in the family to himself, consequently imposing abstinence upon his sons (138).

From a certain point of view, Vader is sexually hoarding Leia. He has her body in an intimate and vulnerable position while Luke is unable to access her. If Vader tortures29 and ultimately kills Leia, then he has prevented an incestuous union between his son and his maternal metaphor, whether or not any of the Skywalkers recognize that. Since this point of view claims that Leia is

Luke’s maternal supplement and little (if anything) more,30 his motivation for the remainder of

29 In a Freudian/Lacanian context, Vader’s torture of Leia may be interpreted as a non-consensual sex act. After all, the torture device is an orb with protruding blades, likely designed to enter into her body (41:24). 30 Feminist readings of Leia are prevalent in Star Wars scholarship. For instance, Galipeau describes Leia as Luke’s “anima” or “inner sister,” the one who can connect him to his feminine characteristics as well as remind him of the mother he never knew (203). Additionally, a number of feminist scholars interpret Leia as an empowered female figure. For more on this feminist reading of the character, see Ray Merlock and Kathy Merlock Jackson’s essay, “Lightsabers, Political Arenas, and Marriages for Princess Leia and Queen Amidala” or Sarah Symonds Leblanc’s article, “Taking Back the ‘P-Word’: Princess Leia Feminism, an Autoethnography.” Others, however, argue that Leia’s empowerment is ostensible in relation to the male gaze. Philip L. Simpson’s “Thawing the Ice Princess” and Jeanne Cavelos’s “Stop Her, She’s Got a Gun! How the Rebel Princess and the Virgin Queen Became Marginalized and Powerless in George Lucas’s Fairy Tale” tackle this interpretation of the character. 40 the original trilogy is clear. He must follow Oedipus’s path and kill his father so that he can rescue and marry his maternal supplement.

Again, from the Oedipal vantage point, Luke’s desire to emulate his idealized father and his attraction to Leia are the primary reasons he decides to become a Jedi as well as the reasons he progresses in that journey. For instance, when Yoda asks Luke why he wants to become a

Jedi, Luke replies, “Mostly because of my father, I guess” (55:20). Yoda responds by remembering what a powerful Jedi Luke’s father once was, not unlike the glowing description of his father that Obi-Wan gives in A New Hope: “the best star pilot in the galaxy… a cunning warrior… a good friend” (33:00-33:11). According to these external paternal figures, Luke’s father appears to have been a heroic and almost flawless man, and he may wish to further hone these traits to be an attractive mate for Leia. After all, she embraced him and looked upon him lovingly after he destroyed the Death Star, so by his Oedipal logic, he might be able to attract her by becoming more like this idealized father. Also from this point of view, however, Luke’s devotion to Leia and insistence upon saving her in The Empire Strikes Back is what causes Luke to discover that his story is Oedipal. Vader, as the sexually jealous father, has manipulated Luke into believing Leia is in real danger on the planet Bespin, and Luke’s romanticized devotion to her is what incites the first lightsaber duel between Vader and himself. His devotion is the only reason he is on Bespin, it is the only reason Vader symbolically castrates him,31 and it is the only reason Vader is able to lay down his Lacanian law for his son: “No, I am your father” (1:51:17).

There is a literal “Non-du-Père” in the Star Wars saga, and it is catalyzed, albeit unconsciously, by Luke’s incestuous devotion to Leia and need to become his idealized father in order to impress and attract her.

31 Famously, Darth Vader lobs off Luke’s right hand (the one in which he wields his lightsaber) during this battle. In a roundabout way, his presumed incestuous affection for his sister is what costs him his metaphorical virility. 41

By Return of the Jedi, Luke learns that Leia is his twin sister, and although there is no textual acknowledgment of the romantic tension between the two characters from the earlier films, a Lacanian framework suggests that Luke still has those Oedipal feelings. For instance, when Vader looks into Luke’s mind, he notices that he has especially strong feelings for “sister” and threatens to convert her to the dark side of the Force (1:52:21). Luke is horrified by the possibility and symbolically castrates Vader, and almost instantly after the fact, he finally feels confident enough to proclaim, “I am a Jedi, like my father before me” (1:54:22). From a

Freudian/Lacanian perspective, what Luke has subconsciously said is, “Because I have neutered my father and protected my sister, I am the hero now. I am the father now.”

This “Name-of-the-Father”/Oedipal interpretation is textually sound, and as abovementioned, I do not entirely disagree with it. Based on a number of additional factors, especially the cave scene in The Empire Strikes Back and the family politics in the recent sequel films, I believe that this argument is incomplete. The argument that Luke experiences a kind of reverse Oedipal drama because his real attraction is to Vader, not Leia, is closer to my narcissistic focus, although it dwells in sexuality and does not address the narcissistic underbelly of Luke’s character and Star Wars as a singular narrative.

The Homoerotic Oedipal

The homoerotic Oedipal drama and the depiction of narcissism in Star Wars are so closely linked that it is easy to consider them synonymous. Despite this linkage, they are distinct interpretations, and while the implication of homoerotic incest is present in the text, it is important continue the reading even after unearthing it. Though it is not my primary focus, I nevertheless want to pay some critical attention to the homoerotic Oedipal drama between Luke 42 and Darth Vader, as my argument states that these moments are metaphorical depictions of

Luke’s narcissism.

Firstly and most evidently, Luke constantly finds himself in situations where his father will have to touch his penis metaphor and vice versa, and he is always particularly eager to find himself in such situations. Freud and Lacan agree that the castration complex is covertly concerned with homosexual desire, which may be the case for Luke and Vader. Consciously,

Luke leaps into dangerous battles with Vader to save Leia for himself. In a departure from the triangular Oedipal dynamic these scenes appear to establish, the true climaxes of the scenes occur exclusively between Luke and Vader. From this perspective, Leia is not Luke’s motivator but his mediator, functioning as a screen for his homosexual desire for their father.32 Leia’s mediation is perhaps most obvious when Luke’s refuses to listen to her warning that Vader set a trap for him in The Empire Strikes Back because he is too intent on confronting his father with a penile lightsaber; too intent on actualizing the fantasy he had in the cave. Of course, the majority of Luke and Vader’s interactions are charged with a violent eroticism, which aligns with Freud and Lacan’s shared point that part of homosexual desire is defending oneself against it. On the surface,33 Luke hates Vader. He fantasizes about murdering him and then attempts to do so. Still,

Freud and Lacan would probably maintain that Luke’s hatred of Vader is a defense mechanism because he is afraid that Vader hates him. By convincing himself that he hates Vader, Luke is able to prevent himself from losing or being rejected by another paternal figure, regardless of the fact that Vader is his biological father, because he will have had nothing to lose. Still, for Luke,

32 Because the Star Wars saga often follows the traditions of Medieval literature, scholars can also read the Skywalker relationships through the lens of courtly love. See Slavoj Žižek’s “Courtly Love, or, Woman as Thing” in The Metastases of Enjoyment to expand upon this interpretation of the occasional triangle among Luke, Leia, and Darth Vader. 33 For more on this idea of superficial reading, see Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus’s “Surface Reading: An Introduction.” 43 this defense mechanism does not work. He continues to pursue an intimate connection with

Vader, and Roger Kaufman34 interprets his persistence as “incestuous romantic yearning” (149).

For example, almost instantly after Vader reveals to Luke that he is his father, providing Luke with a reason to truly hate him, he does not shut down the possibility for closeness between them. Instead, when Vader telepathically contacts him, Luke affectionately calls out, “Father,” trying to harvest familiarity with the man who symbolically castrated him moments earlier

(1:57:57). Through a queer lens, Luke’s incestuous desire for intimacy with Vader is no longer secretive.35 Now, his determination to forgive Vader throughout Return of the Jedi signifies an outward romantic devotion to him, analogous to his commitment to Leia in the more maternal reading.

In each of their shared scenes, Luke strictly refers to Vader as “Father,” signifying his affection for his previous enemy and imploring him to return those feelings. Where a maternally

Oedipal reading may argue that Luke’s symbolic castration of Vader is his way of affirming his status as the more powerful man, this reading views the same scene as Luke’s excitement to offer erotic reciprocation to his father’s phallic touch in The Empire Strikes Back. Based on his previous interactions with Vader, which all resulted in violence, Luke probably anticipated another erotically phallic duel between the pair of them. Finally, from this perspective, Luke’s journey comes to a satisfying end when Vader sacrifices his life for Luke, proving his love. This

34 Roger Kaufman has written at volume on homosexual love in popular film and fiction. His focus is primarily on Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. The overarching argument in his body of scholarship is that Luke and Vader represent a homoerotic reversal of the Oedipal complex, and Luke needs to acknowledge his eros for Vader in order to accept his most complex self. Some of Kaufman’s Star Wars scholarship appears in collections such as Sex, Politics, and Religion in Star Wars, Finding the Force of the Star Wars Franchise: Fans, Merchandise, and Critics, and Using Superheroes in Counseling and Play Therapy. 35 It would be an unfortunate oversight to mention the emotional intimacy between Luke and Vader without acknowledging Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Between Men and her commentary on homosocial bonding. Sedgwick writes that the homosocial is “obviously formed by analogy with ‘homosexual,’ and just as obviously meant to be distinguished from ‘homosexual’ (696). While I observe the queerness in Luke and Vader’s bond, especially considering their penetrative ability to communicate telepathically, a homoerotic interpretation of their relationship seems overdone and incomplete, courtesy of Kaufman’s existing work and further acknowledgment of Luke as an individual character, not merely Vader’s foil. 44 time, when Luke says, “I am a Jedi, like my father before me,” he is affirming to himself that he has become the kind of man his father can love and protect (1:54:22).

As I have suggested, this homoerotic Oedipal reading of Luke and Vader’s relationship is solid; however, I cannot concede that this is purely genital warfare. Although this reading is a necessary springboard for my thesis, there are a number of reasons why I also consider it incomplete. Firstly, despite the fact that this perspective riffs on the popular mother-son Oedipal complex, it rehashes the decades-old argument about Star Wars and incest from which it is important to depart. Second, I have to acknowledge that a sequel trilogy exists, again with Luke at its core, and this trilogy more-or-less admits that Luke’s narcissistic idealism in Return of the

Jedi had a hand in the creation of the fascist First Order. If Luke actually desired incestuous love between himself and Vader, then his story probably would have concluded with their embrace in

Return of the Jedi. The story’s persistence precisely suggests that there must be more to Luke’s character than simple Oedipal yearning. Luke’s incestuous desire for Darth Vader is textually present only as a metaphor for Luke’s true narcissistic desire to transform Vader into a facsimile of himself and not the other way around. In essence, Luke and Vader’s relationship is built upon the extreme narcissistic reaction to the méconnaissance in the mirror, a reaction so intense that it mimics (but never becomes) eroticism.

A Narcissistic Hope

To begin this section, I want to refer back to the line in A New Hope through which I have traced Luke’s character arc: “I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father” (42:19-42:22). If this thesis were a lecture in an introduction to film studies course, I would note that this statement is Luke’s primary and ostensible “want” in the original trilogy, and his “need” would be the tasks he takes to achieve it (destroying the Death Star, training with 45

Yoda, and confronting Jabba the Hutt to rescue Han from captivity). His line in Return of the

Jedi (“I am a Jedi, like my father before me” [1:54:22].), then, represents the conclusion of that

“want vs. need.” Of course, only the structure of the story is that simple. Luke’s idea and awareness of a father changes dramatically from A New Hope to Return of the Jedi, and that shift must be accounted for. Every idea that Luke has of a father is actually an idea he has of himself, regardless of whether or not he is conscious of it.

Before I deepen the incestuous reading of Luke and Vader’s relationship with an understanding of narcissism, I first want to briefly note the most obvious evidence as to why

Luke is not an Oedipal child. Earlier, I mentioned Uncle Owen, a mostly expendable character.

Nonetheless, Owen’s existence and relationship with Luke is a crucial factor in Luke’s de-

Oedipal nature. Although Owen raised Luke, he made it clear that he was to be called uncle and not father, thusly barring Luke from being anyone’s son and developing true paternal intimacy during his childhood. As no one’s son, no Oedipal precedent could be set for him, and technically, then, Luke is exempt from Oedipal disavowal. Even Oedipus himself, whose incestuous tragedy was prophesized regardless of his upbringing, was considered a son by

Polybus and Merope (852-3). In the matter of Luke Skywalker, there is no law of the father whether it prohibits incest or not because he never had a father to establish one. Nevertheless, he creates an imaginary relationship with an idealized father—one who was, according to Obi-Wan,

“the best star-pilot in the galaxy… a cunning warrior… a good friend” (33:00-33:11). This self- constructed father’s law is what starts Luke on his path to assume the literal “Name-of-the-

Father” and his father’s place as a Jedi, which is where the Lacanian Oedipal reading of the character is textually valid yet gradually overturned. Of course, for all my talk of the Oedipal 46 complex, I have focused solely on Luke’s desperation for a father. The annoyingly obvious second question concerns the role of Luke’s mother.

Generally, in the Star Wars saga, mothers are relegated to convenient supporting roles, existing only to birth more important players and very rarely motivate those characters into making dramatic decisions. Luke and Leia’s biological mother, Padmé Amidala, is the most important mother in the Star Wars saga. Yet, she exists only as a vessel for the creation of a more important male character, as she dies immediately after giving birth (A digression, but since it would further my point, I wish Luke had been born after Leia.). Since this thesis is not a gendered discourse,36 I will only make one point about the role of the mother in the original trilogy. Luke never expresses a desire to know his mother and only asks about her in the middle of Return of the Jedi, which is too late to claim a true Oedipal complex. I will discuss what I see as inaccuracies in this traditional argument about Luke and Leia as the maternal supplement in

Part II. In this particular argument, the role of the mother is only important to describe the simple and Oedipal interpretation of the scene in the cave from The Empire Strikes Back and how Star

Wars scholars must push beyond it to accurately analyze Luke’s character and the narcissistic roots of the Skywalker family tragedy.

For the sake of this de-Oedipal argument, it should be noted that this scene is overwhelmingly referred to as “the cave scene” when I would not consider the cave as its most integral metaphor (Also interesting is that sequel-trilogy protagonist Rey’s parallel scene in The

Last Jedi, in which she descends into a cave and finds her endless reflection, is commonly referred to as “the cave scene,” when it is more concerned with a mirror than a cave.). Steven A.

36 For more information on Star Wars and gender theory, particularly on Padmé Amidala, see Diana Dominguez’s “Feminism and the Force: Empowerment and Disillusionment in a Galaxy Far, Far Away,” Cole Bowman’s “Pregnant Padmé and Slave Leia: Star Wars’ Female Role Models,” Sotiris Petridis’s “Star Wars Episode VII: Feminism from ‘Far, Far Away,’” and Mara Wood’s “Feminist Icons Wanted: Damsels in Distress Need Not Apply.” Dominguez and Petridis argue for Padmé’s passivity while Bowman and Wood argue for her activity. 47

Galipeau, who quite literally wrote the book on Luke Skywalker, repeatedly calls it “the

Dagobah cave” and argues that it is “a psychological chamber of initiation” (126). Galipeau stops at the most basic dream interpretation by reminding his reader that the cave is a birthing symbol. More importantly, caves are essentially the only vaginal symbols that exist in dream interpretation, so while it is tempting to evaluate the scene through this lens, it is also too easy.

The simple and Oedipal interpretation here is that Luke is battling with his father for space inside his mother’s vagina. His insistent use of the phallic lightsaber (Yoda tells Luke, “Your weapons.

You will not need them,” and Luke shrugs defiantly [1:03:13-1:03:20].) to dominate his father lends especial credence to this thought. However, as there is no real maternal precedent for Luke, this interpretation is forced. At this point in the narrative, he has expressed no conscious longing to understand a mother’s love, and he is ignorant to the fact that Leia is his sister, not to mention his mother’s doppelgänger. Although I maintain that Luke never feels Oedipal longing for a mother, he especially does not feel it here. He imagines Vader alone in the cave, and there are absolutely no symbols for Leia in this cave apart from the popular assumption that all caves are vaginal.37 By eliminating the cliché of Oedipal triangulation in this scene, we are able to focus directly on the relationship between Luke and Darth Vader, expressly on the scene’s use of incest as a narcissistic metaphor.

I began Part I by acknowledging the almost inexplicable bizarreness of this scene although it is only perceived as esoteric and absurd because it is the first of many metaphorically incestuous scenes between Luke and Darth Vader. It is comfortable for casual audiences and scholars to conclude that this scene is a dream reflecting Luke’s desperation for a mother. Gilles

37 This motif is referenced so frequently in literary and cinema studies that it has become a cliché. René Prieto argues for the relationship between caves, movie theaters, and wombs in Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s 1984 novel, Infante’s Inferno (587). In regard to Star Wars (though not in regard to the cave on Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back), Lucy Place equates the “wet, cave-like surroundings” of the Sarlacc pit in Return of the Jedi with “a… malevolent womb or vagina” (111). 48

Deleuze and Félix Guattari argue that when patients enter psychotherapy, they are “[allowing themselves] to be oedipalized” (56). Analysts create their businesses by forcing the Oedipal myths onto their patients to an extreme, as if there is no other explanation for why we think or do anything. A similar case can be made for the underlying issues in previous Star Wars scholarship and their reliance on the Oedipus myth. Oedipal complexes have insidiously infiltrated popular psychology; so it is enticing to use the Oedipal lens on the films because audiences (academic and otherwise) understand Oedipus. They have seen it before, and because twists on the Oedipus myth are ubiquitous in fiction and media, Oedipus Rex is arguably the most palatable depiction of incest in the literary canon. On the contrary, it is less comfortable to analyze male-male incest, and if the majority of Star Wars scholarship is unable to see the use of male-male incest38 as metaphorical, then they will be unable to read Luke’s blatant narcissism in this scene.

Though the erotic elements in Luke and Vader’s relationship are still quite underexplored in Star Wars scholarship, I have cited Roger Kaufman for his queer readings of this relationship, and his reading of this scene in the cave is an excellent foundation for my narcissistic argument.

Because the scene is immediately concerned with a father and a son crossing swords, Kaufman interprets it as the “homosexual libido incestuously activated between father and son,” which I view as partially accurate (149). From the moment Vader appears onscreen, the scene is shot in slow motion, and the music swells as Luke gradually meets his gaze,39 grimly mimicking a scene

38 To be fair, Star Wars scholarship is not historically averse to homoerotic interpretations, regardless of whether the author comments on homosexual incest. In addition to Roger Kaufman’s work, Veronica A. Wilson’s essay, “Seduced by the Dark Side of the Force: Gender, Sexuality, and Moral Agency in the Star Wars Films” argues that the saga vilifies homosexuality by queer coding the Sith, especially Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. On some levels, this relationship can also be interpreted as incestuous, as Kaufman acknowledges a “father-son motif” between the two of them (135). 39 Luke’s literal gaze on Vader in this scene only furthers the confusing conflation between sexual attraction and narcissism, which Mladen Dolar describes in his essay, “At First Sight.” For Dolar, the gaze is always associated with “the myth of the first encounter, ‘the first sight’” (132). In that first sight of our narcissistic double, we fall in love with ourselves in a different body, but that gaze “points to a thin line between jubilation and the most shattering 49 from a love story. Moreover, in this situation, the natural response for both men is to stand with their lightsabers erect (1:04:40-1:05:05). Metaphorical erections considered, Luke’s goal in the scene is to lob off Vader’s head, which is indicative of both heteronormative and homoerotic approaches to the Oedipal complex. On one hand, by decapitating Vader, Luke castrates the non- genital symbol of his power, taking his place as the most powerful man in the galaxy. At the same time, head may refer to “[the] rounded part forming the end of the penis,” and because

Luke appears eager to touch Vader’s head with his own penile substitute, it becomes quite easy to see homoerotically Oedipal aspects of their relationship here (s.v. “head”). The scene is permeated with eroticized intensity, but therein is the caveat: The tension is eroticized, not precisely erotic. This is where, in my view, Kaufman’s interpretation falls short, since he focuses on the thick of the scene rather than the way it ends: Luke decapitates Vader, and when the helmet cracks open, Luke’s face is revealed underneath the mask (1:05:10-1:05:35). Briefly,

Kaufman notes that Luke’s head in Vader’s helmet “[foreshadows] the redemptive, twinship aspects of their relationship” (149). This note evades the scene’s depiction of narcissism without explicitly indicating that it is narcissistic (149). To understand the narcissism, Star Wars scholarship has to consider the scene’s final and lasting impression, not only its ostentatious and incestuous screen.

This scene is not about representative erections or Oedipal dueling, nor does it simply foreshadow Vader’s impending paternity reveal. Rather, since the scene concludes on the image of Luke’s head inside the helmet he so fears and reviles, this scene demonstrates for Luke that his opinion of the ideal father is shifting, and it is tangible evidence that his narcissism is the key factor in that shift. That concluding and seemingly antithetical shot of the helmet prevents me

anxiety,” as finding one’s proverbial other half is threatening to individual narcissism (136). Luke stares at Vader in elation and horror because the prospect of being Vader’s worthy opponent is too daunting. 50 from calling this “the cave scene,” opting instead to call it “the head scene.” This is the first moment in which Luke becomes tangentially aware that his unique power, not the illusory power he has borrowed from his imaginary father, is the core of this story. His head—desires and anxieties—is at stake, and he can no longer blame his paternal fantasies for his decisions. From this point forth, despite his unawareness that he and Vader are related, Luke’s character is defined by his fear that he is susceptible to the same moral failings as his supposed opposite. The head wound to his narcissism is the focus of this scene; the images of rebirth or homoerotic incest are distractions from the hero’s ugly reality. Clearly, the head as a metonym for the mind is precisely as cliché as the cave for the vagina, though if we must refer to the scene by an overused symbol, it is preferable to use the one that more accurately encompasses Luke’s cardinal trait and motivator. This is, despite his unconscious knowledge of it, when he notices he is on a Freudian/Lacanian path toward Oedipal disavowal and paternal obsession and stops in those tracks. His journey to become a Jedi has never been about coming to know a father by fulfilling the reputation he left behind. It has always been about Luke narcissistically proving to himself that his goodness is the best goodness against the father who does not fulfill his paternal fantasies, even if that proof requires some incestuous entanglements. In Return of the Jedi,

Luke’s narcissistic desire to turn Vader into a copy of himself is particularly potent, and while it has been buried in incestuous metaphors, the remainder of this part will extract the Skywalker family narcissism from its erotic surroundings, first by a discussion of Lacanian transference.

I disagree with the idea that the “Name-of-the-Father” is the perfect Lacanian lens to use in the study of Star Wars; rather, I contend that Lacan’s ideas of transference are working in the films in other ways. For Lacan, transference and identification are related (not synonymous); transference is the displacement of one’s feeling onto another (124, 145). The unconscious 51 reveals itself to a subject whom does not want to confront these feelings as part of himself, so he assures himself that they are “the desire of the Other” (158, italics in the original). While Lacan does not precisely equate transference and narcissism, the two concepts overlap. In order to identify with the analytical process, the healthy analyst-analysand relationship involves transference. Rooted in a desire to perceive the underpinnings of one’s neurosis (such, as, in this case, narcissism), the analysand projects onto the analyst the ability to identify with her/his experiences or affects. In that the analytical process is dependent upon a certain degree of narcissism, the transferential process is then also dependent upon a narcissism in which the analysand’s narcissism mirrors that of the analyst to produce positive transference. Narcissism is part of the transference because the transference renders the two mirrors of each other—the projection onto the other is also a projection of the self, but in transference, it is also about moving beyond the mirroring to become engaged in a process that is not frozen, as is Narcissus.

Rather, the transference is mobile and mutable, so that transferential relationships are organic and changing as the subject changes in the process of analysis.

Lacan also distinguishes between positive and negative transference. Positive transference does not equate love, nor does negative transference equate hatred. Although transference may be akin to “ambivalence,” Lacan thinks that this term is inexact (124). He writes, “It would be truer to say that the positive transference is when you have a soft spot for the individual concerned… the negative transference is when you have to keep your eye on him”

(124). Essentially, transference is a result of productive dialogue and discourse in the analytical scene. By placing two subjects in relationship with each other, the charge and dynamic between the two can achieve transference through a mutually agreed upon (explicit or implicit, spoken or silent) contract that the work of analysis will result in reflection upon the analysand and require 52 the analyst to also reflect upon the self. In this way, the transferential process is dependent upon narcissism even as it may seek to address a core narcissistic wound among the many neuroses that are potentially at play in an analytical process of a particular case.

In regard to Luke and Vader’s relationship, I argue that while Luke initially looks at

Vader through negative transference (i.e. the cave/head scene), he regards him with positive transference after learning of their biological connection, yet each of these viewpoints is equally narcissistic. Luke does not want to possess Vader’s capacity for wickedness, and by forcing

Vader to follow his example, then he has narcissistically subjugated the man who was supposed dominate him.

The decapitation scene in the cave begins as an exercise in negative transference when the gaze of Luke’s “enemy” becomes the gaze of himself; in response, he is met with feelings of aggression and hostility. Before he enters the cave, Luke is burdened with a hatred and fear of

Darth Vader. Although he battles with Vader, it is important to note that this is not Vader. It is the physical manifestation of Luke’s imagination, and Luke is, at all times, battling with himself.

Lacan writes that negative transference is reserved for “when you have to keep your eye on [the subject]” (124). With this definition in mind, it is simple to assume that Luke attempts to “keep an eye” on Vader by dueling with this fictitious version of him. However, this is not precisely the case, as by creating a malevolent Vader, Luke is actually “keeping an eye” on his own darkness, regardless of whether he notices it. He suspects his own darkness even prior to meeting his own potentially villainous gaze. The transference becomes narcissistic because Luke forces the characteristics of himself that he does not favor—the rage and recklessness—into this imaginary

“separate” body. By placing his unflattering traits into another body (or at least what appears to 53 be another body), Luke is not obligated to confront his shortcomings and, subsequently, admit to his narcissism.

In contrast, positive transference is evident in Luke’s strange and sudden belief that under the mask, Vader is a good and moral person. Lacan’s positive “soft spot” comes to mind throughout Luke’s insistence on redeeming Vader (124). He has learned and seen the similarities between Vader and himself, and in some sort of meta-awareness that he is the hero of this story, he cannot let himself indulge his “darker” tendencies. Return of the Jedi, then, is Luke’s exercise in positive transference: believing in Vader because he believes in himself; converting Vader into a hero so he can be a hero himself. He continues to mask this preservation of his own goodness in almost romantic sympathy for Vader; however, at times, Luke appears somewhat cognizant of his developing de-Oedipal motivation. Here, it is important to note that ultimately,

Luke is a de-Oedipal son, not an anti-Oedipal son; therefore, his story prompts a different critique of the Oedipal complex than Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari offer in their book, Anti-

Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Deleuze and Guattari seek to counter and correct the limitations of Freudianism and its potential capitalist tendencies. Unfortunately, this attempt mirrors a framework of the triangular, hierarchical, and patriarchal Oedipal complex.

Additionally, their critique of the Oedipal complex proves faulty in their use of the prefix anti.

Such a prefix suggests that there is a pro, reinforcing the existence of a binary when the goal in overcoming the Oedipal complex is to transcend the binary. I offer a notion of de-Oedipalization to remove the incestuous screen entirely so as to clearly and fully observe the narcissism underneath it.

In fact, when we look past the scandalous screen of incest between Luke and Darth

Vader, even Luke’s ostensible rationale for saving his father is de-Oedipal. For instance, in true 54

Hamlet fashion, Obi-Wan’s ghost implores Luke to kill Vader, and Luke replies, “I can’t do it…

I can’t kill my own father”40 (47:09, 47:18). If a son refuses to kill his father and instead wishes to embrace and forgive him, then the Oedipus complex has been flat-out rejected, turned on its head, and the child becomes full of agape as a mature, coherent subject perceiving the Father as an Other outside of narcissistic paralysis. Of course, Luke does not admit that he cannot kill his father because then he will no longer be a hero to himself or the galaxy (which, as it turns out, is his true desire at the beginning of A New Hope, and this replaces or corrects a desire to emulate his father). He instead offers an incestuous screen: I cannot kill my father because he is my father, and I love my father. Throughout Return of the Jedi, Luke still wants to force a love match between Vader and himself, which I have already addressed. Yet, even with respect to

Luke’s outward display of love and forgiveness, I cannot yield that Luke refuses to kill Vader because Vader is his father and that it is simply the upstanding, noble thing to do. Rather, Luke refuses to kill Vader because he is Vader’s son; to avoid Vader’s moral pitfalls, Luke has to convince himself of positive transference, which in this case translates to metaphors of incestuous desire. He also has to convince Vader to look back at him with the same desire so that

Vader will join him, effectively re-affirming his narcissistic brand of heroism.

In fact, Luke and Vader’s scenes in Return of the Jedi make one thing clear: There cannot be a single Luke or a single Darth Vader; the two are obligated to amalgamate and become Sith- like-father or Jedi-like-son. This is part of their narcissistic synthesis that also then shifts the

Oedipal complex into the de-Oedipal. Vader fears that if Luke does not agree to become his Sith

40 Steven A. Galipeau’s interpretation of this scene is more of a retelling than a reading. He writes, “Luke now wrestles with the primitive masculine dilemma of ‘kill or be killed…’ [and the] father-son implications of this conflict further complicate the dilemma” (202). I argue Luke experiences patricide as a kind of abjection, or as Julia Kristeva contends, “death infecting life” (4). While murder enacts this idea of death infecting life, patricide (especially when the offending son is his father’s virtual doppelgänger) becomes an out-of-body suicide. Luke may be somewhat averse to killing his father because he spent his young life wishing to meet him, but narcissistically, he does not want to kill his father because that would imply that he must also kill part of himself. 55 apprentice, Emperor Palpatine will kill him, and Luke fears that if Vader does not agree to return to the Jedi, then his pride will be wounded. At the most basic level, both of these predicaments are eroticized. In her essay on the tradition and implications of the Sith, Veronica A. Wilson makes the excellent point that the Sith are inherently erotic. She reminds her reader that generally, the Sith consist of “Only Two” men, “living in secrecy” for decades at a time, growing to know another so intimately that the apprentice can one day kill the master without the master’s anticipation (143). A Sith partnership is penetrative and sexualized, and if it is what Vader wants to develop between his son and himself, then the always sexualized Sith bond would become incestuous. On a separate and arguably less obvious level, Luke’s desire to convert Vader back to the Jedi Order is equally sexualized. For instance, when Luke begins to make the case for

Vader’s redemption his refrain is, “There is good in him. I’ve felt it” (1:21:02-1:21:05). The language in this refrain is rather eroticized—in essence, Luke is being penetrated with Vader’s spirit. Finally, there is the notion that one’s desire to become another person is penetrative, and in the vernacular, penetration is almost exclusively sexual. Because Luke and Vader are obligated to (and really, desire to) come together as one virtually identical being, I see why their connection is sometimes misinterpreted as libidinous. Unsurprisingly, Roger Kaufman argues that Luke and Vader’s relationship is coded incestuous because they each “[receive] penetrative energy” from the other (125). For Kaufman, this “phallic receptivity” does not indicate a dominant/submissive dynamic in a male-male pairing; instead, the term refers to the spiritual strength that two men can learn from one another via sexual or sexualized intimacy (125, italics in the original). I agree with Kaufman’s assertion that Luke and Vader receive parts of the other’s masculinity and morality, but I want to expand upon his reading by highlighting the concurrency of incestuous metaphors and narcissism in these interactions between father and 56 son.41 The trilogy tells the story of Luke’s complicated heroism, and inside that complication is his struggle between accepting his father (who is abhorrently different from the father about whom Luke has long fantasized and hoped to emulate) and indulging his narcissism (the part of him that wants nothing more than to be “better than” Darth Vader). Based on my reading of

Return of the Jedi, I conclude that Luke chooses to indulge his narcissism. Part of that indulgence is convincing himself that he has actually chosen to accept and love his father.

Before I develop the finer points of this argument, it is important to note that unlike the prequel films, which continuously stress that there is no difference between Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader, the original trilogy creates an almost too stark contrast between them. While perhaps not the most nuanced storytelling technique, the distinction reinforces Luke’s apparent belief that good and evil cannot exist at the same time in the same, single body. Naturally, some part of him must know this assumption is a lie (He would not have been so afraid of his head in

Vader’s helmet if he genuinely believed people are either completely good or completely evil.); regardless, he allows his narcissism to blind him. I have suggested that Luke refuses to kill Vader only after he learns they are father and son, and if he takes a life, then he is no better than Vader, nor has he become the paternal hero he decides to be in A New Hope. Consciously, however,

Luke continues to lie to himself, alleging that his vow to save Vader is about finally developing a relationship with the father he has always missed. His unconscious tells a different tale. At the same time he attempts to preach forgiveness and redemption, Luke accidentally reveals that he

41 At this point, I think it is necessary to refer to George Lucas, who repeatedly claimed that he “didn’t want sexuality in [his] fairy tale” (qtd. in Brooker 45). Luke’s journey is not concerned with finding love or discovering his sexuality, though A New Hope and much of The Empire Strikes Back tease the audience with that possibility, which I address further in Part II. Since Luke is ultimately a sexless hero, the sexualized metaphors imbued in his character arc have to be simply that—accessible metaphors for audiences to consider other, less evident truths about Luke. 57 knows that this father he has spent roughly the past six years attempting to impress is a self- imagined construct.

This unconscious reveal comes through most clearly when Luke surrenders himself to

Vader and the Emperor on the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi. As Vader leads Luke to the Emperor, they share the following conversation:

Vader: The Emperor has been expecting you.

Luke: I know, Father.

Vader: So, you have accepted the truth.

Luke: I’ve accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father.

Vader: That name no longer has any meaning for me.

Luke: It is the name of your true self. You’ve only forgotten. I know there is good in you.

The Emperor hasn’t driven it from you fully. That was why you couldn’t destroy me.

That’s why you won’t bring me to your Emperor now (1:23:44-1:24:17).

This conversation, like every conversation Luke and Vader share in this particular film,42 is loaded with unintentional reveals about their characters, but there are two aspects I want to focus on as this part draws to a close: Luke’s use of the word once and his last line, which superficially addresses Vader, may also serve as transference at play in the text. Firstly, when Luke says that the man standing before him was “once Anakin Skywalker, [his] father,” he confesses that

Anakin Skywalker no longer exists. Anakin was his father, and he is spiritually dead. Darth

Vader is the only father who remains, and he is not the father Luke wants to emulate. This father succumbed to temptation and became a fascist murderer. Because Luke stresses the Skywalker

42 I also want to address the tone Luke speaks in throughout this film. He speaks arrogantly and suggests every word he speaks is irrefutable. He chooses this tone despite the fact that he is making a myriad of broad claims that Vader himself repeatedly tries to disprove. For example, in the midst of their fight, Luke says, “I feel the good in you. The conflict” (1:50:01-1:50:04). Vader insists that he is wrong, yet, the tone of Luke’s voice suggests that he cannot allow himself to be wrong. 58 name in this scene and the entirety of this film (the name Vader has boldly renounced and never truly reclaims, even post-conversion), he accidentally reveals that he has become the heroic father of his teenage fantasies. If to call oneself Skywalker is all it takes to become the paternal hero, then Luke has superseded Vader on that alone. There is more working in his favor than just the ownership of the Skywalker name, of course. Here, I recall Obi-Wan’s first description of

Anakin in A New Hope: “the best star pilot in the galaxy… a cunning warrior… a good friend”

(33:00-33:11). These descriptors became Luke’s criteria for paternal heroism, and where Vader rejects them, Luke fulfills them and effectively becomes the father of his dreams.43

The more interesting part of this conversation is when Luke speaks to Vader and directly addresses his “true self” and supposed goodness because it is the scene where Luke’s positive transference is most apparent. In this scene, he is appealing to Vader, while concomitantly assuring himself that he, Luke, is a good man. Nearly everything Luke says to Vader applies to his struggle as well. For example, when Luke says, “That was why you couldn’t destroy me,” he confronts Vader’s inability to kill him in The Empire Strikes Back as well as Luke’s own inability to kill Vader in the same battle (1:24:13). The irony of that infamous battle is that while

Luke is ignorant to the fact that he is fighting his father, Vader is completely aware that he is fighting his son. He has no genuine desire to kill Luke, as he reveals his true motivation for finding and capturing him fairly early into the film.44 On the other hand, Luke’s desire has always been to destroy Vader, so when he says, “That was why you couldn’t destroy me,” it reads more like he is rationalizing with himself (I cannot kill my father because he is my father,

43 The original trilogy makes a point of including scenes where Luke fulfills all of Obi-Wan’s descriptions of Anakin. In A New Hope, he destroys the Death Star by piloting an X-Wing, and in Return of the Jedi, he uses his resourcefulness to free Han from Jabba the Hutt’s palace as a true friend would do. 44 When Palpatine tells Vader that Luke is “the offspring of Anakin Skywalker,” Vader recognizes that in order to preserve his son’s life, he has to convince Luke to turn to the dark side (53:28). His subsequent threat to Luke, “Don’t make me destroy you,” is empty because destroying Luke is never his objective (1:50:36). 59 and I love my father.). In reality, the reason Luke was unable to destroy Vader has little to do with love for his father (Consider his hysterical horror when Vader tells him the truth). Rather, his failure is symptomatic of his lack of physical prowess and training with a lightsaber. To admit defeat based on a lack of skill would be to wound his narcissism, and claiming love for his father makes him seem altruistic and heroic, which feeds his narcissistic personality. At any rate, when Luke speaks to Vader, he only addresses those things that can apply to both of them and more aptly to Luke himself. Anakin Skywalker does not exist, but Luke Skywalker does, and when he acknowledges the flecks of Skywalker goodness he sees in Vader, he is truly re- affirming that there is goodness in himself. However, since narcissism expertly hides itself from the narcissist, it is easy for Luke to pretend that his quest to redeem Vader is for Vader’s benefit and, for that matter, the benefit of the galaxy as a whole. Simply put, to save the Father is narcissistic because it means saving the self. Though this assumption may be true by default, the final moments of Return of the Jedi lead me to believe that the primary factor in Luke’s redemption of Vader is Luke’s desire for power and dominance.

In the final fight between Luke and Vader and its immediate aftermath, Luke’s language stresses a desire for peace and understanding (“I will not fight you” [1:51:57]), and yet, what he actually wants is more insidious: He wants his father to become his submissive. Consciously, he knows he cannot best Vader in a physical fight. Unconsciously, his narcissism implores him to prove to himself and to the father who abandoned him that he is strong and capable. During their fight, Luke jumps on top of a beam in the second Death Star and hovers high above his father, attacking him with verbal violence alone. He says, “You couldn’t bring yourself to kill me before, and I don’t think you’ll destroy me now” (1:50:10-1:50:13). On one hand, Luke is practicing transference again. In The Empire Strikes Back, he was unable to kill Vader, and he 60 may be trying to convince himself that it is an act of noble love, not physical weakness.

Additionally, Luke’s line here indicates how seriously he overestimates his power and influence.

Darth Vader is arguably the most powerful Force user who has ever lived, and this scrappy farmboy honestly believes he can convince him to leave violence behind. The camerawork in this scene is also suggestive of a narcissistic Luke. As aforesaid, he stands high above Vader, and the camera makes it clear that he is in this position of power over his “enemy.” Moreover, to get into that position, he used an intricate and ostentatious Force jump. He is not simply demonstrating his abilities for his father. He is showboating. So, while Luke may not wish to kill

Vader, he does want to weaken him so that Vader has no choice except to follow his lead. He lost his opportunity to parent Luke, so now Luke will parent him via insincere redemption.

Because the sight of his heroic head in a villainous helmet haunts him, even in Return of the Jedi, Luke is not redeeming Vader purely out of the goodness of his Jedi heart. Embittered that his father is alive as well as the most reviled man in the galaxy, Luke decides that he needs to prove to his father that he is the superior man, and apparently, the best way to do that is to force his father to become his faithful disciple. The last scenes in Return of the Jedi go out of their way to prove that Luke is superior to Vader and that without his narcissistic desire to surpass his living father, the light side may not have triumphed. First, consider the film’s title:

Return of the Jedi. Supposedly, this title is in reference to Vader’s final renouncing of the Sith and reclaim of the Jedi Order, which would imply that this movie belongs to him instead of

Luke. This interpretation works if we focus on the word Return. I emphasize Jedi. When Yoda dies earlier in the film, he reminds Luke, “When gone am I, the last of the Jedi will you be”

(43:57-44:03). In other words, because he is the only living Jedi Knight, Luke Skywalker and the

Jedi have become synonymous. If Vader is to revert back to his light-side origins, then the only 61 example he has to follow is that of his own son. The Jedi Order is not the populated, democratic body it was when Anakin was a member. This is a single twentysomething man with very little training in the Jedi arts who would set the course for his father—reversed parenting. Luke has control over the Jedi, so he can narcissistically turn his pupils into external versions of himself.

That seems to be the plan after Luke successfully resists the temptation to kill Vader after

Vader threatens to convert Leia to the dark side until Luke confusingly re-establishes that binary between Anakin and Vader, which he only creates because he is too narcissistic to admit that he and Vader have more in common than their blood. While Luke resists the urge to kill his father, he only resists after he chops off Vader’s dominant hand, returning the favor of symbolic castration. At first, Luke displays no remorse for maiming Vader. The mad look in his eye suggests that he is glad he did it. Emperor Palpatine then laughs and says, “Good! Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father’s place at my side!” (1:53:35-

1:53:54). When he uses the term father, he does not appear to distinguish between Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker. A Sith apprentice is a Sith apprentice, and his history as a Jedi or a father is irrelevant. George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan, the co-writers of this film’s screenplay, then specify in an action paragraph: “Luke looks at his father’s mechanical hand, then to his own mechanical, black-gloved hand, and realizes how much he is becoming like his father.” Again,

Luke distinguishes between Vader-the-living-father and Anakin-the-dead-father and fears that he will become Vader, the transgressor, the opposite of the hero Luke has spent “a lifetime in preparation” to become (Lucas and Kasdan). He responds to the Emperor with, “I’ll never turn to the dark side… I am a Jedi, like my father before me” (1:54:14-1:54:25). This declaration feels ironic because Luke recently expressed the desire to distance himself from the Vader father, although in refusing to kill Vader, he has successfully emulated the “Anakin father.” Of course, 62 the Anakin father exists only inside Luke’s imagination, which suggests that Luke is his own ideal father, his own model of perfection and heroics. After the paternity reveal in The Empire

Strikes Back, Luke begins a search for himself because he can no longer be his father. When he proclaims that he is a Jedi, it is safe to say he has found himself. The last deed he has to accomplish is to convince his father to be his subject, which he manages in the final moments of

Vader’s life.

At the end of the original trilogy, Vader indeed returns to the Jedi, but his conversion is not the apex of the conversion scene. The scene, including Vader’s last words, is instead more concerned with Luke’s success at turning his father into another version of himself. For instance, think of the way Vader dies: sacrificing his life for Luke. By making this decision, Vader admits that Luke’s life is more important than his own. While his decision may be interpreted as an act of pure parental love, there is a submissive undertone to it. When he decides to die, Vader essentially says that there is no reason for him to live anymore because Luke has already proven superior to him. That is, where Luke can resist murderous impulses, Vader has never been able to do that. He kills a family of Jawas on Tatooine after they beat and presumably rape his mother in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, and he murders Palpatine’s previous apprentice, Count

Dooku, in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith because Dooku severed his hand three years earlier.

Likewise, as Vader dies and asks Luke to remove his breathing mask, making himself vulnerable to his son, he chooses these last words: “You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister you were right” (2:01:12-2:01:23). Though the scene is ostensibly concerned with the redemption of a villain, the specific language invoked instead narcissistically emphasizes Luke’s dominance. Finally, in a sort of inverted parallel to Luke’s refusal to join the dark side in The

Empire Strikes Back, he looks at his father, now stripped of the villainous mask he once feared, 63 and vows, “I’ll not leave you here” (2:01:04). Put differently, now that his father is willing to be his follower, Luke can finally embrace him. He is the victor. He is son-father.

PART II. “I HAVE MYSELF SEEN:”45 LUKE, PRINCESS LEIA, AND THE NARCISSISTIC

MIRROR

When the smoke clears, Luke sees the dazzling young princess-senator. She had been sleeping and is now looking at him with an uncomprehending look on her face. Luke is stunned by her beauty and stands staring at her with his mouth hanging open.

- George Lucas, A New Hope

Shortly after Luke deserts his Jedi training in The Empire Strikes Back, the ghost of Obi-

Wan Kenobi appears to Yoda and mournfully says, “That boy is our last hope.” Yoda then delivers his ominous reply: “No. There is another” (1:25:22-1:25:26). From a marketing standpoint, this line is unadulterated sequel bait. Audiences might be horrified that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father, yet to learn the uncovered mysteries about Luke Skywalker’s family, they have little choice than to wait three years and buy a ticket to the next film. As post-1980

Star Wars viewers and scholars, we know that this “other” refers to Princess Leia, Luke’s twin sister and, at this point, perceived romantic interest. When Luke discovers the truth for himself in

Return of the Jedi, he seems unsurprised and unshaken by it, almost as though he had not been attracted to Leia since he saw her hologram on Tatooine; almost as though they had not shared a less-than-platonic kiss in The Empire Strikes Back. Any implication of eros between Luke and

Leia is conveniently and confusingly forgotten by the time George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan agree to make them siblings.

45 This title is in reference to Lacan’s analysis of a passage from The Confessions. St. Augustine writes, “I have myself seen jealousy in a baby and know what it means” (qtd. in Barzilai 200). Lacan cites Augustine as an example of the intrusion complex, which encompasses sibling rivalry. In this part, I use the quote to refer to Luke’s competition with Leia, his narcissistic mirror. 65

Because the narrative teased sexual tension between Luke and Leia to the point of a possible love triangle with Han Solo, Star Wars fans and scholars alike have not been able to reconcile the relationship between the siblings. Arguably, the accidental incest in the Luke-and-

Leia relationship is one of the most enduring pop-culture jokes of the last thirty-five years. It is mentioned or elaborated upon in an abundance of geeky media, usually hinting at a desire to see an erotic relationship between Luke and Leia on the writer’s behalf. As I have conducted research for this project, I have discovered what is now my favorite Luke-and-Leia incest joke:

“The Morning after with Luke and Leia,” a six-second segment from Robot Chicken’s special episode, “Robot Chicken: Star Wars.” In this clip, stop-animation versions of Luke and Leia lie in bed together after having sex the night before. Luke gazes proudly at Leia, and she looks to the ceiling to simply say, “That was so wrong” (0:03). But if I disagree with the Oedipal reading of Luke and Leia’s relationship—and my introduction and Part I make clear that I do—why would this be my favorite incest joke about the twins? Why would I have a favorite incest joke about Luke and Leia at all?

This is a valid question that I will spend the remainder of Part II attempting to answer. “The

Morning after with Luke and Leia” is my favorite joke about this relationship because it entirely misses the real significance of Luke and Leia’s relationship: that Luke and Leia are narcissistic mirrors for one another. At their cores, Luke and Leia are not would-be lovers torn apart by bad storytelling, as Cass R. Sunstein would have his readers believe in The World According to Star

Wars.46 Admittedly, where the incestuous suggestions between Luke and Darth Vader are

46 Sunstein actually remarks upon an important extratextual fact about the original Star Wars trilogy and Luke and Leia’s ultimate relationship. He mentions that Lucas “might have been thinking of a sister” during the original trilogy, “but not of Leia” (23). While viewers are mostly certain that Lucas did not always intend for Leia to be Luke’s twin sister, story planning is irrelevant. The audience learns that Luke and Leia are twins in Return of the Jedi; all the while the preceding two films also do little to suggest that Luke is a serious romantic interest for Leia or even the other way around. 66 imbued into the films’ subtext, the perceived incestuous desire between Luke and Leia is part of the text. Despite their ignorance to the fact that they are twins, Luke still tells C-3PO that he thinks Leia is beautiful in A New Hope, and Leia still gives Luke a less-than-sisterly kiss to make

Han jealous in The Empire Strikes Back. Prior to Return of the Jedi, it is easy for surface readers to view Luke as Han’s primary rival for Leia’s romantic affections, so when we learn that Luke and Leia are siblings (not only siblings—twins), our perception of the relationship’s significance is muddled. For example, the “unmistakable sexual tension” between the two is what makes Star

Wars scholars like Sunstein averse to the twinship reveal (22). Sunstein and those who align with him perform a surface reading of previous encounters between Luke and Leia. The basic thought is that based on their quasi-romantic moments in the first two films, Luke and Leia were bound to enter into a romantic union if not for Lucas’s fear that his lead actors would not want to return for more sequels (24). This interpretation poses three primary problems: Firstly, as I have covered, it repeats an outdated conversation on Star Wars and the Oedipal complex. Second, it is reductive of Leia as a character in her own respect, as it implies she exists only as a sexual bounty for the hero. Finally, in my principal argument for Part II, Luke and Leia are not tragic romantic heroes pulled apart by the incest taboo. Instead, each twin serves as the other’s narcissistic mirror.

As I outlined this part, I nearly titled it after Yoda’s infamous “There is another.” Ultimately,

I concluded that to parcel Luke and Leia into completely distinguishable entities is diminishing of their actual bond. Throughout the original trilogy and into the more recent sequel films, Leia is not precisely Luke’s “other” (and vice versa); instead, when the twins look at one another, they are looking at external extensions of themselves. In order to understand how the gaze most accurately functions between Luke and Leia, it is crucial to first address Lacan’s thoughts on 67 mirroring and the overlapping relationship between signifiers and signifieds and how that overlap relates to male/female siblings and the concept of othering.

Of course, in a discussion of Lacanian psychoanalysis, to reference the mirror stage is as predictable as a reference to the Oedipal complex in a discussion of Freud. However, because

Luke and Leia are twins and therefore reflective metaphors for one another, it is difficult to avoid the mirror stage altogether. For Lacan, the mirror stage refers to the relationship between what is

“disconnected, discordant, [and] in pieces” and a simultaneous “unity with which it is merged and paired” (50). This unity forces the subject to see his reflection and himself as a singular entity, though unity is contrived and somewhat artificial. In other words, when the subject looks into the mirror, he may say, “I see me” rather than “I see I,” indicating some difference between the subject and the reflection or the presumed other. As fraternal twins, this paradigm is quite applicable to the dynamic between Luke and Leia. They were born unified; after they were separated at birth and experienced disparate upbringings, they must always acknowledge their difference, regardless of the way they were born. In fact, throughout the saga, Luke and Leia’s differences are stressed much more often than their unifying similarity. Though they know they are twins, Luke and Leia’s physical appearances, childhoods, and gender performances are almost perfectly oppositional, creating a somewhat ironic distance between them. Where Luke is fair-haired and blue-eyed, Leia is a dark-eyed brunette. Moreover, where Luke was raised as a poor farmboy, Leia was adopted into royalty. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, where Luke is male, Leia is female. While they attempt to feel comforted by the fact that they are twins, which explains their intimate and sometimes telepathic connection to each other (e.g. In Return of the Jedi, after Luke confirms their twinship, Leia says, “I know. Somehow, I’ve always known,” suggesting a part of her has always been absent [1:20:33-1:20:43].), there is a sense of 68 disquiet in this reveal, particularly for Luke. I will elaborate on this idea throughout this part, but for Luke, the sight of Leia reminds him of qualities and experiences he lacks. Because she is female, he confuses his desire to be like her with sexual attraction to her. His attraction to Leia always has a dimension of narcissism within it because he is measuring himself against his reflection, and that narcissistic tension becomes especially clear when Luke discovers that Leia is his sister and therefore part of himself. Still, their sexual difference is so pervasive in the majority of the original films that it distracts from the narcissistic subtext. The idea that Luke and

Leia must look at each other as male and female rather than as narcissistic mirrors on equal footing stems from their own experiences with signifiers and signifieds of gender and sexuality.

These signifiers and signifieds have run so rampantly in previous Star Wars scholarship that it has become rather difficult to discuss Luke and Leia outside the realm of sexual difference, and although I argue their sexual difference is a determining factor in their competitive narcissism, I do not contend that their sexual difference automatically equates incestuous attraction.

To begin, I want to define both signifier and signified as according to Ferdinand de Saussure, as Saussure influences Lacan’s theories on language and culture. For Saussure, the signifier is an individual a word or image, and the signified is the concept implied by the signifier (67).

Signifiers and signifieds are intrinsically linked, as they must work together to produce recognition and meaning of a given object or idea. In this way, it would be simple to assume that the signified is somehow more important than the signifier. After all, without some sort of meaning attached to it, a word is just a haphazard series of letters. Lacan disagrees with this notion by claiming, “signifier over signified” (415). Put differently, Lacan argues that a mess of letters is more important than the meaning we have culturally attached to them. Though this idea is ostensibly backward, Lacan’s assertion is logical. We need to first read the letters to attach 69 arbitrary meaning to them. For Lacan, “culture… may well be reduced to language,” which suggests that culture and language are identical (414). We establish culture to make sense of the words on our pages and tongues, and once the signified is in place, we are able to determine some expressions of our respective identities.

Lacan also writes that the relationship between signifiers and signifieds plays a crucial role in the development of gender identity and conventions, which he explains through the example of public restrooms. In this hypothetical scenario, a brother and sister are riding a train when they come in contact with two doors: one marked “Ladies” and the other marked “Gentlemen.” The brother remarks that they are now “‘at Ladies,’” to which the sister snaps, “‘Imbecile… Don’t you see we’re at Gentlemen?’” (417). The sister forces herself and the brother into signified categories based on the sight of the signifier, which superficially separates them. Specifically,

Lacan writes:

To these children, Gentlemen and Ladies will henceforth be two homelands toward

which each of their souls will take flight on divergent wings, and regarding which it will

be all the more impossible for them to reach an agreement since, being in fact the same

homeland, neither can give ground regarding one’s unsurpassed excellence without

detracting from the other’s glory (417).

Therein lies the essence of Luke and Leia’s connection through both its genesis in A New Hope to its assumed conclusion47 in The Last Jedi. Each twin possesses something that the other twin envies, and throughout the saga, they express that envy by trying to ride on the coattails of the other’s strength or victory. For instance, Luke joins the Rebellion that Leia spearheads because he is desperate for the adventure she has, and Leia softly admits that she wishes she could hone

47 Because Leia is slated to appear in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker despite Carrie Fisher’s death in 2016, it remains to be seen whether there will be more scenes where Luke and Leia play opposite or discuss one another. 70 the Force as Luke does. Yet, since they are sexually different, they do not consciously see themselves as equals or narcissistic mirrors for one another, believing instead that the strong pull they feel toward one another must be erotic. Although I argue Luke and Leia are never truly sexually attracted to one another, I also maintain that because they are male and female, they mistake their narcissistic mirroring and competition for incestuous attraction.

To explain the competitive role of narcissistic mirroring between Luke and Leia, it is necessary to first debunk the idea that Luke and Leia have ever experienced genuine incestuous attraction to one another. To do so, I will analyze two scenes from the original trilogy that are most often misinterpreted as erotic potential for the twins: Luke’s first sight of Leia’s holographic image in A New Hope and Leia’s kiss in The Empire Strikes Back. Although the latter scene is very popularized analyzed through an Oedipal lens, both scenes depict the characters (especially Luke) at their most narcissistic, making them ripe for my argument on this relationship. Regardless of whether Lucas intended Luke and Leia to be twins, their relationship was never meant to be erotic, and these seemingly incestuous moments between them are (much like those between Luke and Darth Vader) actually indicative of their competitive narcissistic mirroring.

Leia at First Sight

The original teaser trailer for A New Hope (then simply titled Star Wars) in 1977 described the film as “The story of a boy, a girl, and a universe,” and though this assessment is not completely false, the fact that it purposely focuses on sexual difference establishes romantic assumptions48 in our heteronormative culture (0:33-36). Distilled to its most basic core, A New

48 It also does not hurt that the narrator says, shortly thereafter, that Star Wars is “a big, sprawling space saga of rebellion and romance,” but because the trailer instantly cuts to a heroic shot of Han Solo, Leia’s true romantic interest, the notion that Luke and Leia were initially romantically intended for one another is thrown into question (0:44-47). 71

Hope is simply an epic of heroes, villains, and romantic love, and this idea of romance is alluded to when Luke first sets eyes on Leia in both holographic and corporeal form. After Luke attempts to clean up R2-D2, he unjams a fragment of the message Leia gave him earlier in the film. R2-

D2 is only able to play the last two sentences of the message with, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

You’re my only hope,” and the fact that R2-D2 is unable to “play back the entire message” is enough to make Luke irate (21:10, 23:01). From an erotic or Oedipal perspective, Luke’s exasperation may be born of his admission that the image of Leia is “beautiful” and the fact that he cannot remove his unblinking eyes from the hologram (21:35). Additionally, Luke gazes at the hologram with a look of wonder, and as the camera closes up on the hologram, Leia’s voice has gone silent. This focus on the female form in favor of her voice, coupled with the fact that a man is staring at her, may lead to an erotic interpretation of this impending relationship. By looking at her features but disregarding her cry for help, the camera indicates that Luke is more consumed with Leia’s beauty than the possibility that someone is in danger, and through a heteronormative lens, this resembles the genesis of a romance. As a basic reading (especially one with no knowledge of the twinship reveal in Return of the Jedi), there is textual support for the notion that Luke is immediately and sexually attracted to Leia. This reading, however, disregards the narrative framing of this scene.

Although the perceived journey in A New Hope is one to save Leia, and this scene is instrumental in jumpstarting that journey, the scene’s narrative structure is far more concerned with what Luke thinks of himself and not what he thinks of Leia. Firstly, consider the way this scene begins. Luke sits with a model T-16 Skyhopper and plays with it to mimic flight, much like a child in our world playing with a model airplane. He slams the toy down and whines, “It just isn’t fair! Ah, Biggs [Darklighter, Luke’s best friend on Tatooine] is right. I’m never gonna 72 get out of here!” in reference to Owen’s previous refusal to let him join the Imperial Academy or socialize with his friends (19:54). He complains about his circumstances as a farmhand while all of his friends are seeking adventure elsewhere in the galaxy, and while these complaints do not compose the majority of the scene’s duration, they are necessary to create the shocking tonal shift when Luke accidentally uncovers Leia’s message. The extended expository information in this scene reveals that Luke is childish and selfish, and if he is automatically established as a selfish character, then it is our responsibility to read the remainder of his actions through a lens of selfishness. Once we focus on the establishment of Luke as an especially self-interested personality, it is easier to see that this scene is not about an attraction to Leia. Differently, it is about what Leia represents—the promise of adventure and excitement for Luke beyond

Tatooine. For instance, before Luke stumbles upon the hologram, he engages in this conversation with C-3PO about where he and R2-D2 were before Luke’s family purchased them in the droid auction:

C-3PO: With all we’ve been through, sometimes I’m amazed we’re in such good

condition as we are, what with the Rebellion and all.

Luke: You know of the Rebellion against the Empire?

C-3PO: That’s how we came to be in your service, if you take my meaning, sir.

Luke: Have you been in many battles (20:39-20:51)?

On the one hand, this conversation slightly foreshadows Leia’s upcoming message as well as

Luke’s eventual decision to join the Rebellion alongside her; on the other, it illustrates Luke’s apparent inability to think of anyone other than himself. C-3PO has hinted that he and R2-D2 are wanted by the Empire due to their involvement with the Rebellion, and despite their impending danger, Luke is only interested in the fact that they are involved with the Rebellion at all. 73

Specifically, after C-3PO mentions the Rebellion, Luke enthusiastically whips around to hear more about the droids’ experiences, exemplifying his desire to live vicariously through someone else’s adventure stories because he has no exciting tales of his own. Because Luke has, to this point, been established as a young man unsatisfied with the current status of his life, we can infer that his questions are not meant as a genuine interest in the droids’ pasts; instead, his questions are illustrative of a desire to satiate his longing for adventure and recklessness. In this way, Luke conforms quite aptly to Bruce Fink’s paradigm of perversion. According to Fink, the pervert is

“a pleasure-seeking [being] who know[s] nothing of higher purpose or appropriate objects,” and by casting the dangerous Rebellion in a light of exhilaration because it reminds him of the adventure he wishes he could chase, Luke reveals one part of his perversity (39). Of course,

Fink’s definition here could be used to support an Oedipal reading (i.e. Luke is sexually drawn to

Leia) since Freud’s Totem and Taboo suggests that incestuous desire is an inappropriate subject.

Still, Luke’s focus on Leia in this scene is only important insofar as it influences him—and more accurately, gives him an excuse—to chase his own adventurous desires.

When I discuss Luke’s gaze on Leia in this scene, it is important to note that Luke is not actually gazing at Leia at all. Rather, Luke gazes at a hologram of a person he has yet to meet, and this simulacra is open to Luke’s personal projection and interpretation. That is, because Leia- the-person is not physically present in this scene, Luke can manipulate her to represent whatever best serves his goal of leaving Tatooine. Since Leia’s hologram is transparent and intangible,

Luke can both see his reflection in and put his hand through her image, effectively placing himself at the center of excitement and conflict. Here, an Oedipal Star Wars critic may argue that because Leia is a hologram, Luke has the option to penetrate her, thereby creating erotic tension and dominance in this relationship before it even begins. As I mentioned in Part I about the use 74 of the penile lightsaber, the penetrative interpretation may be technically sound, but this hologram is not Leia. She created the simulacra,49 and so she is connected to it. It is nevertheless crucial to avoid conflation of Princess Leia and Princess Leia’s hologram. Additionally, this hologram presents only a fraction of Leia’s message, which implies that it is Luke’s onus to fill in its gaps. He can fill them with the narrative he wants to fulfill, and based on his earlier yearning for adventure, this fragment of a message is an ideal opportunity. Because this fragment is a literal cry for help, Luke can surmise that something thrilling and perilous is happening on another end of the galaxy. Furthermore, since R2-D2 and Leia’s message have landed in his possession, Luke assumes the responsibility of chasing that adventure by understanding the message and finding Obi-Wan Kenobi. In particular, after Luke tells the droids he has heard of a hermit called Ben Kenobi, he looks to the hologram and says, “I wonder who she is. Sounds like she’s in trouble. I better play back the whole thing” (22:31). Despite the fact that C-3PO told him, mere seconds earlier, that the hologram was “a private message for [Obi-Wan],” Luke feels compelled to insert himself and his adventurous desires into a narrative he does not necessarily belong in (22:03).50 Even though he has acknowledged her beauty, Leia’s physical attractiveness is not at the forefront of Luke’s motivation at this time. Luke is too thrilled to have adventurous potential thrust upon him to focus very much on Leia’s body—only the quest Leia’s presence promises him in the near future, which is what Luke actually finds beautiful in this scene.

Here, the concepts of beauty and narcissistic competitive mirroring are now bonded to one another, as Luke finds beauty in what Leia represents and how much he wants it for himself.

When he looks at this image of Leia, he does not only see a physically attractive woman. He also

49 For more on the role of the simulacra and the body in science fiction, see Jean Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Science Fiction” and “Ballard’s Crash.” 50 This claim acknowledges the fact that Luke does, of course, belong in this narrative, as it becomes about his family. At this point, however, he is completely ignorant of the importance of his paternity. 75 sees a woman,51 approximately his age, with the power he desires yet has no hope of possessing.

When Luke asks C-3PO if he knows who the woman in the hologram is, C-3PO replies that he thinks she is “[a] person of some importance” (21:44). Luke, who clearly worries that someday, everyone will supersede him in heroic importance, may well translate C-3PO’s assessment of

Leia to mean: This pretty girl is important, and you are not. At this point in the film, Leia means nothing to Luke other than to remind him that everyone is leading a better and more exciting life than he is, even nineteen-year-old girls. Luke’s first sight of Leia is not representative of what

Mladen Dolar calls the “[epitomized]” romantic moment where “their eyes meet” because

Luke’s eyes met no one at all (132). This “first sight” was a sight of himself and his presumed lack of importance. We have still come to interpret the scene as one of incestuous attraction due to a heteronormative understanding of the word beautiful and avoidance of Luke’s attitude at the start of this scene. This notion of incestuous desire becomes admittedly more complicated in The

Empire Strikes Back when Leia kisses Luke. This kiss is not erotic, as it only further solidifies the twins’ narcissistic personalities and serves as a hollow jealousy tactic in a non-existent love triangle.

Narcissistic Kissing

Since the kiss between Luke and Leia in The Empire Strikes Back is so widely cited as evidence of incestuous desire between the two characters, I do not want my discussion of it to be overly long. However, because it is the one scene where incestuous action occurs between the twins, I cannot ignore it. The summary of the scene is simple: Luke is recovering after being attacked by a Wampa, and Han and Leia are in the infirmary with him. Han is flirtatiously

51 The distinction of Leia’s gender is important here, as gender assumptions and stereotypes in the Star Wars universe are, for the most part, identical to ours. This idea becomes especially clear after Luke and Han come to Leia’s rescue on the Death Star. The two men are confused and afraid in battle with the Stormtroopers, and Leia’s famous line, “Somebody has to save our skins!” is indicative of the surprise we feel when a woman dominates any struggle, especially a physical feat like this one (1:18:27). 76 attempting to convince Leia to admit that she returns his love, and Leia angrily says, “Why, I guess you don’t know everything about women yet” before kissing Luke on the mouth (17:56).

Cass R. Sunstein argues, “[The] kiss doesn’t look like anything siblings typically do,” and in the most literal sense, he is correct (23). One would not expect a sister to kiss her brother with Leia’s intensity here, nor would a sister use her brother to rouse jealousy in her actual romantic interest.

Unfortunately, Sunstein avoids the jealousy angle altogether, instead favoring criticism of

Lucas’s supposedly poor story structuring skills rather than a close analysis of the text as it is.

When Leia kisses Luke after bickering about her feelings for Han for the second time52 in the film, she is exercising a classic narrative trope. According to Ross Chambers, purposeful jealousy is commonly used in fiction because it “permits [one] to see” their true romantic feelings, which seems to be what Leia wants from Han (39). Much like Leia sometimes functions as the mediator between Luke and Vader, here Luke plays the role of mediator between Han and

Leia. Luke and Leia’s mirroring of one another even extends to their identical roles in triangulation. While this kiss primarily serves as a jealousy tactic, it simultaneously reinforces the idea that both twins have narcissistic personalities. That is, Leia knows kissing Luke will be effective because the two of them have a great deal in common, bolstering Dolar’s idea that we expect to fall in love with our perfect doubles.

Though Luke and Leia remain unaware that they are twins until midway through Return of the Jedi, their personalities blend and mirror one another from the moment they meet in A New

Hope. In other words, Luke and Leia behave as twins before they know they truly are twins, making this kiss narcissistic regardless of narrative structure. Consider, for instance, the

52 Han and Leia have bickered about their romantic attraction twice at this point, and the first act still has not concluded. Meanwhile, this infirmary scene is the first Luke and Leia have shared, and this limited shared screen time (especially as compared to Han and Leia’s shared screen time) indicates that Luke was not a serious romantic interest for Leia, regardless of whether Lucas knew they were twins. 77 judgment Leia casts on Han when she first arrives on the Millennium Falcon in A New Hope.

After the rescue, Han tells Leia, “I ain’t in this for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you,

Princess… I’m in it for the money,” which Leia, a devoted member of the Rebel Alliance, takes umbrage with (1:37:14-1:37:19). As soon as Luke enters the cockpit, Leia turns to him with a sense of kinship and says, “Your friend is quite a mercenary. I wonder if he really cares about anything… or anybody,” and as she walks away, Luke promises, “I care” (1:37:28-1:37:35). The fact that she insults Han directly to Luke suggests that she is drawing a comparison between the two men. Han may not care about political freedom like she does. Luke, however, as the one who broke her out of her cell, probably feels her passion for the Rebellion. Additionally, from a strictly Oedipal perspective, Luke’s addendum that he cares may serve as evidence that he is attracted to Leia and wants to show her that he is a decent romantic match. After all, Dolar writes, “Surely the paramount case of falling in love at first sight, the exchange of the gaze, of the gaze returned, is constituted by the recognition of one’s own image in the mirror” (135). At the same time, even if Luke and Leia are drawn to one another, they are particularly drawn to what makes them alike. Likely, Leia kisses Luke because she believes it is logical to choose the suitor with whom she has more commonalities; accordingly, she is kissing herself. Similarly,

Luke kisses Leia because he recognizes her passion for adventure as his own; accordingly, he is also kissing himself. There may be a dimension of eroticism here; although, it does not signify a mutual romance between two distinct personalities. Instead, this kiss reveals that Luke and Leia are chiefly interested in their own characteristics. The eroticization of the kiss raises their self- interest and commonality to a blatantly narcissistic level. Through this intimacy with their perfect doubles, Luke and Leia reveal their respective narcissisms. Because they are also 78 confronted with sexual difference, they confuse their narcissistic “jubilation” with genuine erotic attraction (Dolar 136).

Much like the traditionally Freudian/Lacanian readings of Luke and Vader’s relationship, a similar reading of Luke and Leia’s relationship is technically valid. This reading has textual support, yet it makes a number of heteronormative assumptions about male/female relationships.

If Luke was Leia’s ideal romantic match, the narrative would not have favored her romantic connection with Han, and likely, she would have chosen Luke. This perceived incestuous longing is present only as another metaphor for Luke and Leia’s narcissistic mirroring and competition, specifically in regard to heroic superiority.

Debatably, Luke Skywalker is not the singular hero of the Star Wars saga because the saga is divided into the story of the Rebellion and the story of the Jedi Order. While Luke is technically affiliated with the Rebellion and flies X-wing Fighters for the cause, he is not the face of the Rebellion—Leia is. Similarly, while Leia is sensitive to the Force and could have become a Jedi, it is not her path—it is Luke’s. Luke and Leia are the heroes of each respective story, as Luke can confront other Force users (the domestic drama) while Leia engages in strategy and other forms of combat (the political theater). These causes overlap and assist one another; yet, they are distinct in the Star Wars mythos. Therefore, the announcer in the original

Star Wars trailer is correct to say that the saga is “the story of a boy, a girl, and a universe” because the universe needs both the boy and the girl in order to survive and flourish (0:35). It is not, however, the romantic or Oedipal story of “Boy Meets Girl” because the twins are ultimately more interested in challenging one other than in kissing one another.

A Boy, a Girl, a Universe, and a Mirror

As my subheading suggests, I want to refer back to that line from the original Star Wars trailer (“It’s the story of a boy, a girl, and a universe.”) because this line encapsulates what the original trilogy’s narrative structure could have been if not for the interference of Luke’s narcissism. The original Star Wars films have two distinct storylines—one of the Rebellion and another of the restoration of the Jedi Order. These would-be disparate stories frequently intersect and therefore emphasize the narcissistic competition between the stories’ respective protagonists

(Leia for the Rebellion; Luke for the Jedi), but they do not narrate the romantic “Boy Meets Girl” tale that such a line often indicates. What the films present instead is a competition between the equally important causes in the galaxy far, far away and Luke’s overall desire to have dominion over both paths. In order to underscore this narcissistic dueling, the films convey a sense of intimacy (though not necessarily sexualized intimacy) between Luke and Leia.

Perhaps the most intimate and narcissistically competitive scene between Luke and Leia occurs in Return of the Jedi when Luke finally tells Leia that they are siblings. This scene is particularly interesting because it, like the decapitation scene between Luke and the imagined

Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, imbues images of Oedipal eroticism to simultaneously stress the narcissistic doubling and competition between the twins. The scene begins with a blatant Oedipal reference when Luke takes Leia to a secluded area and asks, “Do you remember your mother? Your real mother” and later claims, “I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her” (1:18:20-1:18:24, 1:18:49-1:18:52). Steven A. Galipeau interprets this line as evidence that Luke views Leia as a maternal supplement, going so far as to refer to Leia as

Luke’s “‘sister’” in scare quotes, as though her function as his twin is irrelevant compared to her function as a motherly substitute. In The Journey of Luke Skywalker, Galipeau argues that Leia, 80 primarily “as a feminine figure, evokes Luke’s earliest loss: he recalls no experience of his mother” (221). Much like other more traditionally Oedipal readings of this character and this dynamic, Galipeau’s focus on Leia as Luke’s maternal supplement has merit, especially when we consider the fact that Luke’s first question to Leia after he discovers their twinship is about their mother. Still, Galipeau distorts the importance of the mother figure in this scene because he concentrates too narrowly on the fact that she is there rather than asking why she is, suddenly, there. On the one hand, Luke acknowledges the missing piece of his “personal origins” and the lack of maternal “bonding” that supposedly assists in healthily socializing a child, and this acknowledgement resembles Luke’s arguable desire to be an Oedipal child (221). On the other hand, the use of the word mother in this scene is handled too quickly and casually to warrant a strictly Oedipal reading of the text. I maintain that the opening moments of this scene are memorable to even the average Star Wars viewer because Luke’s appeal to mother is in stark contrast with the previous two films in the original trilogy. In fact, Return of the Jedi is the first film in the Star Wars saga to use the word mother at all.53 The compelling aspect of this scene is not simply that it is the first time a Star Wars film has mentioned a mother, although in a family epic, it is quite bizarre. In fact, I understand Galipeau’s Oedipal point that Luke was previously unaware of his maternal lack, and he is only beginning to realize “the issues that lie buried there” now that he has met his biological father (221). I understand this point of view by way of

Lacan’s theory of the child’s relationship to the phallus. In “The Signification of the Phallus,”

Lacan writes that children, both girls and boys, “consider the mother to be endowed with a phallus, that is, to be a phallic mother,” and in his relationship with the mother, the father is then

53Though each of the Star Wars prequel films uses the word mother in reference to Shmi Skywalker, The Last Jedi is the only other Luke-centric film to ever speak the word. The film includes a derogatory joke Resistance pilot Poe Dameron makes at the expense of First Order General Armitage Hux (4:24). In Luke’s stories, then, mothers are hardly relevant. 81 in possession of the phallus (576). To reiterate, the mother is the phallus while the father has the phallus. Subsequently, when the children, who have previously identified with the phallic mother, discover that their mothers desire something other than them, they attempt to identify with the father and his ownership of the phallus. Because children become confused about which parent truly holds the phallic power, there is some merit to Galipeau’s argument that Luke was previously so focused on his father’s phallic possession that he never realized the role his mother could play in this alleged family romance. Still, a traditional Oedipal/phallic reading of the

“mother mention” in this scene between Luke and Leia is not thorough, as it focuses too closely on the specific language in the text and not on the outcome of using that language.

In my view, this scene establishes itself as non-Oedipal because of how quickly it introduces the maternal thread and how even more quickly it snips that thread in half.

Immediately after Luke tells Leia that he has no memory of their mother, he says, “Vader is here” (1:19:03). Naturally, there is an obvious link between Luke’s mother and Darth Vader, but because Luke never mentions his mother again, the case that Luke’s mother is important in this scene is tenuous. When Luke asks Leia if she remembers their mother, his tone of voice is casual and almost disinterested. If Luke is not thoroughly invested in the story of his birth or stories of the mother he can never know, it is unfair to classify this scene as an example of Oedipal longing merely because Luke uses the word mother in front of his sister whose features are akin to hers.

Instead, it seems like this scene was written into the script to verify that Luke and Leia, at some point, had a mother—like George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan thought they had to fill in a blank the rest of the audience had already filled in of their own accord. Galipeau argues that the sudden conversational shift from mother to father occurs because Vader is an imminent threat, and on the whole, I agree with his assessment. Still, Galipeau maintains that Luke’s previous interest in 82

Leia was a metaphor for an interest in his deceased mother, which I cannot agree with because

Luke is so detached from the maternal throughout the remainder of this film as well as in The

Last Jedi, the next Luke-centric film in the saga. He expresses some curiosity in the maternal and instantly retreats back to the paternal, stressing his stronger narcissistic interest in Vader than in anything truly Oedipal.

In addition to Luke’s mostly uninterested tone of voice and failure to ever inquire about his mother again, the setting of the scene is deceptively Oedipal. As aforementioned, Luke takes

Leia to a secluded area on the forest moon of Endor, and visually, this area resembles another cave. Had Luke and Leia actually been sitting in a cave during this scene, the symbolism would have been embarrassingly obvious. In this scene, Luke and Leia have to reflect upon two new and significant discoveries: the fact that they are twins and that their most reviled enemy is their father—in essence, one could argue that this scene is a rebirth for the twins. All things considered, if they had discussed this information in a cave, the maternal/vaginal subtext would hardly even be subtext. Nonetheless (and perhaps thankfully), this scene takes place on a bridge instead of in a cave, so any claims toward symbolism of rebirthing or Oedipal structures seem to lose a great deal of their credibility here. Yet, much like the association between the cave and the vagina, we can turn to classical dream interpretation to determine the significance of the bridge.

In Dream Psychology, Freud writes, “[Many] landscapes in dreams, especially with bridges or with wooded mountains, can readily be recognized as descriptions of the genitals” (115).

Namely, Freud thought the bridge was representative of the penis or the phallus, as unlike Lacan,

Freud does not distinguish between these two terms. In regard to Luke and Leia’s bridge, I argue it could be representative of the phallus, yet its phallic importance is more Lacanian than

Freudian. 83

Throughout the original trilogy and especially in this scene, Luke and Leia compete with one another for phallic control; if they are sitting on a phallus to discuss their deepening connection, then the scene reinforces their competitive doubling, not their desire to be reborn as a unit. By placing Luke and Leia on a bridge, the scene accentuates their struggle for narcissistic power. The apparent cave-like setting on the bridge is another screen that disguises Luke’s narcissistic personality. If we accept the darkness and closeness around the twins as a cave, then it is all too easy to read this scene as Luke’s realization that his desire to know his father is actually a desire to know his mother. Later, when we notice that this place is a phallic bridge and not a vaginal cave, we recognize that this scene is meant to highlight Luke’s desire for power (in particular, more power than Leia has). Not unlike the use of the lightsaber between Luke and

Darth Vader, the deceivingly Oedipal cave metaphor is present here because even Luke wants to believe that he is more interested in his family than in himself. Therefore, the apparent distinction between the cave and the bridge breaks down in the face of these sorts of narcissism—we move from maternal, enclosed, and alternately safe or oppressive cave enclosures to the openness and transitional metaphor—literally the crossing over—of the bridge suggesting movement from one place to another that is at once safe and perilous. For Luke, the presumed hero of this story who wants to prove his superiority over his villainous father, it is easier to admit to a desire for his mother or a maternal supplement than it is to admit to a desire for power and for himself.

The narcissistic struggle for power between Luke and Leia plays out rather subtly in the remainder of this scene, particularly after we consider that it takes place on a phallic bridge, and this subtlety is predominantly owed to the filmic composition of the scene. Luke and Leia sit directly across from one another and stare deeply into one another’s eyes as they carry out this 84 conversation, and no matter the location of the camera, the audience can never see the entirety of both twins’ faces at exactly the same time. Their heads are always turned to stare directly at the other’s face, and in this way, the camera mimics the action of looking into a mirror. Per Lacan’s mirror stage, when the subject looks into the mirror, he has “[the] jubilant assumption” that he has found his “ideal-I” (76, italics in the original). This assumption inspires what Lacan calls

“‘primary narcissism,’” a different kind of libido that is often confused for sexual libido because they are felt with similar intensity (79). Likewise, since Luke and Leia stare at each other so intently in this scene, it is easy to mistake their narcissistic tension here for incestuous longing.

Luke and Leia stare at each other, but they are staring at each other in this way to join their respective strengths and narcissisms together, effectively playing on the practical use of the bridge in this scene. As is the case with Luke, Darth Vader, and Luke’s insistence that he can feel his father’s goodness inside himself, Luke and Leia’s loving gazes on one another look strangely erotic in this scene. At the same time, because this is the scene in which Leia learns her connection with Luke is biological, the more erotic it seems, the more narcissistic it actually is.

Thusly, when Leia refuses to tell Han why she is upset, and he asks, “Could you tell Luke? Is that who you could tell?” his romantic confusion is still logical (1:21:56). Though Lacan argues narcissistic libido and sexual libido are not interchangeable, the popular assumption is that libido is always erotic. That is, if Luke and Leia’s closeness in this scene (or any other scene between the two of them, for that matter) tricks Han into thinking they are romantic, then their narcissistic doubling has achieved perfect narcissistic enclosure. That narcissism is revealed in their transfixed gazes on one another and (perhaps more importantly) in their dialogue.

During this conversation, both Luke and Leia speak to one another in a way that reflects their narcissistic jealousy, and though the scene continues to indicate incestuous attraction and 85 highlight sexual difference, the twins’ narcissistic personalities are still the underlying and more important presence. For example, Luke decides to begin his official twinship reveal with this warning to Leia:

Luke: If I don’t make it back, you’re the only hope for the [Rebel] Alliance.

Leia: Luke, don’t talk that way. You have a power I don’t understand and could never

have.

Luke: You’re wrong, Leia. You have that power, too. In time, you’ll learn to use it as I

have (1:19:44-1:20:00).

On the surface, this conversation resembles a simple precursor to a larger problem for Leia. She understands that Luke has the Force because she has seen him use it, and he has just informed her that Vader, another powerful Force user, is his father. By telling Leia that she has the same power, it becomes fairly easy for Luke to transition into the true reveal that they are twins, and

Vader is also her father. Yet, when we examine this conversation under a narcissistic lens, we see the same competitive, narcissistic jealousy that fueled Luke’s desire for adventure in A New

Hope. In particular, Luke’s narcissistic competition with Leia comes through when he says she would be the only hope for the Alliance. As I have written, the original Star Wars trilogy can be divided into two adventure stories: one of the Jedi Order’s restoration (led by Luke) and one of the Rebel Alliance’s triumph (led by Leia). These are twin causes that ultimately benefit one another. Nonetheless, it is unfair to claim that they are identical. No matter the help Luke gives to the Rebellion, it is clearly and primarily Leia’s cause. After all, in The Empire Strikes Back,

Luke abandons the Rebellion to begin his Jedi training with Yoda while Leia stays behind to fight against Vader. With this narrative dichotomy in mind, I want to re-evaluate Luke’s claim here: “If I don’t make it back, you’re the only hope for the Alliance” (1:19:44). Effectively, Luke 86 has revealed that he overestimates his importance to the Alliance54 when he alleges that Leia, who has dedicated herself to the Alliance for years, is only important to them in the event of his death. This implication refers back to his envious fascination with Leia’s hologram in A New

Hope, specifically when C-3PO refers to Leia as “[a] person of some importance” (21:44). At this point in the saga, Luke has also become a person of some importance. He was instrumental in destroying the first Death Star, Yoda has conferred the Jedi Knight title upon him, and he has learned that he is the offspring of the most powerful Force user in the galaxy. Of course, all of these attributes either directly apply or could directly apply to Leia, so Luke likely still perceives himself as living in the shadow of a pretty girl. Accordingly, when he tells Leia that she only becomes crucial to the Alliance in the event of his death, Luke simultaneously attempts to assume the role of hero in both halves of the story. Since he has always been aware of their mental connection and is now aware of their twinship, he understands that he and Leia are equals who perfectly mirror one another. His insistence that he is more important to the Rebel Alliance originates from his narcissistic personality, and his reliance on sexual difference (in essence, a desire to be superior to his pretty sister) still disguises that narcissism from himself and apparently from Leia as well.

In this scene, Leia also relies on sexual difference to disguise her narcissistic competition with her brother. Her narcissism is not as prevalent or as defining as that of Luke, although she exhibits at least some narcissistic tendencies during this conversation. Firstly, it is important to note that Leia undergoes a drastic change in personality in between The Empire Strikes Back and

Return of the Jedi. Barring her initiative to free Han from his carbonite prison, the murder of

54 Apparently, Lucasfilm also overestimates Luke’s importance to and investment in the Rebellion as well. In the opening crawl of The Empire Strikes Back, the voiceless, faceless narrator refers to the Rebellion as “a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker” (0:48). In the reality of the story, Luke’s involvement with the Rebellion exists primarily to strengthen his connections to Darth Vader and Princess Leia. 87

Jabba the Hutt, and shooting a Stormtrooper by cleverly faking an injury, Leia leaves her stubborn and independently motivated character behind for this final film in the trilogy. Where a younger version of the character probably would have peppered this conversation with snarky comments or a desire to return to battle, Leia is passively patient and tender with Luke. In a 1983 interview with Carol Caldwell, Carrie Fisher claimed, “There are a lot of people who don’t like my character in these movies; they think I’m some kind of space bitch,” and the only way to fix that criticism was to make Leia “more feminine, more supportive, [and] more affectionate” (pars.

2-3). Nonetheless, altering Leia’s affectations in this film does not efface her behavior in the prior two installments, and if we read her part in this conversation with earlier illustrations of the character in mind, her actions take on a new and more competitively narcissistic meaning.

Expressly, I want to examine Leia’s response to Luke’s earlier assertion that his death is the only thing that would make her important to the Rebellion. She says, “Luke, don’t talk that way. You have a power I don’t understand and could never have” (1:19:46-1:19:1:52). While it is certainly easy to read Leia’s line earnestly, as though she is finally submitting to her male superiors, this is the same character who pushed a man thirteen years her senior into a pile of garbage because she considered him inept in their fight against the Stormtroopers. Her tone with

Luke may sound genuine, but based on the personage Leia has cultivated for herself, there is reason to argue that her words here are as sarcastic as the words she takes with Grand Moff

Tarkin in A New Hope.55 Of course Leia can understand and possess Luke’s power. Arguably, she already knows that she does, as in the last moments of The Empire Strikes Back, she is able to telepathically commune with Luke through the Force. If we interpret Leia’s words as caustic,

55 Moments before Tarkin obliterates Leia’s home planet, she looks directly at her captor and says, “I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board” (57:18- 57:24). Anyone who spits in the face of the man who signed her death warrant is one who can be sarcastic toward her otherwise friendly brother. 88 her narcissism becomes more obvious. She is not thoroughly impressed with Luke’s Force power because she already understands (or is at least beginning to understand) that she has the same abilities. She appreciates her own strength, and by saying that she could never understand or have Luke’s power, she may be trying to remind Luke that she is his mirror and his equal—and perhaps even his superior.

Narcissistic sarcasm aside, Leia also attempts to mask her egotism in clichés of sexual difference. To begin, she addresses Luke by name when she draws attention to their purported power differences, which reminds both of them of Luke’s maleness. In that vein, Leia’s use of her brother’s name speaks to Mary Ann Doane’s point that when the cinematic woman speaks,

“she is phallicized, a thief” (34). On the contrary, when Leia addresses Luke by name (as his name is an even clearer representation of his masculinity than his lightsaber) to assure him that she does not possess the same power that he does, it appears that she is relinquishing the power she clearly exhibits in the first two films. She returns his power and his name to him, exactly as he has desired since he saw her hologram. Though I maintain that Leia’s line here is more narcissistically ironic, her use of Luke’s name is a clever disguise for her competition with her twin. It is not necessarily an incestuous mask, though one could argue there is a dimension of sexualization in Leia stealing and returning Luke’s phallic power while also allowing Luke to believe that she is as susceptible to falsified ideas about sexual difference and gender as he is.

Also, as I have already stated, Leia takes a more affectionate tone with the two male leads in this particular film, and this scene is the apotheosis of Leia’s debatably superficial tenderness. In effect, Leia’s new tone causes her to sound more like a satisfactory romantic heroine, which in turn disguises her narcissistic competition with Luke. Her tone reinforces the notion that women must always be gentle, particularly with their male counterparts, and because her tone is 89 convincing in its submissive femininity, neither Star Wars fans nor Star Wars scholars have noticed how brilliantly out of character it would be if Leia was truly in awe of Luke. She understands that they are each other’s perfect doubles while simultaneously feeling superior to him, namely through her stronger involvement with the Rebellion that Luke only suddenly claims as his own. Her narcissism is sarcastically present, and yet, her tendency to play the role of a passive romantic heroine obscures her genuinely competitive connection with her twin brother and narcissistic mirror.

Finally, after Luke officially tells Leia that she is his sister, Leia responds with the line that an abundance of Star Wars fans and scholars have misinterpreted as a commentary on the now-incestuous sexual tension between the characters. Leia calmly responds with, “I know.

Somehow… I’ve always known,” which no Star Wars scholar can apparently seem to reconcile

(1:20:33-1:20:43). For instance, Sander L. Gilman56 writes that Luke and Leia were never truly attracted to one another because “[even] though they are not raised as siblings or even know they are siblings, the power of the incest taboo seems so strong as to prevent any sexual interest”

(421). Meanwhile, Cass R. Sunstein argues that Leia’s claim to have always known she and Luke are siblings was nothing more than nonsensical retroactive continuity to, somehow, explain away that kiss in The Empire Strikes Back (22). My interpretation of Leia’s line falls somewhere in between Gilman and Sunstein. Like Sunstein, I argue that the line is some sort of commentary on their previous kiss, though like Gilman, I cannot accept that there was ever any true sexual attraction between Luke and Leia. Although the unspoken incest taboo has likely prevented Luke or Leia from having sex, Leia’s claim that she has always known she and Luke are siblings also reveals that she has always known that they are strongly bonded to one another, but that bond is

56 It is fair to note that Gilman’s work is on sibling incest in general, and Star Wars is simply cited as an example in the article. 90 one of narcissistic doubling and mirroring, not of incestuous desire. One example that comes to mind is Luke and Leia’s first meeting in A New Hope, in which Luke has arrived on the Death

Star to free Leia from her prison cell. Luke barges in and proclaims, “I’m Luke Skywalker! I’m here to rescue you!” to which Leia confusedly asks, “You’re who?” (1:16:13-1:16:17). Luke purposely skews his introduction to make himself sound like “[a] person of some importance”

(21:44). Conversely, Leia—a princess, senator, and member of the Rebellion—is an established person of importance (21:44). In one way, Luke’s entrance in the prison cell links his desires to those of Leia. Leia is on the Death Star in an attempt to protect the galaxy from the Empire, and

Luke is there to protect her from the Empire. Despite the fact that they have different motivations for achieving it, their primary goal in A New Hope is virtually identical: to foil the

Empire’s plans for the good of the galaxy, or, in Luke’s case, a couple of people. They mirror one another in their desire for adventure and promotion of the greater good; regardless, when

Leia reminds Luke that his name is, at this point, insignificant compared to hers, she elevates herself over him. She becomes an embodiment of the Name of the Father with which Luke has struggled. In so doing, their sexual difference is synthesized and their narcissistic projections are supportive to their achievement of their goals. From her first appearance in the saga, Leia has been an independent fighter, and when this strange young man invades her heroic space, her question (“You’re who?”) is an attempt to put him back in his place. Until his sudden arrival,

Leia has been a leader in the Rebellion, and narcissistically, she has no choice aside from chastising his attempt to outdo her. Perhaps unfortunately for Leia, Luke’s attempts to align himself with her are successful, proving that they are akin to one another in spite of their respective backgrounds. Where Leia is able to dictate the problems with the Death Star and order for it to be destroyed, Luke is able to carry out her request by using the Force and piloting an X- 91

Wing. When Luke demonstrates this level of commitment to the Rebellion, Leia has herself seen.

However, as she and Luke are so similar, he poses a threat to her own narcissistic desire for victory and recognition.

A similar case can be made for Luke’s reaction when Obi-Wan tells him that he has a twin, since his relaxed reaction implies that he has always understood his competitive similarity to Leia. When Obi-Wan says, “…your sister remains safely anonymous,” Luke says, “Leia!

Leia’s my sister!” without any reflection on whether he could be mistaken (47:58-48:05). He simply knows it to be true. Interesting here is Luke’s tone of voice in the realization. Where Leia sounds almost resigned to the fact that this naïve farmboy is her brother, Luke is ecstatic to be related to Leia. To rephrase, Luke is ecstatic to be related to the princess, the senator, and “[a] person of some importance” (21:44). With Luke, the narcissism is not only found in a desire to be “better” than Leia, although I will argue shortly that that is his ultimate wish. Instead, Luke’s narcissism additionally reveals itself in his ability to say that he is biologically connected to someone important in the Rebellion and in the galaxy as a whole. Having Leia in his bloodline is a boon for Luke’s ego. Being biologically connected to Vader throws his narcissism into question (Can I be a good man if my father is evil?). To share a similar connection to Leia affirms for him that he can be a good and important man (My pretty sister is impressive, and we come from the same place.). Luke’s lack of surprise and subsequent thrill to be related to Leia in

Return of the Jedi is reminiscent of the last moments in The Empire Strikes Back. After Vader symbolically castrates Luke and reveals his paternity, Luke descends through a tunnel on Cloud

City to escape his evil father, whispering, “Leia… hear me” (1:53:40, 1:53:51). Lucy Place argues that Luke’s descent “through the bowels of Cloud City” reflect director George Lucas’s anal-retentiveness and fear of the maternal, but this analysis is too focused on the traditional 92

Freudian or Oedipal framework attached to Star Wars scholarship (112). In my view, the arguably Freudian setting is not as important to this scene as is the verbal language because it establishes Luke’s pride to be close to Leia, the only person whom he views as potentially superior to him. Throughout the original trilogy, Luke is only able to communicate telepathically with two people, and naturally, those people are Darth Vader and Leia. So, when Luke says,

“Leia… hear me” even though she is nowhere to be found, he seems to already know that he and

Leia mirror one another so well that she will know he is in danger (1:53:40, 1:53:51). Further, when Leia is able to hear him, she says to Lando Calrissian, “We’ve got to go back. I know where Luke is!” (1:54:00-1:54:04). Of course, we could interpret this scene as a romantic or libidinous connection; after all, once Leia successfully rescues Luke, she gives him a quick comforting kiss. In regard to Luke’s narcissism and superiority complex, Leia’s insistence on rescuing him proves to him that he is worthy of saving. Specifically, his intimate bond with Leia indicates that he is on par with her, and being Leia’s double is what actually makes him worthy of saving. This telepathic interaction between the characters is enough to not surprise Luke when he learns that Leia is his twin, although his elation is worth consideration. The previous films establish some sort of likeness between Luke and Leia, romantic or otherwise. Their likeness also inspires narcissistic competition and jealousy, particularly on Luke’s behalf. He has always feared that Leia is better than he is, and now that he knows they share the same blood, this anxiety becomes irrelevant. He can rightly share in all of her glory and accomplishment because she is his twin, and in her, the Lacanian “ideal-I,” he has himself seen.

And yet, being equal with Leia is insufficient for Luke because moments after they recognize their mirroring and twinship, Luke once again tries to elevate himself above his double. After he insists that he has to face Vader by himself, Leia says, “I wish I could go with 93 you,” and he replies, “No, you don’t” (1:20:53-1:20:55). Quite like the rest of this scene, this interaction can be read as an incestuous gesture, especially given the dreamy John Williams score in the background. For the Oedipal critic, it may sound like Leia wants to run away with

Luke. Still, when we consider all of the battle experience Luke knows Leia has (far more than his own), his refusal to even entertain the possibility of her coming with him is symptomatic of his narcissistic personality. By telling Leia that she does not want to—or, more tellingly, is not allowed to—accompany him as he faces down Vader, Luke is minimizing her commitment to the

Rebellion, especially Leia’s own pre-existing relationship with Darth Vader. Vader captured her, tortured her, and forced her to watch as her planet was decimated by the Death Star, and when

Luke says, “I can save him. I can turn him back,” he seems to entirely forget the identity of the person standing directly in front of him, looking at him as though she is his mirror (1:21:09).

Even if Luke knows that Leia’s trauma surrounding Vader and the Empire is akin to his, he does not seem to care. Now that he knows he is related to this “person of some importance,” he does not need her in order to gain all the glory for the cause she championed while he was preoccupied with boyish recklessness (21:44).

EPILOGUE. “I MAKE AN IMAGE:”57 AESTHETICS OF NARCISSISM AND THE FUTURE

OF DE-OEDIPALIZATION

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

- George Lucas, A New Hope

In A New Hope, when Obi-Wan and Luke arrive at Mos Eisley cantina to look for a ship that can take them from Tatooine to Alderaan to save Princess Leia, Obi-Wan looks upon the interstellar bar and describes the place as “a… wretched hive of scum and villainy” (42:42).

Visually, the viewer can easily agree with his judgment: Mos Eisley cantina is filled with absurd and repulsive alien characters, whose ugliness, in the contemporary moment, has become campy58 and laughable. I use this cheeky reference to emphasize a more serious point: This paradigm of incestuous narcissism is hideous.

My argument that incestuous narcissism is purely hideous is in direct contrast to what

Immanuel Kant argues in the Critique of Judgment, in which he theorizes the supposedly determining factors of aesthetic value and judgment. According to Kant, we can separate positive aesthetics into three general categories: “the agreeable, the beautiful, and the good” (52). With an understanding of all three positive aesthetic judgments, we are able to distinguish between objects and alter the ways in which we regard them or present them to others. The agreeable refers to what “gratifies us,” the beautiful to “what we just like,” and the good to “what we esteem, or endorse (52, italics in the original). Any negative aesthetic judgments are made in

57 This title is in reference to Lacan’s discussion on narcissism, object relations, and what happens beyond the pleasure principle in Seminar II: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and the Technique of Psychoanalysis. 58 The question of whether or not Star Wars is campy is interesting and important, though not the focus of this thesis. To address that question, we may turn to Susan Sontag’s famous piece, “Notes on ‘Camp,’” or to Andrew Ross’s book, No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture. 95 perfect opposition to positive judgments. Yet, critics of Kant, such as David Shier, point out that

Kant spends very little time narrating the negative or the ugly (412). Kant confirms that pain and dissatisfaction exist when we make aesthetic or tasteful judgments, but he primarily expunges the experience of ugliness or negativity from his work, which is evident even in the title of Book

One, “Analytic of the Beautiful” (50). In a way, it appears that for Kant, things are either beautiful or not beautiful. Nothing is precisely ugly. On some philosophical level, this focus on the beautiful and its exact (yet mostly unnamed) opposite is logical. Shier writes that because

“the beautiful seems to fascinate most people more than the ugly,” Kant writes more about positive aesthetics so that the reader can independently conclude the reverse about negative aesthetics (412). I am more interested in the idea that Kant seemingly finds nothing to be ugly, as

I think he is correct. Nothing is ugly except for narcissism because narcissism is the closest to nothing that a concept can ever be.

Think for a moment about even our most colloquial associations with the word narcissism: shallowness, emptiness, and perhaps even evilness,59 all ideas that can be easily translated into nothing. When we indulge our narcissism, we experience no pleasure, beauty, or usefulness—only ugliness, aggressiveness, and competition. The narcissist is consumed with this idea of the self. Predominately, however, he is consumed with the performative self—the ego, or, as Lacan writes, the “partial truth… a particular object within the experience of the subject” (44).

He believes that he is something important. Still, by constantly evaluating himself against the other to prove that he is better and more valuable, he becomes ugly nothingness. Narcissism is the very paradoxical presence of something—feigned importance and egotism—that is pure nothing. And if narcissism is ugly, and nothing can be ugly, then narcissism must be nothing.

59 For St. Augustine’s ideas on presence/nothingness and good/evil, see The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love. 96

In the Star Wars films, when characters reach their narcissistic apotheoses, they become visually ugly, evidently representative of their change in personality. For instance, in the third act of the prequel film, Revenge of the Sith, Anakin Skywalker fights with Obi-Wan Kenobi on the molten planet, Mustafar, and to punish Anakin for his turn to the dark side, Obi-Wan slices off both of his legs. When Anakin falls, his skin melts and scars over, leaving a once beautiful (in all the Kantian senses of the word) man into narcissistic ugliness.60 Earlier, in the same film,

Emperor Palpatine, motivated by greed and narcissistic need to subjugate the remainder of the galaxy to his will, is hit with his own Force lightning61 and left hideously deformed, a direct result of his narcissistic belief that he could overthrow the entire Jedi council. Though these characters take narcissistic action in the name of vanity, their consequential ugliness is used as filmic shorthand62 to convey their villainy or, more specifically, their narcissisms. Kant also discusses the correlation between beauty and morality in the Critique of Judgment, an idea that the Star Wars films repeatedly test, especially with their villains. In “Critique of Aesthetic

Judgment,” Kant claims that when we see something or someone beautiful, we are inclined to “at least a mental attunement favorable to moral feeling” (166). Beauty brings us pleasure, and we want to endorse it; the same can be said of moral goodness. Logically, we want to see physical attractiveness and moral goodness accompany one another, as Kantian logic claims they should.

Our reliance on this beautifully moral belief is communicated quite often through film, as conventionally attractive actors are usually cast in admirable and heroic roles. For instance, the original Star Wars trilogy features Harrison Ford as Han Solo, a handsome man who does not

60 Anakin’s decision to turn to the dark side is completely motivated by selfishness and narcissism. He was selfishly concerned with keeping his wife and children alive after having visions that they would die during childbirth. His narcissistic belief in Attack of the Clones that he was “the most powerful Jedi ever” caused him to develop a harsh resentment against the Jedi Council when he is not made into a Jedi Master in Revenge of the Sith (1:24:43). 61 “Force lighting” refers to a specialized power that Emperor Palpatine can use through the Force. It allows him to do exactly what it sounds like it would allow him to do: cast lightning bolts from his hands. 62 For more on film language, see Christian Metz’s Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema. 97 always want to make the good and moral choice though typically performs moral goodness because it is his responsibility as a beautiful hero. As a visual storytelling medium, film is able to subconsciously evoke the audience’s belief in Kantian aesthetic judgment, and the Star Wars saga is hardly exempt from this technique. Young boys dress up as Han Solo for Halloween because they want to be the courageous and handsome hero when at the same time, they pretend to kill Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine because they are the villains—the epitome of evil, of ugliness, and of narcissism.

Similarly, just as it is common to cast handsome men in heroic roles, it is hardly revolutionary to design a “bad guy” as the “ugly guy.” In his book, The Horror Film, Peter

Hutchings describes the terror of that moment in a horror film when “the monster is revealed in all its ugly glory” because ugliness and villainy are, in film language and in Kantian aesthetic judgment, traditionally interchangeable (131).63 In the matter of the Star Wars mythos, the similarity between ugliness and evil narcissism is clearest through the character of Emperor

Palpatine who, in both the original and prequel trilogies, is depicted as a weathered man with no morally redeemable qualities. Although the introduction to this thesis and much of Part I argued against the notion that Star Wars does not depict a reductive dichotomy of moral thinking, the purely narcissistic and ugly Emperor Palpatine is a rare exception.64 Morally and physically,

Emperor Palpatine is the most repulsive narcissist in the Star Wars films. Darth Vader, who is morally conflicted about his narcissism for much of his life, is still illustrated as an ugly character. Like Emperor Palpatine, his deformities are a direct symptom of his narcissistic

63 The opposite, in which the monster or villain is attractive in order to confuse our assumptions about beauty and morality, is also common in film. Throughout the vast duration of the Star Wars prequels, Anakin (the morally dubious protagonist) is portrayed by Hayden Christensen, a conventionally attractive young actor. 64 Also an exception to this rule is Yoda, who holds the narcissistic belief that the Jedi are models of pure strength and discipline. He is harshly narcissistic, which is visually communicated through his deep wrinkles and continuous scowls. 98 evildoings, didactically communicating the importance of beauty and moral goodness to the audience. The difference between Vader and Palpatine, however, is that before his death, Vader performs one beautiful deed (sacrificing his life for Luke). When Luke takes off Vader’s helmet and looks upon his chalk-white, scarred face in Return of the Jedi, Vader’s form is overwhelmingly ugly with the exception of his eyes. He is allowed to have kind eyes, which signifies the lack of perfect moral dichotomy in the films while still cautioning that narcissism catalyzes ugliness. Of course, it is obvious that Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader are ugly narcissists, and it seems unnecessary to make mention of something so clear. After all, this thesis has followed Luke Skywalker and chronicled his moments of incestuous narcissism, so where does he fit into the aesthetics of narcissism? Is Luke Skywalker ugly?

In some respects, Luke Skywalker is attached to ugliness; as opposed to Emperor

Palpatine and Darth Vader, Luke’s narcissistic ugliness has the greatest potential for redemption.

Like Vader, Luke is maimed, and his hideous severed hand is a tangible memory of his narcissistic recklessness for the rest of his life. In The Last Jedi, his final living appearance to date, Luke’s face is not hideous or deformed. He is unkempt and gruff, a shocking contrast to his mostly tidy appearance in the original films. This dishevelment, I maintain, is indicative of

Luke’s pattern of narcissistic decisions and competitions with his own family members. Since he is not deformed like Vader or Emperor Palpatine, of course, his aesthetic suggests the possibility that we can remedy narcissism if we acknowledge that it is there.

Of all the narcissistic characters in the Star Wars films, Luke is the most complex and contradictory. As this thesis demonstrates, Luke is arguably the most narcissistic character in the saga because his narcissism is confused for incestuous longing and for heroism. Interestingly, however, is that the most incestuously narcissistic character in the films is also the only character 99 who realizes and eventually attempts to correct his narcissism. In The Last Jedi, Luke twice employs the word hubris to describe the tradition of the Jedi Order and his decision to train his nephew, Ben, because he thought he could train a great warrior with “that mighty Skywalker blood” (1:04:00). The specific use of the word hubris is illustrative of Luke’s eventual cognizance of his incestuously narcissistic decisions and his subsequent aesthetic judgment of them. As we know, the term hubris originates from Ancient Greece and is defined as, “pride, excessive self-confidence,” both of which are crucial components to a narcissistic personality

(s.v. “hubris”). In that way, the two terms are tightly connected. The reason the use of hubris as opposed to using narcissism is especially interesting to my de-Oedipalized reading of the Star

Wars films is because of its connections to Ancient Greek tragedies, including Oedipus Rex.65 In

Sophocles’ play, Oedipus’ hubris is the assumption that he knows more than the Oracle of

Delphi, so he travels to Thebes to kill his biological father and marry his biological mother, laying the groundwork for the clichéd complex that would bear his name. In the Star Wars saga,

Luke’s hubris is the overestimation of his skill and resilience, amplified by his desire to become a legendary hero, and in “forgiving” Vader in the last moments of his life, Luke lays the groundwork for the First Order. Oedipus and Luke Skywalker have little in common, but they are linked by similar expressions of hubris (i.e. overestimation of their own knowledge). The difference is that while popular audiences know that Oedipus’ hubris created incestuous destruction, there is no true incest in Luke’s hubris. He is the sole player in his narcissism. The

Last Jedi (presumably without intention) critiques a clichéd belief in Star Wars and “Oedipus in space” by ascribing Luke the same hubris as Oedipus himself with noticeably different results.

65 Of course, narcissism has roots in Ancient Greek culture and mythology as well, as the term is named for Narcissus, the man who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Hubris, however, more popularly invokes memories of Greek theatrical tragedy, and subsequently, it creates a more resonant parallel to Oedipus Rex. 100

Also unlike Oedipus, Luke does not blind himself to the destruction his narcissism has caused.66

In the final moments of The Last Jedi, Luke projects himself onto the planet Crait to confront

Kylo Ren and apologize for the damage his narcissistic decisions have done to his family and the galaxy, and his physical presence in this scene is representative of his actions against narcissism.

Luke’s astral projection is not the lonely and slovenly man on the deserted island. Rather, he is clean, he has trimmed his hair and beard, and he carries his father’s lightsaber, the one he lost when he learned the truth about his paternity, a plausible indicator that he is attempting to correct the narcissistic mistakes of his youth. He is no longer ugly, and the improvement in his physical aesthetic suggests that once we admit the problematic presence of narcissism, we can begin to overcome it. Once we admit to the ugly reality of narcissism, we can de-Oedipalize psychoanalysis and clichéd criticisms of incest in literature and film.

The Future of De-Oedipalization

I engage Kant in this epilogue not to build upon my theoretical paradigm in the eleventh hour. Rather, I aim to emphasize my interest in improving upon it and using it to evaluate other texts in the future. In this thesis, I have made an image of incestuous narcissism and de-

Oedipalization for myself and other scholars to use in their literary and film criticism, and with further consideration to Kant and aesthetic value judgment, this framework will become stronger and more complex. Nevertheless, this notion of incestuous narcissism is important to de-

Oedipalizing psychoanalytic criticism, and though I have used the Star Wars films to model my critique of Freud, Lacan, and Oedipus, this framework can be used on a myriad of texts in the literary canon and the canon of popular culture. In other words, this thesis is titled In Luke More

Than Luke not only as a reference to love, transference, and the narcissistic objet petit a. This

66 I acknowledge that in The Force Awakens and the majority of The Last Jedi, Luke is incognito and closed off from the Force to punish himself for his narcissism, but he eventually moves himself from his obstinacy. 101 title addresses the idea that Star Wars is riddled with incestuous narcissism. From here, we can begin to solve seemingly incestuous problems in other texts with respect to the framework I present in this thesis.

As I wrote this thesis, I surveyed a number of other texts, both literary and cinematic, where this framework of narcissism and de-Oedipalization is germane. One especially clear example is George Eliot’s 1860 novel, The Mill on the Floss. Almost unarguably, the most significant familial relationship in The Mill on the Floss is between protagonist Maggie Tulliver and her brother, Tom. Unlike Luke and Leia, Maggie and Tom are not twins; notwithstanding, their intimate relationship fosters an equally strong case of incestuous narcissism. Although Tom is affectionate toward Maggie, Maggie’s intense admiration of her brother has incestuous undertones that are popularly interpreted as purely symptomatic of the Oedipal complex and the incest taboo.67 Much like the relationships between Luke and Darth Vader or Leia, the text is replete with evidence of a purely incestuous reading, even more openly incestuous than anything depicted in the Star Wars films. As a child, Maggie thinks, “I love Tom so dearly… better than anybody else in the world. When he grows up, I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together” (26). This wish noticeably echoes Freud’s theory that sibling incest is marginally less prohibited than incest with the mother (201). Simultaneously, Tom’s similar feelings toward a future with Maggie and his frequent domination of her suggests that he adopts a paternal role in her life, effectively establishing his own “Name-of-the-Father” that exists only between the pair of them. Finally, their simultaneous death evokes orgasmic imagery:68 “…brother and sister had

67 Examples of incestuous readings include Helen V. Emmitt’s “‘Drowned in a Willing Sea’: Freedom and Drowning in Chopin, Eliot, and Drabble,” Eva Fuchs’s “The Pattern’s All Missed: Separation/Individuation in The Mill on the Floss,” Alan Richardson’s “The Dangers of Sympathy: Sibling Incest in English Romantic Poetry,” and David Smith’s “‘In death they were not divided’: The Form of Illicit Passion in The Mill on the Floss.” 68 Death, of course, is a very common metaphor for the orgasm, dating back to approximately the sixteenth century (s.v. “little death”). 102 gone down69 in an embrace never to be parted—living through again in one supreme moment, the days when they had clasped their little hands in love, and roamed the daisy fields together”

(467). This reading, much like those in Star Wars, is textually supported, though it dismisses the narcissistic competition between the siblings. For instance, Maggie narcissistically believes that she has more knowledge than Tom, and Tom uses Maggie’s affection against her to attain his desires (e.g. calling Maggie “a naughty girl” so that she will not accompany him on his fishing trip [79]). Their expressions of incestuous desire do not necessarily disguise their narcissism, as their affection for one another appears more earnest than anything in the Star Wars saga. In the future of psychoanalysis and Victorianism, it may still be useful to pay critical attention to narcissism in the novel, as it may better explain its incestuous underpinnings.

This paradigm can also be applied to films from a similar historical moment as the original Star Wars trilogy with more visceral consequences and… well… Cruel Intentions.70

While the film Cruel Intentions (1999) is certainly not regarded as important cinema as is Star

Wars, it is, like entertainment journalist Liat Kornowski remarks, “essentially a movie about incest” (par. 7). From a summative and basic analytical perspective, Kornowski is correct. The film follows manipulative teenager Kathryn Merteuil who bets her stepbrother, Sebastian, that if he succeeds in seducing the virginal Annette, she will have sex with him. Eventually, he wins the bet, and when Kathryn offers him sex, he refuses her because he has fallen in love with Annette.

The rejection wounds Kathryn’s narcissism and inspires her to spread malfeasance about her stepbrother, and her malfeasance eventually kills him. Superficially, Cruel Intentions, like The

Mill on the Floss, is a narrative about a sister’s unsettling obsession with a brother. Through the

69 Per the Oxford English Dictionary, the term go down has referred to sex, “esp. readily and without inhibition,” since the mid-seventeenth century (s.v. “go down”). 70 It is important to note that the 1999 film, Cruel Intentions, is a modernized adaptation of the 1782 libertine novel, Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. The film, however, adds a dimension of non- consanguineous incest that is not present in the novel. 103 lens of incestuous narcissism, however, the story becomes less about Kathryn’s alleged fixation on Sebastian and more about Kathryn’s fixation on herself, her manipulations, and whether or not the people in her immediate circle—including her own stepbrother—find her sexually desirable. For instance, during a scene in which Kathryn and Sebastian pragmatically discuss their plan to destroy another girl, Cecile, Kathryn is so sexually excited by her own maliciousness that she slides into Sebastian’s lap to detail her plot. In between desirous sounds,

Kathryn says, “I hate it when things don’t go my way” (36:24). Kathryn’s true excitement is not at the prospect of having sex with her stepbrother. Rather, she almost sexually delights in the narcissistic possibility that everyone in her very small world will bow to her. Sebastian, much like Vader and Leia for Luke, is a screen that makes her narcissism more acceptable. When we are part of a narcissistic duo, we do not have to shoulder the consequences independently.

Ironically, narcissism itself may be the one thing that the narcissist is eager to share.

Of course, since Star Wars is the anchor for this thesis, I cannot rightly conclude it without consideration to the role of incestuous narcissism in the most recent and future films in the saga. I have written on The Last Jedi as a treatise on narcissism; in my view, it is also the most blatant rejection of incest and the Oedipal complex in the Star Wars saga to date. In the film, while Luke illustrates Oedipal and narcissistic regret, no characters throw incestuous narcissism into question more than the sequel trilogy’s protagonist and antagonist, Rey and Kylo

Ren. Both The Force Awakens and much of The Last Jedi establish a possibly incestuous connection between Rey and Kylo Ren, as audiences speculated for years that Rey would be revealed as a lost member of the Skywalker family, likely the sister or cousin of Kylo Ren.71

71 Evidence that Rey could have been a Skywalker include the fact that Anakin and Luke’s lightsaber calls to her (and one touch of it gives her a vision in which she takes Luke’s place on Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back, the moment that changed the themes and trajectory of the saga), her immediate bond with Han Solo, and even her telepathic connection with Kylo Ren. 104

Their telepathic connection, like that between Luke and Leia, is innately libidinous, but predominantly, Kylo Ren uses this sexualized connection with Rey for violent narcissistic competition (The narcissistic competition between Luke and Leia, while ugly and present, is never physically brutal.). For example, in The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren captures Rey aboard

Starkiller Base and restrains her so that he can read her mind and extract the information he desires. He casually says, “You know I can take whatever I want,” and then leans in close to her face, his lips almost touching her ear, and rapes her thoughts (1:26:55). Rey and Kylo Ren’s ability to fuse with one another can be interpreted as sexual and possibly incestuous. However, his use of sexually coded violence to get what he desires (the map to Luke Skywalker) is more indicative of his narcissistic personality than an erotic interest in Rey herself. Moreover, in The

Last Jedi, when Rey and Kylo Ren are able to hold telepathic conversations on opposite ends of the galaxy (a plot point that lends more credence to the hypothesis that they are biologically connected), Rey only speaks kindly to Kylo Ren when she discovers they have shared feelings of loneliness and abandonment—in essence, she only treats him kindly when she can use him as a narcissistic mirror. Their deeply rooted similarities and consistent connection would lend themselves to an incestuous reading. Yet, according to Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi, Rey is not part of the Skywalker bloodline. Any supposed incestuous underpinnings in the relationship between herself and Kylo Ren are immediately erased, and we are left with two individuals who are connected not through incestuous desire. Rather, they are connected through a desire to narcissistically project their goals onto the other. If 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, which Disney repeatedly stresses will conclude the Skywalker saga, continues the precise trajectory that The

Last Jedi established for it, and Rey is not retroactively made part of the Skywalker lineage, then 105

Star Wars will conclude as a critique of the very structure of incestuous narcissism it has come to represent.

Conclusion

In turn, I want to draw attention to the fact that these three examples are all models of potential sibling incest, which may seem out of place in a thesis on de-Oedipalizing psychoanalysis and criticism.72 These are not random examples. Traditionally, the study of parent/child incest eclipses any other incestuous relationships, as parent/child incest is perfectly analogous to the Oedipal complex. Sibling incest, however, is hardly divorced from the Oedipal framework, as the sibling is the product of the parent—as Freud reminds us, the sister is the less forbidden substitute for the mother (201). Yet, while sibling incest can be regarded as a kind of second degree to the Oedipal complex, and I argue that critics need to more seriously consider these relationships, we need to break from the Oedipal structure when we study sibling incest. It is admittedly similar to parent/child incest, although it is not identical; ergo, theorists and critics should examine it as its own entity. This is not to say that we turn from Oedipus Rex to Antigone to study incestuous undertones of sibling relationships, as Oedipus Rex and Antigone are intertwining yet discernible components of a larger, cohesive narrative and consequently fall under the same Freudian/Lacanian umbrella. Rather than evaluating sibling incest through a slight variation on the traditional Oedipal complex, we must consider the possibility that the narcissism of sibling incest is different from the narcissism of incest between a parent and a child. For instance, compare my reading of Luke and Darth Vader’s relationship to my reading of Luke’s relationship with Leia. Both interpretations focus on incestuous disguise and the mutual expression of narcissism with very different results. Luke uses phallic imagery to

72 For more on sibling incest, classical literature, and formation of identity, see Stefani Engelstein’s book, Sibling Action: The Genealogical Study of Modernity. 106 eventually subjugate his father while using traditional signs and signifiers of sexual difference to compete with and make himself equal to Leia. The study of incestuous narcissism will not always yield the same results. Outcomes will vary based on genre, characters, historical moment, and the familial relationship between the characters in question. Unlike Oedipal criticism, this paradigm does not force its players into the appropriate Freudian/Lacanian archetypes; rather, it considers the relative circumstances and consequences of their narcissism and the function of incestuous behavior to disguise the ugliness of that narcissism. While the majority of this thesis concentrates on the close reading of the original Star Wars films, I do not want to conclude it with the misconception that incestuous narcissism is exclusive to these three films in a much larger saga and conversation in popular culture. Star Wars and recognizable figures like Luke

Skywalker, Darth Vader, and Princess Leia are excellent models for this framework, but I draw upon their characters to express a problem in the way we, as scholars, continue to regard psychoanalysis and conduct psychoanalytic readings. Scholars have long problematized the

Oedipal complex, and even the most rigorous attempts to resolve it have failed.73 And while the arduous study of narcissism itself certainly is not new to psychoanalysis, the idea that the admission of narcissism could be what resolves the ubiquitous Oedipal complex is what psychoanalysis currently lacks. In examining Star Wars, a text with enduring cultural relevance and universal appeal, as a narrative of incestuous narcissism, I force you to look at psychoanalysis without Oedipus. Once you see the hideousness of narcissism, you cannot look away.

73 Most notably, of course, Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. 107

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