So I got to reading about Luke this weekend and found out that Luke Skywalker did eventually fall to the dark side of the force! I know!! Trust me this is HUGE for me because I never knew that happened to him. Seeing as I am really a Star Wars cinematic universe fan rather than an EU and I am not all that keen on “what is” and “what isn’t” canon (because it’s just so confusing now), this is a big deal.
So this is where I read about Luke succumbing to the dark side of the force in order to beat the cloned Emperor:
The rise of the cloned Palpatine shook Skywalker out of his solitary existence. As foretold by Bodo Baas’s Master a thousand years earlier, this was a critical time during the history of the Jedi. Faced with a seemingly unbeatable foe, Skywalker decided to train under the Emperor in order to undermine the Empire from within. However, in doing so, Skywalker succumbed to the influence of the dark side. He was brought back to the light side by his sister, Leia Organa Solo, who also stole a precious Holocron from the Emperor. On the run from Imperial forces, Luke and Leia gathered around them a cadre of Force-sensitives that Luke began to instruct. These included the redeemed Kam Solusar, Vima-Da-Boda, the Ysanna siblings Jem and Rayf, and Great Jedi Purge survivor King Empatojayos Brand.[32]
Defeating the Emperor did not come without a price—Jem, Rayf, and Brand lost their lives, while Vima fled back into the underworld.[33] The cost to Luke was dear also – his experience under the dark side’s sway would scar his soul permanently. However, he gained an appreciation of his own strength, and a deeper realization of what it would cost to return the Jedi Knights to the galaxy. This ideal, and his enhanced powers made Luke the first new Jedi Master of the reborn Jedi Order. Other gains made were the redemption of Kam and the acquisition of the Bodo Baas holocron.
Via star wars fandom
According to that web page, it’s canon and part of Legends. So when people are saying Luke never fell to the dark side, I am guessing they are not including any of this Legends content in their critique of the Star Wars universe. Hence my reason why I mentioned the whole canon thing being a little confusing.
UPDATE: Please note that Luke’s appearance above IS NOT CANON. Thanks to Tina for clarifying that. So technically, Luke has never succumbed to the dark side. That still doesn’t explain his force choking or using force crush in The Mandalorian’s season two finale.
But the reason for my post is during the scene in The Mandalorian where Jedi Luke Skywalker is shredding through the Dark Troopers, the very last one he attacks seems to be imploded or crushed with the closing of his fist. I do not know if this is a light side ability because it seems more like this ability which is a dark side power:
Force Crush
Force Crush was possibly the darkest Force ability known to both the Sith and the Jedi. It was a more advanced form of the Force Grip ability.
This ability lifted the opponent into the air, and as they were floating, their body literally imploded as it was crushed from within by the Force.
Common among followers of the dark side, by 3,951 BBY many Force users could use the ability. The opposite Force power, which expanded and exploded a victim, was known as Force Expand.
Stated as being “the darkest” force ability known to the Sith and the Jedi meaning Jedi were most likely able to learn it if they had mastered the dark side of the force. Perhaps this is what Luke has done, making him an even more powerful Jedi.
There are Jedi who use both light and dark sides of the force – Mace Windu is one such Jedi Master who manipulates both sides of the force. So it’s not that big a stretch to say that Luke has mastered the same abilities in his training, particularly since it’s canon that he did indeed succumb to the dark side’s influence to defeat the cloned Emperor Palpatine.
What do you think about this? Did you know that Luke had ventured towards the dark side?
Let me know in the comments friends 🙂
Stay safe out there, keep creating and I’ll catch you in tomorrow’s post!
darksiderconfessions.blog 
Hmmm, this is interesting. I’m not sure how it can be canon if it’s from Legends–by its very nature, if it’s from Legends, it’s NOT canon. It’s an interesting story, though. But even setting that aside, Luke has flirted with the dark side before–when he enters Jabba’s palace in ROTJ, he Force chokes those Gamorreans. And of course, when he faces Vader, he nearly succumbs to the dark side until he stops himself. But I was still a bit surprised when I saw him do that to the Dark Trooper. We’ve never seen Luke do that before. It’s odd. He could have just sliced it up like the he did the others, but he didn’t. What do you think it means, if anything?
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Hmm that is kinda odd on the Fandom page it says “Legends” and “Canon” so I was like huh? Perhaps it is different parts of the article that are canon and legends so the part I used in my post is most likely the Legends portion but I am not sure lol that page confused me. But yeah he did use dark force powers when he went to see Jabba, pretty sure that was force choke which is a dark side ability. So gahhhh lol he must’ve learned it somehow and it’s not a light side thing
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Yes, I think those articles are divided into Canon and Legends, and you have to click the tab to get each one. Took me a while to figure that out, too! It’s a great resource, but confusing. Or rather, the fact that Star Wars now has two different categories is confusing! I wonder if Luke just intuited how to Force choke. He is Vader’s son, after all, lol.
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[…] got on-board, of course, for promotional reasons. And perhaps maybe he already knew they were going to do something else with Luke, which may have helped to ease the frustration he was feeling about Luke’s […]
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I have to concur with Tina Williams on this. “Dark Empire” by Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy is squarely on the non-canon side of Star Wars. It was one of those projects that began whilst Marvel owned the comics license to Star Wars (it was conceived in the 1980s) but was not published until 1994 when Marvel’s rights went to Dark Horse Comics and had to be rejiggered somewhat to fit into the Expanded Universe as it existed at the time.
To be honest, I can’t say I was enamored of Dark Empire. The cloning of the Emperor wasn’t a bad idea, and neither was the notion that a post-Endor Empire would fight a fratricidal civil war between Imperial factions even as the New Republic attempted to assert itself in a war-torn Empire.
The execution, however, did not impress me. I borrowed the six issues of the first series (the whole DE saga was a trilogy), and though I liked the premise, the artwork (which a lot of other fans seem to love) left me cold, and I just couldn’t get into the story depicted in Veitch’s story of World Devastators, the Galaxy Gun, and a Luke Skywalker who was willing to go to the dark side in order to defeat Palpatine.
And I hate to pile on in the whole issue of “Is Dark Empire canon?” No. It’s not. It was published by Dark Horse at a time where George Lucas was basically saying to the folks at Lucasfilm Licensing, “Look. I’m fine with other writers coming in and telling their own stories set in the Star Wars galaxy, but (a) they can’t cover certain eras (in the 1990s, the “don’t go there” edict applied to the Prequel Era, which explains why some of the dating systems in the Thrawn Trilogy are not accurate) and they can’t contradict the films. Confusingly, Lucasfilm then set multiple levels of canonicity, telling fans that G-Canon (the Original Trilogy, the Prequels, and certain direct spinoffs, such as the Radio Dramas based on Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back) was absolute canon, and that then other levels of the canon would be applied depending on the media and the genre involved.
In my opinion as a fan and critic. This was a bad idea. Lucasfilm Licensing should have looked at what Paramount and CBS have done with Star Trek; a simplified canon that stated, “OK. You can write stories for the Expanded Universe if you like, but you have to understand that as far as canonicity goes, only the movies and TV shows made ‘in-house’ by Lucasfilm are the official stories. As intellectual property owners, we can choose to make certain [characters, settings, or situations] canonical, but we reserve the right to ignore stuff from the EU, too.”
And indeed, that’s what Lucasfilm did while George was still its owner and CEO. Coruscant came from the EU. So did Aayla Secura and Quinlan Vos. Eventually, so did Grand Admiral Thrawn.
What Lucasfilm DIDN’T do, though, was to have a clear policy on canon. Instead, Leland Chee’s “tiers of canon” strategy was murky and confusing. That’s why after George retired and sold Lucasfilm to Walt Disney, it was necessary to re-classify the EU as Legends and simplify canonicity issues.
As it is, Dark Empire, which was a linchpin of the old EU and was published as a EU comics series, was never canon.
The concept was intriguing. The execution…not so much.
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Thank you for your input, very nice. I have an isuse with the canon and not canon content too. I agree they should have left that decision for Lucas. Now there are so many spinoffs it’s impossible to keep up as a fan 🙂
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Canon is now very simple.
All of the films made from 1977 to 2019 (and those made after) are canon.
Star Wars; The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and Star Wars; Resistance are canon
The Mandalorian and all of the upcoming Disney+ TV shows are canon.
All new Marvel Comics and Star Wars novels, reference books, YA novels, and story elements from new video games are canon.
The old EU novels and comics, any pre-2014 video game stories, the two made-for-TV movies set on Endor, and the 2003-2005 Star Wars: Clone Wars micro-series are not canonical. Since they are part of the IP, Lucasfilm CAN, of course, choose to make certain things canonical. Grand Admiral Thrawn, for instance, was added to canon for Star Wars Rebels and two Timothy Zahn trilogies.
George DID have a rule on canonicity: “If I put something in a movie or TV show, it’s official. Otherwise, it’s not canon.” What he should have said more often is, “Make sure the fans understand that!”
Although I prefer Star Wars when it comes to content, Paramount/CBSViacom is so much better about clear guidelines re canon. It is simple and not as baroque as Lucasfilm pre-2014 “different levels of canon.”
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Yeah I remember reading that interview or some article where George said that or was quoted as saying that. I prefer to follow what George says and I don’t really mess around with the EU stuff other than SWTOR which I’ve played off and on since it launched in 2011
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