The Original Star Wars Trilogy was my first introduction to the fantasy genre. And I say fantasy, because this is so. Underneath all of the flashy trappings of science fiction, this story is one of the grandest examples of High Fantasy that I have known.
I was born the year after the release of Episode IV, and saw all three movies, in order, after the release of Episode VI. I would have a hard time thinking of another story from that time in my life that held the power, or the magic, of those movies. Long before I knew of Camelot, or Middle-Earth, or even Wonderland, I knew the vast dunes of Tatooine, burning beneath the gaze of her twin suns. Before ever I wept as Gandalf the Grey fell with the Balrog into the shadows of Khazad-Duhn, I wailed inconsolably when Obi-Wan Kenobi was struck down by Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith. When I read of Arthur, son of a king but raised in secret as a page, pulling the sword from the stone and claiming his destiny, I couldn’t help but think of a young farm boy named Luke, and his fight for the fate of an entire galaxy. Merlin, wizard and advisor, came to me after already hearing the wisdom of Master Yoda, and so seemed to pale in comparison. For it was there, in a galaxy far, far away, that my sensibilities, taste, and desire for fantasy were forged. Sting, glowing in the darkness when orcs were near, driving away the evil Shelob when her victory seemed at hand, seemed in my mind to be the blue blade of the fallen Anakin Skywalker’s light saber, grasped by his son as he faced Vader in the billowing fumes and frozen air of Cloud City. Obi-Wan, kind, and just, and strong underneath the guise of a wandering old man, will always stand above Gandalf the Grey. And the Dark Lord himself, master of all evil, will to me forever be the Emperor Palpatine first, Sauron second, and all others trailing off below them, imitations as weak and fleeting as the millionth clone of Jango Fett.
Perhaps you don’t agree. Perhaps you started arguing with these words as soon as I had the audacity to call Star Wars an example of High Fantasy. Perhaps I can change your mind. Come with me, you will. Teach you, I will.
Yes.


Long, long ago, a Grand Republic ruled over all the lands. For a thousand generations of men it stood for peace and justice, protected by a mystic Order of knights. Through the power of a magic known as the Force, they stood as a symbol of wisdom and strength, a shining light in any darkness. But then came the dark times. Through treachery and deceit, in disguise a new Lord of the Sith rose to power, eventually holding the entire Republic in his fist. Turning the most powerful of the knights to the Dark Side of the Force with his lies, they hunted down and destroyed the knights of the JedI Order. The Old Republic was no more. Now was the time of the Empire. And yet, hope still remained…
Sound familiar? It could be Star Wars, but it could just as easily be the synopsis for a novel by Patricia McKillip, Dennis L. McKiernan, George R. R. Martin, or even Tolkien, the Master himself.
As a child, seeing Episode IV for the first time, I found myself completely pulled in to this fantasy world, this seemingly hopeless struggle of Good against Evil. I didn’t care about the ships, or the laser guns, or the space battles. I never even took a second look at the widely varied (and mostly cheesy) aliens lounging in the Mos Eisley Cantina. In my mind, a slideshow of images remain to this day, and I would share them with you. Young Luke Skywalker standing alone on the edge of his Uncle’s farm, watching the setting of the twin suns and dreaming of destiny. Obi-wan Kenobi coming out of the sweeping dunes of the Jundland Wastes, the Tusken Raiders fleeing before him. Darth Vader, reaching out with the Force to choke an insolent General. Obi-wan unleashing his blade for the first time in the Cantina, disarming his opponent with no change of expression on his old, wise face. Luke rushing back to his Uncle’s Farm to find it burning, destroyed by the forces of the Empire, and agreeing to come with Obi-wan and learn the ways of the Force. Obi-wan standing alone against Darth Vader, a gleaming blue blade set against a fell red one.
“The circle is now complete,” Vader says, a nightmare vision all in black, his voice the booming tones of a cave troll that has learned to speak. He towers over Kenobi, who only stands, calm and reserved, his light saber held before him at the ready. “When last we met, I was but the learner. Now I am the Master.”
“Only a Master of evil, Darth,” Kenobi says. And then they clash, while Luke looks on from across a fathomless drop.
Years later, immersed in The Fellowship of the Ring, I immediately thought of this when Gandalf stood upon the bridge, an old, worn man wrapped in simple robes, barring the way of the Balrog. Sword of flame against blade of light. “I am a servant of a secret fire,” Gandalf says, as Frodo, helpless, watches on. “You cannot pass.”
And so he fell, that Frodo might carry on, beyond even hope. Gandalf, of course, would return, and become even more powerful: no longer Gandalf the Grey, but Gandalf the White. When Vader mocks Obi-wan, telling him that his powers are weak, the old Jedi only smiles. “If you strike me down now,” he says, “I shall grow more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” And so it was. Through his death, he achieved much that otherwise could never have been. Luke and his companions escape, when escape would have been impossible. And Luke’s resolve is hardened, his desire to become a Jedi now a thing written in stone.
Luke, a simple boy, as yet untrained and unproven, manages to strike a terrific blow against the Empire by destroying one of the Emperor‘s most powerful weapons. His natural affinity for the Force, and the spectral voice of Obi-wan Kenobi, living now in the Force, sees him through this first trial. But there is still much to do.


The Hero’s Quest has always been the pillar on which all of fantasy stands. Even in sword and sorcery, the main characters are adventuring for something, be it a treasure, a lost city, or a kidnapped love. But we are speaking of High Fantasy, and there the stakes of the Hero’s Quest are much more profound. The fate of a kingdom, or a world, or all of the worlds that ever were and ever will be, hangs in the balance.
Many times in such a story, the hero already knows that he is a hero- perhaps, even, the child of a god, like Perseus, or Hercules, or Achilles. When Beowulf comes to the halls of King Hrothgar and declares that he will defeat Grendel, he is already a mighty man, assured of his power and his victory. Aragorn, son of Arathorn, knows that he is destined to strive with Sauron for the mastery of Middle-Earth. He has been aware, for all of his long life, that the high throne of Gondor is his.
But the Hero’s Quest is at its most powerful (and most popular) when the story revolves around a character who is not counted among the great and mighty. It has been seen countless times, and it will be seen again, because people, and especially people who are lovers of the fantasy genre, love an underdog. When Bastian Balthazar Bux stumbles into a used book shop and finds a story that actually takes him to another world, he cannot believe that he, and he alone, has the power to save that world. He refuses to believe it, until all that was Fantasia is nothing but a single grain of sand. When Frodo Baggins, through great danger, manages to bring the One Ring of Power to Rivendell, he believes his quest is over. After all, such a thing should be given over to the powerful and wise, not left in the hands of a Hobbit from the Shire. Little does he know that his Hero’s Quest is just beginning, or that it will be his fate (but not his alone) to go all the way into the Land of Shadow himself, and there destroy the Ring in the fires of Orodruin, Mount Doom, where long ago it was forged. In Charles deLint’s Eyes Like Leaves, Tarn is a poor beggar until the tree-wizard Puretongue takes him on as an apprentice, training him to one day face the Lord of Ice, who wishes to end summer in the Green Isles forever.
The list could go on, but I am only mortal. My time is fleeting.
Among the ranks of these renowned heroes, you will find Luke Skywalker. And no better example could you hope to find. Luke has never known his parents, who are dead. He lives with his aunt and uncle on their moisture farm, deep within the shifting sands of Tatooine. All he wants is to get away. When asked where they are by the droid C-3PO, Luke says, “Well, if there is a bright center of the galaxy, you’re at the point farthest from.”
The other new droid, the feisty R2-D2, accidentally shows Luke part of a holographic message while it is being cleaned. In the message, a beautiful princess is begging for the aid of a great warrior named Obi-wan Kenobi. Luke immediately thinks of Old Ben, a crazy hermit who dwells far out in the Jundland Wastes, but can’t imagine that a droid or a beautiful princess could have anything to do with “that crazy old wizard”, as his uncle calls him. Later that night, as the twin suns set over the farm, C-3PO tells Luke that R2-D2 has run off into the dessert. They jump into Luke’s land speeder, and the young farm boy’s heroic quest has begun.
In the beginning of the Hero’s Quest there is often ignorance of the stakes, denial of the hero’s role to be played, even self-depreciation. When Obi-wan Kenobi rescues Luke in the wastelands, and sees the message of the princess in full, he reveals to Luke that he was once a Jedi Knight, as was Luke’s father.
“My father didn’t fight in the wars,” Luke says. “He was navigator on a spice freighter.”
But that is only what his uncle told him. Anakin Skywalker, Obi-wan reveals, was a powerful Jedi, and a good friend. When Luke asked what happened to his father, Obi-wan tells him of an apprentice, named Darth Vader, who he trained. But Vader fell to the Dark Side of the Force, and betrayed and murdered Anakin. Obi-wan then searches through an old chest, and brings out Anakin Skywalker’s old weapon, saying that he wanted Luke to have it, when the time was right.
In Luke’s hands, the light saber, weapon of the Jedi Knight, ignites in blue flame. “Not as clumsy or random as a blaster,” Obi-wan comments. “An elegant weapon, from a more civilized time.”
Like Arthur with Excalibur, like Aragorn with Anduril, the sword broken and reforged a living flame in his hand, Luke holds not only a great weapon now, but a great and powerful destiny.
Obi-wan tells Luke that he must learn the ways of the Force, if he is to accompany him and aid the princess from the hologram. Luke seems shocked. Leave? Him? But there is so much to do! The harvest needs brought in. He and Uncle Owen were going to begin work on a new system of Vaporators for the next season. He can’t possibly get involved. Presented with the opportunity he had before claimed to desire, Luke is afraid. Perhaps he can sense destiny looming over him, and fears it. Home, detestable as it may be, is at least a known quantity. But to leave, with a shining blade and a crazy old man who claims to have known his long-dead father? It just isn’t possible.
Obi-wan merely leans back and strokes his beard. “You must do what you think is best, of course,” he says.
And here is another common factor of the Hero’s Quest. Call it fate, or destiny, or, as Stephen King does in his Dark Tower series, Ka. An unstoppable, immovable force of the Universe, it cares little for the wants and desires of the few, or the one. Ka (the term I prefer) is bound up in the greater goods and evils- those are its business.
Luke returns home, to find that home is gone. His aunt and uncle are dead, the homestead in flames. Soldiers of the Empire have come, searching for the two droids that Uncle Owen had just purchased. Ka has had its way with young Skywalker. He will go, and learn the ways of the Force, and become a Jedi, like his father before him.
I could go on, but I think you see my point. For everyone who writes, there is one piece of fiction that, deep down, made you believe what you believe and feel what you feel. Star Wars was mine- silly but true.