I just don’t find it believable, that a man who believed his father could be redeemed, a father who had been a true monster, guilty of the death of millions, would even for an instant contemplate killing his newphew, long enough to ignite his lightsaber, his sister, and best friend’s son, a boy who had done nothing, but have dark thoughts.
Yes, Luke believed his father could be redeemed. It’s also fair to assume that Luke believed he could right the troubled Ben Solo ship.
But it’s important to remember that as soon as Vader threatened Leia, in ROTJ, those thoughts of redeeming went out the window. His fear of losing someone he loved was too great and he reacted with violence. He nearly killed the man he wished to save.
The same goes for Ben, and Luke says why he ignited his lightsaber in the film: “Snoke had already turned his heart. He would bring destruction, pain, death, and the end of everything I love because of what he will become. And for the briefest moment of pure instinct, I thought I could stop it.” It isn’t just dark thoughts. It’s his heart, his future, and premonitions of darkness to come. (Which is believable considering what we have seen from Ben/Kylo so far in the ST. Plus, he killed his master and became the head bad guy, which is something Vader never did). Most of all, it’s a threat to everything Luke loves and, like in ROTJ, he instinctively reacts in fear.
In both cases he’s left ashamed of his actions.
And yes, the future is always in motion, too. Luke didn’t listen to Yoda in TESB. But I think right after he quickly and instinctively reacts over Ben, he remembers that this is his nephew and that the future isn’t set in stone. Unfortunately, it’s too late.
Good post! Allow me to retort. In defending TLJ’s handling of Luke many fans point to Luke’s flaws in the OT to argue that the character’s portrayal in TLJ is consistent with the OT. In my view that perspective misses the point of the OT entirely. The point where the characters are at the end of ROTJ is not defined by their flaws, as shown throughout the OT, it is defined by them overcoming those flaws. You say Luke attacked his father with a fury, after Vader threatened his sister. True, but and it’s a big but, there’s the pivotal moment, where Luke looks at his own mechanical hand, and at his cyborg father, and realizes what he might become. He steps back and learns from his mistakes. In that moment the character is transformed, and becomes a Jedi. To have Luke make the same mistake with Ben, that he made with his father, negates much of his character arc in the OT, and specifically ROTJ. That is where the problem is. It’s not that Luke makes a new mistake, and learns from it. He makes the same mistake, and seemingly forgets everything his entire arc in the OT was about, most importantly the Jedi teachings, and on that faulty basis becomes the anti-thesis of what his character represented in the OT. In that moment he regresses from the Jedi he was at the end of the OT to the reckless, impulsive character he was before, a man driven by fear, a fear for a possible future not becoming of a Jedi, not becoming of Luke Skywalker at the end of his character arc in the OT.
This is a recurring issue with the ST, where the classic characters and the plot developments regress, such that a similar story can be told with new characters. The victory of the rebels is undone, such that we can have Empire versus rebels again. Han again becomes a smuggler, who wants nothing to do with galactic politics, and conflict, and is a bad husband, and poor father to boot. Luke becomes that impulsive boy again, always looking to the horizon, and adds cynisism to his list of flaws. Leia is stripped from her connections to the other classic characters along with her royal heritage, and becomes almost solely defined by her mission, spurring Han to seek out their son, and Rey to seek out Luke. It is through these developments, that the ST diminishes the OT’s story, its characters, and their bond, carefully built up over the course of three films, and all in the service of giving the audience a thusfar very familiar story, a remix of what came before.