[spoiler] Luke Skywalker had PTSD.

OK, so think about this. . .Luke was raised from birth by Owen and Beru Lars. They were, for all intents and purposes, his parents. They kept him fairly sheltered because they were wanted to protect him from his father. He spent his young life as a moisture farmer, and nothing exciting ever happened. His best friend had previously left to go to the academy to be a pilot. He was eagerly awaiting his chance to do the same.One day, he gets some droids that lead him away from the farm. While out searching, he is attacked and injured by Tusken Raiders, then finds Old Ben who tells him that everything he was told about his father was a lie. They travel to Anchorhead, but on the way they encounter a sandcrawler and dozens of slaughtered Jawas. It's then that Luke realizes the Empire is going to trace those droids to his home.He rushes to the farm, only to find the bodies of the people who raised him since infancy smoldering in the yard while the homestead burns. Think about that for a minute: How would you feel if you rushed home panicked to find your parents' dead in your front yard?Despondent, Luke follows the old Jedi and immediately opts to join an old, mostly dead religion he knows little about, mostly out of anger and a desire to be like his father, who Ben said was a great Jedi until he was murdered.Luke gets to Mos Eisley and is immediately attacked in a bar, and watches as Ben severs his attacker's arm.Later, while traveling with a known criminal duo who live life a little differently than he's used to, he learns that he has a connection with the Force. Not long after that, he witnesses the remains of an entire planet and realizes that what he's seeing represents the deaths of billions of real people.After that, they're captured by the Empire, and in the escape attempt he shoots people. He kills officers and stormtroopers. People just doing their job. He has probably never killed a person before, and now he's in the middle of a firefight. Then to top it off, he watches as old Ben, his friend and mentor, is apparently killed by the most frightening man in the galaxy.After this he's swept away to join a Rebellion, which he happily joins because he's angry about the atrocities he's seen and his childhood friend is there, and he's dropped into a major naval battle during which he kills many more people, and witnesses the deaths of many pilots on his own side, including his best friend. This battle concludes with him firing the shot that destroys the Death Star and kills hundreds of thousands of workers, officers, enlisted men, soldiers, and other people.After this, he is assaulted and gravely injured by a wampa on Hoth, suffers hypothermia, is stuffed into the guts of a tauntaun, fights in a major land battle during which many more people die all around him, kills several enemy soldiers himself, crashes on a swamp planet, goes through more religious indoctrination and training (part of which included cutting off Vader's head to see his own behind the mask) and sees visions of his new friends being tortured, travels to Cloud City and is assaulted by the most frightening man in the galaxy, loses his hand in the fight, and is then told that everything Ben told him was itself a lie (so Ben lied, his "parents" Beru and Owen lied, and now Vader was telling him the truth, and he knows it deep down). He then plunges damn near to his death and is almost ejected into a gas giant before he's rescued. Oh, and his new best friend has been captured by a bounty hunter and sold to a crime lord.After this, he travels back to the planet where his family was murdered to save his friend, is thrown in a pit and forced to fight a terrifying beast which he manages to kill, and then uses his lightsaber to kill a bunch of criminals, bodyguards, and con artists. This ends in him killing the crime lord and his entire entourage.He then travels to Endor where he engages in more firefights and high speed chases, is nearly eaten by Ewoks, and then faces his father and is forced to fight. He beats his father, but refuses to accept evil as a career path, and is tortured with electricity for an agonizingly long time, to be saved only when his father steps in and sacrifices his own life. He then drags his father's corpse out of the space station before it is destroyed and thousands more are killed. He watches his father's body burn, and then sees ghosts.In a few short years, Luke Skywalker went from a quiet life to watching his parents (aunt/uncle), his best childhood friend, his biological father, both of his mentors, and countless soldiers, civilians, and others die. During all of this he was expected to be the Great Hope of the Rebellion and the new dawn for the Jedi, and he was forced to endure terrible torture, major limb loss, and horrible injury.After the situation with Kylo Ren, during which he let his own darkest emotions guide him just for a second and it led to his greatest failure (and countless deaths at the hands of the nephew he failed to keep on the path of the Jedi), he was done.Luke Skywalker had severe post-traumatic stress disorder. He was mentally broken by all the death he witnessed and caused. His final failure with the Jedi trainees and Ben Solo finally broke him, and he retreated to a place where he felt he could do no more harm to those he loved.So TLJ's Skywalker story is a tale of healing. He was a shattered man, mentally beat down by the war he fought and the symbol he was supposed to be, and it took a new perspective (Rey) for him to come back from that and be a hero one last time, for the good of those he loved, because he finally realized he could do it without having to walk the path of violence again. via /r/StarWars http://ift.tt/2qGPfte