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I haven't ever picked up a Star Wars book and read it but I have done quite a bit of reading on various subjects every time I watch one of the movies. One thing that has been bothering me is

Luke leaving and going into hiding in The Force Awakens.

Of course we won't know the real reason he did this yet but I am questioning the fact that he did it and not the why.

When Yoda and Obi-Wan do it, it's because the Sith have taken over everything. They can't fight an entire army by themselves. But for

Luke it's different. He has the entire New Republic on his side. Yes, he failed with Kylo, but that was a mistake. Leaving and going into hiding while a war is slowly waging on is a choice.

And a very un-Jedi one at that. There is a point in the 3rd movie where Yoda says to Anakin

YODA: Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.

We find out that Luke made a mistake and for some reason left to go find the first Jedi Temple. We can only speculate why he did this but what reason is good enough to thousands of people to suffer during his exile? Is this just because of how informal and short his training was as opposed to someone like Yoda/Mace/Obi-Wan/any other Jedi Master? I can't see any of them abandoning their duty like that.

Edit: To clarify a bit, my definition of the Jedi would be that of the Jedi Order with the members of the Jedi council representing the epitome of a Jedi. Anyone can follow the force (as I understand it, the Force isn't good or bad, it's how you use it that matters) but not everyone using the Force has to be following the ways of the Jedi.

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    I'm afraid this is way too subjective, and depends on what your exact definition of "be considered a Jedi" means. A Jedi follows the Force - if the Force led Luke to that place, then he's being all-Jedi about it, even if he is being a Giant Cosmic Jerk as far as not helping his childhood crush.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jan 3, 2016 at 8:06
  • You say you're questioning the "what" and not the "why", but then assume a "why" that we don't know is true: He is wallowing in guilt and maybe even doubts himself.
    – Izkata
    Jan 3, 2016 at 9:15
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    @Izkata - exactly. One POSSIBLE random theory I can think of is that it's actually the opposite - yes, he's wallowing in guilt, but that's why he fled - he knows that poses a danger of falling to Dark Side, so he went to solitude to meditate in the Force to try and tamper down those negative emotions so he eliminates that risk for himself. Sort of a Super-Jedi's version of counting to 100 to calm down.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Jan 3, 2016 at 9:19
  • @Izkata - Fair point. Updated question because that line was trivial in terms of what I was asking.
    – Chris
    Jan 3, 2016 at 9:30
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    @DVK My theory is that even if he feels guilty, that's not his reason for leaving, but rather he's looking for records on how the Jedi started in the first place, so he knows what he did wrong
    – Izkata
    Jan 3, 2016 at 18:45

4 Answers 4

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This ends up being addressed by the story of The Last Jedi. At some point, Luke decided to deliberately forsake the Jedi tradition, out of a belief that the galaxy would be better off without them. So, the answer is yes—Luke is deliberately abandoning the ways of the Jedi.

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It's impossible to know without the information about why he went on his quest and what his personal feelings were.

There are many possibilities one could imagine but only vague hints in the movie. We will have to wait and find out.

Listing out the possibilities might make for a very interesting separate question however.

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It does seem rather strange for Luke to turn to the bottle, call it a day, and go into exiled vacation. Since the only info we have is what was in the opening and the details from Han later on, it really doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't he stand up to this new evil? Did Snoke have so much power to force Luke to run? Trying to find reasons, the only one that makes ANY sense would be anything related to protecting a son or daughter(Leia is ok). But how do you protect them by hiding? Using everything we know so far, it seems more like Luke is either a coward now(which makes 0 sense since he's the main freaking hero), or everything is being purposely kept a mystery as a story for future movies(such as Snoke = Emperor, Luke = Obi Wan and unable to face him). My theory, he went into hiding because Kylo/Snoke found something that could give them a major advantage, and he's just biding time to fight back on equal terms.

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I expect the key to this is that Luke "left to go find the first Jedi Temple".

We don't know what's going to happen in the next movie, so this is all speculative, but I'd be very much surprised if Luke was just hiding under a rock all this time. I expect a return to form with knowledge gained from the temple.

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