Miserable Binary
After the Battle of Exegol, Rey and I correspond more frequently and more openly. With the First Order a diminished and disappearing threat to the galaxy, she no longer feels like she has to hide her whereabouts.
"It's one thing for someone to track me down," she says, "it's another thing entirely when it's my friends and the fate of the galaxy."
I sit in my cabin, in front of her flickering hologram.
"Did you get the books I left for you on Batuu?"
She may not care if someone tries to track her down, but I still live very much outside the law. I hold up the books.
"I did."
"What do you think?" Rey sits down, cross-legged, eagerly waiting my review.
"This may be my own bias," I admit, "but they confirmed what I already believed?"
"Yes! Exactly!" Rey says, stabbing a finger in the air. "When I read them, especially after some of our talks, I couldn't help but feel like they didn't contain a universal truth about the Force, but instead contained only a certain, slight, perspective!"
"The Force is bigger than any one of us." I nod.
"The Force is bigger than anything you can imagine." Rey says, wonder and awe in her voice. "And your culture may have a completely different understanding and relationship with it than literally every other culture in the galaxy."
"So how then," I ask, "do we decide what belongs to the Light and what belongs to the Dark?"
Rey doesn't respond. She internalizes the question. It's clearly something she's been meditating on and hasn't come to a conclusion yet.
"Here's where I am with it," I say, "and how I've landed here."
"Okay."
"I don't know if I strictly believe in a Dark Side and a Light Side of the Force, but if there is one, they should be defined by intent."
Rey thinks about this.
"You lash out in anger." I say. "Traditional Jedi beliefs would say that is bad and wrong and leads to the Dark Side."
Rey nods.
"But what if you're angry because of the way someone is being mistreated?"
"Injustice."
I nod. "Shouldn't injustice make you angry?"
"It does me." Rey admits.
"A man came into my mother's pub when I was younger. I'll never forget him. Big, round human with dark skin and big hair. He had been exiled from his home planet because he was campaigning for free education for any citizen that wanted it." I hold up a finger. "Hold on." I turn away and call, "Fordsy!"
The droid enters the room. "What can I do for you, Beacon?"
I pull him into the holoprojection. "You still have that recording of Vich Lugo?"
"Of course."
"Play it."
Fordsy retrieves the audio file from his data banks and plays it. The exiled poet's voice comes out of Fordsy's mouth. Rey tilts her head to the side, listening.
"No society should be built on ignorance," Vich says through Fordsy. "Society and those who run it are culpable in not providing a free education for all and must answer for the night which they create. If a soul is left in darkness, laws will be broken. Sins will be committed. But the guilty one is not the one who commits the crimes, but those who cause the darkness."
The recording ends and Fordsy asks if there's anything else I need. I excuse him and turn back to Rey.
"It's an idea that has stuck with me," I say. "And while he wasn't talking about the Force, I can't help but apply it to it. Why do we have this binary view of the Force when, as you say, it's so much bigger than us? Are we just upholding up and defending old battle lines?"
"The Jedi Code, old as it may be, was about removing yourself from the equation. It removed distractions and temptations so you could focus on the needs of others."
"But by benefiting the galaxy, do you not benefit yourself?"
"A Jedi fights to end the fight," Rey counters, "but a Jedi would rather not fight. A Jedi would rather not need to fight."
She smiles. "From what I can tell, the difference between the Light side of the Force and the Dark side of the Force is not what you do, but why you do it. But it is something I'm going to have to meditate on."
"Let me know where you land on it," I say.
"Don't be surprised if I call you up to have Fordsy play that for me again."
"Oh, I'll give you a direction connection to him," I say. "I can't be bothered by more time spent with that droid."
Rey laughs and I laugh.
"'Till next time, Captain," she says.
"'Till next time, Jedi."