Since George Lucas’ early influences were myths, the line between hero and villain in the Star Wars universe is pretty black-and-white. However, that line is occasionally blurred. The original trilogy established Darth Vader as the most evil man in the galaxy, and then against all odds, in Return of the Jedi, he was redeemed. Similarly, a number of the so-called “heroes” of the Star Wars saga have done morally questionable things over the course of these movies, ranging from the dubious to the downright sinister.
So, here is the worst thing every major character in the Star Wars saga has done.
Rey: Allowing herself to be seduced by the Dark Side
Luke Skywalker was furious when Rey went down into Ahch-To’s hall of mirrors and got tempted by the Dark Side of the Force, because she didn’t do anything to try to stop the Dark Side’s seduction. Luke has warded off temptation from the Dark Side for decades, having been faced with it time and time again.
And then Rey comes along, and five minutes into her training, she almost turns to the Dark Side. Based on the trailers for The Rise of Skywalker, it seems likely that Rey will turn wholeheartedly to the Dark Side before the Skywalker saga is up.
Princess Leia: Making out with her brother
In an early scene in The Empire Strikes Back, Princess Leia plants a kiss on a recovering Luke Skywalker, who turns out to be her twin brother. To be fair, she didn’t know he was her brother at the time. (And neither did George Lucas – he didn’t set out to write an incest narrative, he just hadn’t decided if Luke and Leia were siblings when he wrote The Empire Strikes Back.)
But similarly, when she did find out that Luke was her brother in Return of the Jedi, Leia didn’t seem too bothered by the fact that she’d kissed him a couple of years earlier.
Ben Solo: Killing his own father in cold blood
Ben Solo has been flirting with the idea of returning to the Light Side all throughout Disney’s Star Wars sequel trilogy. But every time he’s come close, he’s doubled down on being evil. The saddest example of this is when his father, Han Solo, confronted him on a bridge in the middle of Starkiller Base.
Han wanted Ben to step down from his post ruling over the First Order and come home to begin the road to recovery. However, Ben didn’t want to admit failure, so he approached his father, it looked like he was going to hug him, and then he plunged his lightsaber into his abdomen, killing him.
Chewbacca: Barbecuing a Porg
The Last Jedi brought back all the worst tropes of previous Star Wars films. The detour to Canto Bight gave us yet another weird alien bar, and the Porgs gave us yet another cutesy species. At least the Porgs came with a couple of ominous twists, like Chewbacca barbecuing and eating one of them.
After the Porgs were introduced as Ahch-To’s resident adorable aliens, it was shocking to see Chewie cooking and eating one of them. He would later fly around in the Millennium Falcon with a Porg on the dashboard in the cockpit, but he resisted eating that one.
Anakin Skywalker: Slaughtering the Jedi younglings
Although the prequel trilogy as a whole disappointed a lot of Star Wars fans, very few were unhappy with how Revenge of the Sith wrapped things up. It completed Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the Dark Side in an emotionally resonant way.
In the film’s third act, Anakin takes the final steps towards becoming a fully-fledged Sith Lord. He chokes Padmé, he confronts Obi-Wan, and decides to kill Mace Windu to save Palpatine. But perhaps the most terrible thing he does is slaughtering all of the Jedi younglings. A lot of Anakin’s acts are unforgivable, but killing children is particularly heinous.
Finn: Misleading the Resistance about his knowledge of Starkiller Base
This is bad for two reasons. Firstly, because the Resistance was counting on him to know how to infiltrate Starkiller Base and shut down its security systems and he turned out to be a janitor who had no idea about the inner workings of the First Order’s superweapon.
And secondly, because it undermined all of his character development. Finn was set up as a Stormtrooper who did some horribly violent things for the First Order and decided he couldn’t take it anymore and wanted to do something nobler. But as it turned out, all he did for the First Order was clean toilets. He didn’t have a dark past at all.
Han Solo: Spending decades as a selfish jerk
Before Luke Skywalker came into his life and inspired him to join the Rebellion in their struggle against the Galactic Empire, Han Solo spent many years being a selfish jerk who didn’t care about others. Solo: A Star Wars Story gave us a young Han Solo who wasn’t selfish and was actually quite heroic, which undermines the emotional progress that he would make during the events of the original trilogy.
But as far as George Lucas’ canon goes, Han spent a long time being completely selfish and only caring about money in a world where an oppressive military force was wiping out entire civilizations.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Lying about Luke’s father
It’s unclear exactly why Obi-Wan Kenobi lied to Luke Skywalker about his father. He told him that Darth Vader killed his father, possibly as a way to protect Luke from the shocking truth that Vader actually was his father, or to stop him from doing anything drastic before he was ready. Either way, it’s never right to lie to people, especially if you’re sworn to uphold the tenets of the Jedi Order.
And Obi-Wan never actually told Luke the truth, even in Force ghost form. Vader had to tell Luke himself when they finally came face-to-face at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.
Poe Dameron: Endangering the whole Resistance by taking on the First Order alone
The Last Jedi picked up where The Force Awakens left off. When the Rebel Alliance blew up the Death Star, they got away with it. But when the Resistance blew up Starkiller Base, the First Order just sent a fleet to their hideout. Poe Dameron wanted to take on the First Order’s fleet, but General Leia advised him against it, as they were outgunned.
So, Poe disobeyed her orders and flew off to take on the fleet on his own, necessitating the rest of the Resistance to join him. This led to a Dreadnought getting taken down, but it also led to a bunch of Resistance pilots getting killed.
Luke Skywalker: Almost murdering his nephew based on a hunch
A lot of diehard Star Wars fans weren’t particularly thrilled with The Last Jedi, and part of the reason for that was Rian Johnson’s decision to betray Luke Skywalker as a character. You could call the decision to turn Luke into a bitter cynic who hates the Jedi and is willing to murder on a whim “bold.”
But a more accurate way of describing it is a disloyalty to Luke’s emotional core. When he was in the middle of training his nephew Ben Solo as a part of the next generation of Jedi Knights, he got an inkling that Snoke might’ve been swaying Ben to the Dark Side. So, he attempted to kill him in his sleep.