You know how Luke confronted Obi-Wan Kenobi for saying that Darth Vader killed his father when the truth was that Darth Vader was his father? And Obi-Wan says that everything he said was true “from a certain point of view”? Well, thanks to the newest Star Wars novel, that’s not just a pile of bantha poodoo—it’s part of a Force-worshipping religion.
In Aftermath: Empire’s End, Chuck Wendig introduces a passage from the Journal of the Whills, a book which describes the universe, the Force, and the Jedi. A previous passage was printed in The Force Awakens novelization, but this one is a lot more interesting.
The story of “Whills” as a device in Star Wars is long and convoluted, but it was included in an early draft of the first Star Wars as a record of galactic events from which the events of the movie were told. Later, a deleted scene from Revenge of the Sith, Qui-Gon explains how a “Shaman of the Whills” taught him how to project himself as a Force ghost, which Yoda and Obi-Wan then learned from him. You may also recognize them from Rogue One, where Chirrut Imwe was a member of the religious order known as “Guardians of the Whills,” one of those new, ever-expanding groups that aren’t Jedi or Sith, but still reveer the Force.
Anyway, Wendig added this passage to the Journal of the Whills in Empire’s End, where it’s read by members of the Church of the Force:
The truth in our soul
Is that nothing is true.
The question of life
Is what then do we do?
The burden is ours
To penance, we hew.
The Force binds us all
From a certain point of view.
This is hilarious, a lovely troll of one of the biggest understatements in Star Wars canon, and makes Obi-Wan’s infuriating “a certain point of view” bullshit explanation for lying to Luke part of a religious doctrine. Self-referential and meta? Yes. Amazing? Also yes.