Sincerity as a Storytelling Tool

I fell in love with Star Wars when I was in High School. I couldn’t tell you why SpikeTV was playing episodes I-VI. I don’t remember what I thought of the Prequels or even a New Hope but I do remember when I realized that I really liked Star Wars.

“I love you.”

“I know.”

The swell of the music, the way the light plays on the faces on Han and Leia. The unwinding of romantic tension for the tightening of thematic tension. That was where Star Wars became my comfort story.

It would take many years for me to work out just exactly what made Star Wars so special. Part of figuring it out came from maturing as a writer, discovering the evergreen-ness of the Hero’s Journey, converting to Catholicism, and subjecting myself to the Disney sequels.

It’s in the shadow of the Disney sequels that the original Lucas Star Wars shine brightest.

If there is one thing the Disney sequels lack, its true sincerity, summed up in the oft quoted, highly meme-able phrase “somehow, Palpatine returned.”  You can see the pain in Oscar Issac’s eyes as he says the line.

Palpatine returning isn’t anything new, the Dark Empire comics brought him back in the so called “Legends” canon. It isn’t a bad plot point in and of itself.

The problem with the Disney prequels is that Palpatine returning is too little too late. As it turns out, true sincerity requires intentionality.

Abrams’ so called “mystery box” is a story telling device of unabashed insincerity. If I refuse to open a present, I’m not conveying my sincere love for the giver because I find the wrapping pretty, or the mystery of the gift so thrilling I can’t make myself open it. The gift is what’s inside, not the mystery of what’s inside.     

This lack of intentional sincerity is contrasted against Rian Johnson’s deep, unbending, sincere belief that true heroism doesn’t exist.

Continuing with the gift analogy, this is like opening the box and instead of politely thanking the giver and shoving the gift in a closet, I take the item out and smash it before their very eyes.

Johnson’s post-modernism is incompatible with the very nature of Star Wars. That Disney’s Lucasfilm couldn’t see that, shows what really effected the Disney sequels was this discordant relationship with sincerity.      

God, who is true, good, and beautiful made a universe that is true, good, and beautiful. Art is a reflection of the universe. Art shows us what is true, good, and beautiful. Therefore, art shows us God.

Stories fail when the true, good, and the beautiful are denied.

This is why, despite that I am a longtime fan of A Song of Ice and Fire, I know that I will never see a satisfying ending to the series.

Martin has written himself into a corner. He has two choices left to him; he may either deny the philosophical underpinnings of his work, recanting in his belief that heroism, sacrifice, and greatness are unreal; or he must allow the natural ending of his worldview to play out, showing a world of eternal winter as the white walkers sweep, unstoppable, over Westeros.    

Regardless of Martin’s theoretical ending, A Song of Ice and Fire will be a failure in storytelling.

By failure, I don’t mean they don’t make money, they don’t wow audiences, they don’t have anything redeeming—I mean, they tell deeply unsatisfying stories that grind like sandpaper against the human spirit.

Man knows, intrinsically, when he has heard a good story, because good stories are written on the heart.

The good and beautiful truth of Star Wars is that Luke Skywalker’s self-sacrificial love for his father was strong enough to redeem him.

And that truth asks us a disquieting question. Do I love my father enough to thrown down my lightsaber?   

More than that, it makes a suggestion that the post-modern mind unequivocally rejects: Because Luke Skywalker was willing to sacrifice himself to redeem his fallen father, he is a better man than me.   

But let’s circle back to George Martin.

By his estimation, heroes aren’t real because they’re too naïve to exist. He begins A Song of Ice and Fire with the execution of the only honorable man in Westeros. Eddard Stark’s heroism has lost him his head, destroyed his family, and plunged the kingdom in chaos.

And just in case you didn’t understand that theme from the get-go, the Starks are again, destroyed by more foolish naive notions of heroism at the Red Wedding.

To make it even clearer—the only Stark, who by right of consanguinity, is the true King of Westeros, swears himself to self-sacrificial Order where they are not allowed to marry and have children.

Heroism, by the logic of Martin’s Westeros, is a literal, genetic dead-end.

This leaves me wondering, how would Star Wars be different if it were written by Martin? I suspect, it would look a lot like the Last Jedi, throwing away the essence of the story to make a vapid counterpoint about the Return of the Jedi.

All things are pointless, the Disney sequels say, there are no heroes, even villains are as insubstantial as a Force ghost. There is only power.

And this incoherent belief system sowed the seeds of an incoherent ending, where the name of a hero is taken and wielded like a sword, because it was never Luke Skywalker’s inborn goodness that redeemed Anakin Skywalker, it was his power that did so.

Sincerity is a hell of a storytelling tool. If you’re going to write about heroes, you should probably believe in them first.