For the last couple of days, I've been going back and forth with people in the comments of this post by my friend Stephen.

I've spent so much time on it now that I felt it would be worth it to just write my own post collating my argument.

TL;DR -- Yes, it did basically happen like this.

I shall explain in a brief 🧵 (1/x)

Before I get to my core argument, I need to clarify why this scene is important and why it became a centerpiece of fan backlash to The Last Jedi.

The screenshot is pulled from the 2nd of 3 moments in the film which depict the same interaction between Luke Skywalker and his student & nephew, Ben.

Here are all three depictions of that scene, back-to-back:


What it shows is Luke Skywalker, who had just felt a vision of Ben turning to the dark side, raising his lightsaber with the explicit intent to kill Ben (while he was sleeping) in order to prevent the reemergence of the Sith.

This moment resulted in Luke abandoning his plan to rebuild the Jedi Order and go into exile over the guilt of what he did in this scene, while also actively pushing Ben over to the "dark side" of the force, leading him to become Kylo Ren.

It's arguably the key moment of the entire sequel trilogy, in the sense that it provides the primary explanation for why Ben Solo (son of Han Solo & Princess Leia and nephew of Luke Skywalker) would turn to the dark side and come to worship Darth Vader and for why Luke Skywalker has disappeared.

It's also wildly out of character for Luke Skywalker, which is why most people hated it.

It's pretty depressing to see so many people - especially lawyers - who think the 1st Amendment is the totality of free speech, and not the minimum standard.

The government should never, *ever* violate this right, but frankly neither should any other institution in most cases. The Bill of Rights exists to protect individuals from the state, which is always the worst abuser and biggest risk of violating rights. So the 1st Amendment is a crucial tool for maintaining freedom.

But the Amendment exists *because* we value free speech. It's not the source.