Hope

Most people have a comfort “fall back”- a food, activity, habit, or pattern that one retreats into when in search of comfort. For me, it has always been watching Star Wars.

As the chaos of this pandemic settled for me, and I had time to do more than work and sleep, I began watching every Star Wars movie and show in chronological story order. It has served as a beautiful and necessary break from the constant changes I have been responding to.

As I mopped up tears during the final episodes of Rebels, I began wondering why I was doing this. What is it about these stories that pulls me in and provides the relief I am seeking? I found my answer as I transitioned into Rogue One.

Hope.

Hope is one of the overarching themes in all of Star Wars storytelling. It shows up as an unfailing belief that everything will work out, even when you can’t come up with any way that it will. It provides the belief in a solution that we cannot see and charge into battle anyway. And as is represented time and again, when one spark of hope burns out somehow there is another.

Padme had hope in the Galactic Senate, and later on the Gungans to help save her people. Hope supported Rey through her time on Jakku, and then pressed her to fight with the Resistance. Leia, despite everything she has lost over the years, still has hope that she’ll find her brother and that her son will return.

Hope is there, if you only believe it. As Leia so wisely reminds us “Hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you can see it, you’ll never make it through the night.”