The Star Wars Hero With The Worst Love Life

To put it bluntly, Luke Skywalker’s love life sucks. That’s not entirely unheard of for fictional heroes. Many, such as Sir Galahad, from the King Arthur mythos, have an aura of chastity about them. And that would be fine for Luke if he wasn’t trying so hard.

It’s no secret that Luke Skywalker was based on George Lucas as a teen, and George Lucas, as a teen in the ’50s, cared about two things: cars and girls. Luke cares about these things, too, except his car has repulsor lifts instead of wheels, and the girl is his sister.

Ah, the forbidden love hinted at between Leia and Luke, you probably knew we’d get to the incest thing. All joking aside, Leia was never meant to be Luke’s sister until Lucas decided to change it so that they were twins, seemingly on a whim. While that revelation made a certain makeout scene in Empire Strikes Back rather awkward in hindsight, let’s be honest: Leia wanted to make Han jealous, and Luke just happened to be the closest cute boy.

Still, Luke didn’t know either, making Leia and Han’s not-so-secret romance a painful reminder—at least at the time—of a stinging rejection from the prettiest girl in the Rebellion. Eventually, he’d get over it.

In both Legends and the current canon, Luke would have several lovers over the years—more so in Legends—but one way or another, they would always end in tragedy. Take Callista Ming, for instance. Originally known as Callista Masana, Callista was a Jedi Knight whose spirit was somehow transferred into the computer of the Imperial dreadnaught Eye of Palpatine.

Over the course of the Legend’s novel, Children of the Jedi, Luke Skywalker and Callista develop a mutual attraction despite the fact that she’s non-corporeal and currently busy haunting a PC. As luck would have it, one of Luke’s Jedi trainees, Cray Mingla, sacrifices her life so Callista can have a body again.

Sadly, Callista, now going by Callista Ming, loses her connection to the force in the process and decides to take her new body and peace out. After a brief “I’m leaving you to work on myself” talk, Luke is once again left alone and heartbroken.

Then there’s Mara Jade, long considered by Star Wars fans to be Luke Skywalker’s one true love. It certainly didn’t start out that way, though. When Mara first met Luke, she was an ex-assassin for the Emporer, who was supposed to have murdered Luke during his time at Jabba’s Palace on Tatooine. Having failed then, Mara sees her reintroduction to Skywalker years later as a way of finally fulfilling her master’s last command.

Jade never ends up killing Luke, however, and the two even end up married with a child, Ben Skywalker. Luke finally had his happy ending until Leia’s son Jacen murdered Mara in cold blood, once again depriving Luke of any sort of domestic bliss.

Luke Skywalker had other flings in Legends, like Lumiya, the disguised Imperial agent he fell for and accidentally left disfigured. She got better and then ended up being the one to convince Luke’s murderous nephew to turn to the dark side in the first place. That’s just par for the course for everyone’s favorite Tatooine farm boy.

Disney’s current Star Wars canon hasn’t given Luke any breaks, either. On his first mission after blowing up the Death Star, Luke falls for fellow Rebel Nakari Kelen. They manage to share a single kiss before a piece of shrapnel takes Kelen out.

Then Luke Skywalker developed a small crush on the lovable rogue Dr. Aphra. Someone nicely explains to Luke that he’s not exactly Aphra’s type—the character dates women exclusively—and that by being a dude, he actually dodged a bullet.

Thanks to the events of The Last Jedi, we know that Luke Skywalker spends his last years alone and bitter and dies having never found true love. What a tragic end for a character originally spurned into action by a hologram of a hot girl in need of rescue and his hopes of hooking up with said girl.