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Luke Skywalker is arguably the most powerful jedi to ever live, even more powerful than Master Yoda. Yet I have never seen an instance in which Luke has deflected Force lightning with his hands or absorbed it. Galen Marek, Yoda and Revan did it. Shouldn't Luke be able to as well? I've checked everywhere, but I might be missing something. Does anybody know of an instance in which Luke did this (besides my fanfic)?

Secko
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Donmax
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    "Luke Skywalker is arguably the most powerful jedi to ever live" - Is this based on EU stuff?

     – Goodbye Stack Exchange Aug 02 '12 at 08:56
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    Luke Skywalker isn't even the most powerful Jedi (at least in terms of raw force power) of his time. But Luke is a great leader which is what the Jedi order needs. – Chad Aug 02 '12 at 13:03
  • @Chad - afair, if you don't count Father and Son who were celestals, Luke and Anakin had the highest Mid&^^%$n count known, at least in their timeframe. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Aug 02 '12 at 13:10
  • @DVK Jacen, Jaina, Anakin, and Ben not to mention Alana(whose power we do not know for sure but has been hinted at)... those would be of his time. – Chad Aug 02 '12 at 13:15
  • @Chad - Sorry, I was referring to pre-NJO as "Luke's time". In post-NJO EU, you are correct. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Aug 02 '12 at 13:31
  • @DVK "Mid&^^%$n", LOL! – Secko Aug 02 '12 at 15:55
  • Luke is one of the most powerful Jedi to ever live, if not THE most powerful. Anakin had Double the Midi-Chlorian count of Palpatine, thus from Palpatine himself. Since Yoda and Palpatine were a dead even match, it stands to reason that they likely had a similiar count too. So if Anakin had twice the potential of them both, & Luke had the same potential as Anakin, then Luke would have become the most powerful jedi ever. Even though Luke still considered Yoda to be greater than him, since we don't really know how strong Yoda might have been in his prime. – JediWitness Nov 20 '13 at 21:19
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    He seemed a lot better at absorb than deflect in RotJ. – Erik Reppen Nov 23 '13 at 02:14

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First of all we don't know that Luke is the most powerful jedi that ever lived. Is Luke special, sure (even Vader said so himself), is he the most powerful, not sure. I will not debate this further in this answer since it's just mentioned in the question.

From Star Wars wiki:

Force lightning could also be absorbed and redirected by a Jedi of sufficient skill; Luke Skywalker attempted this, and succeeded for a short amount of time, before the Emperor's attack overwhelmed him.

We see that Luke managed to do it briefly, bear in mind that he was still young and inexperienced, with basic training for a few days with Yoda on Dagobah.

Secko
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  • From where have you pulling those Midi-chlorian count number? Is that a Canon source? As DVK said here (citing Wikipedia) that "Lucas has said in interviews that Luke Skywalker had the same total midi-chlorian count that Anakin did at birth, though this does not necessarily make him the chosen one because Anakin did exactly what the prophecy foretold by coming back from the Dark Side and destroying Emperor Palpatine." – DavRob60 Aug 02 '12 at 12:13
  • @DavRob60 Don't know if it's canon, here is the source: http://www.supershadow.com/starwars/midi.html – Secko Aug 02 '12 at 12:20
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    What the heck is that list??? General Grievous is listed at 11,900 while he was not force sensitive, Even Chewbacca is listed at 7,200! And who is Aenon Jurtis???!!! – DavRob60 Aug 02 '12 at 12:33
  • Don't know, gave it a better look and believe it's not canon at all, I'll remove it from the answer. Thanks for noticing. – Secko Aug 02 '12 at 12:37
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    @DavRob60 All (or almost all) creatures in the Star Wars universe have midichlorians. You need to have enough of them to become force-sensitive. – Izkata Aug 02 '12 at 13:11
  • @Izkata Exactly, but nevertheless it was not canon so I removed it. – Secko Aug 02 '12 at 13:12
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    @Secko I wouldn't trust SuperShadow's website. See reference: Star Wars fan website with false claims – spong Aug 02 '12 at 13:31
  • @sunpech Yes, I kind of figured it out. The whole site content is based on the owners invention. :( – Secko Aug 02 '12 at 13:34
  • There are canon sources stating a few numbers. Most Jedi do not have midi-chlorian counts availiable – The Fallen Aug 02 '12 at 16:54
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Luke DID do this already, though not in the movies, to my GREAT disappointment.

In the book "Return of the Jedi" (ROTJ), after the Emperor first hit Luke with the lightning, he got up and thought "He had never heard of such a power. Cerainly Yoda had never mentioned such a power, never even hinted at it. But if it was force generated, it could be force repelled". So Luke raised up his hand and at first, he was successful, to the amazement of the Emperor.

This proved why the Emperor was SO afraid of Luke, because of course he knew that he had the same potential power of Anakin, which was TWICE what either Palpatine or Yoda had in terms of midi-chlorian count.

Luke was the only other Jedi aside from Yoda, that was able to repulse force lightning. Until that time, it was considerd to be impossible for any light side user to deflect force lightning using just the force itself. THis also shows Lukes power level. For even while he was still technically a padawan, he was already able to do what only Yoda could do, to repulse force lightning.

Eventually though the Emperors bolts came with more speed and power and overwhelmed Luke. That is why the Emperor said the line "Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side". To me that line made NO sense at all, UNTIL I read the book version of ROTJ, after that it made perfect sense.

JediWitness
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No.

Luke getting cooked

To the best of my knowledge, the only Jedi to ever catch lightning bare-handed without suffering ill effects was Yoda. Luke has no where near the skill that Yoda did, even if his raw ability is potentially higher. I'm sure he could have deflected it with his lightsaber, like other Jedi have done, but he can't catch it.

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Jeff
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  • In the movies, despite calling himself a master, he was still pretty wet behind the ears. It becomes quite common in the EU. – Chad Aug 02 '12 at 14:41
  • @Chad It could be argued that by the time Luke confronts Palpatine in RotJ that he was a Jedi Master simply because there were no other Jedi Masters known at the time. – Xantec Aug 02 '12 at 15:12
  • @Xantec - There is more to being a master than being powerful. That was what Anakin(Vader) never understood. – Chad Aug 02 '12 at 15:24
  • @Chad Exactly. Regardless of Luke's skill or power, after Yoda passed the mortal coil Luke could call himself anything he wanted, set the criteria for "Master-hood" to whatever he wanted. If he wanted to call himself a Jedi Master there was no one to contradict him at that point. – Xantec Aug 02 '12 at 15:35
  • @Xantec - But that claim(in Jabba's palace) happened before yoda died. I do not think Luke(of the EU anyway I am sure Mark Hamill saw him as all powerful) actually believed he was a jedi master. It was a position he took to challenge Jabba. – Chad Aug 02 '12 at 15:39
  • http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tutaminis - Luke Skywalker is listed as a notable practitioner. This does not mean that he could absorb force lightning, but that he was able to use the technique. Apparently it was a common skill used by many Jedi, so it is conceivable that Luke could have used the skill. @Jeff - I know for a fact Revan was able to catch lightning bare-handed. – The Fallen Aug 02 '12 at 16:59
  • @SSumner: It may have been common at one point (I haven't read much of the pre-Episode IV EU stuff) but I believe that technique was largely forgotten by the time of Luke (especially once Yoda died). It may have been rediscovered sometime after the Vong war (I haven't read anything later than that). – Jeff Aug 02 '12 at 17:41
  • I don't know about the lightning catching specifically, but Tutaminis was a common skill after Ep VI. – The Fallen Aug 02 '12 at 19:12