Skywalker, Luke

Luke Skywalker is the hero of Star Wars. He moves from being a whiny teenager--



to being a whiny early-twenty-something--



to being a whiny middle-twenty-something.



(Granted, I'd probably whine a little bit, too, if I were being electrocuted.)

Okay, briefly, Luke is being raised by his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Owen's grumpy. Beru's nice (but only behind his back, from what we can see). Luke has dreams of leaving his uncle's moisture farm on Tatooine and joining the Academy. Instead, stormtroopers murder his aunt and uncle, and a senile old man, Obi-Wan Kenobi, drags Luke into the Galactic Civil War. Luke decides he wants to become a Jedi "like [his] father." He blows up the first Death Star, fights Darth Vader, loses a hand, learns his father is Darth Vader (ex post facto spoiler alert!), decides to save his father, almost kills his father, almost gets killed instead, and becomes a Jedi knight during the adventure. Easy, right?

Oh, he also learns Princess Leia is his sister, after this:



Family reunions? Awkward.

Expanded Universe Spoiler Alert!

Luke, being the "last" of the Jedi, scours the galaxy to find new people to train. He finds, like, dozens of Jedi who had been hiding, which we find odd. Anyway, Luke becomes the Grand Master of the new Jedi and fights to save the galaxy (still?) from various threats. Along the way, he falls in love with several women, to ease the pain of losing his sister to his best friend (we guess). One of them stays alive long enough to marry him! Her name is Mara Jade, and she is a former Imperial assassin once determined to kill Luke. Ah, young love. They have a son, Ben. Then she dies (although not in childbirth--that would be ridiculous). Luke is sad.