Several Jedi return from beyond the grave as Force ghosts in the Star Wars saga, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an afterlife for non-Force-sensitives. Obi-Wan Kenobi famously guides Luke throughout the original Star Wars trilogy, even after his death aboard the first Death Star in A New Hope. In both canon and Legends non-movie material, Sith are shown terrorizing beings after their deaths as well, but one Star Wars canon story confirms that the galaxy’s ordinary beings don’t simply cease to exist when they die.
As explained by Obi-Wan and Yoda at various points in the original Star Wars trilogy, the Force is a fundamental energy that permeates the entire galaxy. It’s created and nourished by life and nature, representing balance. The dark side is a corruption of this energy, granting its users unnatural power but corrupting them into horrific versions of themselves in the process. While Jedi can return as Force ghosts to aid others in times of need, Sith spirits are confined to an object or location, tormenting or killing any being they come into contact with and often going insane.
While the majority of the Star Wars galaxy’s populace can’t return from the dead like certain Jedi and Sith, they’re shown to live on in some form after they die. The 2017 canon anthology book, From a Certain Point of View, includes a short story told from the perspective of Luke Skywalker’s adopted mother, Beru Whitesun Lars. Set after her and Owen Lars’ deaths, Lars reminisces on the death of Luke’s grandmother, Shmi, and Luke’s upbringing. The melancholic yet heartwarming story has Lars observing her adopted son destroy the Death Star with pride, confirming that the consciousness of non-Force-sensitive beings continues to exist after their death, they simply can’t return as Force ghosts as some Jedi do.
This fits with most descriptions of the Force in various canon and Legends sources. Since life creates and sustains the fundamental energy field, it makes sense that the Force exists in all life, and thus nobody’s consciousness truly dies. Any being could potentially use the Force (or its dark side), given proper training and discipline, no matter what their aptitude for it is.
The ability to manifest oneself as a Force ghost is an extremely difficult ability that took legendary Jedi like Qui-Gon Jinn, Yoda, and Obi-Wan Kenobi years to master. Anakin Skywalker, according to the Legends-era book, The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader, learned the ability in a matter of moments as he died aboard the Second Death Star, tutored by the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Some beings could perpetually return as ghosts. In the Legends-era book, Heir to the Empire, Obi-Wan Kenobi speaks to Luke one last time, revealing that he can no longer guide him as a Force ghost.
Considering the corrupting and unnatural qualities of the dark side, it makes sense that Sith spirits are violent, insane, and confined to specific objects of locations. Some Sith, like Palpatine and Tenebrae (also known as Darth Vitiate and Valkorion), learned the ability to transfer their consciousness into host bodies, such as cloned bodies of their original ones (in Palpatine’s case). For the Star Wars franchise’s non-Force-sensitive beings, however, they could live on and observe the galaxy from within the Force, giving them a limited afterlife, compared to Jedi and Sith.
Key Release Dates
Rogue Squadron
Release Date:2023-12-22
