A Certain Point of View: In the Jedi of the Beholder

Obi-Wan: So, what I told you was true… from a certain point of view.

Luke: A certain point of view?

Obi-Wan: Luke, you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

One of the most recent, and widely spoken of, new canon books is From a Certain Point of View. This mash of stories has completely captivated the Star Wars fandom, telling us all the sides of the stories we never knew. I’m sure there are other fans out there, like me, that were asking themselves why this was such a big deal. While #FromACertainPOV was blowing up twitter, I kept asking myself why we all thought this was so revolutionary. Why are we all in love with this? I was then reminded of the above quote from Return of the Jedi and I had it. It’s because these stories represent us.

Just a couple weeks after POV was released, I’m sure you started seeing #SWrepresents, in all its different spellings, everywhere. This is the “aftertag”, the outcome of POV. We see ourselves in the characters we love and identify with their traits. This may be how we chose which fandom we love the most. Despite enjoying the series, I don’t see myself in Harry Potter or Hunger Games characters. But my personality is all over Star Wars.

Our point of view is our truth, our reality. It is created by our natural personality, biases, memories, and factual reasoning. Your point of view will be the same as no one else, and it will change. Throughout Star Wars, we see characters make different decisions based on their changing point of view. Anakin went dark, Ahsoka got more careful, Jyn got more hopeful.

With A Certain Point of View, we have even more characters to find ourselves in. In the end, it is up to us to discover who we are and what will make up our point of view.

What will you represent?

Who will you be?

Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View is published by Century in the UK and is available now. © Lucasfilm Ltd.