Who doesn’t love Star Wars? It’s been one of the biggest franchises in the world, and has been since the first movie premiered in 1976. Since then, the series has transitioned from film to television to novels to comics to video games to literally every seeming form of entertainment imaginable. The adventures of the people living in a galaxy far far away have captivated audiences from around the world, and now, thanks to the power of the internet, fans from across the globe have been able to come together and share their thoughts and feelings about the franchise.

Thanks to websites like Tumblr, these realizations can come from anywhere and make you rethink some of the established tics and beats of a series we’ve all seen a thousand times. Some of them make us reconsider the heroes in a more tragic light, or see the villains for their mistakes instead of their actions. Other relationships can actually become sweeter than their canon counterpart with a cute realization. There are even some people who just take a part of the series we all thought was dumb and point out the simple brilliance of that choice. Here are 20 Tumblr posts that will make you rethink these Star Wars characters.

Chewbacca’s True Power Dynamic

via: Me.Me

For a lot of fans, Chewbacca is the silly hairy sidekick to Han Solo and not much else. He follows his orders, barks at his sass, and is generally the coolest buddy in the world. But there’s another way to look at their relationship, one that’s being drawn to the forefront by Solo. Chewbacca has been around for way longer than Han and has probably dealt with a lot of other pilots in his extended lifetime. He’s already in his 400s by the time of Solo, and still going strong into the sequel trilogy.

Comparatively, when looking at lifespans, Chewbacca isn’t the pet sidekick that we all mistook him for. In reality, Han’s is the perky little dog who won’t shut up but Chewbacca loves anyway, and he’s so sad when he passes. And this poster (unfortunately) has it completely right, pointing out that Chewbacca could have avoided all of this eventual trouble and just gotten his pet a little operation. It’s a hilarious new perspective on the friendship between the two characters, but also adds a new layer of sadness to Chewie’s grief and a new purpose of helping out Rey.

The Progression Of The Jedi Order

via: Reddit

One of the most pop-culture defining aspects of Star Wars, above almost anything else, is the lightsaber. The weapon of the Jedi is one of the most popular images in film history, and literally, everyone has wanted one at one point or another. But as this one post on Reddit realized, the true appreciate of the weapon has been somewhat diluted over the years. The three generations of warriors we’ve seen in the movies wielding the weapon have progressively gotten less trained over time, but somehow, more skilled. Take Anakin, who spends the prequels as a Padawan. He’s learning to be a Jedi Master. And over the course of two movies, the dope loses his lightsaber in a space car chase, gets his hand cut off by Christopher Lee, his legs cut off by Obi-Wan, and then, gets himself set on fire. Not a stellar record.

Then, there’s Luke, who at least got the basics established to him by an admittedly old Obi-Wan. He fared better than his father, though he did also end up getting a hand cut off. Rey had none of that build up, she basically just found a lightsaber and was like “cool” and then she immediately schooled the guy trained by Luke Skywalker. Clearly, the training is getting in the way of true lightsabers this whole time.

Finn And Poe Just Need To Get Together Already

via: Pinterest

So, can we all agree that one of the sweetest aspects of the new trilogy of films has been the relationship between the ace pilot, Poe Dameron, and former Stormtrooper Finn. The two helped each other escape the First Oder during the events of Force Awakens, and are ecstatic to see one another again when they reunite at the Resistance base. There has been lots of speculation online, especially on places like Tumblr and Pinterest whether their earnest friendship is more than just being a couple of buddies. They do seem to care about one another immensely, especially Poe.

He’s so excited to find out that Finn is still alive and immediately embraces him in a massive hug. He even tells Finn to keep the jacket he gave him, which is 100% the sort of thing a high school sweetheart does to their crush. The creators even seem to double down on the idea in The Last Jedi, with Poe being enthusiastic as the prospect of Finn being awake and starts literally running through the halls for him. This poster is 100% right about there being some real affection in their relationship, and come on. At this point just have them kiss and watch the internet explode from sheer excitement.

Kylo Ren Is A Emo Poser

via: Buzzfeed

Kylo Ren is an interesting villain for the new Star Wars films to put front and center, but the logic behind it is compelling. He’s someone who sees the past actions of Darth Vader and wishes they could be that imposing, that significant, that powerful. But he’s trying to earn all that without every actually doing anything to justify it. He’s practically a Darth Vader cosplayer, who shows up with his “original character” that’s clearly just a riff on someone else. This poster realized that, and pointed out all the reasons Darth Vader actually needed to walk around with his cool mask on. After his battle with Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin ended up with every part of him on fire and in pain. He’s forced into his survival suit not by choice, but out of bare necessity.

That’s not why Kylo Ren shows up dressed in his black armor with a cape. It’s because he really wants people to think he’s like Darth Vader, and that he’s just as imposing. Which, especially given how many times he’s literally just thrown a temper tantrum on screen? It doesn’t really work. And that’s such an interesting counterpoint to someone like Vader, who found themselves on a darker path without ever meaning for it.

Qui-Gon’s Boys

via: Pinterest

Qui-Gon Jin might be one of the few good things about the first Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Menace. In a movie where even the good parts (the pod race and the lightsaber duel) are overstuffed and way too long, Liam Neeson really does bring some gravitas to the proceedings as maybe the perfect Jedi. He’s calm but collected, curious and clever. He’s exactly the Jedi master you’d want, and makes a perfect mentor for Obi-Wan and as an inspirational martyr to Anakin. But after he became one with the Force and turned into a blue space ghost (which we’ve never seen but was revealed at the end of Revenge of the Sith), he must have watched the actions of his two chosen pupils with dawning horror and exhaustion.

Qui-Gon was so good at being a Jedi! And look at his two students, arguing over who set a trap they don’t seem to realize they’re in. This poster imagines a world where Qui-Gon is just watching this nonsense with his ghost head in his hands, shaking it and sighing in disbelief. The only thing he can take pride in his how pretty they’re turning out. Well, one of them is. Anakin somehow looks like he’s perpetually 14 and 31 at the same time, and not in a good way.

The Skywalker Soap Opera

via: College Humor

Seriously, all three generations of characters that the movies have been following have had to deal with the ramifications of a Skywalker getting out of hand. There are other problems out there in the galaxy, sure. But everything just keeps getting over-complicated because of the actions of one of the Skywalkers. In the prequel series, Anakin goes off the deep end and essentially wipes out almost every other Jedi and helps the Empire become the most powerful force in the galaxy. He even proves to be a serious threat in side stories to the main series, like Rouge One and Rebels.

This goes on until two more Skywalkers, Luke and Leia, get involved in the ultimate battle against him and the Empire as a whole and end up destabilizing the entire galaxy. But it doesn’t take long for Luke to make a major mistake and get everyone his nephew (who may have Solo in his name, but Skywalker in his blood), Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren on the war path and helping trying to ruin the rest of literally everything. The whole franchise can be seen as everyone else just trying to clean up after this mistakes and mishaps to keep everything from just being on fire.

Yoda Does Not Care For Confrontation

via: College Humor

Yoda is maybe the most famous Jedi master in the series. The playful green muppet has been a favorite of audiences since he first appeared in the Empire Strikes Back. The character has been a somewhat silly mentor for a handful of different people over the course of the franchise. While he was a strong force for good in the prequel trilogy, he ends those movies in hiding away from the rest of the universe. By the time of the main trilogy, Yoda has resigned himself to never spreading his teachings to another Jedi until Luke showed up and got him back into being a teacher. But by the time Luke found out that his father and Darth Vader were one and the same, Yoda had grown too tired to continue on living and became one with the Force.

While from one understanding he’s just transcending from one plane of existence into another, there’s another interpretation from this post that realizes that Yoda was also using his pending death to get out of explaining the lies about Anakin and Leia. Instead, ghost Obi-Wan had to return to the material world to reveal all that information to Luke. What a nonconfrontational jerk.

K-2SO Was Our New Favorite

via: Reddit

The cast of Rogue One were never going to make it out of the events of the film alive. So it just made how cool and charming the cast was all the more depressing. As we lost more and more people that we had grown to love in their battle against the Empire, the war against the Dark Side felt more real than it ever had been before. Of the cast, we all kind of have a soft spot for their resident droid, K-2SO (as played by a hilariously sardonic Alan Tudyk) who proves to be a great resource for the heroes. He was the exhausted robot that we always wish C-3PO had always been, and his actual usefulness in dangerous situations just made him even better.

There are plenty of times in the movie where it’s clear that he just wants to lecture the rest of the cast about why this current course of action is stupid. That’s his default personality, but it fails to completely hide that he does care for the rest of the crew. It makes him stand out amidst the rest of the droids in the galaxy, many of whom don’t have any real personality at all. They just sort of go about their days, doing what they do best i.e. just being droids. But with his caustic personality and all, K-2SO became incredibly endearing, especially for a character we’re only going to see once.

Anakin Skywalker In A Nutshell

via: Tumblr

For real, so many problems in the galaxy (including some that manage to even only erupt decades after he’s become a blue space Force ghost) only become a thing because Anakin keeps throwing himself head long into something. It’s that headstrong attitude and overwhelming power that makes the rest of the Jedi Order see him as a potential chosen one, but it also just keeps getting him into trouble. Most of the conflict in the Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith come directly from some rash decision he makes.

That includes his own personal pains (he got his hand cut off for the stupidest of reasons) and a whole host of troubles for the galaxy as a whole when he sides with Palatine over Mace Windu. This Tumblr post is perfect in summing up the emotional cores of both Anakin (that smug overconfidence that is so about to blow up in his face) and Obi-Wan (who is always shocked by how stupid his Padawan can be under pressure). Like, Obi-Wan has been hanging out with this kid for years by this point, he’s got to have noticed a pattern of mistakes by this point in their relationship.

Han Solo Don’t Got Time For You

via: Pinterest

Five movies of screentime set across three distinct time periods have taught us many things about Han Solo. He’s a scoundrel with a gooey center, a smuggler with a heart of gold can always be trusted to do the right thing in the end. And also, he is very, very catty. Every other word out of his mouth is another piece of sarcastic disbelief at the absurdity of the situation they’ve all gotten themselves into. And can you imagine what would have happened if one of them had tried to ask him to cool it with the jokes?

He would have just gotten worse. There’s something so pure about his level of snark throughout the films, and how everyone just comes to expect it. It’s probably what clued Luke in immediately to Han’s disappearance when he saw Chewbacca but didn’t hear any put downs from afar. This post illuminates just how fundamental sarcasm is to Han Solo, and how if you don’t like it then you don’t like him.

Leia & Han Sitting In A Tree

via: Dorkly

The relationship between Leia and Han, while surprising in the moment, is incredibly obvious once you take a few steps back and admire their relationship as a whole. From the very beginning, they were going all out in front of one another. Remember, Han first meets Leia when she grabs his gun, shoots out a vent, and orders him to jump down it to an uncertain fate. Meanwhile, Leia found herself more drawn to him over time, but is almost immediately flirty with him.

While this probably had something to with the natural chemistry between the two actors (who partied together off-set constantly and even hooked up for a while), it’s also a strong core to their romantic relationship. That’s what makes them such an interesting version of a couple where neither of them are strictly in control 100% of the time. There’s a push and pull that comes to the forefront with their banter and relationship that gives them an extra level of depth over many of the other romantic relationships that these movies have tried to give us (cough couch Anakin and Padme cough couch), and this post

Leia In One Easy Emoji

via: Dorkly

Princess Leia has become something of an icon within fantasy and sci-fi for being a strong-willed leader and warrior princess. She’s great. But there was a time before she became the biggest female hero in contemporary sci-fi, and she was just a princess whose first impulse during a raid is to pull a laser and start dropping Stormtroopers. It’s important to remember that she is also all of 5’1. She’s positively tiny, and she’s still going toe-to-toe with Darth Vader when he tries to step to her. This post points out just how adorable and cool that makes her during the film, and how that’s the first thing we see her do.

This is our introduction to the Princess, not being lured into a magic sleeping coma or kidnapped without any problems. Instead, she straight up shoots a guy! While Leia does end up spending parts of the overalls story in danger and captured by the bad guys, she also manages to help the heroes escape from an attack and even successfully convinced an army of indigenous bear creatures to fight for her in a war against technology advanced enemies. Leia is very tiny and she’s still more of a fighter than people half her size.

Obi-Wan Is Still So Mad

VIA: Smosh

Obi-Wan Kenobi has become shorthand for the seasoned and wise mentor archetype in popular culture. But, to the credit of the prequel films (ugh), seeing how Kenobi and his relationship with Anakin deteriorated made their eventual reunion during the events of A New Hope more fascinating. There’s a fury to Vader, what with the whole being set on fire thing, but it’s a cold kind of anger. Silently furious, in a mechanical and malicious way. But Obi-Wan (as played by Alec Guinness) has a much more raw and determined anger with his former pupil. From their perspective, it’s been decades since they’ve seen one another. And while Vader might still hate Kenobi for what he perceives as a fundamental betrayal, Kenobi looks at Vader with so much contempt. So much hatred. He doesn’t even call him Anakin, or Vader. It’s just Darth, this dark thing that doesn’t deserve his respect or recognition.

He basically stormed down the door to his Death Star and went to fight Vader on his own terms. And when those terms led to a fight, Kenobi didn’t run or beg or bargain. He went head on and told off his former student while getting cut in half. It turns the nice old mentor into a furious fighter, and changes the tone of his last battle.

Rey Already Found A Father Figure

via: Tumblr

Rey has been on the search for purpose and destiny since her first appearance. An entire chunk of the Last Jedi dedicated to her trying to discover the fate of her parents, and where she came from. She’s convinced that she’s going to be some kind of special or have some amazing and important parent she never knew. It’s why she gravitates so hard towards Han Solo in Force Awakens and Luke in The Last Jedi, and why the eventual reveal from Kylo Ren leaves her so heartbroken and taken aback. But here’s the thing she never realized. She already has the perfect father figure, and she never realized it. He’s sitting right next to her, helping her fly to find Luke Skywalker and supporting her decisions and plans when it comes to her training.

As the post so perfectly describes it, there’s Chewbacca driving her to Jedi training and not giving her any business for talking to that boy that she kind of likes. Mind you, that boy did kill Han Solo with a lightsaber straight through the chest, which kind of puts a damper on things but hey. It’s the thought that counts.

Leia Is Way Tougher Than Her Family

via: Dorkly

Okay, for context. All of the Skywalkers have gone through serious losses in their life. Well, except for Kylo Ren, who is just a jerk, but that’s the whole point of him. And only one of them has proven to be really strong in the face of that hardship. Anakin lost his mother, and the fear of losing his wife in a similar way shades his actions leads him on a road of good intentions that lead nowhere good. His son, Luke, also suffers loss. The only home he’s ever known is taken away from him by a chance good deed, and he has to discover the bodies of the two people who raised him. And almost immediately after, he loses his newfound mentor to the man he will eventually find out is his father. Both Anakin and Luke had to deal with serious inner turmoil from the losses.

Meanwhile, Princess Leia has to watch as her entire family, culture and planet are exploded in front of her very eyes. And does she get tempted by the dark side? No. Does she become corrupted trying to stop that from happening again? No. Does she soldier on and persevere, helping liberate the galaxy while quietly dealing with her problems? Yep. Leia is the single hardest member of her family, and she deserves respect for that.

Luke Is Such A Child

via: Dorkly

Luke Skywalker’s journey is one of the best templates for the classical hero’s journey in fiction, going from a young boy who just wants to be someone better to a hero that the entire galaxy has always needed. But that means that he has to start his journey at a level of childish idiocy that in retrospect makes him seem like such a privileged idiot. This post really draws attention to just how dopey and dorky Luke is in comparison to the rest of the people who have driven the action of the Star Wars franchise. Just look at his parents!

One of them was a former monarch turned senator, who had already survived multiple attempts on her life. His father was off fighting an intergalactic war against an army of robots. And even his sister was trying to work as a member of a secret cabal of resistance fighters to try and keep everything and everyone she knows alive. And where was Luke at that same time frame? Sitting in his uncle and aunt’s place and playing around with his model ships. Because Luke Skywalker is a child, and that’s what makes his arc so important.

The Real End Of Obi-Wan

via: Smosh

During a fairly seemingly innocent scene in the original Star Wars, Luke’s Uncle Owen talks with Luke and tells him to stay away from Old Ben Kenobi. While the scene plays out as a simple moment of warning in the original film, revelations from the prequel films add a whole new layer of tragedy onto that moment. While telling Luke that the man known as Obi-Wan Kenobi no longer exists, Uncle Owen says the line “He died about the same time your father did.” As this Tumblr post points out, it speaks to just how heartbreaking that moment is for both Anakin and Obi-Wan. The night that Anakin was gone and he became Darth Vader was also the day that Obi-Wan Kenobi stopped being a presence in the world before being transformed into the reclusive and sad Ben Kenobi.

The Jedi who came to the lava world aren’t the people who first came. And while we all saw the change of Anakin turning into Vader, none of us realized just how sad Kenobi has become and how depressing that moment is for him in hindsight. It’s a powerful moment that we wouldn’t have realized without this poster throwing in that observation out into the internet.

Poe Just Can’t Stop Messing Up

via: Tumblr

Poe Dameron is one of our favorite new members of the Star Wars universe, and for good reason. The brash but skilled pilot is one of the best flyers the galaxy has ever seen, managing to pull off seemingly impossible moves constantly and just flying circles around the First Order. But there’s also another aspect of Poe that we need to talk about, and that’s how much of a screwup he is. He doesn’t have too many bad calls in his first appearance in Force Awakens, but he goes above and beyond the call of idiocy when he reappears in The Last Jedi. Poe’s plans manage to buy the Resistance a little time, but not exactly a lot. And when Leia is put in a coma and her replacement bristles against Poe, it sends the pilot on a path that literally gets a lot of their allies blown up.

Sure, the new admiral Holdo ends up keeping a lot of information from Poe for seemingly no real reason, but at the end of the day, she’s in command and he gets so fed up that he leads a failed coup against her. He’s such a dummy that when Leia wakes up and immediately shoots him with a stun blast, everyone just kind of agrees that yeah, that kinda needed to happen for us to move on. We love Poe, but man Poe. You gotta be more careful.

Kylo Ren’s Broadsaber

via: Strange Beaver

The Star Wars fanbase is an opinionated bunch— and not always in a good way. Just look at the sheer level of backlash the previous film received. The franchise is beloved the world over, but there’s a certain perspective on the series that tries to place a weird, unearned ownership on the universe and the characters within. If the movies don’t play out exactly how they want them to, then they take to the internet to yell and scream and just generally be pretty awful. But it’s not always about gender dynamics within the franchise (which was stupid of the internet to get so worked up about) or the internal logic of the characters and events (which, okay, that kinda sucked in Last Jedi) that gets them. It’s the little character touches, too.

Strange Beaver admittedly has a pretty cool looking lightsaber that creates two smaller blades of light on the side of the hilt. When the lightsaber first appeared, people online took it to task for looking too silly. But as this Tumblr poster notes, Kylo might just be the smartest lightsaber fighter in the history of the series. Seriously, how many people end up losing a hand in these films? Kylo thought around that by using a crossguard. He just saved himself from the fate that befalls roughly 40% of all lightsaber users.

Padme Learns A Very Valuable Lesson

via: Tor.com

Poor Padme. Seriously, things just refuse to go well for the Naboo Queen, at any point in her life. Even when she gets to be actual royalty, she’s quickly captured by her enemies and turned into a bargaining chip by the Jedi. And consistently, the people she trusts end up either disappointing her or turning on her. She entrusts Jar Jar Binks (ugh) with stewardship of the Senate, and he gives complete power to Palpatine. Paplatine, the seasoned politician from her homeworld that she has trusted for years, turns out to be the Sith behind so much pain across the galaxy, and he’s manipulated everyone around her into attacking one another. Obi-Wan, the friend she’s had for over a decade, who she trusts implicitly, fails his promise to save Anakin and reunite them. And then there’s Anakin, the man she loved and cared for.

And how did he return those feelings? Paranoia and fury, and eventually even choking her with space magic. No wonder she died of a broken heart, there was nothing left for her to care about. Even having her babies just left with nothing. This Tumblr realization really adds a whole new layer of tragedy to the character and the franchise.

References: Me.me, Reddit, Pinterest, Buzzfeed, Pinterest, College Humor, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Dorkly, Smosh, Strange Beaver, Tor.com