Sean @ Paganarchy

Good friend (and contributor to Liber Malorum) Henry Lauer wrote an article in 2003 titled Odin Has a Light Sabre. I've just re-read it for the first time since its launch and still find it every bit as delightful.

At the end of The Return of the Jedi (which I will refer to as Return from here on in), Luke Skywalker, the Jedi knight, finds himself confronting his dark Jedi father (Darth Vader) and Vader's malignant master, Emperor Palpatine. Palpatine tries to defeat Luke by exhorting him to "give into the hate" that dwells within him. Here we see the fundamental conflict of the Odinnic magician, of the child of Wodanaz. The struggle for Jedi (which are equivalent to magicians) like Luke and his father is to find equilibrium between light and darkness, between Asgard and Hel. Each has an important place in the whole, but when one dominates disaster results.

Read the full article here.