Lucasfilm has finally revealed, 40 years after the release of Return of the Jedi, how Yoda was able to remain hidden from Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine during the Empire’s rise. According to ScreenRant, the book From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi contains the story “The Light That Falls” by Akemi Dawn Bowman, which finally explains how the most powerful force user in Star Wars was able to mask himself from the Sith.
According to the story, the cave that Yoda encourages Luke to enter in Empire Strikes Back, where he sees his own face beneath Darth Vader’s mask, contains enough dark side energy to balance Yoda’s light side energy.
Yoda was able to balance his presence with the dark side residue that existed in the cave, resulting in a neutral force signature that wouldn’t raise any red flags if Palpatine, Vader, or one of the inquisitors made a concerted effort to scan Dagobah’s chunk of the galaxy for force sensitives.
It’s a cool explanation that makes sense—a positive and a negative canceling each other out—and helps to explain why Yoda chose Dagobah as his exile home. To be honest, it was just as cool over 30 years ago when Timothy Zahn first proposed the idea in the novel Star Wars: Heir to the Empire.
This new “revelation” is just the latest example of Disney’s decision to cannibalize the old Expanded Universe—or Legends, as it’s now known—for Star Wars lore and make it canon.
While Star Wars canon was much more muddled prior to Disney’s takeover, it was widely accepted that most of the story elements created for the Star Wars novels were canon unless directly contradicted by George Lucas. The explanation for Yoda’s ability to stay off Palpatine’s radar for so long is an example of something that was never contradicted by Lucasfilm’s higher-ups and thus accepted as the official explanation.
Previous examples of post-Disney Lucasfilm re-canonizing Legends concepts include the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn, the inclusion of E-Wings in Ahsoka’s episode 2, and, well, pretty much everything in Solo. It wouldn’t be such a slap in the face to old-school Star Wars fans if websites like ScreenRant didn’t act as if this Yoda revelation was the first time the issue had been addressed in media outside of the main films.
Now, if Disney decides to finally explain why Obi-Wan Kenobi only changes his first name when he goes into hiding on Tattooine, that’s a different story.
The truth is that many older fans have to sit back and watch movies like Rogue One rewrite a history they grew up memorizing while waiting for Disney to drop them a few scraps—like naming Hera’s son Jacen after Han and Leia’s son Jacen from Legends—from Star Wars’ past.