Luke Skywalker and Reyé Hollis

No, I am your spoiler warning!
Obi-Wan never told you what happened in "Luke on the Bright Side", but this article does. Before you read it, search your feelings: you know you'll be spoiled if you do.

And there, six meters to my left—black combat boots; water-resistant pants in the same white material as his fur-trimmed parka; a dark beard over even darker skin; a standard-order helmet and goggles covering curly hair that the Force somehow tells me is very soft and smells very good—there he is. Sergeant Reyé Hollis, Alliance Special Forces.

More like Alliance Special Forced to Hang Out with Me. I know he can't stand me.

— Luke's first POV section

Luke Skywalker and Reyé Hollis are canonically LGBTQIA+ Star Wars characters in "Luke on the Bright Side", a short story from the 2022 anthology Stories of Jedi and Sith, which was written by Sam Maggs and with an illustration by Jake Bartok. It's told in two alternating first person points-of-view: Luke Skywalker's and Reyé Hollis's. The story is set sometime before Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back, during the period where the Rebel Alliance is still establishing Echo Base on Hoth. The story is best known for depicting Luke as queer by showing him and Reyé mutually attracted to each other.

As a continuity note: in Legends, Luke had numerous girlfriends and female love interests before he and Mara Jade got married. In New Canon, he hasn't had any romantic relationships, but a few previous stories included attractions to women and he fell in love with Nakari Kelen in a book originally outlined before the continuity split.

"Luke on the Bright Side"

"Luke on the Bright Side"
♫ Always Luke on the bright side of life ♪
Continuity	New Canon
Real World Basics
Writer	Sam Maggs
Artist	Jake Bartok (illustration)
Part of	Stories of Jedi and Sith
Release Date	2022
Release by	Disney • Lucasfilm Press
Story Elements
Points of View	First-person limited, alternating: Luke Skywalker Reyé Hollis
Characters	Luke Skywalker Reyé Hollis
Setting	Echo Base on Hoth, prior to Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
Era	Age of Rebellion

This section adapts content that originated on the Wookieepedia page "Luke on the Bright Side". The material was originally or primarily created by the user Immi Thrax. As with content on Star Wars Fic Reference Wiki, it is licensed under the Creative Commons – Attribution-Share Alike License.

Luke's POV #1

Wait...the Force. No one can see me roll my eyes at myself, but I do it anyway. It's enough to know I did it, because in that moment, I deserved it.

"Over here!" Reyé shouts back. That's not very helpful, admittedly, but he's been so helpful to me since I arrived on the base that I can hardly hold it against him. I can't see it right now, but he does have a very nice smile.

— Luke's first POV section

Luke Skywalker is trapped in an ice cave-in beneath Echo Base on Hoth. He reflects on the brightness of his homeworld, the planet Tatooine, which has blinding light from two suns during the day and is still-bright at night due to its three moons. Space is also not completely dark to him. Unused to total darkness, Luke experiences claustrophobia. He can hear but not locate Sergeant Reyé Hollis from Rebel Alliance Special Forces, who is also trapped.

Since Luke's arrival on the base, Reyé has been very helpful and has a very nice smile, but Luke suspects Reyé cannot stand him. Luke's physical senses fail him but he remembers he can use the Force to stretch out and sense things. He can detect that Reyé is nearby, and the Force tells him that Reyé's curly hair is smells very good and is very soft. Intending to find Reyé, Luke tells him to stay still.

Reyé's POV #1

It's going to take [Luke Skywalker] longer to feel where I am with his heart or whatever it is that Jedi do than it would take me to march a couple of meters down the tunnel and smack him on the shoulder. What a waste of time and energy. Still, there's no arguing with Luke. I know better than that already, and I only met him earlier today.

It's not even that dark down here.

And it isn't that I don't like the guy. He seems fine. A little full of himself, in that head-in-the-stars kind of way. But he's got great hair. Eyes real blue, too, like the sky over this icy rock on a clear day. It's just that, in every story about them I've ever heard, Jedi are pointless and useless at best, and harmful and dangerous at worst, and there's no need to bring that whole thing back.

— Reyé Hollis's first POV section

Reyé is not bothered by the darkness, but he is very skeptical of Luke's "wibbly magic crockery" and the Jedi of old. The two men just met, but Reyé has already learned that he cannot argue with Luke, who he thinks has great hair and blue eyes that he finds comparable to Hoth's sky on a clear day. From what Reyé knows of Jedi, he doesn't expect Luke to be helpful.

As Reyé conserves his heat, he recalls how a few hours ago, he was doing his job. The Rebel Alliance had to evacuate from Yavin 4 after the Battle of Yavin to evade the Galactic Empire, and the leadership had decided to make a new base camp on Hoth, a place that Reyé does not find "hothpitable." He has been working with other rebels to hollow out the ice and snow in harsh conditions in which people quickly bond together. (Case in point...)

Luke, the "new Jedi, the Hero of Yavin himself," had just arrived at Echo Base that day and Reyé meant to familiarize him with the location. They had trouble hearing each other over the noise of laser cutters. As Reyé watched, Luke caught a glacier fly and then smiled at Reyé in a way brighter than the sun's reflection off of ice. Luke commented on how the flies once were symbiotic with the extinct fork-nosed ice worm. After the laser cutter suddenly shut down, they introduced themselves and shook hands. Luke smiled and declared that he was there to help.

[But instead, almost too fast for me to catch it, Luke spun on his heels and nabbed something out of the air with his gloved hand—something so small I could barely see it. After examining what was between his fingers for a moment, he looked up at me with a smile brighter than the sun reflecting off the ice outside.]

Luke

Glacier fly!

Reyé

Looks like it.

Luke

I heard the fork-nosed ice worms native to the area used to live symbiotically with the glacier flies, before they all went extinct. Must have been a sight to see! Can you imagine?

Reyé

No. Sergeant Reyé Hollis, Alliance Special Forces. I'm to familiarize you with Echo Base.

Luke

Luke Skywalker. I'm here to help!

— Flashback to their first meeting, from Reyé Hollis's first POV section

Luke's POV #2

Reyé

No? Then we're not here in the middle of the galaxy's worst ice cream shop prayin' every day that the Empire doesn't swoop down on us from above? 'Cause the Jedi got rid of all of the evil in the galaxy. Isn't that right?

Luke

No.

[I stared right in his dark and serious eyes and found a challenge waiting for me.]

Luke

It didn't go that way, not last time. But this time, it's gonna be different. This time, you have me. And I won't let you down.

— Flashback to their first meeting, from Luke Skywalker's second POV section

Luke has always needed to be helpful or "of use," as his Aunt Beru would say; it led him to the Rebels. He stops himself from remembering seeing her bones. Rebel leadership believed Luke could help excavate the tunnels by using the Force to sense where and when to dig, and they would not listen to his protests that he was not trained enough in the Force to know how to do that.

When he and Reyé met, Luke decided to get to know him since they would be spending a lot of time together. He asked where Reyé was from and the other man thought it was obvious; Luke mistakenly thought it was an invitation to sense through Reyé's mental images that his homeworld, Naboo, was beautiful. However, Reyé meant that usually people recognized his name was Naboo by the "é" in it. Luke blushed and pretended he had heard of Naboo. As the tour continued, Reyé made a derogatory remark about the old Jedi wasting time and getting people killed, and Luke defended them. He also promised not to let Reyé down—aaaand then they fell down into a tunnel when a giant fork-nosed ice worm broke through the ground next to them.

Reyé's POV #2

Reyé

Giant ice lasers bring a lot of extinct animals back to life?

Luke

Obviously not extinct!

[Luke protests, grabbing the furry hood of my parka so he can trail me in the dark.]

Luke

Because we just saw it! You know, I had a feeling, when I found that glacier fly...

Reyé

A feeling.

Luke

Yes, a feeling. You should try having one sometime.

Reyé

Well, I'm feeling air.

[I say, yanking my hood forward and dragging the flyboy with it. Even in this pit I can still smell his shampoo. It's nice. Or whatever.]

Reyé

Put your hand here.

[It only takes a second of watching Luke flail into the darkness before I grab his hand with an exasperated sigh and hold it over the small gap in the snow wall. (...)]

Reyé

We can take shifts digging.

[I suggest—but before I can even get the words fully out of my mouth, Luke's grabbed my hand with both of his, holding on to it like it's keeping him on solid ground.]

— From Reyé Hollis's second POV section

Reyé sees Luke approaching with closed eyes and thinks about how the rest of the Alliance has been working hard while Luke got the glory from the Battle of Yavin, like the Jedi supposedly used to do. Straining his eyes, Reyé sees that all entries and exits to the access tunnel are blocked. Luke shuffles over with his eyes closed and Reyé pokes him in the chest to stop him. When the Jedi opens his eyes, Reyé recognizes that Luke may be claustrophobic from his heavy breathing and darting eyes, or just have poor night vision, or both.

Reyé apparently decides bicker-flirting is a great distraction from Luke's claustrophobia. He warns Luke not to use his "space magic" if they encounter the ice worm, and the pair bicker about whether or not the Force or the giant ice lasers are what woke up the supposedly extinct animal. Reyé takes the lead through the tunnel, with Luke following by holding the hood of Reyé's parka, and they squabble further about having feeeeelings. Reyé notices that Luke's shampoo smells nice before he grabs Luke's flailing hand and guides it to a gap in the snow wall so Luke can feel the air flowing through it; this interrupts Luke's panic. Reyé starts to suggest taking shifts digging but Luke interrupts by grabbing Reyé's hand with both of his own and asking for Reyé to trust him to "embrace the darkness."

Luke's POV #3

Luke is still trying to reassure himself that he is not actually afraid of the dark, just what it represents to him. He does not have his lightsaber with him because it is still in a decontamination unit, so utilizing a lightsaber against the darkness, snow, and ice worm is not an option. Instead, he and Reyé sit down together and keep holding hands while Luke thinks about the light and warmth of his home on Tatooine. He envisions how the light from the twin suns is reflected by the three moons and onto the sand, which absorbs the heat, then he further pictures floating sand grains lighting up the surrounding world. Reyé gasps; their clasped hands are now very warm and slightly glowing. Luke can now see and sense the thinnest spot in the ice, which they can dig through if they work together. They tease each other more and Reyé laughs before they start digging to get free.

Luke

I know where we can dig to free ourselves.

[I look down at our faintly glowing hands and then back up at Reyé. I wouldn't say he looks happy; I don't think the guy has looked happy a day in his life. There's still some doubt in his eyes. But I will say—if I'm going easy on myself—that he looks impressed.
I flash the same big grin I gave him the first time I saw him.]

Luke

See? Jedi aren't all bad.

Reyé

Solving the same problem you caused is supposed to make me like you?

Luke

You could have caused the problem, too, I'll remind you.

[He lets my hands go, and the glow fades slowly. But in the quickest flash, he's on his feet and offering me his hand again.]

Luke

It's okay. I'll work on you. I have a feeling we're going to be on Hoth for a long, long time.

[Reyé laughs—actually laughs—as he hauls me to my feet, the dark in his eyes gleaming.]

Reyé

Gods, I hope not.

— From Luke Skywalker's third POV section

End of content adapted from Wookieepedia.

The author

On the release day for Stories of Jedi and Sith, Sam Maggs tweeted about how she previously wondered if she should change the title because "everyone else's are like, good and serious". Since the pun in the title made editor Jennifer Heddle laugh, it stayed as-is. ("look on the bright side")

Maggs also responded to a question from @LelalMekha about her story's depiction of Reyé Hollis compared to the film and Legends. (Hollis was a white man in the old EU.)

@LelalMekha

That was a refreshing story! Now, I have a finicky question: did you intend the Hollis in the story to be the film character like in Legends or a new character? I'm asking because everything matches except for one obvious difference ^^

Sam Maggs

Great question! Reyé Hollis is the same Hollis who is named in the film. The character shown in the photo you attached here is often mistakenly identified as Hollis but is actually likely the character Trey Callum!

Sam Maggs

Since this is Trey and we never actually see Hollis's face in the film, I took my own liberties with what his character looks like when writing the short story! (I also couldn't resist messing with and straightening out a little bit of confusing lore, as a research-lover)

— The thread

Reactions and reviews

Solid. Mostly notable for how HOLY SHIT DID THEY REALLY JUST SEMI-CONFIRM THAT LUKE WAS ATTRACTED TO A GUY IN SUPPLEMENTARY CANON??? Jedi fans will probably not enjoy it as much, the new character's anti-Jedi thoughts are fairly clearly being set up to be knocked down, but the follow-through doesn't happen in this story and we're unlikely to see him again, so it wasn't as satisfying to me as it could have been. Otherwise cute but forgettable.

— Review by Lumi / @gffa on Tumblr

Archive of Our Own has a fandom tag for the story anthology, Star Wars: Stories of Jedi and Sith - Various Authors . (NOTE: This link has NSFW content only appropriate for those 18+.)