It Turns Out Some Star Wars Memes Exist In-Universe

What are legends if not memes plus time? Several Star Wars fans were recently shocked to discover that a number of running gags among the series fandom have crossed the threshold into a bizarre sort of canon. Apparently, they've been around long enough to bleed into the franchise itself.

Many Star Wars fans will remember certain infamous moments like when Chewbacca finally got his medal of honor in Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. The thing is, the only reason it even happened was due to those same fans having spent the past 50 years in mock outrage about the tall fuzzy hero being the only member of the core cast to not receive a shiny award at the conclusion of the first Star Wars movie. It's just one instance of Star Wars fan theories or jokes becoming so prevalent that the filmmakers themselves have no choice but to acknowledge them. The thing is, that may not be the oldest piece of real world culture around the movies to make its way into a galaxy far, far away.

Fans on the Star Wars subreddit recently rediscovered a particular book published only a few years ago. The Legend of Luke Skywalker by Ken Liu tells a number of stories from the perspective of several children, and the book just so happens to include some well-known Star Wars memes like «Han shot first» as in-universe conspiracies.That's right, the joke seen on countless ratty t-shirts in every convention from here to that other place officially exists as part of genuine Star Wars lore. But as if to rise to the challenge, others manage to be even more cheeky about it.

The framing device of the book involves a group of youths traveling to the casino world of Canto Bight. On their journey, they share stories about the legendary Luke Skywalker, all the while debating whether he's actually real. The bit about Han shooting first refers to the long-running push back against George Lucas' big change in the Star Wars Special Editions, which makes it so that Han no longer simply guns down Greedo when the bounty