C3PO keeps the memory of a ‘phantom limb’ alive.
[dropcap size=small]I[/dropcap]n Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, our favourite shiny droid, who’s fluent in over six million forms of communication, wasn’t completely his usual gold self. It was hard to miss C3PO sporting a red arm, but the film pretty much skimmed over it with a brief mention and not much else.
The little mystery has been cleared up thanks to the recent comic, Star Wars Special: C-3PO
#1: The Phantom Limb. The issue – by James Robinson, Joe Caramagna and Tony Harris – explains that C3PO wears the red arm in memory of a fellow droid who sacrificed itself during a mission for the resistance.
You might be quick to dismiss this reason as being rather blasé – it’s been done before, right? – but the arm is far more symbolic and meaningful than you might imagine.
*Some spoilers lie ahead for this issue*
Omri, a First Order RA-7 Protocol droid carrying vital information needed to save and locate Admiral Ackbar, is a captive aiding C3PO’s mission with the resistance. During this time, they stumble upon a distress beacon which turns out to be a trap. Calamity ensues, and threepio’s fellow droids are wiped out, with the loss of an arm being our shiny droid’s main injury.
Omri is what gives this issue its symbolism. Being a sentient droid means he has an awareness about his life, and the droid begins to question the nature of it with Threepio.
It is the way of things that folks in the Star Wars verse’ sometimes wipe the memories from a droid. Bail Organa instructs Captain Antilles to wipe Threepio’s mind to prevent the droid from leaking information in the prequels, and Ben Owen wants the same done again when he realises R2D2 is searching for Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope.
Omri’s awareness allows him to realise he has undoubtedly lived many lives, and has been re-programmed over and over. Threepio has suffered a similar fate, and the First Order droid is perturbed by C3PO’s acceptance of the loss of his memories, and the fact that he isn’t in charge of his own being.
Omri explains that the memories that have been taken away, and the lives lived that have been lost, are akin to a ‘phantom limb.’ The awareness of once having memories he can no longer remember is the same as feeling as though something is there that isn’t.
The tale is a tragic one when we finally meet with Omri’s fate. The droid sacrifices itself by heading out into the acid rain to activate a distress beacon after the deaths of their fellow comrades, saving Threepio.
The symbolism in this moment is two-fold. Not only does it demonstrate that droids are capable of human qualities like sacrifice, but it also illustrates the past-lives lost by droids. The acid rain burns away Omri’s outer-layer, revealing the red paint the droid once had in a past life, a life that was erased.
Threepio donning Omri’s red arm is a way of physically keeping the memory of Omri’s actions alive, so as not to forget the fellow droid’s sacrifice and let it become another ‘phantom limb.’
The story adds such a tender side to the issue, giving more depth to the droids as characters, and evokes a very real emotional attachment to them. The poignancy of the arms symbolism makes this issue a cut above most, and it’s such an imaginative way to give credence to what the film otherwise failed to explain as just a different arm for Threepio.
