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star wars - Prior to the introduction of midichlorians, was Force adeptness hereditary?


One of the elements of midichlorians is that it canonized the idea that one's capacity for using the Force comes from heredity and/or environment. Personally, I didn't see any issue with this, as the importance of Luke Skywalker to me always was partially due to his particularly high capability to use the Force. I'd always taken Obi-Wan and Yoda's "The Force is strong with this one," and "The Force is strong with your father, you, and your sister," to indicate that Luke and Leia had this skill due to heredity.


When discussing the issues that the prequels bring up, a common discussion point is on the heredity of Force adeptness. In the original trilogy, was skill in the Force something anyone could gain, or was it meant to be hereditary?



Answer




In the original trilogy, was skill in the Force something anyone could gain, or was it meant to be hereditary?






  1. It was not a skill anyone can gain. A lot of EU novels (pre-prequel) were about Luke searching far and wide for Force-sensitive students, meaning that they aren't so easy to find.




  2. It was implied to be heritable (which is different from hereditary) - meaning, there's a genetic impact on Force abilities (in other words, having a Force sensitive parent increases one's chances to be a Force sensitive, but doesn't 100% correlate).


    This is shown both by existence of Force-sensitive populations (Witches of Dathomir, for example), the OT's Skywalker family (as noted in the question), and having Jedi offspring frequently be Force-sensitive (e.g. in "Children of the Jedi", Corran Horn had a notable Jedi for grandfather, same for Fiona Ti, etc etc etc)





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