During Episode VII various important plot points are revealed but never expanded upon. Do we know how long Luke has been in exile?

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    Oh, like... ages. – Paul D. Waite Feb 29 '16 at 13:57
  • Kylo Ren is in his late twenties, and we can assume he was at least in his late teens when he took the actions which drove Luke into exile. So roughly 10 years. (Interestingly, this is also about the length of time since Rae was left on Jakku...) – Royal Canadian Bandit Feb 29 '16 at 15:24
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    On his twitter account, Very Lonely Luke says it has been 30+ years. – Wad Cheber stands with Monica Feb 29 '16 at 21:11

Less than 14 years

Kylo Ren's slaughter of the Jedi took place less than 14 years ago, as DVK points out in his answer to When did Kylo Ren turn to the dark side?

Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group sheds some light on the timeline:

ALBERTO SANZ: Do we know when the Academy attack happened in the timeline? 14-15 before TFA perhaps?

PABLO HIDALGO: Let's not call it a 'Jedi Academy.' But it wasn't that long ago.

- source

AUDREY: wait just to clarify, do you mean that it was more recent than 14/15 years ago?

PABLO HIDALGO: Yeah. It was more recent than that.

- source

We know it was shortly afterwards that Luke went into exile from Han's conversation with Rey in The Force Awakens:

REY: Why did he leave?


REY: Do you know what happened to him?

HAN: A lot of rumors, stories. People who'd knew him best, think he went looking for the first Jedi Temple.

Since Kylo Ren's slaughter of the Jedi was less than 14 years ago and Luke went into exile shortly afterwards, we can conclude that Luke has been in exile for less than 14 years as well.


The book Bloodline is set six years before The Force Awakens. Kylo Ren was still Ben Solo and being trained by Luke at the time of this book. So Luke was began his exile less than six years before the events of The Force Awakens.

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