The Magic Lamp is a interesting and thought provoking story.

the story takes place after the Return of the Jedi, around the time that the Jedi academy was being established. Luke comes across a holocron of Qui Gon Jinn, who soon becomes a full living force in his own right. Qui Gon takes a odd point of view of modern Jedi, and Luke, slowly, begins to agree with this Hologram, no longer just a recording, but a teacher of Luke.

The Holocron of Qui Gon Jinn begins as just and image. But soon after that it becomes a speaking recording. The first hint of self awareness and living, and not fully electronic, character in the hologram was how he lightly stressed the word once when introducing himself. It was hard to accept the fact that he was dead. As the story progresses The holocron begins to feel odd when he cannot feel things. Then Qui Gon actually feels Luke stepping threw him.

At this point Qui Gon becomes a real thing, and a real danger. Luke begins to not like the fact that Qui Gon is asking more questions than he is, even though Luke is the only one truly alive. Than Luke realized that Qui Gon wasn't fully concentrating on him, and thus learned that the recording has a sub conscious. But Luke, desperate for knowledge about the past begins to accept Qui Gon as a living force, and even accepts him as a teacher. The last attempt that Luke tries to stop Qui Gon from becoming Luke's master is by trying to disconnects Qui Gon. But Qui Gon can no longer be disconnected. Qui Gon had won control over Luke, even though he was only a recording.

Early on in the story, Qui Gon cracks the Joke: "Would I be a good recording if I didn't want my way," referring to the fact that the holocron, only a recording, was asking questions. Luke thought that this was a good thing because he then knew that jedi from, as Obi One put it, "A more civilized age," were allowed to joke around a bit. But Qui Gon said that it was not highly approved of. This means that the old jedi were controlled by a strict and, in a way an evil organization, that we know as the Jedi council. Later in the story, Qui Gon Jinn cracked a joke about the fact that he could not be turned off: "You have opened the lamp and let the Jinn escape." Humor in this story symbolizes the forces of the old jedi. First the fact that they disliked humor, and then the fact that they can't be stopped. The problem is that Luke doesn't realize Qui Gon is dangerous until it's too late.

Luke tells Qui Gon the history of the rebellion and the New Republic. At the end of the story Qui, instead of complimenting Luke and felling sorry about Anakin, criticizes Obi Wan about using anger about the death of Luke's father to get Luke in the mood to hurt the empire. Qui claimed that Luke was being taught with dark side methods, and that he was not thought about the living force. The living force is the idea that the force controls you, not vice versa. But being controlled by the often wrong force is a bad thing, and one of the reasons of the corruption of the Jedi council. Qui also did not criticize Darth Vader, but claimed that he ended a corrupt government. This shows that Qui knew that the living force and the Jedi council were corrupt, even thoew he still followed them.

The old "More civilized" forces, at the end of the book were controlling Luke, and becoming the largest nemesis let.