Charles Xavier’s heartbreaking last words in Logan hint at an unseen tragic event that happened in his past. James Mangold’s neo-Western actioner finally realized the grisly, blood-soaked potential of Wolverine’s on-screen adventures with a liberating R rating. All throughout the movie, Xavier is vaguely aware that he did something terrible, but his degenerative brain disease prevents him from remembering it, and Logan won’t tell him what happened. The audience is left to piece it together from hints that are dropped over the course of the movie, the effect that Xavier’s disease has on his mutant powers, and the harrowing confession in his death scene.
Logan primarily served as a bittersweet swansong for Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of Wolverine, but it also marked the end of the road for Patrick Stewart’s similarly beloved portrayal of Professor X. His Xavier is killed halfway through the movie by Logan’s sinister clone, X-24, who comes into the professor’s bedroom at night. Xavier mistakes X-24 for Logan in the darkness, and in the midst of his heartfelt confession, the clone plunges his adamantium claws into the old man, killing him. In his final moments, Xavier’s delirious dying words suggest that he does remember what happened, or at least parts of it.
Xavier’s Last Words Were “Our Boat The Sunseeker”
When X-24 first comes into Xavier’s bedroom, the professor mistakes him for Logan and says, “This was, without a doubt, the most perfect night I’ve had in a very long time… and I don’t deserve it, do I?” He starts crying and continues, “I did something. Something unspeakable. I’ve remembered what happened in Westchester.” Up until that point, Xavier couldn’t remember what happened in Westchester, and Logan refused to tell him. Just before he realizes it’s an evil clone of Logan and gets killed by him, Xavier fondly says, “Our boat, the Sunseeker.”
The Sunseeker is the name of the yacht that Logan was saving up to buy for himself and Xavier to escape on. Logan was hoping to buy a boat because he and Xavier were fugitives on the run and international waters seemed like the safest place to be. The so-called “Westchester Incident” led the U.S. government to declare Xavier’s brain a weapon of mass destruction, which is why he and Logan are hiding out in Mexico at the beginning of the movie. Xavier mentions the boat on his deathbed because his memory of the Westchester incident makes him realize why they needed to set sail.
What Was The Westchester Incident?
In the timeline of Logan, the “Westchester Incident” occurred in 2028, a year before the movie’s events. After developing a brain disease, Xavier lost control of his powers during a seizure. This seizure killed several X-Men and seriously injured a further 600 civilians, and caused the government to label Xavier’s weakening, unpredictable brain a WMD. A similar but less destructive seizure is shown when Logan, Xavier, and Laura stop off in Oklahoma City. Everybody in their hotel is frozen in an intense daze when Dr. Zander Rice’s goons arrive to capture them.
