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Topic:
People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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iamobiwan1970
Registered:
Aug '05
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Date Posted:
6/3 3:42pm
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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chaotic-force posted:
I get that Zekk is not a dreamer, he is more of a realist than most of the Jedi, which is why I like him so much. I just wonder sometimes if he has any reason to be a Jedi anymore. He doesn't like the government he is protecting, and he does not share the same ideals as some of the masters like Kyp, so why does he do it, Jaina can't be the only reason right?
I am just currious if any of you other Zekk fans have faced this problem, and have any ideas.
Interesting thoughts choatic-force. Made me think that he's been built up to break away from the Jedi somehow. [IK?  , I can't help it, Antares Draco looks like his decendent] 
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chaotic-force
Registered:
Feb '06
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Date Posted:
6/6 7:20pm
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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jedi_of_ennth posted:
Zekk is still driven by the desire to matter
This is a very interesting point. I sometimes wonder if this is a symptom from losing his parents. I have often felt that Zekk might have a kind of survivor's guilt after Ennth, and maybe even after the Myrkr mission. I worry that Zekk could be caught in a bad cycle. Zekk feels obligated to be important because so many people have died either for or because of him.
I know this might be considered a stretch, and possibly make Zekk an emo character, but it is something that I have always considered. Zekk has seen more death than many of the other characters. I don't know if you guys would agree with this or not, but it's possible right?
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Neo-Paladin
Registered:
Dec '04
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Date Posted:
6/6 7:42pm
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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I've always hoped that Zekk was a Jedi because he's a Force sensitive, and being a Jedi is the 'right thing' for a Force sensitive to do. He's seen/been a Force sensitive that didn't do the right thing, and he doesn't want to be apart of that again, he wants to oppose that. I've always hoped he was the sort of hero who did good for good's sake.
One can argue that guilt played a role, but it doesn't track fully for me. He did the bounty hunter thing because of the guilt, and when that guilt reached its ultimate conclusion he put it behind him and joined the Jedi order. Some (OK, a lot) of that soul searching was muddled in the transition to Del Rey, but you can't ignore it or the fundamentals of the character have been compromised.
I know, there's not a lot of room there for internal drama, but at this stage in the game I'd really like to see him somewhat past the melodrama and engaging the clean lines of a mythic hero with a (somewhat) tragic flaw and the open question of wether or not he will overcome that flaw.
If he's out in the wilderness, away from other influences, we're clearly in mythic journey territory.
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chaotic-force
Registered:
Feb '06
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Date Posted:
6/8 8:39pm
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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Neo-Paladin posted:
I've always hoped he was the sort of hero who did good for good's sake.
I don't disagree with this assessment, Zekk does not seem like the type of person to only preform good acts for rewards or even for glory. The question however, if Zekk still beleives that the Jedi as an organization are also good. He might not take the news tha Jaina killed Jacen very well, and even not approve of Dalla becoming CoS.
Neo-Paladin posted:
I know, there's not a lot of room there for internal drama, but at this stage in the game I'd really like to see him somewhat past the melodrama and engaging the clean lines of a mythic hero with a (somewhat) tragic flaw and the open question of wether or not he will overcome that flaw.
While I agree that Zekk has mostly evolved past the trauma of his youth, I do feel that we cannot ignore the character's past. Part of this is because Zekk has not been developed much over the course of recent books. Zekk after all is a product of his past experiences, just because he is a Jedi does not mean that he has forgotten everything.
I do feel that he could become an almost mythic figure, the question is what side will he be on. I really hope he does not come back as a simple Sith, or a darksider. Zekk has moved on past that, perhaps he might turn out to be like Kreia and beceome neutral figure.
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Neo-Paladin
Registered:
Dec '04
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Date Posted:
7/4 10:53am
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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chaotic-force posted:
Neo-Paladin posted:
I know, there's not a lot of room there for internal drama, but at this stage in the game I'd really like to see him somewhat past the melodrama and engaging the clean lines of a mythic hero with a (somewhat) tragic flaw and the open question of wether or not he will overcome that flaw.
While I agree that Zekk has mostly evolved past the trauma of his youth, I do feel that we cannot ignore the character's past. Part of this is because Zekk has not been developed much over the course of recent books. Zekk after all is a product of his past experiences, just because he is a Jedi does not mean that he has forgotten everything.
Ahh, but integrating the character's past is exactly what I'm on about!  He healed a great deal by the end of YJK, and sometimes it feels like that healing is ignored (IMO because melodrama is easy conflict). The hero with a dark past doesn't have to be consumed with guilt; frankly, the best heroes with a dark past get beyond that guilt. The hero with a dark past has a flaw for certain, but that flaw can manifest in a variety of ways. Manifesting it in guilt seems to drastically reinterpret the character development from YJK.
But I suppose, this would be just one in a long line of things that were reinterpreted from earlier development...
eh.
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chaotic-force
Registered:
Feb '06
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Date Posted:
7/22 6:34pm
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
- Date Edited:
7/22 6:54pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
chaotic-force
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You make a wonderful point NP. For the most part I agree that Zekk does not need to be mired in guilt or angst about the events of YJK. He clearly has made peace with that part of his past.
That said, I do think Zekk has some major problems with the darkside. Most of the other Jedi who have touched the darkside show little trouble labeling their actions as moments of weakness and moving on. People like Kyp for example don't seem to be nearly as troubled by their actions as Zekk was.
Zekk doesn't view the dark side as an external and corrupting influence. Instead it seems like he views the darkside as part of his internal nature. In Fury he basically implies that he views the darkside as an actual element of his being that he has tried to seal away.
Zekk could become a great Jedi if he just stopped holding himself to an impossible moral standard. This is the element that I think could be carried from the YJK series. Zekk is always harder on himself than he is on others.
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SilSolo
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
7/24 9:47am
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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I, too, think that Zekk has the potential to be one of the greatest Jedi of his time
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Neo-Paladin
Registered:
Dec '04
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Date Posted:
7/26 7:05am
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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chaotic-force posted:
Zekk doesn't view the dark side as an external and corrupting influence. Instead it seems like he views the darkside as part of his internal nature. In Fury he basically implies that he views the darkside as an actual element of his being that he has tried to seal away.
You make a great observation here. I think this is because living life in the Undercity Zekk lived with that gritty element, saw people making those dark choices to survive, for better or worse. He lived with people under stress and their dark impulses, and he had to have felt those impulses himself. He never did make that choice to do the wrong thing, until the Shadow Academy. So the moral standard is not due to guilt, but the demand he has made of himself not to choose to do the wrong thing ever again.
I like it.
It's too bad there aren't any master's of the old order who can talk to Zekk about accepting what cannot be changed, and overcoming his desires, even the desire to be perfect.
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KissMeImARebel
Registered:
Nov '03
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Date Posted:
7/26 5:31pm
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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^^^ Good observations. I definately agree about Zekk seeing the Dark Side existing inside him, always looking for an opportunity to be tapped into.
Yeah, I'd say Zekk has some repression issues.
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Neo-Paladin
Registered:
Dec '04
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Date Posted:
7/26 10:00pm
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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KissMeImARebel posted:
Yeah, I'd say Zekk has some repression issues.
Don't we all 
This does raise a question I've had relating to the link between Jedi and western philosophy. Fandom has generally pilloried the old Jedi Order for the proscription against relationships and decried the call to subordinate one's own desires as needlessly ascetic.
Yet, when a monk (in the real world) does the same thing it is widely praised as a holy and enlightened path.
Why the difference? Is it because everyone wants to identify with the heroic Jedi, but don't want to emulate that sort of self denial? Is there a better reason why the Jedi shouldn't be an order pursuing a higher enlightenment while defending the galaxy?
Perhaps, dare I say it, Zekk would be happier if he was more ascetic?
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chaotic-force
Registered:
Feb '06
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Date Posted:
8/11 1:03pm
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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This is a really interesting idea NP. I think you could also make the argument that Zekk exhibits an old Jedi Order stance in regards to the darkside. Due to this stance it seems that sometimes other Jedi like Jaina or Kyp look at Zekk as weak willed.
However, I don't think that the old order is to be idealized. Their practices left the people of the galaxy unable to relate to the jedi. Instead the people became distrustful of the Jedi and were able to be convinced they were evil by the Emperor.
Zekk could have become a balance between the old and new order. He has the powerful moral code and the drive to act that aided people like Obi-Wan and he has the looser social codes of the new order that would make him relatable to the masses that they might relate and not fear him.
I honestly don't think that Zekk should be more isolated though. I feel that one of his greatest weaknesses is that he relies on Jaina to do his talking for him. In most of the LoTF books Jaina takes charge when dealing with other people. Zekk is the tree, silent around anyone but his close friends and allies.
While some might call this a mischaracterization, I think it is a smart character move. Zekk did not interact with many people as a child. He hid in ships and in the city but he did not have many friends. Outside of Jaina, Jacen, and Peckhum it is arguable that Zekk had no other friends. Zekk I think it could be argued has poor social skills. He is affable and nice, but he does not seem to take charge in social situations relying on the more aggressive Jaina.
I think what Zekk needs is an apprentice. This could give him a chance to pass on his philosophy and be a dominant figure in a social relationship for a while, as well as try out his ability as a leader.
This is just a thought about how Zekk could become a better Jedi, as I feel if he were to become solitary again he would only limit his potential.
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Neo-Paladin
Registered:
Dec '04
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Date Posted:
8/11 2:07pm
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
- Date Edited:
8/11 2:23pm (2 edits total)
Edited By:
Neo-Paladin
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Eh, I guess I do still idealize the old order of Jedi. For one thing, I think I see the Jedi as something different from what most people want the Jedi to be. For instance, I don't think it was asceticism that drove a wedge between the galaxy at large and the Jedi; I think Yoda had it right, the problem stemmed from the pride of the Jedi. By becoming prideful, they became the targets of resentment, and rightfully so.
I'd, again, compare them to one of a few real world analogues - Buddhist Monks, who are ascetic by philosophy, and are widely revered as, if not sacred, at least special and even good. It's when the pride of another real world analogue - medieval knights manifests that they lose their ideal and fall.
Right now the Jedi of the NJO are acting like regular damaged people with phenomenal power. I say this with conviction: they need to be more.
Jedi have a personal connection to all life, they work with this connection, and it works through them. Should not this connection drive them to put their various issues in perspective, and be more? It seems from what I read that the Jedi have been written as a power wish fulfillment fantasy, and that is very disappointing. I've always believed they were more than that. If they are not more than that, then Star Wars is pulp fantasy.
I'm not arguing that Zekk needs to be more isolated, or even austere. I think he should try to release his desires, perhaps reflecting a more Buddhist philosophy. He doesn't even need forgo relationships and the like, but he does need to show freedom from his Id (for lack of a better term). The rest, I think, will follow. Maybe he won't get the girl that way, but he'll be a better Jedi and hero, and be happy whatever the Force sends his way. That's what I see as his potential
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chaotic-force
Registered:
Feb '06
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Date Posted:
8/14 4:55pm
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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I didn't mean to imply that I disliked the Old Order. I think they had many admerable characteristics. My only problem with them is their practices involving the younger members of the oder. In the old order Zekk would never have been able to become a jedi.
Neo-Paladin posted:
Right now the Jedi of the NJO are acting like regular damaged people with phenomenal power. I say this with conviction: they need to be more.
I agree with you totally on this point. It is when I look at jedi like Kyp and Jaina that I worry about the status of the order. They are powerful to be sure, but they do not seem to be the type of figures that should represent the order. Not because they are more aggressive than other past jedi, but because I feel they only acknowledge the authority a Jedi is given and not the almost spiritual element that makes them so interesting.
I finally took a second look at my YJK books and I made a discovery. I really hate Leia's treatment of Zekk. She seems to show at best indifference to him, and at worst outright elitism towards him.
There is something about how she lets 3PO insult Zekk openly in the state dinner in the Lost Ones. Or how she let an underage boy run out into the city alone without any escort when he left the state dinner. Or when she discouraged her children form looking for him, saying that Zekk has disappeared for weeks at a time, as if that is not worrying.
Are you kidding me? The leader of the New Republic honestly doesn't see anything unsettling about a boy going into the lower levels alone at night? She doesn't think that maybe this boy is in trouble when he goes missing for weeks? Does she not know that there is poverty in Coruscant, or that children get abducted in the lower regions? Zekk as a teenager already knows that people often scream for help in the lower city and no one comes to help them.
It is also in DN, when she takes credit for getting Zekk into the Jedi Academy, and calls him Vent Crawler. At this point Skywalker blood or no he is a jedi and technically her equal, unless she is a member of the council and I forgot. What gives her the right to refer to him by what some would call an insulting nickname? It just shows a lack of respect to me.
She ignores all the support he has given to her daughter, and instead after one little speech views Jag as the self sacrificing hero? Zekk has saved her daughters enough time to be an honorary son to these people but is ignored, or by Han insulted.
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Neo-Paladin
Registered:
Dec '04
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Date Posted:
8/18 8:33pm
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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Yeah, I can see where you're coming from on the taking younglings as children. I again saw this as a nod to the monk roots of the Jedi where Buddhist monasteries as a practice do take monks from infancy. Those cultures seem to think its keen, so I figure it's keen in the Republic culture, and a reminder that different cultures judge normal in drastically different ways. If its alien to my own culture that adds an otherworldly aspect to the Jedi which I can goove on.
In the old order Zekk wouldn't have become a Jedi if they hadn't discovered his potential from youth, which remains an unknown. Personally I've always held in my head the idea that Enth was an agricore planet in the Old Republic, in which case they probably would have spotted him, but that's merely idle fan speculation.
I have the arc for a fanfic plotted out and everything, if I ever have time to play with the idea...
Leia. Yeah.
In the movies there are few characters from a movie that I love so much, yet in print I my mind just doesn't want to acknowledge her existence in a book. There have only been a few times in a book I felt that a writer did her character justice, and there have been times I've been downright angry at what they have her saying, or how inept they have her. I'm still miffed that before NJO Leia was a good mother considering the circumstances, and in NJO her children seem resent her and have at best a distant relationship. I guess in the 90's it wasn't too much for a woman to have a career and be a good mother, but post 2000 even Leia can't have it all. *Sigh*
As far as Leia and Zekk, her reaction would seem like a reasonable extrapolation at first brush - she's a cultured princess of privilege and he's an orphaned scrounger. But yeah, it totally breaks down beyond that. For one thing Leia was never the spoiled princess, she used the role as a shield at times, but it wasn't her. Her husband and her brother both grew up poor. She befriended the friggin' Ewoks. That's part of the Leia awesome - she's a strong woman who can connect to everyone in a way they can relate to. Her aloof and elitist reaction to Zekk I put down to pure miss-characterization.
That said, her reaction to the whole Zekk disappearing in Lost Ones didn't seem too bad. Granted, a Force sensitive mother of Force sensitive children might pay closer attention to the intuition of her children, but I can forgive that considering they probably also had intuitions that were wrong. Zekk was embarrassed when he left, and it wouldn't be unnatural for her to interpret Zekk's absence as a result of that embarrassment, and Jaina's anxiety as a natural response to the situation. Zekk was an indepent minded individual. I could see Leia respecting that completely. Yeah, Zekk went into the undercity, but he called it home. I'm sure she knew of Zekk's poverty, but could respect him enough not to offend his pride. If he had asked for help that would be a different situation, but as it stood, I really don't fault her in Lost Ones in relationship to Zekk.
Of course her reaction to the Shadow Academy was pure lobotomy grade dumb. Hmm, they kidnapped my kids; then my kids friend; and they're teaching Dark Side Force arts. Maybe I should think about doing something about that... at some point.
Han seems to get a lot more justice in the books, but I haven't read enough interactions between Han and Zekk to form an opinion on that relationship.
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iamobiwan1970
Registered:
Aug '05
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Date Posted:
8/20 3:39pm
Subject:
RE: People Who Like Zekk _____ Coalition
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i do agree that Leia is an elitist. But in her defense she states that Zekk is older than the twins ( i think he was 17) and it wasn't so odd that he'd be on his own doing his own thing. I think sometimes the twins were over protected (compare them to Ben!!!!!) but Leia's experience at 17 was that of an adult and so she figured Zekk was just fine. She had no reason to suspect the Shadow Academy would tak him. But yes, she is cold. I'm glad the NJO authors worked in a plot where Jaina had some issues with her mother, it's realistic.
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