Lit Nomi Sunrider - is she still popular these days or not?

i would really really love a novel about her. With all of the Old Republic stuff, why can't Drew do it? I never read much of the old comics, so i really don't know much about her. I would like Ulic's story as well.

 

It's interesting reading TOTJ now, after having read the interview with Veitch where he says he intended to make Nomi the first female Jedi. I didn't really get that implication ever before from TOTJ, but in hindsight that interpretation does add a bit to her character, even if it's clearly non-canon now. Makes her climbing to the top of the Order in only a few years that much more impressive. Maybe the reason she was supposed to be remembered wasn't so much due to her Jedi abilities but her politicking skills?

Is this really stated in TOR? Yeesh.

 

If you fall in to it like Luke did, that is one thing, but Making that a goal is un-jedi and wrong

 

When I think about her, the first thing that pops up into my mind is her face in the panel after her husband is killed. The way it is drawn gives me nightmares.

 

She was supposed to be the first female Jedi? Hm, odd, but I guess there were some implications like that in the series, with how she was Force sensitive but hadn't been trained, but it seemed like a lifestyle choice rather than because they were that archaic.

As for TOR and relationship... I haven't paid that much attention because the TOR-era Jedi Order is mostly your typical prequel-ish centralized order, but I think during one Jedi Knight conversation with a companion, its brought up that technically a relationship and even eventually kids is ok... as long as love or emotions aren't too involved or something like that. Yeah, it sounds screwy, but basically these two Jedi are carrying on a relationship and near the end of those conversations there's a choice to either a) say to hell with the rules or b) enjoy their relationship while it lasts or something like that.

During the Timeline videos, there were occasional theories about Sith infiltrators, about whole family lines of Jedi actually being Sith infiltrators, but... it hasn't really been brought up again since the game launched, at least not in any of the Republic storylines. Spies and infiltrators, sure, but not like the Timeline video implied with that one battle between master and his possessed apprentice who had been visiting all the old Sith places. Of course that video also implied that the ancient Sith spirits weren't happy with the Sith Emperor either and that hasn't been brought up much since either, or at least I haven't heard about it.

Satele herself is a pretty typical Jedi, mostly the ideal Jedi for this era, since she eventually had a son, but gave him up at birth to be trained away from her. That he turned out non-Force sensitive made it slightly easier in one sense (no Jedi dynasty there), but left him with a lot of issues. Satele's mother was mentioned once in the TOR encyclopedia, but her fate is vague/mysterious.

I know the explanation for all the prequel-era type Jedi Councils we see is that the Jedi Order just happens to be leaning in that direction whenever a crisis pops up... or that because there's been a big war they go in that direction, but its annoying because we've seen how often they try it but never quite get it right. Luke's NJO was supposed to fix that but they've fallen back on the Jedi Council centralization too.

Vima Da-Boda, their distant descendant, made an appearance in Crimson Empire III recently, but she didn't really do much, just gave a vague cryptic warning to Luke about a villain who didn't turn out to be that much of a threat.

If that Nomi novel had ever been published, maybe it could have helped explain the drastic change between TotJ and KotOR. Although it might also have tried setting up a few things for KotOR, and those kinds of prologue-things (hinting at future KotOR war) gets boring after a while as we're already getting hundreds of Clone Wars prequel stories. Another annoying thing is that while Vima looked like a bright, upcoming Jedi, the KotOR era is not a nice one for most people with the Mandalorian Wars splitting the Jedi Order somewhat, and there Revan saves the galaxy from the Mandalorians but then he just becomes a bigger threat, then he leaves and the Jedi Order and Republic nearly collapse, they're saved by the Exile, then she leaves too, and apparently the Jedi and Republic just rebuild and are then mostly unprepared for the Sith Empire.

 

I'd like to take a moment to shamelessly advertise next month's discussion of TOTJ in the 181st Discussion Group. Thank you for your consideration.

 

Is this documented somewhere?

 

Well, then I need to brush up on my TotJ readings, don't I?

 

Yeah, around the time the book was cancelled, someone explained the reasoning. I forget where, but I think it might have been from Sue or Shelly. Someone might know and remember better.

 

It'd be better if you didn't.

 

You bet.

Explain yourself or prepare to receive no cookies.

 

Give me a reason why I should take your opinion on the matter into consideration.

 

I may need to participate for once. Glad to see comics being included. Any specific arcs? Or the series as a whole?

I'm still dissapointed that Nomi never showed up anywhere and her novel was cancelled. Would have been interesting learning whatever happened to her and Vima. Really hope someday we get an answer to that.

 

Don't be like that... you'll made Exar Koon cry.

 

Tales of the Jedi, typical of most KJA work, is a fountain of half-realized ideas, some of which are actually pretty good. There's a lot of potential in Exar Kun, for example, a charismatic Jedi who falls due to his own pride, juxtaposed against Ulic Qel-Droma, lightsaber prodigy who believes he's immune to the dark side's lure. Great premise there. Instead, it's held back with disappointing execution, and littered with bland dialogue, and as a personal annoyance, filled with dumbly named characters (Freedon Nadd, Exar Kun). Ulic's fall is not a moment of personal weakness, but Sith poison. Exar Kun's rise to prominence is half realized, illustrated by him brainwashing a few students. Throughout TOTJ, the only time I can truly feel Ulic's fall is in redemption; before that, it feels like the authors flipped the "dark side" switch on him, and he's suddenly evil because the plot needs him to me. There's little build up, and instead I'm left with an impression that his fall is not really his fault, his only flaw was getting involved with that Sith woman and her brother.

I also feel that the comic fails to give an impression of a galaxy spanning, devastating war, a war we see the consequences of in KOTOR. Perhaps the best moment in the latter half of the comics, besides Exar Kun's defeat, is Ulic's recruitment of the Mandalorians. Even this, I feel, is robbed of gravity due to the pacing of the comic. I can't expect them to truly flesh out the Mandalorians- a comic only has so much space, and they have other priorities- but I still felt the duel between Ulic and Mandalore was all too brief and stilted. Ulic's recruitment of the Mandalorians, I feel, is overall a very effective way to explain the escalating threat of Ulic and Exar; the problem, as I mentioned, is that it simply doesn't feel like a way. We see almost no actual effects the war has on the galaxy. We get no sense of escalating threat, no impression that this war, if lost, will change everything (see Jedi vs Sith on a way to do this astoundingly well in a Star Wars comic, a comic that's a fraction of its size).

And Nomi Sunrider. Aah, Nomi Sunrider. I realize she has her following, but I simply cannot acknowledge her as an effective heroine, even in Redemption, easily the best arc of the series. Keeping with KJA's theme of good ideas and bad execution, I found her backstory solid. I even enjoyed the incredibly silly master Thon. And sure, I can get into how I never truly believed her reluctance to use a lightsaber (and Thron of all people advocating it's mandatory use; how in the world does he use it?), but I won't. My real problems with her come in with some of her very, very poor decisions, none of which are written in a way to make us (me) sympathize with her and forgive her for her terrible decision making. I'm talking, of course, on her decisions regarding Ulic. She organizes an entire strike team to infiltrate a Sith-occupied palace in order to extract Ulic... and gives up at the last minute, to let Ulic "follow his own path", y'know, completely discounting the numerous people (at this point, though she does not realize, it would be millions) of people he could hurt and kill in the process of "following his path". She then pulls her strike team out. Months later, Ulic kills his brother, realizes the depth of his mistakes, and falls to the ground, repenting. Obviously, what Ulic did was awful- he should have been detained and put in prison, which he easily could have been, considering he was not holding his lightsaber and huddled on the ground- but Nomi decides that then is a good time to not allow him to follow his path. Then is a good time to intervene, in a manner so unnecessary that it resembles killing one armed thug with a bazooka. In a moment where he's least threatening, absorbed in nothing but reveling in his greatest defeat, she uses that opportunity to give him his sentence, and cuts him off from the Force. Nomi is not making a clear decision here, a punishment to balance out the amount of pain he's caused. Look at her face. What she's doing is an act of anger, an act of spite, the equal of anything Ulic did.

What it essentially boils down to is that Nomi will not interfere with Ulic's path when thousands of other lives are at stake, when a blind man can see he's beginning to turn to the dark side, and will have some of the richest and most powerful people at his side to help him wage war. No, let's calmly step back and see how this all plays out. But in his weakest moment, when the damage is done, she then chooses to deliver such a sentence. She couldn't interfere in any helpful way, so now she's doing it to spite, as a way to drive home Ulic's failures. That's not justice, that's revenge.

And that highlights one of the fundamental problems with TOTJ. It has such a strange sense of consequences for actions that I still have trouble making sense of it. If I were to nail down one overarching theme of the series, I'd say that it's the dark side is alluring, and no one person, no matter how strong or courageous, can fight it off (this is echoed in Dark Empire as well). Fine, that's a good theme. Now, let's look at the motivations. Exar Kun, though a meanie (and in his own way, a Sith waiting to happen), originally has an academic interest in the Sith. He's curious. He's not looking for the Great Crystal of Whatever so that he can conquer the world, he wants to know more about a people that fascinate him. This has the potential to be interesting, a steady decline where Kun is enthralled and seduced by what he learns and seems to emulate and surpass those who come before. Instead? Sith ghost dude shows up, breaks everyone bone in his body, and essentially blackmails Kun into turning into the dark side. Ulic, on the other hand, has a fairly good motive for stopping the Sith, though true to the theme of the comic, even noble intentions can be led astray by the dark side. He wants justice, and wants to stop the Sith from the inside. One of the most annoying moments of TOTJ for me is when one of the Jedi insists he just wants revenge; that can't be true, because if it was, Ulic would have just killed Satal and Aleema the moment he got there, bam, revenge fulfilled. Instead, he draws it out, seeking to learn all he can in order to completely poison it from the inside. Over time, apparently, with no indication to the reader aside from "it's magic guys!", Ulic begins to fall, and it's completely fulfilled when they give him Sith poison (what the hell?). So... the lesson here is seeking to understand the enemy is bad, and will inevitably lead you to becoming them? That's it's better to annihilate them utterly than to seek to understand them in any way?

Nomi, on the other hand, is consistently painted as Little Miss Jedi throughout the comic, though she never really does anything worthy of respect or prestige besides being really good with a lightsaber and having a talent for Battle Meditation. For most of the series, she's content to wait in the sidelines, not taking an active part in any decision making that will inevitably have galaxy spanning repercussions... y'know, like letting the orders most visible Jedi fall to the dark side. In the latter half of the comic, she pops back up to deliver that spiteful and unnecessary punishment to Ulic (which, I will add, is yet another idea; Ulic's fall could have been so much more powerful if the scenario in which he is cut off from the Force was plotted better, if it came across as a punishment of the Light side and not an act of spite). And in Redemption, we see that she's either Grand Master or very close to it, though even in that comic she shows very little confidence or charisma (though to be fair, we don't see any of her political maneuvering in that, only her decisions regarding Ulic and her daughter). Nomi, in theory, is one of the most intriguing and multi faceted characters in the EU. As written by Tom Veitch and KJA, however, she's completely unrealized.

Obviously, they didn't know what a Jedi was "supposed" to act like then. But if it's true that Nomi was written with the intention of being the first female Jedi, they did an incredibly poor job of it. She is not benevolent, she is not serene, she is not even kind; she's an emotional trainwreck throughout the entire comic. The one redeeming factor for her, as far as I'm concerned, is that she's the catalyst of the most effective non-Redemption scene in the comic, the purging of Yavin and the death of Exar Kun. Sure, it's over the top, but that's the one moment Nomi comes across as a leader, when she leads the Jedi and joins them all. It's a good message, that the Jedi need to work together in order to combat the Sith (though it was much better illustrated in Dark Empire, which had pretty much the exact same message). I certainly don't ask that Nomi be a female Ben Kenobi, but can she not exhibit at least some of the same traits?

I have other problems with the series, of course. Arca Jeth comes across as one of the most incompetent Jedi masters I've ever known. The Cathar characters are undeveloped and unlikable. The artwork leaves much to be desired (but I can usually enjoy art I don't care for if the story sucks me in). It's consistently brought down by poor, forced dialogue. I haven't even touched the Golden Age of the Sith, which has problems that would make the rest of the series blush, but I don't have the energy. But that's a good bullet point list. To tell the truth, I only meant to type a paragraph or two, and save the rest for the discussion thread, but it turns out it's very easy to rant about TOTJ

I don't believe TOTJ ranks up there with the worst EU works. It's entertaining in its own way, has some good ideas, and Redemption is one of the best stories in the EU. But it clearly has a high goal, and falls so short of it. It clearly has an idea to convey, and does it in such a clumsy manner that it's hard to even care (until the final arc drives it home very well). For such an influential work within the EU, I can't help but feel it's a wasted opportunity. There's a good story in there, it just required a more skillful writer to bring it out.

Oddly enough, all the reasons above only highlight why I really would have loved a Nomi Sunrider novel. She needed someone to highlight her, to give her the ending that Ulic got. If the novel was good, I may have been able to like Nomi Sunrider. As it is now, to me she's simply one of the most emotionally unstable Jedi to ever exist.

 

We'll do all four arcs. Hard to believe it's just 21 issues from Knights of the Old Republic to Redemption... Also, if there's further interest in comic books, we'll either do that more regularly in the 181st or re-open the old Read Squadron comic group.

I very much hope to see you next month. Have a cookie!

 

The cookie better not be laced with Sith poison

 

Yeah, it would be fair to say that my appreciation for Nomi comes less from the person she actually is on the page and more on the person I think she was supposed to be and would have been under the pen of a better writer. Not that I'm consistent, given that I take great amusement in not really treating Daala like that at all, but whatever...

Though hearing that she was originally supposed to be the first ever female Jedi? That's just...weird, I don't think that would have made much sense, particularly given how loosely organised the order seemed to be, and the way that tone was established in the story that introduces her, in the way Andur approaches Thon in the first place.

 

Drew just needs to pick this story up and get it done