Lit What are the biggest weaknesses of Luke/Leia/Han/Jaina/Jag/Ben?

Luke, Leia, Han, Jaina, Jag, and Ben are basically the main characters of Star Wars, as of the end of FOTJ.

What the biggest weaknesses of each, from both an In-Universe perspective (as a person/hero) and from an Out-Of-Universe perspective (as a character)?

 

Luke-Can sometimes be mislead by compassion (at least up to where I've read, I haven't quite gotten to the old cynical Luke I keep hearing about), and can be seen as too trusting. Also, ysalamiri. And red heads.

Leia- Very driven emotionally. The best example would be the issue of her father; though she has good reasons to hate him, she discourages Luke from even looking into his past, in the fear of him being humanized. Bad parent.

Han- C3P0. Isn't good at long term planning. Bad parent.

 

Jag- Was too much of a career man. Jania- Never follows orders. Luke- no longer is open to redemption for force users, and seems to have too much power on the Jedi Council and lets his emotions get in the way of some decisions. Leia- is too easily drawn into politics when she wants to stay out. Awful with Allana, well and any children ever. and same with Han- Thinks his experience can save him in any situation, and is terrible at taking any kind of orders. Ben- too naive at some points especially with Vestara and can get a little bit too cocky when fighting the sith as evidenced by his duel with Darth Taalon where he nearly gets killed.

 

Ben. No interaction with people his own age.

 

Luke- Poor Delegation Skills
Han- Needs to retire/get back to basics
Leia- Unable to bring her Jedi and Political Sides to a cohesive character.
Jaina- Needs to grow into the Master role
Jag- Too hard on himself, Self Sacrificing
Ben- Needs to get some friends...

 

That is what I said...
I keep thinking Ben and Seha, but she is a couple years older than him... We shall see...
Biggest thing that could help Ben would be a YJK series for Ben

 

I said it first.... Another friend of mine on here is a big Ben/Seha fan. Yes that is the best thing for Ben.

 

Agreed Ben needs friends. Ridiculous that he has none it seems.

 

Am I the other friend, or am I the third guy?

Benha forever... lol
Needless to say I would like them to introduce another character that was non force user to compete with Seha and Vestara for Ben's attentions...

Or we could have Ben and the plotless, last nameless Derek competing over her...
Love triangles are always fun. Zekk Jaina Jag... Jag wins, Zekk gets a half decient side plot... Danni Jacen Tenel Ka, Danni bows out, Tenel has a kid.

Ben needs the same thing, even if the character who loses will still be a well developed character...

 

I wish Danni or Zomana Sekot would show up again in some way. I liked Danni's character a lot and was disappointed when she just has showed up once to resign since the end of TUF. Luke said he would vist at the end of TUF and we have not seen it done once.

 

Luke: He's too complacent about the Jedi's moral high ground, and is too understanding of some of the crap the council get's up too in his absence. He's the one guiding the Jedi ias they become more militant and sequestered from society. Needs to start leading the Jedi from a more objective standpoint or let go of the reins entirely.

Han: He comes off as an washed up bum who's too set in his ways and think his smuggler/cowboy approach is applicable to any situation. He should either go back to a military posting or shut up and drive around the people who know what they're doing. Thew guy just hasn't aged gracefully in general.

Leia: Too reactive, she has mad diplomatic skills and enormous political clout, but she only puts those skills to use to short term crises when the Falcon happens to stop by. I think she oughta find a cause a goal and work to get things done in the galaxy. I think the writers are scared of having a marriage where the woman is the more influential and active person.

Jaina: Lacks direction, she's an up and coming jedi master who's going to be leading the Order some day, but she's mostly been used as a lone wolf agent or Luke's attack dog. Get her leading a squad kicking the crap out of pirates or something.

Jag: Same thing, It'd be unfair to say that Jaina's presence turns Jag into a second fiddle or vice versa, but they kind of do it a bit to eachother. Whenever one of them almost get's put into a position of influence or authority they end up breaking that off because of the presence of the other.

Just get both these character's military commands, who cares if they won't have time to play the lovey dovey three kids and dog act in their marriage, atleast they'll be doing something.

Ben: Waaayy too arrogant and self-assured, he's a Jedi Knight at... what? 15, and now he's got people coming out of the woodwork telling him he has a great destiny, and his character is written as if this is a given. He also too sheltered, has barely even seen the galaxy he's supposed to be protecting, he has no worldview outside that of a Jedi or a copagent.

 

She will probably get killed and used as a body for Abeloth at some point....

 

3rd guy. A Tool would be the other. Love triangles are alright but no Twilight please. Give everyone a plot. Danni should come back.

 

Landostrip

You are entirely right about Ben... When not being an unknowing Sith Apprentice he is exiled with his dad. So most of his teen years have been spent with family. I would start to go crazy if that were me. He needs to set off on his own and have a revaluation that he isn't all that and a bag of chips... That he has to work at something. I think a girl shooting him down would be a really quick way of doing it. Ben needs to mature. At his age the Solos were running Rogue Squadron, and leading mission of their peers...

 

....Scares me that it could have happened. A woman with force potential that could not fight back in a way like Tahiri did. So Aboleth would have been able to use the body a lot longer than an non force user.

 

I was just saying that because all of Luke's old flames got swept up by Abeloth cause it was easy to clean up the galaxy apparently

 

yeah I know I just decided to think about a bit more lol.

 

I think the weakness of Jaina Solo is that she's generally characterized much younger than she actually is. She needs to mature as a character. Much like Obi-wan, she needs an apprentice. I think its somewhat criminal that she's a Master and has never taken an apprentice. I did like her characterization in Apocalypse though. So, hopefully SotJ is better.

 

Luke: Too awesome the bad guys don't have a chance
Han: a Quitter. Quit the military academy, quit smuggling, quit being a general etc
Leia: a woman
Jaina: a more annoying woman
Jag: Manlet
Ben: redhead

 

So Leia and Jaina suck because they're women?

You're kind of special, aren't you?

 

Luke - His inability to build the Order so that it can function without him. Every time we see the NJO without Luke to guide them they're reduced to a bunch of bickering children who can't agree on anything and who barely function as Jedi.

Leia/Han - as others have said they're both terrible, terrible parents and faaaar to quick to disobey any order that isn't given to them from an immediate family member or close friend.

Jaina - Really needs an author to decide what her mindset is and then the rest of the authors to stick to it. She's switched between settling on the man she wants and deciding to be with him to wanting to be independent and alone more times than she's lit her lightsaber. She's dangerously close to replacing Tahiri as the character who can't decide who they are.

Jag - Jaina. Seriously the amount of hassle she has caused him far exceeds any other weakness he might have. Everything from humiliation to being outcast from his family and society.

Ben - Lack of interaction with any Jedi of his own age. Heck beyond the Horn kids he's barely interacted with any Jedi who weren't his family. Starting to wonder how he's ever supposed to lead the NJO when he's becoming so withdrawn that eventually he'll be unable to spend a moment away from them.

 

As for the Jedi Council falling apart everytime Luke is gone... Partially that is Luke's fault for having to solve every crisis himself.

Secondly, I think anyone would have been a better leader than Hamner. Durron would have been OK except too many clashes with Daala. Kam and Tionne wouldn't work. Saba would not have worked prior to her warrior leader role. Horn would have been perfect if he wasn't upset about his kid(s) going crazy. Katarn or Clighal would have worked really well as the leadership.

However the mutiny against Hamner SHOULD be the Jedi Council turning over a new leaf of agreement and cohesiveness.

On a side note, I hated the way Denning wrote the Horns. He wrote them like they were 20 years old, if that, when in all reality they are 30 ish... and they acted liked children in Apocalypse but I guess I should be happy how heavily featured they were in the novel.

 

The biggest weakness of Luke, Han and Leia is that authors.... scratch that, Troy Denning, doesn't seem to know what to do with them. Contrived, stupid behavior that's out of character has become the norm. And, even at 65 years old, they manage to swoop in and save the day.... despite there being younger heroes to do that job. Sure, Luke and Qui-Gon are the same age... still. Luke's the head of the Jedi Order. It took a freaking attack on Count Dooku and his Separatists with the Republic's new secret clone army to save 2 captured Jedi and a senator to get Yoda and Mace Windu out of the Jedi Temple. Luke, it seems, is almost never presiding over the functions of the Order or ever training anyone.

By the time we got Luke and Ben spending a significant amount of time with each other Ben was a 16 year old Jedi Knight, 2 years past his apprenticeship days. Ben should have been Padawan level for at least some period of time under Luke's direct mentorship.

And Leia has been mishandled for a very long time. The first writer to see her as a realized Jedi was Tom Veitch, and then no one after that could find a way to use Leia as a Jedi AND a Senator of the Republic, diplomat and eventually Chief of State. They wanted the familiar politician from the OT, but had to ignore her Jedi legacy to do it. Which means she had almost zero development for a long time. Finally Denning makes her a full Jedi Knight and he's got her constantly on the verge of going dark herself, and generally being a hot-headed idiot. It should have been obvious all along that it was possible to have Leia be both diplomat and Jedi Knight from the get-go. I suppose part of the problem was that authors were so focused on Jedi just being Knights and not remembering what else the did. And Zahn handed them the whole Jedi diplomat thing on a platter with the C'Baoth back story. Leia should have been a Jedi Knight and diplomat(a Consular) ages ago. And she should have been involved in the training of the twins and Anakin. But authors, and editors surely, couldn't see past the Jedi swashbuckling to their wider array of responsibilities.

With Han it's because he doesn't have the Force. What do you do with Han? All he does is fly an old bucket of bolts spaceship, and they made the stupid decision to kill his best friend and co-pilot 14 years ago. And they killed off both is sons. Han's pretty much drifting in the wind with nothing to anchor him as a character. They couldn't even keep Droma around. He pals around with Leia, and I enjoy that stuff... when they aren't acting like morons for the sake of a crap plot. But Han still needs to be able to be independent of Leia in order to be relevant to the story, and he's not currently. He was awesome in TTT when he was with Lando and/or Chewie.

 

I would have loved to have seen Cilghal fill that role, she always appears as the most level headed member of the council and I think she would have really thrived in it.

In regards to the Horn children I'm positive that the authors have forgotten that these stories have long time periods in between them and are stuck in the mindset of the time period that's passed for us being the same as what has passed for the GFFA, so instead of writing them at the age they should be they instead write them substantially younger.

 

Clighal would have gotten along with Daala without being a push over, then turned to the council and been like, be ready... And actually had a dialogue within the council chambers. I would have loved nothing more than to have a chapter just in the council chambers. It might not have been exciting but it would have been interesting.

As for the Horns, Allston wrote an AMAZING Valin in Fury. One of the reason I enjoy that book so much. Valin stole the show for me in that. Anyways if we want to make them younger, maybe Valin spent most of the time between NJO and LotF in stasis/carbon freezing.

But I will give it to them elevating the Horns to the same level as the Jedi Council as mention/appearances. So heres to hoping the Horns continue to get attention.