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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit Fate of the Jedi. What?

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Darth Droid, Jul 5, 2013.

  1. Darth Droid

    Darth Droid Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jul 4, 2013
    Fate of the Jedi: A series so rife with problems that a whole forum could be dedicated simply to "Everything Wrong With Fate of the Jedi." Yet there is one aspect of the series rarely touched upon, even though it is one of the most illogical: THE TITLE.

    The title Fate of the Jedi makes no sense. At the end of the series the actual Jedi themselves aren;t really a whole lot different than at the beginning. Really no one dies in this series so the title can't be referring to what happens to one of the Jedi. If anything it's more of just a title that sounds cool and looks good on a cover but has no meaning in the actual story.

    I may have missed something completely but I have no idea why the series is called Fate of the Jedi.

    Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
     
  2. Likewater

    Likewater Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 31, 2009
    Star Wars: faffing about?

    Star Wars: we are out of ideas?

    Star Wars: Second verse same as the first?
     
  3. LivingJediDream

    LivingJediDream Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2010
    It tested well in market research? I assume that Del Rey literally has a bunch of inherently meaningless titles they list out for a given series and poll which one sounds best.
     
  4. darklordoftech

    darklordoftech Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 30, 2012
    This thread tells the truth. I would read the Legacy comics if I wanted to find out what ends up happening to the GFFA.
     
  5. The Compeer

    The Compeer Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2013
    With decisions like this, I'm sure the creative process involved heavy injections of overpaid consultants, focus groups, or both.
     
  6. Likewater

    Likewater Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 31, 2009
    wow this took a cynical turn, is it wrong to hope for bad creativity as opposed no creativity?
     
  7. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    My problem with the series was that they went way off base from the initial plot points of the first book and were escalated needlessly. Luke and Ben were to see many Force sensitive groups, see what Jacen did wrong. That gave us Abeloth and the Lost Tribe of the Sith. Something had to have happened but seriously? Another entity that wants to conquer the galaxy? Good grief. A whole planet of Sith I can see but neither of them did anything interesting throughout the series and by the time Conviction/Ascension they finally kicked into gear since the ending was coming but nothing interesting had happened.
    The Unity Summit or whatever it was not even mentioned. It was supposed to be used to have the GA and Confederation unite but all it did was keep Jag on Coruscant. Boo.
    The Slave sub-plot was great though.
    I also wanted to know more about the Carbonite army.
     
  8. Trisdin Gheer

    Trisdin Gheer Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jun 18, 2013
    It started off well.
     
  9. The Compeer

    The Compeer Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2013
    You know, I would have liked FOTJ if it had just been a low-tension trilogy focused on Luke and Ben following Jacen's footsteps on one end, with everyone else sorting out the Unity Summit on the other end. And if they wanted to introduce Vestara I'm sure there could have been some way to give her a Sith upbringing without throwing an entire planet of Sith into the mix. It would have been a nice, refreshing change of pace that would have allowed the Jedi to sit down and actually think about what they had been doing during the LOTF mess and where they should go from there. A good, hard self-examination is something that the GFFA heroes sorely need at this point, I'd say.
     
  10. MasterGhandalf

    MasterGhandalf Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 25, 2009
    Fate of the Jedi: Because "Star Wars: The Journey of Luke and Ben Skywalker, Plus a Largely Extraneous and Potentially Interesting But Underdeveloped Sith Faction, A Deathly Dull Political Conspiracy, And An Eldritch Abomination That Will Ultimately Get Tied Together In a Forced Way At The Last Minute" was too much of a mouthful.

    EDIT: I agree that FOTJ would have worked much better as a smaller scale story focused on the Luke/Ben plotline. Here's what I would have done:

    1. The political subplot is superfluous, and ties in with the worst aftereffects of LOTF (looking at you, Daala). Cut it.

    2. Luke and Ben need to spend more time at each stop and explore the culture of each Force tradition in greater detail; this was the main draw of the series to me, and it was usually done in a far too cursory manner (especially for the Aiing-Tii).

    3. The Lost Tribe probably didn't need to be Sith. Just making them the Keshiri, a darksider-dominated species (single planet or small sector) on the edge of the galaxy, maybe with enough Sith influence way back to make them naturally hostile towards the Jedi, would do a lot to make them stand out more in the EUs pantheon of villain factions. Explore their culture in more detail, and keep Ves- she was the best thing to come out of that plotline.

    4. Abeloth was a cool concept, but was very poorly executed, coming off less Eldritch Abomination-y and more like another garden-variety tyrant with some freaky powers. Make her less of a person and more of a force, and make the main conflict preventing her from escaping, rather than stopping her once she has (so that it's more about heading off a threat than stopping a threat in progress).

    I think that with those in mind, and the series cut down to a more manageable length (no more than five books, probably, and no less than three) it could have been much better than what we got.
     
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  11. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    9 books was way too long. The series just plodded on and on.
     
  12. The Compeer

    The Compeer Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2013

    I know; without the Lost Tribe, Abeloth, and Caligula!Daala taking up space I'm sure the whole thing could have been a simple trilogy. We'd also get to keep Kenth Hamner and various other people who got axed, like Dyon Stadd. The more support characters that actually live to see development, the better.
     
    Katana_Sundancer likes this.
  13. JediMatteus

    JediMatteus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2008
    yeah the title and the fact they are all hard cover made me think luke was getting killed
     
  14. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Why on earth did they have to have 9 hard backs? Those were pointless. Besides how many of those books were not even 300 pages? HB's need to be long and be something important.
     
  15. Revanfan1

    Revanfan1 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2013
    I know Omen was 200-something. Other than that, I think the others were all (in paperback, anyways) over 300, with a few being up to 400.
     
  16. Sinrebirth

    Sinrebirth Mod-Emperor of the EUC, Lit, RPF and SWC star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2004
    Omen suffered from being butchered by editors, and split into Imprint and Blood Oath. Can't blame Golden for that.

    And I struggle with 'Underdeveloped Sith faction' - the Tribe have more development than Darth Revan's vaunted Sith Empire.
     
  17. Revanfan1

    Revanfan1 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2013
    To be fair it was retconned with SWTOR and the Revan novel that his supposed Empire was actually just his Jedi and Republic forces from the Mandalorian Wars, and possibly supplemented by troops from the Sith Emperor. Either way the Emperor was the one who turned Revan to a Sith, and Revan's "Empire" was just an extension of Vitiate's.
     
  18. MasterGhandalf

    MasterGhandalf Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 25, 2009
    Speaking as someone who considers the Tribe an "Underdeveloped Sith Faction", I've never played KOTOR all the way through and have little connection to anything to do with Revan. I'm talking about the Tribe being undeveloped in comparison to other major villain factions such as the Empire (played a central role in the movies, obviously, and got a great deal of fleshing out in the EU) and the Yuuzhan Vong (who we spent a lot of time with in the NJO seeing their society at various levels and through the eyes of lots of recurring characters with different personalities and motivations). We really only see the Lost Tribe (the Lost Tribe of today, that is, not counting the fleshing out of their history we see in the collected Lost Tribe novellas, which is much more detailed) through the eyes of Vestara and her father, plus a bunch of characters (Lady Rhea, Ahri Raas, High Lord Taalon, Grand Lord Vol, etc.) who are only present in one or two books and then die. Contrast the Vong, where Nom Anor, Tsavong Lah, Harrar, Nen Yim, Nas Choka, and others are all substantial characters, are all undeniably Yuuzhan Vong but are very different people, and who between them show a very broad spectrum of what their society and culture is like, ranging from military strategy to religious beliefs to day-to-day life. I never felt that with the Tribe.

    You know, I'm now wishing that either Greg Keyes or Matt Stover had been on the rotation for FOTJ; Keyes "humanized" (for lack of a better word) the Vong better than anyone, and Stover portrayed their religion and philosophy more vividly than anyone, and I really think either of them could have done really interesting things with the Lost Tribe.
     
  19. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

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    Sep 2, 2012
    A series with Allston, Keyes, Stover and or Luceno would have been perfect!
     
  20. Mechalich

    Mechalich Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Feb 2, 2010
    The original title was meant to imply that the series would determine the 'fate' of the Jedi Order in society. As in their independence, dependence, rights, obligations, etc. vis a vis the Galactic Alliance. The series actually started out very strongly in this regard, during Outcast, but it became distracted quickly, largely because of a decision made prior to the series even beginning: putting Daala in charge.

    FotJ took a cowardly way out of all its political issues simply by making Daala insane and thereby invalidating her viewpoint rather than actually confronting the problems with the Order's relationship to normal people - effectively they determined the fate of the Jedi through an ad hominem attack. Yeah, bad storytelling all around that.
     
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  21. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004

    Daala was insane from inception no need to make her so ;) Though Funny enough Fyor Rodan made a similar point way back in Destiny's Way about that the Jedi have no right to special treatment, hell Exile even mentions him and he would have made a decent candidate as Chief of State, but then anyone other than Daala would have.
     
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  22. MasterGhandalf

    MasterGhandalf Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 25, 2009
    Rodan, who's been a recurring character and political thorn in the Jedi Order's side since Vector Prime, would have made a much better Fate of the Jedi Chief of State than Daala. Not only would it have tied into previous series better, but the fact that he's a jerk but not evil would have made a much better opportunity for moral ambiguity than a certifiably insane, ex-Imperial Admiral and terrorist.

    Or was Rodan involved with the Confederacy? It's been so long since Exile that I can't remember for sure, not that that plotline went anywhere terribly interesting or important. Either with the GA or the Confederacy, he'd have still made a better "morally ambiguous political opponent".
     
  23. LivingJediDream

    LivingJediDream Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2010
    If it was Rodan it would have drawn attention to the fact that the issue was raised and resolved in Destiny's Way by the creation of the advisory council or whatever it was called that mysteriously vanished as the Jedi Order slowly transformed into the prequel Jedi outside of the narrative.
     
  24. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    Elected Ruler of Commenor who got tricked by Lumi to join the war, but since the Confederation actually did nothing during the LOTF [face_sigh], there is no reason why he could not get elected Chief of State.
     
  25. AlyxDinas

    AlyxDinas Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 12, 2010
    The series tries to do a summation of the "fate of the Jedi" in Apocalypse. It's basically the whole Jedi and Sith forever thing that flies counter to everything we know about the setting. But yeah....if anything's offered as the "fate" of the Jedi, it's basically eternal holy war. :oops: