Lit After the NJO ended, where did you expect the EU to go?

Jacen was showing signs of battle meditation, albeit in its infancy, as far back as Destiny's Way.

And it's not an inherently Sith technique anyway, LotF be damned.

 

Indeed. LoTF might have conceived of an "improved" form (at least, Jacen and Lumiya seem to think it's an improvement)- but the standard form has been used by Jedi Masters for thousands of years.

 

The way it's written -- which is amusing since we've been comparing the books to D&D books -- is literally as if Jacen acquired enough experience points by killing Mara Jade that he could take a level in the prestige class "Sith Lord" and the 1st level ability is Battle Meditation, because suddenly he's a genius tactician and knows exactly where to send his ships in a battle.

But even with Sith Super Battle Meditation that he somehow innately learns through becoming Dark Lord of the Sith despite no other Sith Lord demonstrating this (except maybe Revan -- but was he really Dark Lord because Vitiate lolz), it's not as if this was the end goal he set when he decided that he desperately needed to be trained as a Sith by Lumiya. Being trained by Lumiya gave Jacen absolutely nothing that he thought he needed in Betrayal. They could have just had Jacen decide the dark side is cooler and create his own new version of the Sith called something different, and create this idea of a Fifth Great Schism and replace the Sith as mooks with Jacen's new group in future stories even after casting the husk that was Jacen's character aside at the conclusion of this series.

But then it's not Star Wars if it isn't Jedi vs Sith. And they wouldn't transparently and deliberately be copying Revenge of the Sith either. Gotta do it or people won't know they're reading Star Wars!

 

Pedant!

 

I know, I was just making fun of that plot point, because it is terrible.

 

Well, since everyone and their mom was like "JACEN'S A SITH," because they didn't like this new interpetation of the force he represented, I pretty much expected that Jacens journey to the Dark Side would be the story post NJO.

What I wanted was smaller arcs with Jacen and Jaina taking over, while the big 3 got pushed to a smaller role.

 

Out of curiosity, where are these fans? As I don't recall seeing much of this line of thought in the post-TUF EU, once DN kicked off yeah, but not earlier.

 

I've seen people argue here recently that Jacen was turning based upon NJO alone, let alone his subsequent derailment.

 

Yes, you called

 

I do, and it started during the NJO, not after. Which ever book started the whole,"There is no good or bad force, just the force," is when it started.

 

A lot of people apparently misinterpreted Traitor like Denning, without even taking into account the storytelling reasons for Traitor to exist in the first place.

 

A lot of folks basically had an allergic reaction to Vergere, her actions, and her teachings in Traitor, which to them screamed "Sith", which in turn to them meant Jacen was turning Sith by virtue of accepting her teachings.

As to where they are now... there are some still here, some over on the movie boards, etc.

 

The Force is highly influenced by a lot of eastern religion, and in general these don't teach merely by explaining, but by providing the student with the tools to achieve insight. From the western perspective there's a tendency to treat instruction like gospel and accept it literally without questioning the meaning behind it. Plus I think that in general there's a tendency for fans to project western cosmology onto the Force. The dark side isn't the devil. The dark side is a side of the Force. The Force is one. And that line sees repetition in Traitor quite a bit.

 

Traitor. Luceno got back to it in TUF and explained why there´s a DS.

I never bought anything of Vergere´s ideas though. She´s like Kreia, that she can argue about her ideas doesn´t make them right, and Jacen didn´t seem that bright during their talks either. Pity Jacen fell for Lumiya´s BS too. Vergere demonstrated her theory to Jacen by taking him to where the six lightsabers guy had been killed, thus tainting the place, so she either didn´t know and used it as comfirmation bias, or outright lied.. She used torture and helped the YV, for what? Didn´t like her retconning to Darth Chicken though, the Vergere from NJO would probably had been insulted to be considered a Sith.

 

She does deny being a Sith in Traitor- but then, she also denies being a Jedi.

 

Traitor starts right after Star by Star, so Nyax wasn't killed at the Jedi temple yet when they got there considering there's a time jump of several months after they go to the Jedi temple.

But then, we're discussing people misinterpreting Traitor.

 

I didn't even completely understand Traitor when I first read. Only in the past few months with people who understand the eastern world view presented in Traitor and have been interpreting select quotes from it with that in mind, have I truly been able to comprehend it. I guess my embracing Star Wars as much for its mythological aspects as the sci-fi aspects in the EU, namely Zahn, Stackpole, and Allston's works, made me a lot more open minded to what was being presented in Traitor.

 

I'm not sure anyone could ever say that they fully understand Traitor considering how dense with meaning it is. My advice for people that think the novel is wrong is to ask themselves whether the problem lies in Traitor or in their interpretation of Traitor.

 

I wonder if the people who believe Vergere equal Sith and Jacen was falling to the dark side in Traitor even understand the point of Traitor from a storytelling perspective as a part of the overarching plot of the NJO.

 

I think they don't care -- they view Stover the same way that you view Denning.

 

Which was?

Jacen was always falling to the DS all along the NJO. Being afraid of the DS is also fear. He believed in might makes right. If anything, he improved after Traitor, not got worse. TUF Jacen wouldn´t have fallen, then again, if characters had behaved in a coherent way to their characterizations we wouldn´t have had to go through the Denning-sw.

 

JediBen
There you go.

I don't remember Jacen believing that might makes right in the NJO.

 

As one who has not read any thing by Denning I have to ask: how does Denning-SW differ from the other authors’ version of SW?

 

Vector Prime I think. He and Anakin argue about each views the Force. Jacen decides to settle it by lightsaber. The one who wins is the one who has it right.

 

lol wut

It's interpretations like this which is why we can't have nice things. (and I'm being charitable by calling it an interpretation)