Lit SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)

He's doing the same exact thing Traitor did which he evidently didn't like and which I find ironic. The Force is one.

 

no offense intended to the author, but that seems very typical of his Force philosophy. It just seems to be murky for no intents, when the films illustrate anything but

 

He's trying to do the same thing as Traitor. And in my opinion he failed magnificently.

Solent and Jedi Ben both summed it up nicely.

 

How did he fail and Traitor succeed? What's the distinction?

 

he's not Stover

 

And there's one of your problems right there, you're simplifying too much in order to make everything "fit" the theory when reality is too big to ever be fitted into such a neat box.

The other problem? You've assumed that that greatly reduced basis can be accurately applied to the Sith and the Jedi, I don't think it can be. A Theory of Everything works just fine for physics, but not agency.

 

Except I just did apply it to the Jedi and the Sith. The Jedi are passive and the Sith are aggressive. Anyway, I don't really care to argue about it since we're apparently talking about two different things here.

Do people actually disagree with the ideas presented in Traitor but like Stover's prose?

I mean, I didn't wake up today and expect to defend Troy Denning's work, but the quoted passage is completely consistent with Traitor, and I find that extremely ironic and, coupled with his blog entry about Crucible, complete confirmation that he didn't understand Traitor.

 

And you see nothing wrong with the Sith being so?

Plus, there isn't much that's passive in Luke in Jedi, he's quite active there!

 

He's also not yet a Jedi, and the question about whether he turns to the dark side is an open one until the end. And then, he does nothing, he's a Jedi, like his father before him, and he throws his sword away.

The Jedi of the prequels are keen on maintaining the status quo, the Sith on changing it.

 

Im actually not fan ofTraitor. Mindor is where I see the author really shined. Luke is portrayed as good as opposed to Denning making Luke do questionable acts.

 

Don´t know. Jedi protect, Sith try to impose their will, and whine about the will of the Force screweing them when they fail (hi, Kreia). That´s not the same as being active or passive.

 

Don´t forget Leia doing evil acts but presented as if they were good.

 

Changing it to the Empire, which was so good for everyone of course.... You're insisting on looking at "change" as a thing in isolation, which gives you a severely distorted picture.

As to Luke, inaction can be action - by throwing away the saber he rejects Sidious completely, a moment of change Sidious cannot possibly permit thus he decides to destroy him with Sith Lightning, it is Luke's inability to resist that that forces Vader to decide, once and for all, exactly what he is and stands for, who then does 180 degrees flip on his outlook that he has for 20 years and kills the Emperor. How that doesn't qualify as causing change I don't know. Without Luke on DS2 none of it would have happened, Sidious and Vader were quite happy with things the way they were and saw no reason to change.

As to Stover, personally he renders Traitor irrelevant with his subsequent far superior SW books.

 

No, I'm looking at it metaphorically and symbolically rather than literally. I think SW fans as a whole tend to take everything far too literally. That's why books like Traitor are controversial.

The Sith Lord Darth Vader enacted the change, not Luke. Luke didn't do anything. That whole sequence has a lot of symbolism to it. That's the symbolism to why the Chosen One became a Sith at all.

 

I think that just means there's more stories to tell. The irony is Starkiller probably COULD teach Luke Skywalker a bunch of stuff and vice versa. Luke could learn stuff like telekinesis (which he displays in TESB w/ no training) and maybe lightsaber skills (which are able to go toe-to-toe with Vader). Likewise, Luke could teach Galen about being a human being. At the end, though, Galen may not end up with the Rebellion very long. The Founders don't know he's Darth Vader's assassin and that would probably severely impact their appreciation for him even if I could see Leia trusting him.

After all, Mon Mothma tried to have Kyle Katarn killed because she never trusted a stormtrooper.

At the end, I think Starkiller would be a character who serves as a sort of half-Skywalker and the darker part of the family. Yeah, it's thematically more powerful for Luke to be the Last One but his role as the redeemer of Darth Vader plus the fact he provides the heart of the New Jedi order is what allows him to rebuild the Order. You could have a bunch of failed Jedi or broken ones brought back together by Luke without diminishing him. I just see Luke as the Arthur here and maybe Starkiller as a Lancelot figure.

Galen Marek is able to kill Darth Vader but, like Obi Wan and Yoda, is only able to kill him--not redeem him. Galen has too much anger in him over the repeated betrayals by the Dark Lord and the murder of his father. So yeah, he can't win over the Chosen One and bring about the death of Lord Sidious. Ironically, Starkiller was right, that together they COULD have defeated the Emperor. But Vader will serve his master until offered a better chance.

Still, we don't need Starkiller racing around the galaxy with the Rebellion even if that is my preferred alternative to the setting. He could be exiled from the Rebellion, as mentioned. Imprisoned. Heck, as you mentioned, he could be killed or frozen in carbonite. I, for one, would LOVE to see Ahsoka join Luke's New Jedi Order in the future. We've got dozens of surviving Jedi in the modern EU but in the Disney-EU it'd be cool if Luke's first three recruits were Galen, Ahsoka, and Leia.

THAT is an interesting legacy of Anakin.

To be fair in the case of defeating Vader, both times he's trying to protect those he loves. As silly as that sounds, I think that a Jedi Knight who draws on the power of positive emotions would be every bit as powerful as Luke drawing on his anger during the Return of the Jedi sequence. Digital Messiah pointed out that Vader could well be holding back with his apprentice in the same way he might be with Luke. Though, honestly, Word of God says Luke's rage just made him unstoppable.

And yes, I'm showing my bias loving Galen while disliking Dash, but that's my two cents.

Well we saw what happened when Galen Marek tried to defeat the Emperor. He managed to survive for about ten minutes, then the Emperor promptly curb-stomped him. Galen is also a fun-wild card because he's obviously something that Yoda and Ben could never have prepared for--a Sith Lord redeeming himself. The question whether this diminishes Vader's role is obvious, however, but given Galen's SEVERE mental issues in TFU2, that might actually contribute to why they think Vader is irredeemable.

In short, Galen isn't capable of saving the galaxy but his actions help pave the way. It's not that Arthur is the only knight whose a hero but the oither knights who are heroes are disorganized and have severe problems until he makes Camelot.

I mentioned that, actually, and for me the issue is simply a case of filling in the blanks versus assuming there's a hole. What was he doing during this time? Was he imprisoned? Was he dead? Was he corrupted to the Dark Side? Or did he spend his time fighting the Empire alongside Luke? You could even have Galen forced to renounce the Force or lose his powers if you really want to preserve Luke being the only one with its power. That's my second least favorite option, though.

Amusingly, Gawain used to be the Lancelot figure of the Arthur Cycle until Lancelot came along so this is an argument with some merit.

I agree with this, mostly.

WERE I writing it, I'd have to make sure that TFU3 would have the same level of gravitas as TFU had in terms of setting up the events of ANH. I'd have the historic meeting between Luke Skywalker and Galen Marek, I'd have the Battle of Hoth (because you can never do that battle too many times--it's a Lucasarts staple), and I'd have Galen Marek try to break onto the Executor to stop Vader--only to fail and Rahm Koto be killed. Then I'd have Vader and the Starkiller clone defeat him only to ship him off to Coruscant.

Juno, of course, rescues HIM and shows she's not a Faux Action Girl.

From there, Starkiller would backtrack until the Battle of Endor where our heroes get a helpful boost from Starkiller on the ground and clone Starkiller is defeated. After that, Luke emerges as a full Jedi Knight and Starkiller apprentices himself as the second of the New Jedi Knights.

Given the ENTIRE PURPOSE of the SOS thread is talking about the diminishing of Luke's role in the SAGA....yes?

 

So your contention is that Luke could have been entirely absent, not gone to the DS2 at all and events still would have played out as they did?

 

Lose my internet connection for a few minutes and the conversation just moves right past me.

Really isn't that what it comes down to? Along with a very unsatisfying answer to his theory?

 

As to my view on the Dark and Light subject.

The Force has ALWAYS included the Dark Side.

The question is how to best resist it and/or deal with it.

 

You're looking at it literally again. My contention is that Luke was passive in that scene, that Anakin enacted the change. That as both an agent of change in restoring balance and as destroyer of the Sith, it is fitting symbolism that Anakin had to become a Sith.

But even with a literal interpretation, I'm not saying that Jedi can't enact change. I've been pimping the same Sam Witwer quote for a while here.

People aren't solely one or the other. The universe is a mixture of the two. The Jedi champion light over dark, but they need that spark to do it.

 

Very true. It's like I said before, neither the Light Side or the Dark Side has a monopoly on change. It has nothing to do with either aspect of the Force at all really. It's the people using, and even not using, the Force. The idea that the Dark Side is necessary for there to be change in the galaxy, and that that's the entire reason it exists is ridiculous.

 

And what I'm saying is that without Luke, Vader wouldn't have done squat - by himself, he would have done nothing.

And nope, Anakin didn't have to become a Sith in order to destroy them, that's him being an idiot.

 

Your interpretation that the light side involves change is based on the idea that the Jedi are solely "Light Side." I would say the Fallanassi are a better example.

If the Jedi were wholly light, they wouldn't fall to the dark side so often, because they would never come up against the border, let alone cross it.

*Sigh* Again, symbolically, not literally.

 

I'm wondering how you got that out of my post.

 

And you've been as clear as mud on that point, want to try again? Or, rather.....

EXPLAIN!

(I'd like to at least get a better idea of what you're laying out, even if I'll likely disagree with it, but so far, no success. I'm starting to suspect instead you're playing Devil's Advocate on the sly.)

 

I don't know how I can make my point anymore eloquently than Witwer did that I already quoted. Except maybe to quote Matthew Stover:

This is, of course, concerning the symbolism of Vader being a Sith. Bolded portions are italicized in the original text.