Lit Legacy of the Force or Fate of the Jedi?

this is such a massive reach. Jacen says this in Dark Tide because he's a sixteen year old kid going through some ish and he isn't even sure that he wants to be a Knight ie warrior/defender/lightsaber user/person of violence at all, it has nothing whatsoever to do with "seeds of darkness" or him never having wanted to be a Jedi, full stop. it's like the exact opposite of that. also idk if you remember the rest of the series but he does discover what he truly wants to be/is, and that's "student/teacher", not "self-designated savior of the galaxy slash aspiring messianic sith lord." LotF absolutely does not build on stuff in the NJO, it swerves in a completely different direction because Denning had a story he really wanted to tell and nobody told him no.

 

Jacen was sixteen-sixteen year olds believe it or not actually do spend a lot of time thinking about their path in life and place in the world. Add to this the chaos and grief of the Vong war and the problems Jacen was surrounded with and anybody might want a different life path.

At the same time in Traitor and TUF he embraced quite readily being a Jedi, the philosophy and action of the profession and what that meant.

And I wholeheartedly agree with Trip on Denning he had a very negative influence on the franchise and nobody told him no, nobody said "I don't think the character should go in this direction or Star Wars doesn't need gratuitous violence to be "mature and edgy" except for Karen Traviss.

Though I have heard Denning seemed to be the sort of person who while friendly could probably force his way through strength of personality.

It's a shame no one in the writer's room from 2005-2012 told him no.

 

I've never heard anyone say a bad word about Troy Denning personally, and he seems like a decent guy. He just disagrees with many about what Star Wars is.

 

While I dislike many of the authors' works, especially their LotF or FotJ books (even Allston's books were awful, but even he could only do so much with such a stupid idea, and Mercy Kill shows he hadn't lost it), I would never say they're not fans. They all clearly care about Star Wars a lot, I just really disagree with the way they express their interpretation of Star Wars.

Personally I put more of the blame towards Del Rey editorial/management for these farces. LotF and FotJ are escalations of all the worst parts of NJO (the violence, the useless government, Jedi deaths, everything comes down to Luke, Han and Leia most of the time) without the redeeming parts of things like Destiny's Way, Final Prophecy and The Unifying Force to balance things out. If someone had actually managed the writers better, maybe the final story would have turned out better. I still remember Ascension and Apocalypse were particularly poorly edited books (Ascension had several obvious typos and Apocalypse had two chapters full of nothing but exposition dump).

EDIT: Its not like the writers could just write whatever they felt like, someone had to give approval of the basic outline of LotF and FotJ. Presumably it was a very bare-bones outline for FotJ given how much substance it lacked (but then they were probably just going for more money what with their hardcover strategy).

Neglect of Jaina is also another serious problem. She doesn't do much for most of LotF until book eight where she decides she's gotta go train to win the final fight and ignores all the Jedi and Rebellion veterans around her to go take lessons on how to fall into a sarlacc. FotJ is even worse, since her main "plot" was to spend time with Jag, then break up, then get back together and ugh. Killing Anakin Solo in NJO was bad enough, then they decided they had to kill off Jacen too, and they still had a long way to go until Jaina was proper leading role material. She should've been a major leader during LotF, but each author was busy with their own plots and characters with not much time left for Jaina.

 

TBH, even though I find LOTF and FOTJ less good than you do, Sinre, I hold such a nostalgic spot for them in my heart (I read them at...14? 15?) that I still somewhat cringe when they're just absolutely trashed (though objectively, I feel they deserve some of it, at least). I can't say I want to personally defend them because I do see the flaws, but at the same time–I think they're fun, and that's the main thing a 14-15 year old looks for when they read those books. And I do find them more redeemable than others do. Just...some bad story choices, overall.

 

I must admit that my favorite thing about FotJ was JJM's ebooks. I found myself looking forward to them more then books of the main series . So I got really invested in the Tribe and Vestra, so was really sad when they got the shaft. I was keen for Jedi and Sith team up, to bad they killed the tribe boss and then went 'all sith are evil forever'. I liked the opening 'plan' for FotJ, just Luke and Ben having adventures, while Jaina deals with politics in the capital and Sith cause we need a real bad guy (a former Imperial War Criminal doesn't count seemingly).

Though Legacy of the force is a better story with less wrong with it (I never liked the Fett Chapters in KT's books). I was also disappointed they had Jacen kill Mara instead of Tenal Kar

 

Thing is on the Trek board everyone knows who they are.

 

I wish that we had more time in between DNT and LOTF and LOTF and FOTJ.
Several one shot stories or X-Wing novels. Or something.
Blood Oath would have been interesting to see.

 

I wonder if Caedus hadn't firebombed Kashyyyk and played his cards better than maybe he could have gained the support and loyalty of some of the Jedi and keep Tenel Ka and the Hapans alongside him as well.

 

Indeed - this is history repeating itself. Palpatine (to an extent Tarkin) makes the same clumsy mistake of casually firing super-lasers into planets and expecting the galaxy to stay in order as a result.

I would have loved a set of "prequels" to the Stackpole X-wing novels - before Wedge took up command, set in the OT period. That could've been fun. But I digress.

We did have a bridge novel in Luceno's Millenium Falcon - was that any good?
Why did they consistently flounder on the chronology? Too short a time between NJO and DNT - DNT should have run straight into LoTF - then we should have some sort of recuperation before FotJ. Madness. Madness.

 

Jumping from galaxy ending war to galaxy ending war was tiring. Give us multiple stories between the NJO series and DNT, DNT and LOTF and LOTF and FOTJ.
Jacen's sojourn, meeting Nelani Dinn and Seha, the Yuuzhan Vong on Zonama Sekot. The Skywalkers/Solos meeting the Naberries, Ben Skywalker YJK series, Valin Horn and friends YJK series, Syal and Myri at whatever academies they were at. The Fels and Antilles meeting, Jaina and friends dealing with pirates. Give us new characters to root for along the way.

 

Sadly, they might have filled in those periods a little more had the Disney acquisition not happened. And the Sword of the Jedi trilogy probably wasn't going to feature a galactic war either.


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Probably just mopping up the Lost Tribe on GA worlds or even Kesh.
I'd have liked to see the pre-Legacy comic era stuff filled in.

 

Do you think that was on the cards? Or would Denning have succeeded in rendering it an 'alternate timeline' ?

 

The books getting there or just doing it in general? No idea. Probably would have gotten flashbacks in the comics though.

Maybe I'm being hopelessly optimistic but shrug.

 

Honestly I still don't really see why Star Wars fans were put in a situation where they had to choose a "real" timeline. No other franchise seems to have this problem. You can have your Peter Parker, your Miles Morales, your 50 versions of Batman, and you can have your cake and eat it too. Why couldn't we get the "Disney Canon" timeline and a small continuation of the main EU (Jaina, Ben, Allana, ect.) Or an alternate reality comic where Anakin Solo never dies, a universe in which The Empire survives and fights the Vong instead of the NR, ect. I understood the desire to have "ONE CANON" back when there WAS one canon, but as soon as the Disney buy-out happened and they officially abandoned that, we might as well just become like every other fanbase and accept multiple versions of things.

 

OOT, OT SE, OT DVD, OT Blu-Ray, PT Theatrical, PT Blu-Ray, Movie novelizations, movie drafts EU, NEU, the OT Infinities comics KOTOR I and II alternate endings, other games alternate endings, Lego SW games, William Shakespeare books, etc.
I am following an Anakin survives SBS fan-fic series so go me! Ha ha.

 

Part of that was the pride and sense that the Star Wars fandom wasn't like marvel or DC and didn't have fifty timelines. One continuity to SW fans was a source of pride and some level of intellectual self respect. SW fans were also happy that Star Wars didn't engage in the time travel shenanigans Trek does.

 

Just generally. It's one of the great tragedies of Legends that there was that rift between DR and DHC, though I find it hard to blame DHC as most of the crap seemed to come from DR.

 

Right and I'm with on that up to a point. But as soon as you have two timelines that pride is gone. If being proud of your one timeline was so important then we would've had to have an ST taking place post FOTJ and I understand why that was untenable. So now we are in a position in which people spent decades reading about certain characters that have now simply dropped out of existence. For my part I see no reason why you couldn't placate the hardliner EU people with an EU novel every couple of years or so. Just let Luceno write a trilogy over the course of the next few years about the ongoing adventures of Jaina and Ben and whoever. I honestly still think this might happen once IX is done and things start opening up more.

 

I've said it before, but I am completely confident we will get a Luke of Two Worlds thing in not that long.

 

An occasional EU novel or short story or Luceno wrapping up the EU in a grand finale would have been enough to placate most EU fans.

 

You know the shenanigans really started to seep through in FoTJ - Denning and others started becoming oddly esoteric with the Force etc. Please anyone help me to understand why.

Multiple timelines/continuities etc. would never work - that just goes against all the notions of making your mark on a franchise you've freshly acquired. Marketing wise it is poor form. It's not just that the fans respect unity in the canon. How frustrating.