| Author |
Topic:
SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
ChildOfWinds
Registered:
Apr '01
|
Date Posted:
5/17 9:29pm
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
- Date Edited:
5/17 9:41pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
ChildOfWinds
|
Dawud786 :
Ugh, saying that he had to know why Anakin Skywalker chose the dark side isn't nearly the same as the reasons he gave earlier in the graphic novel... in fact, that's the last reason
So why would Luke give that stupid reason when Leia asked? Why not say that he went to Byss to try to destroy evil and save the galaxy? That response made Luke look really selfish and foolish.
However, I'm glad you agree that Luke didn't completely fall to the dark side in DE.
Yes, Luke was reluctant to fight Leia when the Emperor told him to do it. He even told Leia that he didn't want to fight her. You're right that if Luke were truly dark he would have had no qualms about fighting her and teaching her a lesson as Vader did with him twice.
I feel that DE negates RotJ in that Anakin's destruction of the Emperor and balancing of the Force in RotJ are moot since Palpatine returns in clone form. And Luke broke his oath never to serve the Emperor.
Ultimately Luke was nearly overwhelmed by the sheer darkness of Palpatine and Byss I think. Mind you, Byss was a world made specifically to drain the life force of Palpatine's servants living there. I don't doubt there was some dark side hoodoo happening to Luke.
If that was the case though, I do wish this had been written in the text, just as I wish that Luke's explanation to Leia about going to Byss to find out about his father had NOT been written into the text.
To me, it's a very very different trial from that in ROTJ and doesn't do any sort of damage to Luke's character. It makes him deeper, it makes him human.
In moderation, human qualities are fine. Unfortunately, too often Luke is written as TOO "human" and "flawed", too often teetering on the edge of darkness. I feel that DE does damage Luke's character. It's because of DE that we keep getting "tainted" Luke and things like Luke killing Lumiya for revenge. According to the blurbs for Invincible, Luke is afraid to face Jacen/Caedus because he's afraid he'll go dark. I truly don't believe that the dark side would keep being brought up in reference to Luke if it hadn't been for DE. Because of DE, some authors seem to think of Luke as having dark qualities and making questionable moral decisions.
LOTF is an major example of the travesty of stories that happen when DE is forgotten about.
And see, I think it's BECAUSE of DE that Luke is written as poorly as he is in LotF.
If Luke would be written in the books as being "uniquely armed to defeat Sith and dark Jedi alike," because of the knowledge that he learned from Palpatine and his books, and would be shown to be able to "combat the allure of the darkside for himself and others," then DE would be an asset for Luke. Unfortunately, I feel the authors have taken it the opposite way, making it seem that Luke is more susceptible to the darkside because of DE. Thus, many seem to keep writing him as doing questionable, darkish things or as concerned about falling to the dark side far too often. This is rendering Luke useless; it's paralyzing him with fear of falling. He's too afraid to act when he should.
Because of Luke's near fall in DE he should be uniquely equipped to turn Jacen back from his descent into darkness. Especially considering Jacen's reasoning for becoming Sith... to save the galaxy.
I would definitely feel differently about DE if Luke would have been able to turn Jacen back from his descent into darkness because of what he had learned on Byss. Instead, Luke is afraid to confront Jacen because he feels he, Luke, will fall. I also would feel vastly different about DE if Luke's Jedi Order would be shown to be well-equipped to resist the dark side because of Luke's knowledge of it and because of his own near fall.
That's what happens with you stop remember DE and all that was learned there.
Or when, as I suspect, DE is misinterpreted by some authors who feel it shows Luke has dark side tendencies. 
Jedi Ben
Thing is, on the one hand, Luke being afraid of the dark side makes perfect sense because of what he knows of it, but being afraid to the point of paralysis doesn't
And unfortunately, we've been reading about Luke's paralysis because of fear of the dark in the NJO and LotF.
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
TuskenTommy
Registered:
Jul '06
|
Date Posted:
5/17 9:29pm
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
|
Sup guys/gals. I've been ghosting this thread for a bit and just wanted to say sup to everyone...I need some noob help. I'm somewhat new to message boards as a whole..Is there a way to bookmark my lastpost in a long thread like this? so i know where to pick up again if i forget what page my post was on. My wife's babycenter message board seems so much easier to navigate. No way is it better but i guess it's set up for novice users lol...
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
ChildOfWinds
Registered:
Apr '01
|
Date Posted:
5/17 9:38pm
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
TuskenTommy
I've been ghosting this thread for a bit
Welcome to the SOS thread, TT! I don't know if there's a way to "bookmark" your last post, but if you click on your screen name, it will take you to a page that has all of your information. On that page there is a link labeled "View recent posts". If you click it, it will give you a list of all of your posts. You can scroll down to your last SOS post, click on it and it wil take you to the page where your post can be found. You may need to scroll down that page to find your own post on that page.
I hope you'll post your ideas and opinions about Luke and his roles often here in the SOS thread!
Charlemagne19 :
It's not because he's a Prequel Jedi, Windy, it's because he's Krunchy.
Krunchy is better than any of Luke's students
I disagree emphatically.
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
TuskenTommy
Registered:
Jul '06
|
Date Posted:
5/17 9:44pm
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
|
Thanks COW. Ask me a question or two about Luke & i'll give it my best shot. He is hands down my favorite. I grew bored of him before the NJO because he was like superman, but he's totaly grown on me to the point that i was FURIOUS with Troy Denning for messing with our emotions in Inferno. lol
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
dizfactor
Registered:
Aug '02
|
Date Posted:
5/17 11:30pm
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
ChildOfWinds posted:
Charlemagne19 :
It's not because he's a Prequel Jedi, Windy, it's because he's Krunchy.
Krunchy is better than any of Luke's students
I disagree emphatically.
You're definitely in the minority there. He's a very popular character.
-----signature-----
"Play is going to be for the 21st century what steam was to the 19th century."
Julian Dibbell
"You gotta love an elite killing force that you can fool by putting on a hat."
Gryph
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
Jedi Ben
Registered:
Jul '99
|
Date Posted:
5/18 2:34am
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
Suzuki_Akira posted:
Jedi Ben posted:
Yet, as you say, it's all forgotten. I find the thread that talks of Luke's ability to look into the future and how it is done in Invincible amusing, for Luke had the ability established by DE!
Can you PM me the details of the DE selection you're talking about? I made that thread, and I've read DE(the transcript of the audio version, that is) but that was a while back. If my memory serves me though, the two aren't really comparable except in that they both involve future sight.
Here we are, it's in the notes of DE issue 1:
"He could feel disturbances of every kind in the Force. With the eyes of a Jedi he could see events taking place in another room or across the Galaxy. He could glimpse the future, in its many chains of probability...and guage which path events were most likely to follow."
JB
-----signature-----
Howe: Why?
Castle: So they can't walk away. So they can't
profit from the pain they've caused.....
Howe: And no second chances...
Castle: I don't do redemption.
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
Dawud786
Registered:
Dec '06
|
Date Posted:
5/18 9:28am
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
- Date Edited:
5/18 9:35am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Dawud786
|
ChildOfWinds posted:
I feel that DE negates RotJ in that Anakin's destruction of the Emperor and balancing of the Force in RotJ are moot since Palpatine returns in clone form. And Luke broke his oath never to serve the Emperor.
Don't you think this point is not only moot, but extremely tired considering that DE was concieved of and written almost a decade prior to TPM and the whole issue of the Chosen One and the balance of the Force? I mean, GL approved of DE and gave it as gifts to employees, Veitch himself says GL approved of it in a recent interview. It basically helped, with TTT, to launch Star Wars back into public consciousness that led to an extensive comic publishing cycle and extensive novel publishing, and new actions figures... all of which made the 20th anniversary special editions more than viable and showed they were wanted, PLUS it made the possibility of the PT obvious. If GL had had the whole Anakin Skywalker as Jedi Messiah idea at the time I'd think he'd have said "nah, I don't like that" but he was into it. Plus, even before the TPM was out you had Zahn having Mara Jade express that she didn't think those clones were really Palpatine in the first place. Which is echoed in a different way by Lumiya in LOTF Betrayal that she didn't think them to even be Sith because they didn't have to go through Sith training. So I ask you, considering that it has pretty much been retconned that those clones were NOT Darth Sidious... how did DE then negate ROTJ, and how does it NOW negate ROTJ?
One other point regarding DE... I think Luke's trip towards the dark side DOES leave him more vulnerable to the dark side. It leaves a wound, a scar, or a stain on one's heart. How could it not? Luke should be haunted by the memory of that, and should be wary of anything that will set him down the dark path. It just shouldn't make him weak and hesitant to act. That's not Luke, that's not the Jedi Way. When Yoda said "once you start down the dark path forever will it dominate your destiny" is true. Luke's intimate knowledge of the lures of the dark side should make him uniquely capable of drawing people away from the dark side, and it should make him wary of falling into it's snare himself... but he should have the phsychological, energetic and spiritual defenses to ward himself from it as well. It's not the fault of Dark Empire or Tom Veitch that Luke's been so mishandled by Del Rey. They've largely ignored Dark Empire. Never does Luke give DE as a reason why he's so hesitant to confront Jacen in LOTF... because if he recalled it he'd know how to combat what's going on with the boy. DE is an inconvenience for LOTF that has been ignored to make the story work. Don't judge Dark Empire by what others have done. It makes not sense to assume that Luke's not going to fight the dark side and the Sith because of DE... especially considering DEII and EE! He goes from being in clone Palpatine's thrall to fighting the Empire and seeking to re-establish the Jedi Order there-in. He uses his knowledge of the dark side and the Sith ways to ward off Executor Sedriss and one of the other Dark Side Elite on Ossus. Don't blame Ossus for the disaster that is Del Rey.
-----signature-----
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
TuskenTommy
Registered:
Jul '06
|
Date Posted:
5/18 5:18pm
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
For the record Tionne says that it's a popular opinion that Palpatines clone wasn't act Palpatine but the clone thought he was..In other words, Palps was dead & in wherever dark side netherworld... So Luke wasn't serving the actual "Palpatine" at all.. From a certain POV....
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
Charlemagne19
Registered:
Jul '00
|
Date Posted:
5/18 5:23pm
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
TuskenTommy posted:
For the record Tionne says that it's a popular opinion that Palpatines clone wasn't act Palpatine but the clone thought he was..In other words, Palps was dead & in wherever dark side netherworld... So Luke wasn't serving the actual "Palpatine" at all.. From a certain POV....
Out of universe, it's been confirmed repeatedly he's the real Palpatine.
-----signature-----
Check out Halt Evil Doer!: The RPG setting for Super Heroes! Halt Evil Doer PDF: http://tinyurl.com/555axt
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
ChildOfWinds
Registered:
Apr '01
|
Date Posted:
5/18 10:23pm
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
TuskenTommy
I grew bored of him before the NJO because he was like superman,
I've heard it said before that Luke was too powerful in the Bantam books. This was said by Shelly Shapiro and some of the NJO authors too, I believe. However, I disagree. There were very few times before the NJO that Luke was portrayed as all that powerful. DE is the one story in which Luke was portrayed as uber-powerful, but that was about it.
When did you feel that Luke was "...like superman"?
Jedi Ben
"He could feel disturbances of every kind in the Force. With the eyes of a Jedi he could see events taking place in another room or across the Galaxy. He could glimpse the future, in its many chains of probability...and guage which path events were most likely to follow."
Hmmm... That's interesting, JB. I didn't remember that. I know that Luke often had Force visions in the films and in various books and that most of them came true. (I think the only one that didn't was the one where Luke and Mara saw "children" in their future. ) But I don't remember the books ever using the idea that Luke could gauge which paths the events were most likely to take before.
Dawud786 ,
If George Lucas liked DE so much, why did he write his film in such a way that it would be negated by a comic book? I've heard that Lucas liked DE, but it's my theory that he liked the idea of another comic book about SW and the story itself could have been about anything. GL is a huge comic book fan.
Plus, even before the TPM was out you had Zahn having Mara Jade express that she didn't think those clones were really Palpatine in the first place. Which is echoed in a different way by Lumiya in LOTF Betrayal that she didn't think them to even be Sith
Well, if those clones WEREN'T Palpatine, then Luke is diminished even further, as he is then fooled by a lesser Sith. And if they weren't Palpatine, then who were they?
If Luke never really fell to the dark side, then how does it leave him "more vulnerable to the dark side"? If he didn't fall, how could he be left with a "wound, a scar, a stain" on his heart? It said in the end notes to DE that the more Luke learned about the dark side, the more repulsed he was by it. So why would he be more vulnerable to the dark side then? I think it should have the opposite effect: Knowing about the dark side should be enough to keep Luke from falling to the dark and should cause him to keep a healthy distance from it. I do agree that knowing about the horrors of the dark side should also allow Luke to help keep others from falling, and to redeem those who have fallen .
And I agree that Luke should certainly not be so afraid of that dark side that he's reluctant to act or do what is necessary. Luke has always considered it his duty and responsibility to confront and defeat evil, and it makes no sense that he would shirk that duty because of fear of the dark side. As you said, that's not Luke and that's not the Jedi way. You're right that Luke should have the "...psychological, energetic, and spiritual defenses to ward himself" from the dark side.
I will agree that the major reason that I hate DE is because of the way that the authors who reference it in the novels have used it. They've used DE as a condemnation of Luke; as a reason for writing Luke as on the edge of darkness too frequently. If they would have used what Luke learned from his experience in DE as a strength and not as a weakness, I might have a different opinion of DE. But I feel it was the beginning of the end for Luke's positive characterizations. Denning, in particular, seems to like to "run" with the idea of "dark Luke", even in SbS and Tatooine Ghost, and these dark characterizations seem to stem from DE.
I will agree that Del Rey has not handled Luke well at all, but this "darkness" in Luke was even brought up in some Bantam books too after DE. And I REALLY hate having Luke characterized with "darkside taint".
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
Jedi Ben
Registered:
Jul '99
|
Date Posted:
5/19 10:55am
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
Child of Winds posted:
If George Lucas liked DE so much, why did he write his film in such a way that it would be negated by a comic book? I've heard that Lucas liked DE, but it's my theory that he liked the idea of another comic book about SW and the story itself could have been about anything. GL is a huge comic book fan.
Two possibilities exist:
1. He forgot about it.
2. Didn't see it as a problem.
Personally I quite like the irony of DE that Palpatine the ultimate wheeler-dealer-and-deal-breaker finds a way to screw over his former apprentice Darth Vader and the Jedi prophecy by coming back from death, only to for him to be done over in turn by an older Jedi prophecy whose hands his defeat to Vader's children!
Dawud,
So you know: Your efforts are laudable but COW's never played fair on this point ie. that the blame for Luke's subsequent characterisation lies upon the writers of the works that followed, not some comic book.
-----signature-----
Howe: Why?
Castle: So they can't walk away. So they can't
profit from the pain they've caused.....
Howe: And no second chances...
Castle: I don't do redemption.
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
dizfactor
Registered:
Aug '02
|
Date Posted:
5/19 12:41pm
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
ChildOfWinds posted:
Not really. Wanting Luke and Mara to have TWO children doesn't sound like a large family exactly.
Well, you do consistently equate "happiness" with "having a large number of children and grandchildren" without really seeming to consider that other people - real-life people and fictional characters - might not share that value system.
You consistently hold up the fact that Luke doesn't seem to have a lot of descendents as evidence that he's being screwed out of the happy ending that you feel he deserves, without considering that not everybody considers large families, or even having children at all, to be essential components of happiness and fulfillment. Many people are perfectly happy with small families or no children at all.
I think Luke is perfectly happy with Ben as his son and heir. I don't think he feels any kind of gaping void in his life because he doesn't have more children.
ChildOfWinds posted:
And logically, one would expect Luke to have more than one descendant about 90 years after LotF.
Why? I think the idea that Ben had one son who had one son (Kol) is perfectly logical.
ChildOfWinds posted:
I might, however, even accept Cade as Luke's only descendant, if I felt that Cade were a worthy successor to Luke. Unfortunately, I don't consider a selfish, drug-addicted, tatooed, bounty-hunter, anti-hero, who doesn't want to be bothered to get involved and seems to have no compassion or sense of duty or responsibility to be a worthy descendant of Luke.
I think it's amusing how much the tattoos bother you, but, more to the point, I think that what you seem to want would make for a profoundly boring story. If he starts out as a bright shining example of all that is good and noble in a Jedi, there's not really much of anywhere to go with the character. That's the end point of a good character arc, not the beginning.
I mean, young Luke circa ANH is pretty widely agreed to be deeply, deeply annoying by most of fandom, and young Anakin in TPM is hated even more broadly. I can't imagine what the reaction would be to yet another bright-eyed eager young golden boy of a character.
-----signature-----
"Play is going to be for the 21st century what steam was to the 19th century."
Julian Dibbell
"You gotta love an elite killing force that you can fool by putting on a hat."
Gryph
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
SuperWatto
Registered:
Sep '00
|
Date Posted:
5/19 12:52pm
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
Actually:
Child_Of_Winds posted:
seems to have no compassion or sense of duty or responsibility
is not true.
-----signature-----
Trandoshan flatcakes!
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
Dawud786
Registered:
Dec '06
|
Date Posted:
5/19 3:48pm
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
COW, I think your gripes about Cade Skywalker are pretty petty and pointless. First of all, about Luke and his son... I think he's more than happy to have his son, thankful even that he has a son. It took him until he was what? 40 years old to marry. Then it was something like 5 until Ben was born... when Mara was apparently terminally ill in the midst of a horrific war with a horrific species. I'd say Luke is grateful to the universe and the Force that he's even got Ben. You never see him yearning for more children... he was more than happy with the family he had. Plus, he'd essentially seen Jacen, Jaina and Anakin has his surrogates until Ben came along. Leading me to Cade... I think the point of the Legacy story is to show that Cade isn't a worthy heir to the Skywalker name..... yet. The idea is that he will become worthy of it, at least we hope. He could be the heir to Anakin Skywalker rather than Luke Skywalker though. And to make that point, he's got two sides trying to make him be the heir to one or the other. Krayt's trying to making him into another Vader, Master Sazen and K'kruhk want him to be the heir to Luke Skywalker. Cade's not even living up to his father's example or what he taught him... all over his grief for his father's death. The hero's journey necessitates that Cade's story take some time, and more importantly, the comic medium dictates that it last a while. At this stage in the game we've gotten 3 full TPBs worth of story for Cade and he's already come a long way from the guy who downed deathsticks to keep the sensation of the Force at bay and the visitations of Luke Skywalker urging him to become a worthy heir to the Skwywalker name/mantle. Chill out, even Luke doesn't think Cade is living up to his family name.
Luke started down the dark path in DE, but I think there's a difference between starting and actually falling. The whole of DEI can't take up much more time IU than a few weeks and it's clear that Luke didn't go as far as his father had even before he pledged himself to the Sith. Nevertheless, it definitely scarred Luke emotionally and while his resistance to the dark side should be amped simply buy knowing how it can enter he should be MORE wary of it and his own vulnerabilities. It's like any moral vice, just because a person knows that something is wrong and all the effects it has on him doesn't mean that his recognition is going to make him henceforth invulnerable to said vice. Rather, he's going to know he is vulnerable and should be all the more wary of that vice and it's temptations. I know I have mine.
-----signature-----
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
ChildOfWinds
Registered:
Apr '01
|
Date Posted:
5/19 10:11pm
Subject:
RE: SOS: Save Our Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (v3)
|
Jedi Ben :
only to for him to be done over in turn by an older Jedi prophecy whose hands his defeat to Vader's children!
What "older Jedi prophecy" are you referring to, JB?
dizfactor :
Well, you do consistently equate "happiness" with "having a large number of children and grandchildren"
Actually, for the SW universe, I equate happiness with being able to enjoy a fairly lengthy period of peace after spending most of one's life struggling and sacrificing to make the galaxy a better place, and leaving a stronger, more stable, peaceful galaxy to one's child/children, and grandchildren. Unfortunately, Luke doesn't seem to get either. Nor does he get to leave a lasting legacy of a flourishing Jedi Order.
You consistently hold up the fact that Luke doesn't seem to have a lot of descendents as evidence that he's being screwed out of the happy ending that you feel he deserves,
Because family has always been important to Luke, I do feel that it is an "essential component of happiness and fulfillment for *him*. I agree that it's not necessary for everyone.
And yes, I would have liked a daughter for Luke. Luke and Mara's vision showed "children" and Mother Rell predicted "children" as well. I always thought it would be interesting if Luke had one child who wasn't Force sensitive to see how the child and the family would have dealt with this "almost-disability" in a truly Force-strong family. But you're probably right that Luke is perfectly happy with Ben as his son. The only gaping void in his life is his loss of Mara.
If he starts out as a bright shining example of all that is good and noble in a Jedi,
I think it would have been refreshing to finally have a truly good and noble Jedi. I'm really tired of all the anti-heroes and excessively flawed "heroes" who stoop to the level of villains. Children and young people today don't have enough really good heroes with strong moral compasses.
SuperWatto :
I will agree that I was wrong to say that Cade has no sense of responsibility, as he did take responsibility for getting the Jedi Hosk captured and tortured. He DID try to save him, putting himself at great risk to do so.
Dawud, I'll respond to your post tomorrow.
|
|
|
Quote Reply |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
