Lit Question About Mara Jade (some spoilers)

I'm surprised so many think of Mara as being particularly powerful. I always assumed she was one of the least powerful of the Jedi Masters, in terms of raw Force ability. When not backed up by the will of the Emperor, her Force powers had dwindled to almost nothing, after all.

That said, power alone does not a Jedi Master make, and Mara had more experience, skill, and shrewdness than anyone else in the Order besides her husband and possibly Corran or Kyle.

 

On the Jedi Council we had Luke, Mara, Kyle, Kyp, Corran, Cilghal, Saba, Kenth, Kam, Tionne, Octa, and Tresina. Since we never saw much of the others I naturally always assumed Mara was closer to the top than anything, since there's just more evidence of her abilities. However based on the others at the top she's at the bottom, if that makes sense. (When compared to other characters we know a lot about I place her nearer the bottom. So when looking at the full list, in my mind it goes something like:

Luke
Kyp
Kyle
Corran
Mara
Saba
Kam
Kenth
Octa
Tresina
Tionne
Cilghal

 

i disagree with your point, and here is why. yes she lost much of her power after the emperor died. But when she married Luke and became a jedi she gained all that she had back, and more. She was never master level before, and became a master very quickly. Your point makes sense during the events of Vision of the Future and before, but it was not true after that.

 

I think we can all agree that Jacen's motivations made no sense at any point from Bloodlines to Invincible. And every time a bit of rational thought crossed his mind, it was run out of town on a rail by the cancerous tumor they called the plot.

Back to Mara, though, it was clearly meant that she was a powerful Jedi, that's for sure. Whether that power came from raw Force ability of from the level of experience she had and the fact that her husband was the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy is up for debate.

I've always thought of Force ability being based on two factors: raw strength and experience. Obviously, the older a Jedi gets, the more experienced they are, but they wind up lose some of the raw power they had when they were younger. Beings like Luke and Mara are unique in that, due to the constant conflicts they dealt with from, let's say, their marriage through LotF, their experience with the Force skyrocketed despite being relatively young. And I'd have to think that, if any of the Sky-Solo clan kept themselves as fighting fit as possible, both physically and in the Force, no matter how old they got, it would be Mara.

Point is, Jacen may have had more raw power than his aunt at the time of their confrontation simply via bloodline, but Mara was far more experienced and, what's more, she was fighting dirty. Both of them did. Jacen just happened to have the better trick up his sleeve. If Mara had projected an illusion of Tenel Ka over herself, she would have killed Jacen just as easily as he killed her.

 

Why Bloodlines?

 

Well, I didn't want to exaggerate too much. Really, though, Betrayal did its best to tie into the Dark Nest books for Jacen's thoughts, but the Dark Nest books don't square with the end of the NJO. Really, if we want to go back to Havac's summaries, I'd say that Jacen hasn't had decent motivation behind his actions since Traitor.

 

Why Traitor?

 

I don't know, I just threw a name out there. I haven't read much of the NJO yet, but from what I've heard elsewhere, Jacen seems plenty convinced he can help the Vong learn compromise at the end of Traitor. (Note: It's painful to go to the Wook and search Jacen's name, only to be redirected to the Darth Caedus page.) I could very well just not know enough to point out the holes in my own argument, in which case, I apologize for making assumptions.

 

The transition point is right after The Unifying Force. More recent literature would want you to believe it was Traitor to fit the revisionist history. Although that was before we learned that Jacen developed an unhealthy obsession with his daughter's well being about five years before she was born, so maybe that is no longer true.

 

It's almost like... Jacen changed the moment that Troy Denning walked into an office and said, "Hey guys! Can I write a Star Wars books about bugs? Also, apropos of nothing, that space chicken thing who taught Jacen was really a Sith, right?" And the editors said, "Sure," and Denning said, "Okay, thanks!" and scampered off before they realized what had happened.

 

well you need to read the njo. big time

 

Working on it. The seventeen book set (Force Heretic being a hardback collective) is in the mail.

 

You all underestimate the power of the Dark Side!

 

okay but you said that you had not read much of the njo. So you have most of the books now, but have not read them??

 

I own one book, and have borrowed two others to read, but all of the major ones I have not read. I bought them, but they are in the process of being shipped and have yet to arrive.

 

okay. well i hope you enjoy them. The second half of the series is even better than the first. If you want to skip anything, i would skip Dark Journey

 

I miss Mara...T_T

 

As much as I dislike Traviss's later works, I thought that Sacrifice was for the most part really good. I only had a few issues with it. It was stupid for Mara to be Jacen's sacrifice, I agree with whoever said that Tenel Ka would have made more sense. I actually liked the darker Mara in this book, as I felt she had been a bit whitewashed by Zahn in the HoT duology and other authors followed suit. Her fight with Jacen was awesome too, as it made sense for him to be the stronger in a straight up fight with his Skywalker blood and variety of Force techniques, so she had to use experience, trickery, and dirty fighting. That was good. What was not good was him tricking her with a Force illusion and stabbing her with a poison dart. What made this particularly galling was that I had read Darth Bane: Path of Destruction around that time, and it made no sense that Darth Bane could remove poison from his body just by sheer force of will, while an assassin like Mara who probably had much more experience with poisons was completely helpless. I also felt robbed by the cheapness of the move. I realize cheap, cowardly tricks are often a staple of the Villains' Playbook, but this was supposed to be the book where we finally got to see Sith Jacen unleashed, using Starkiller-esque blasts of power and showing us just what he spent those five years learning with the other Force sects.

 

i did think it was cool when Jacen used the force to blow the rubble off of him like a explosion. that is sweet

 

It was very badly done. It should have been a difficult, complex and long battle. But worse yet, she went out evil, imo. I think the authors later tried to make it clear she had not done - having come back as a force ghost. But then again, she came back unable to speak using comical crazed hand signals and looking rather worse for wear. As if it were some kind of payback for her nod to evil on her way out. I didn't get it. Useless death, imo. And not the first time. That would be Anakin. And not the last time, that would be Jacen.

 

I doubt Palpatine would make a weakling his hand when he has an entire galaxy of force-babies to choose from.

 

The only part of Jacen´s fall that made something close to sense is that he was really afraid of the DS, and fearing the DS it´s still fear, and that´s the path to the DS. So buying Vergere´s ideas would be quite dangerous for him... except for the fact that was explained in TUF, and DN retconned/ignored it.

On topic, I took Mara to be on the upper levels of non-Skywalker lineage, which is around double of Palpatine´s level. So by the time she died I took she was below Vader (around 4/5 Emperor´s level), but not by too much - RotS Obi Wan maybe. Still shouldn´t have given Jacen so much trouble, as he was very seasoned by then, and new jedi didn´t seem to hold back students´s power as the old did - AotC Dooku could have taken for breakfast Obi and Anakin even if they had coordinated (Anakin may whine, but he often has the point). Yet Jacen only won against someone quite inferior by little more than luck.

 

I always thought it was silly for Obi-Wan to say out loud "You go in slowly on the left." Dooku can hear, you know.

 

Well Dooku is an older gentleman, so perhaps Kenobi was working on the assumption that Dooku didn't have his hearing aid calibrated.

 

Jacen's fall was interesting when it seemed to be coming through detatchment. Being cold and clinical in his approach as the opposite of Vader's passion seemed ideal for a man whose grandfather, aunt and uncle had been agents of the dark side. (Heck, a man who works under a Jedi Council made up of many who have flirted with the dark side.) Then that just kinda stopped and you get this unconvincing worse-than-Palpatine/Vader nonsense.

His negotiating to kill Mara Jade was silly. At best, with the way it played out, Jacen should have come back from it and been told she wasn't the sacrifice. If it were up to me I'd have had him sent after Allana then kill Tenel Ka instead. Or something.