Lit What would you guys change or keep about Jacen's fall or where would you take him as a character?

Whatever was in it, it seems to have been wrong, because it never should've happened, no matter the justification.

 

I'm sure Denning could make such a list for Obi-Wan and Yoda too.

 

p66 Traitor
"You are born to be a gardener. Remember this: it is not only your right to choose flowers over weeds, it is your responsibility. Which are flowers? Which are weeds? The choice is yours."

This bit at least seems like an encouragement to find them, and identify them as seperate from the "flowers".

 

The choice is Jacen's? You mean he can decide they are all flowers? Huh. Not to say he does. He kills the clip beetles to heal the slaves.

 

"I done Goofed"

three words some people just cant say, Troy Denning is one of them, I love Star Trek but when Gene Roddenberry wanted no conflict among the crew, some sort of communist utopia (in response to the excess he saw during the 80's), he done goofed, And the Ferangi, Took Armin Shimmerman and the writers of DS9 to make them respectable as characters and a people.

George Lucas, is the same way. Make a mistake? NEVER!

Joel Shumaker can admit when he messed up, Like he did for Batman and Robin (Even though he is a director)

 

Luke kills more than Beetles, No one in Star Wars would make it in on the USS Enterprise D, except possibly Jacen.

 

I'm honestly tired of this Vergere hogwash. The character was created to be the protagonist's mentor and help him succeed. Stover wrote her with specific lessons in mind.

It's frankly irritating that people choose to misinterpret what those lessons were and argue for the misinterpretation in bad faith, and it's worse that a published author did it. If you want to know why the stories after the NJO sucked, this is why.

 

“Lots of ways to help people. Sometimes heal patients; sometimes execute dangerous people. Either way helps.” Mordin Solus

Luke clearly chooses acts in this fashion, Frankly the Jedi thought history seem to act in this fashion. the sith are weeds are they not? every upstart separatist moment seems to be weeds to them. In many ways StarFleet commands acts more like Jedi in principle than the Jedi do in practice.

 

Can't disagree with that.

 

Well seriously ask yourself: did Stover intentionally mean for Vergere to teach Jacen that? If so, why? Did he learn it? If so, how did he apply it in the NJO? What purpose did it serve in the context of the series?

 

Have Jacen survive LOTF but stay evil and control the galaxy, have Luke injured, jump 5 years later and have Jaina try to stop Jacen in another series or jump 10+ years and have Allana do it.

 

Given that Stover's Vergere says "I'm not Sith, or Jedi" a case could be made that she was not intended to be a conventional Jedi mentor.

But then, she also says "Everything I tell you is a lie".

So- maybe she's both Sith and Jedi?

 

To me it read like Strover use a humanist philosophy to say "Use what you know in the here and now and act, and accept the consequences be they good or ill."

and that's all.

 

I think it's more "The are more to this universe than are dreamed up in Sith and Jedi philosophies, Being a Jedi is not your entirety.

 

It's possible that this was how Stover intended it.

Still, it reminded me very much of the things the Emperor said in the RoTS novelization, also written by him.

 

Philosophically she's trying to adjust Jacen's view of the Force from being purely dualism to being dialectical monist. Her statements about the Jedi and the Sith and flowers and weeds are for the purpose of illustrating this.

 

Complete with a nod to the ESB movie: "Search your feelings, you know it to be true: The Force is one"

 

Gonna jump in on this weed discussion (hehehe) if only because I'm home now and have NJO: Traitor in front of me to pull quotes from rather than trusting online sources or casting about in my shoddy memory.

It's not problematic at all when considered in the context presented in Traitor. The full quote is as follows:

This is a direct narrative reference to the decision that Jacen came to earlier in the novel regarding the sanctity of life and which species he felt obligated to extend that to.

Taken in its original context, the intent of the final line of the book, "a garden which is still full of weeds", becomes clear. The "weeds" mentioned are the fanatical Yuuzhan Vong who have invaded the galaxy, specifically the fanatical ones, who slaughter innocents without a single care.

To take the flower vs. weeds stance that Jacen does in Traitor and portray it as anything more than that of a young war hero protecting those under his charge against an invading force of hostiles is laughable. It would be like suggesting that any high-ranking military officer who ever issued orders while under fire is the real-life equivalent of a Sith. Troy Denning, take note.

 

Well said. Traitor has a whole lot of layers to it, and it's a shame that its lasting impact on the Expanded Universe is a layer that wasn't even in it.

 

Exactly. A Stover book is something where you have to read everything with context. One line, taken out of context, can create VERGERE IS A SITH.

 

Vergere isn't the only thing which has been twisted beyond its original intent in the stories that followed the New Jedi Order. Apocalypse turned the entire film saga on its head with its use of Mortis. Father tells Anakin he restored balance to Mortis and he will restore balance to the Force, and then Luke says Anakin did not restore balance to the Force because he didn't stick around on Mortis. Except that Anakin's decision to leave at the conclusion of "Overlords" had no impact on the events that followed. In fact, at the start of "Ghosts of Mortis," Anakin refused to leave until balance was restored.

 

Abeloth could've been good until they shoveled in the backstory of her being the Mortis Mother in the very last book. If they'd done that from the beginning, fine. But you're right, the whole "Anakin did not restore balance" thing was utterly ridiculous. And guess who wrote Apocalypse...

 

It makes sense that Anakin failed to restore balance considering that the Sith kept on taking over the galaxy long after Anakin's death.

 

Having Allana stop her father would be interesting.

 

"Allana, I am your father."