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Lit A Cynical Walk Through the NJO

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Cynical_Ben, Aug 17, 2013.

  1. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    The problem re: Dark Empire and NJO is they each work with a version of the dark side that's incompatible with the other - DE has Luke be subject to massive levels of dark-side coercion and there's no doubt whatsoever that there is indeed an external dark aspect to the Force. NJO's big claim runs directly opposite to this - that that doesn't exist, so that's the incompatibility right there.

    The pity of it is NJO argues more interestingly that anger doesn't always have to be a dark emotion - but this gets buried amidst the big 'no dark side' controversy. In this respect less would have been more.
     
    tjace likes this.
  2. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    The NJO doesn't claim the dark side doesn't exist. Luke even says it does in the final book.

    The NJO isn't fun to talk about anymore.
     
  3. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    Can you explain this a bit more?
     
  4. Revanfan1

    Revanfan1 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2013
    Basically, the Jedi have become afraid to let go, just immerse themselves completely in a whammy-load of Force energy because they're afraid it's the dark side. When in actuality, just embracing the Force does not mean it's the dark side, it just means you're one with the Force. The Jedi fear that by doing this they might be getting too close to the dark side so they don't even go that deep. Vergere tells Jacen that he has to stop fearing, and just do it, just let go and trust the Force to guide him completely and utterly. As long as he's not feeling anger or hate or an evil emotion when it happens, he's not using the dark side...he's just using the Force. And even, if you think about it, anger isn't always an evil emotion. Is it evil to be angry at terrorists for the harm they cause? No. Anger is only evil when you let it be evil.
     
  5. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

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    Jul 19, 1999
    Heh.... Why do you think I like TUF so much DM?
     
  6. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

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    Dec 16, 2012
    "have become"? If this fear is something that Luke had post-DE than they always had it

    So Luke's and Leia's Force Harmony were not embracing the Force? It looked very inner peace to me

    Were have the jedi shown this fear? What do I need to read?

    If that is what she is saying it most be in an other part of her speech because I don't see it
     
  7. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    For NJO's solution to work, certain problems have to be in place but the bulk of these were created for NJO without much in the way of precedent in earlier stories, hence the difficulty of reconciling them.

    I look at how the Jedi act in HoT, mediating disputes, working well with the NR, an NR not led by Leia I might add, then jump forward 6 years and whammo, it's all gone to pot!

    There shouldn't be any great mystery or difficulty over how Jedi work with the Republic, there's plenty of precedent which worked quite well, the Old Order's failings weren't in that respect.
     
  8. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    Üh... the very first scene in the NJO is Jedi going out to mediate in a dispute together with a NR ambassador.
     
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  9. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    Vergere has one line in which she says there's no dark side which quickly becomes "what you call the dark side" and suddenly all 19 books (minus one) stand for that?

    Or Vergere endorses the Potentium even though she ridicules the magister for believing it, and the Potentium isn't even what people here seem to think it is?

    If people don't like the NJO for any reason, even no reason, that's fine. I don't like some stuff that some people here like that I don't even bring up and I don't mean the post-NJO.

    But it seems kind of pointless to talk about the NJO when evidently I read different books than everyone else did, and there's this alternate universe where the books say completely different things than the books which I read do.

    It doesn't help when this stuff is put on Wookieepedia and the authors use Wookieepedia so you get poor reading comprehension fan misinterpretations introduced into canon through books that are already poorly researched like Patterns of Force.

    Vergere really epitomizes the fluid nature of canon which is why I find it so amusing when people get upset about TCW. Vergere was introduced as a Jedi knight on Rogue Planet, one that was young and recently knighted. This was the intent to what she was in NJO. Afterward Denning and whoever decided she was a Sith because they didn't like the direction the NJO took, as a reason to undermine that. But she's a well intentioned extremist Sith that tried to kill Palpatine and truly wanted good for the galaxy! But being so hellbent on getting this across, the Essential Guide to Warfare has a section that depicts her with the Yuuzhan Vong when she wasn't, in a secret heretical shaper facility that her patron Tsavong Lab would destroy if he knew about, as a cackling evil Sith Lord in the Palpatine style. The same guy she thought was insane and tried to kill, but didn't bother just informing the Jedi Council about.

    Continuity is a joke and has been a joke for a long time. And hey, if you think Vergere is a Sith or otherwise giving Jacen bad advice, that's just another knock against it I guess. I think it's absolutely all silly.
     
  10. Zeta1127

    Zeta1127 Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Sep 2, 2012
    I just ignore osik like TCW whenever I see it.
     
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  11. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    That's the nature of a controversy, it quickly becomes something that eclipses all other aspects! Though, given how important this new outlook became in the plot, it's not without a measure of foundation.
     
  12. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

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    Feb 17, 2004
    How is it important?
     
  13. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

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    Oct 23, 2004
    Because the whole idea of LOTF is that we now need a Vader II never mind how much we have to pull it out of nowhere, having him “corrupted” by his “teacher” from the NJO was just the way they went about it.
     
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  14. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    Let me rephrase the question: how is what Luke believes at the conclusion of TUF different than what he believes at the start of Vector Prime?

    People talk about Luke merging Vergere, Potentium, and Yoda, but that doesn't actually mean anything. What ideas does he merge? How do his ideas change?
     
  15. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

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    Oct 23, 2004
    Dark Nest has him push into the force without constraint, funny enough pretty much full circle to the Post Dark Empire pre Hand of Thrawn ways, which got him thinking of cutting down on the whole thing in that book, but he apparently now has forgotten again. I swear if he would not change his outlook on the Force, Life and Everything all 2 years there would be so much less trouble for everyone. [face_sigh]No wonder Legacy killed him, much less of a hassle.
     
  16. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    *skips a ****load of posts* Sorry guys.

    I just finished Traitor.

    Holy hell. Stover deserves a damn Nebula for this one.

    I normally can't stand books that focus on existentialism and philosophy and was afraid I'd find this overrated at best. But I found it quite the opposite. It's worth reading even for someone who knows nothing about Star Wars because there is so much in it about life in general. I think I added several pages to my Kindle clippings. I may post some of those later when I'm not typing on my phone.

    Every chapter either made me laugh or cry. The ending, Nom Anor getting pwned, had me laughing, as did Jacen getting frustrated with Vergere answering questions with questions.

    The hug between Jacen and Vergere at the end, all the memories of Anakin and all the discussions of dying and discovering in the end what's really important, made me cry.

    Best book on a character's self-discovery journey that I've ever read, hands down, and I've read several.

    Don't tell me what happens to Vergere; I'll just say right now that after this book I really want her to be OK. And I know she probably won't be.
     
  17. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    But... she's evil.

    /sarcasm
     
  18. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

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    Jul 19, 1999
    And clearly, going by the board, I read a different DE to everyone else but I couldn't care less.

    If you're going to let others' opinions influence you that much then you'll likely have your enjoyment of just about any story negatively affected.

    Nor are you that alone on NJO in any case, if anything the board has always been more inclined towards being pro-NJO than anti anyway. I happen to like some of the takes you and people like Sinrebirth post, but I don't ever recall seeing most of those in the books - I'd have likely enjoyed them more if they had been.
     
  19. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    At the start you have Luke being wary of Jedi going off on their own, that there needs to be a Council to give guidance, especially on anger.

    Frankly, for me, the bigger idea in NJO is that anger is not automatically evil but has its dangers. Anger warps your focus and decision-making. Anyone who claims to make great decisions while angry is out-right lying, but it has its uses, it can be a useful trigger, a useful catalyst. That's the big shift of NJO - but, due to the subtlety, the complexity, that it isn't easily reducible to a sound-bite, it got thrown out the window and we went back to: Anger's bad, don't get angry, m'kay?

    I'm not sure there may be all that substantive a change in the general outlook, Luke learnt on DS2 that anger, if permitted, could cause his ruin, but the formulation is certainly different, as is the attitude to emotions. They can open you to the dark side, but that's far from a given.
     
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  20. DigitalMessiah

    DigitalMessiah Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 17, 2004
    You're entitled to your own opinion, but you aren't entitled to your own facts. The controversy over the NJO, the split, has the two different sides saying that the book(s) say entirely different things. It isn't merely a difference of opinion.

    That's why Denning had to introduce the Sith retcon to change the facts. That doesn't stop people from arguing that it wasn't a retcon.
     
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  21. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

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    Jul 19, 1999
    Or rather people respond differently to the content hmm?
     
  22. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    Possibly. People taking what Yoda said in the movies literally - that anger is The Dark Side, and that therefore using the Force while angry, is extremely dangerous to the character - risking rapid "corruption by the Dark Side"

    Stackpole portrays it this way, in I, Jedi:

    In the beating I had administered to Remart I'd probably stepped over the line. I had been working in defence of Elegos, his daughter, his people, and even myself. Had I tapped into the Force to strengthen me in that fight, I would have been pulling through power dark and terrible. I would have done to Remart things that all the bacta in the galaxy could not have made right, and reveled in his screams as I did it. I would have swept Tavira away. I would have won Mirax her freedom, but only at the expense of all we had ever had together.
     
  23. Zeta1127

    Zeta1127 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    People, as a rule, generally hate ambiguity, so all of these people latched on to Vergere's "there is no dark side" line and ran with it, while forgetting about the whole point of Traitor as part of the overarching arch of the NJO. I am pretty sure similar reasoning is why Karen Traviss reacts the way she does to moral ambiguity, from the Jedi and the GAR to Halsey and the Spartans from Halo.
     
  24. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    It's possible. Would explain why "For the Greater Good" is so common a doctrine of villains in fiction.
     
  25. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    There tends to be a literal tendency certainly, you can see that in responses to DE too. The reason I see controversy acting as an eclipse on a story is that one element will, in perceptive terms, block out all the other aspects.