An idea for new generation jedi for LOTF/post LOTF

I know how to get some great character development and how we can get new interesting jedi in our current era of LOTF/Post LOTF. Give all the current jedi "kids" (Jaina, Zekk, Lowie, Tesar etc) their own padawans!!! It's time to move them on in their careers as jedi and this would go a long way in introducing new heroes and interesting stories.

Your thoughts?

 

It's actually maybe time to do so. I mean these folks are for the most part in their early thirties or late twenties (depending).

Once The Last of the Jedi finishes up, I would actually like to see a Young Readers series set around this time period. Of course padawan storylines would work extremely well in that context. Could be fun and also might lighten up the stories a bit. I like LOTF and Legacy but I feel like it's become very dark and not as funny.

 

I think that is a good idea, bringing both the YJK/NJO era Jedi to the forefront and also introducing some new characters that have the potential to stay around and become important characters in the greater scheme of things. Aside for Ben we've been very short on them lately, new characters seem to just serve a purpose in a storyline and then disappear, even considering those type of characters there aren't that many new characters being used in the main storyline in this era.

Maybe that's part of the reason why Legacy has been received so well, say what you want about rehashes and such, but the characters are new and interesting and in several cases mysterious. Some to the point where we don't know have a clue how they will act/react in certain situations, I mean who would have thought Roan Fel would react how he did to the whole Dauntless situation. Whereas with the same main characters always being used in the main novels it tends to get a bit samey.

 

I agree. I loved the YJK series very much, which is partly why I was so upset with NJO. However, making a new series about new younger characters that are the apprentices of Jaina, Zekk, Lowie and co. would fulfill several purposes:
-introduce new characters
-possibly provide some light-hearted humour
-still allow all our faves from the "older" generation some page time

And yes, as much as I am enjoying LOTF , I will admit that it is a bit dark, so a little light would be appreciated. That might be a while though, like until after LOTF, when we know who is still alive and so on.

 

I completely agree. There needs to be more in there about training padawans, it's been almost completely absent from the post-ROTJ books aside from Luke training the original twelve students. Mara was apparently Jaina's master, but we never really see them in that role after the first book or two. Similarly with Luke supposedly training Jacen and Anakin. The whole Corran-Tahiri thing was great and I wish there'd been more of that sort of thing. But every time we hear about a master's apprentice it seems that they're dead or about to die (Miko Reglia, Thrynni Vae).

Ben and Jacen is the only master-apprentice relationship we've seen and that's a crying shame.

Leia ought to get assigned with a padawan, too. She's been a knight for five years and seeing her train someone would rule.

Mara should have had another padawan at some point. Heck, Luke should have too! That could have been an interesting subplot in, say, DNT. Though I guess I can see Luke and Mara being more involved with the general training at the Academy like Yoda was by AoTC.

But still! I can see them refraining from giving Jaina or Zekk padawans for a while after their Joining experience but by now? I suppose maybe Tahiri, Lowie and Tesar didn't get any either due to their banishment for a while to Dagobah, but even so. They've all been qualified Jedi for a decade; they really ought to get someone to train.

I think maybe LFL are worried the apprentices would go the same way as most of the non SoloWalkers go - into obscurity because people don't latch on to them. But...feh. If the characters don't work out then they graduate to Jedi status and can return periodically. If they do prove popular, then wahoo!

Hmm. Yes. I think this is an excellent idea.

 

I agree

-The Rebel Gungan

 

This is actually a pretty good idea, I think that's exactly what's been missing in LOTF!

 

Many have called for new characters. Mainly non-Skywalker/Solo Jedi. I agree. However, with as many writers out there as there are. And keeping in mind that they each have a couple "pet" characters that only show up in their books. I don't think that there will be such a thing. Obvious reasons being the "pet" characters. A writer who creates their own characters are probably not keen on other people writing for them. I know i wouldn't be. So for some new characters to come out, or a new series, there would have to be either one or a very small group of writers deciding how their early tales would go. But the problem with that is that then ONLY that one writer or few writers would be allowed to write for those characters.

I would say the only way to do such things would be to stop with these galactic wide conflict stories. Keep it small scale. Maybe a world at a time. The smallest things have erupted to involve entire sectors which in turn makes galaxy wide problems. If a new series were to develop, and it would involve the same number if not more writers than are currently working on Star Wars stories, they need to tone back the scale signifigantly. Not make the future of all we know and hold dear to be the focus of EVERY story. I've fallen out of the loop on the LotF series because of this very fact. Right after ROTJ there's the Bakuran crisis with extragalactic aliens wanting to 'entech' the population of EVERYTHING. Then the black fleet crisis. Then the Vong!. Then the Dark Nest! Now the Sith again. Granted i like the Sith stories, but again it's the FUTURE OF EVERYTHING at stake in these books. Come on! Doesn't anything SMALL ever happen?


Master Luc

 

i agree, the YJK's need their own YJK's. part of the problem is when we have gotten stories about apprentices, it's generally the "big characters" being trained: the Solo kids, Obi-Wan, Anakin. we get new characters in these stories, but they're headlined by the big characters.

the only "young big characters" or children of big characters we have around are Ben, who's half trained already and been on his first solo mission, and Allana, who's not old enough yet. this is why Jaina should have gone ahead and married Zekk (or that other guy) already, and had a few babies.

 

You have hit on one of my greatest dislikes of the DR license era. Everything is bigger, badder, more EXTREME than the last. And we lose the intimacy of characters that we had earlier. Really, I fail to care about most of the characters in LotF because everything is so macro-scale that they get lost in the sea of stars.

After this series they need to step back and create a plan as to what they are going to do with this "Legacy" the series is building. Who is going to inherit it? And why should we care since the books leading up to it NEVER SHOW US. Ben, Jaina, er...there are other young Jedi right? Does Jaina even count as young anymore? She is 30 and should be well on the way to Master.

*Sigh* Talking about this just makes me annoyed that DR has soooo thoroughly dropped the ball. At this rate Luke will be battling Sith from a walker because nobody else was given any page time.

 

So many potential ideas are being missed right now in the novels; they?ve gone to great lengths to try and connect Luke?s order with the prequel era?s order that I?m surprised that Ben & Jacen are the only master- padawan team we?ve seen so far. Even just a simple acknowledgement that other knights are still taking on padawans would be a start, like some kind of off handed comment ?Lowie is reporting that he and his padawan met some resistance on such & such planet but with some aggressive Negotiating the situation is under control?. Something like that would be a step in the right direction. At least we have the Legacy comic to see that Jedi Masters & Knights had Padawans.

They really need to stop these galaxy ending Galactic events, I?m tired of hearing people say stand-alones don?t sell, if PoD didn?t sell well would they be making a sequel?

 

People are apparently wanting a young adult novel series about NJO apprentices, correct? So this series would belong to Scholastic, not Del Rey. Also, it would probably be easier to sell such series to YA publishers, who would probably more conformtable with telling smaller stories in lesser grand scale.

Also, I would not blame Del Rey for the lack of younger Jedi and the lack of apprentices for the current Jedi. I would blame the writers. They could use the younger characters more and I doubt that the editors have ordered that the YJK Jedi will not have apprentices. I think that is a decision made by authors to keep the number of characters down, more manageable, and the storyline more smooth. If Leia, Luke, Jaina and Mara would have apprentices in LotF, they would have to have some role in the series - even if very minor ones, but still some role. They would have to be written into the books, even if they would be just redshirts, and if there is some planned number of pages where to tell the story in each book, then even a minor role could diminish the amount of pages available to stories that the authors have to tell to advance the plot and want to tell as an extra to it.

I think that it is a bit silly that we have not yet seen a Jedi in LotF who would have an apprentice and I think that the YJK Jedi really should have their own apprentices by now. So I am not against the idea.

 

I don't know why, but your referencing of the future Emperor (or at least father of the Emperor) of the Galaxy seems oddly hillarious. Perhaps it was the "that guy" line. That's like calling George W Bush or Vladamir Putin "that guy"

Back on topic, I'm a 100% for the idea of a NJO/LOTF era young readers series.

 

Sure give the kids something to read. But what about the adults? I started with the x-wing series and have read EVERY ABY novel since. (and the few that take place before that in the EU timline but not farther back that Splinter) There have been some great ones and there have been some so bad that i wanted to cry. (Darksaber? Anybody? Anybody?) The only ABY books that i did not read were the YJK series. I guess i was reading Goosebumps books at the time. I recently picked one up at B&N out of boredom and lack of anything else SW novel-wise to read and put it RIGHT back down after about five pages. I'm not going to knock books for kids. Give them all the SWEU they can handle! But they're for KIDS! If they do start another YJK series or something similar i hope they don't leave the adults out in the cold for half a decade while the new young Jedi Knights grow up. PLEEEEEEASE!


Master Luc

 

They need Irvin Kirschner to co-Author Revelations and Invincible to get us some character depth.

 

Well I was thinking about how much I liked Olee Starstone in Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader. I felt for her and she was a great character and I hope they revisit her sometime. This made me think how a couple of padawans like her in LOTF would be great.

As for smaller conflicts, YES! they would be great. This is why I love prequel era novels because a lot of them are centred around smaller conflicts that last just that one novel. Yes I know that they are tied into the Clone Wars but post LOTF stand alone novels would be great. Jacen, jaina, and the other jedi "kids" are all in their 30's and accomplished sweet FA in terms of their Jedi careers. Luke, Obi-wan, Anikin Skywalker, hell even Anikin Solo have all accomplished more that these kids in 20 -30 years than them. The YJK are pretty much just career pilots and soldiers at civilian level.

Give Zekk and his padawan their own "Shatterpoint" novel. Give Kyp and Tahiri and their padawans their own "Approaching Storm" Novel.

 

Does anyone recall about how old jedi were when they started training padawans in the prequel trilogy era? Also, I haven't started reading the LOTF books yet. Does anyone have an estimate as to how many jedi there are?

 

I think they had to be picked as a Padawan before they were 13 otherwise it was off the the agricultural corps for them

 

I think this is someplace where the SW franchise tends to slip up from time to time. We had the whole long, drawn-out arc of Quinlan and Aayla, then Aayla became a Jedi and... kind of hung around until the Clone Wars, then did that, and then she died. There's really no reason she shouldn't have had a Padawan.

Oh, wow. That would be so unbelievably cool.

How about non-human (or near-human) Jedi? Compared to the OJO, the NJO looks like the Blandy McWhitebread club.

 

The Jedi Knights took Padawans whenever they were ready I assume, there's no reason to have an age limit (on the Knights), not eveyone will become a Knight at the same age, and even without that some will be ready to take a padawan straight away, others may feel they need time to develop further. Knights should be experienced to know when they can handle a Padawan, though there are examples or perhaps some who started when they weren't experienced enough. Obi-Wan for example took Anakin as his Padawan effectively as soon as he became a Knight and we saw how that turned out, but Anakin could be considered a special case given that he wasn't taken during infancy, knew his mother, etc. Qui-Gon is another example, maybe he wasn't ready when he took Xanatos and subsequently lost him.

As for LotF Jedi we haven't really been given much of a look at the Jedi beyond the main characters, along with a few cameos by YJKs and the council members, so it's hard to estimate the size of the order at this point.

Yeah the Younglings had to be chosen by a Knight/Master by their 13th birthday or that was it as far as becoming a Padawan and subsequently a Knight was concerned.

 

A new? Chosen one.

 

I'm not thinking of a young readers Padawan romp....I'm thinking more along the lines of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon as of the phantom menace, or Anakin Skywalker to Obi-Wan as of AoTC. This way it could be an adult book instead of a young reader series. One of the nice things about the PT era is seeing Jedi form relationships and learn by travelling with a single Master. As far as I can tell, the current system has the kids being dumped off somewhere and playing with practice droids until they won't be a nuisance to our heroes. It would give a chance to grow some new younger characters, see the Masters interact with someone that isn't their peer on a one on one basis, and show us what the Masters are teaching the younger Jedi about the force. To be perfectly honest, I don't even KNOW what the NJO really believes where I knew precisely where the OJO would have stood on most issues. It would also allow for more "Specialization" of Jedi. Tholme/Vos/Aayla being more of the "Stealthy and in the shadows Jedi", Obi-Wan and Glaive's slight banter about "The living force is hemmohraging" and glaive commenting that "We don't need Qui-Gon's brand of training", engineering/demolitions experts like the Young Jedi in "Forever Young", etc.. Right now it just seems like a free for all...."You, go there. You, go there. You, go there...." instead of establishing relationships and strong force bonds.

However, I think the door was kind of slammed shut on this type of thing with Luke feeling a little queasy about Ben calling Jacen "Master" and referring to himself as "Apprentice" as if those very titles and that one to one relationship leads down to a dark path in itself.

 

That was good!! Unfortunately it is true.


I just finished reading "Star by Star" (really good, will write up a proper review soon) and you can say that Anakin's mission leading a group of Jedi was a young Jedi adventure, as they were all teenagers (his own Order of the Pheonix? hehehehe). Okay, a really dark adventure. I haven't read the YJK series myself but I would hope that the authors don't mistake that as needing to dumb down stories. I have seen (read) so many examples of this happening. Particularly in comic books (dispite the popular misconception that comics are for kids) when they are adapted into other mediums; animated series, movies, they usually have to be toned down for those PG-13 ratings. The X-Men movies and Batman Begins are the only franchises right now that are almost as dark as their comics conterparts. The Harry Potter books (okay, so I'm anxious to see the new movie as well the last book, sue me!! ) are a perfect example of how "young" books should be written . . . . . . exactly the same way adult books are written

So my point (I had a point?? ) is that they don't have to create a specific series to tell padawan stories. I'm sure some of the authors are very capable of writing good stories involving young people.

Joseph B

 

this is why Jaina should have gone ahead and married Zekk (or that other guy) already, and had a few babies.
ZEKK! ZEKK! ZEKK! Sorry, I'm somewhat prejudiced. I still think that Jaina and Zekk would make lovely babies .
But, if Jag does marry another woman and has Force-sensitive children, I think he would still strust his old Jedi friends enough to send them his kids for training. What do you think of that?

 

well obviously someones gotta train the Fel line whenever they gain Force-sensativity. if he marries a trained Jedi (Jaina, Tahiri, or otherwise) i'd assume he'd trust his wife and her close friends to let them train the kids, if not the Jedi in general. also, i'm betting LOTF is setting up Jag to at least be friendly enough with some of the Jedi to allow them to train his kids. probably Jaina herself actually... i could see Jaina training alot of royalty actually. i'm betting on her training Allana unless Jacen does so himself, either as a redeemed Jedi or as a Sith taking over Hapes.