Lit Anakin Solo is overrated

I remember the night when complete Invincible spoilers hit the boards, and it was kind of a gray dull headache thing.

I'd loved for it to be something completely bonkers. An entire novel on the level of Daala making chief of state, that would have been a night to remember.

 

I wonder if Denning secretly wishes he could write for comic books, where space is warped and time is bendable.

 

Hasn't the character of Anakin Solo been dead longer than he's been alive by now?

 

Born in 10 ABY, died in 27 ABY -- but I believe he was 16 IIRC. Would have been resurrected in 41.5 ABY. Crucible is in 45 ABY. By Crucible, yes.

Had he been resurrected, he would only have been two years older than Ben and Tahiri would be substantially older than him.

 

I meant in real life. His run was 1991 to 2001, right?

There are people posting on these boards who weren't born yet when Star By Star came out.

 

May 23, 1995 to October 30, 2001.

Edit: Although, I suppose he appears as a baby in JAT which is before he's actually depicted as being born, so that would precede it. October 1, 1995 is when he became an actual "character" per se in The Golden Globe.

 

So people have been complaining about his death over twice as long as he's even been "alive"...

And there are people posting on these boards who weren't born yet when Star By Star came out.

 

I'm not going to knock people for that.

From my perspective, I find that five years of character development is quite a bit to flush down the toilet and it's really killed my interest in stories of that era.

I just think Anakin is rather lacking in substance as a character and consequently easily replaceable. I think it's a testament to how bad things have gotten that they haven't even been able to do that to most folks' satisfaction.

 

Well, wherever he is, I'm sure Jimmy's plenty rustled right about now.

 

How do you think Rhett feels? This whole forum is an overrated thread for him.

 

Well, to be fair, the nice thing about comic books is that any boneheaded decision - like, oh, let's say derailing a popular character's personality, turning him into a poorly-conceived villain, and killing him - can and usually will be undone. As I've said before, one drawback of the EU's single continuity policy is that bad writing is forever.

 

I think the only problem with all of this, is because he's dead, all we have is speculation. That's why he appears to be "overrated". IU, his last cameo before NJO was the Anja Gallandro arc at the end of YJK? Must have been, what, a year before the Yuuzhan Vong invaded, with him at age 15? He's still growing up! And he had to grow up fast. At age 15, he loses Chewbacca, and his father initially blames him. That changes a person. Then Dantooine, and he almost dies protecting Mara, and then Daeshara'cor dies. All these have their affects on him. Then he turns 16, and he has a dream involving his best friend. When he returns to Yavin IV, Tahiri remarks that he's changed. How could he not have? His world turned upside down, and the past 2 years have served to harden him. By the time Star by Star rolls around, he's not only discovered a greater aspect of the Force, he's maturing into a man, and taking responsibility for things. He's still rash, of course, rushing to save Jaina, but he couldn't bear to lose any other members of his team. In that light, it's noble. And it shows he's human. Given the chance, he would've gone on to lead the Jedi, I have no doubt of that. It's not that it's too out-of-character, it's that he's growing, and learning.

 

Nah dude, Jaina gets mistreated as character from time to time by Denning by bad authors by some authors, but when she gets taken out of the box and used *right*...she shines.

So damn stupid. *So* stupid.

 

Such as? Denning's use of her is not great, but still better than anything else I've read.

 

Please tell me thats a Two Best Friends Play reference

 

When Star by Star came out, I didn't even know there were Star Wars books; as a matter of fact, I didn't grow into Star Wars until a year later, when AotC came out and I watched that at the Chinese Theater. It wasn't until the year after THAT that I discovered the EU through the Star Wars Databank, and grew to love Anakin Solo.

 

I was there when he was born and I've never been that big into him. He never really became anything to me.

In fact, his greatest moment for me is still his heroic death/martyrdom in SBS. Also, best Denning book by far.

 

This thread made me realize something which I never thought about. Leia was only pregnant with Anakin in the original Dark Empire, but he isn't born until #6 of Dark Empire II, where he's named Han Solo, Jr. Anakin. But he's depicted in the Jedi Academy trilogy prior to that, and as the subject of a subplot on Anoth, in which he's named Anakin. KJA wrote the foreword to the trade paperback of Dark Empire in which he said he was writing his trilogy with only Jacen and Jaina with knowledge of Zahn's books only, and then he learned of Dark Empire and a third child, so Veitch presumably informed KJA of what he intended to name Leia's third child so KJA could use it before Anakin was actually depicted as being born. Early EU cooperation!

 

Yeah...if you really think Denning's Jaina is the best we've had, I don't see any point. Needless to say, we disagree.

 

I can agree with the general proposition that Anakin is overrated, but I'm not as hard on the character. The fan deification of Anakin and angst over his death is silly -- it's a good death that served a good narrative purpose, and all the hoopla acting as if the entire EU died when he got killed and it was the death of hope and goodness everywhere is incredibly overheated. He was one of a large cast of next-generation characters who could fulfill the simple role of being the crusading, action-hero young Jedi, and he's honestly probably better served as an everlasting symbol of potential cut down young, the cost of war, than persisting and having authors struggle to mature him and keep him a memorable character and not run into the same mess as every other character.

But I do think the character had something to offer. It's easy to call the crusading, action-hero young Jedi role generic, but it's necessary, and it's not necessarily synonymous with Luke. The key is what you do with the personality of the character, and on that score I think Anakin comes off well. He's a straightforward, fight-the-war, be-an-action-hero kid, young and confident and eager to prove himself, but that doesn't really push all the way to being brash, cocky, and reckless. He's not the typical hothead type. He's also thoughtful, engaging in debate with Jacen, willing to consider what a Jedi's role is, processing the war -- he just comes to a more active position than Jacen. His struggle with survivor's guilt was just a segment of his larger struggle with the central question of the NJO -- the question of responsibility. He's friendly, and his experience with Vua Rapuung is great. He's got a romance that's not earth-shattering, but it's a nicely executed little teenage-friends-admit-their-love dynamic and he's fun with Tahiri. It's clear that his arc over the course of the NJO was pointing toward an increasingly thoughtfulness about the war, further maturation, and I think he and Jacen would have eventually converged had death not intervened. I think he was one of the better riffs on the eager-young-Jedi concept, and there was a lot more to the character than just a pale copy of Luke or a generic action hero.

 

One of the central pillars of my "KJA is underrated" argument I make from time to time is that, say what you may about his actual writing, he was very willing - unlike most of the EU authors then, who just basically did their own thing - to go along with what others did.

 

Oh come on, that's such a weak cop out. If you don't give me any examples how am I supposed to know what you're talking about? From what I recall Denning actually gets Jaina to do stuff (even if it's often stupid stuff) when other authors just shove her in the background or give her pointless jobs. I might be wrong but how would I know if you don't give me your reasoning?

meh. What's more important? A good, interesting well written story, that has some minor discrepancies with other material (that most people wouldn't even notice), or a story that incorporates continuity well but is written so terribly and childish-ly that I can't even make it more than half way through!!!