Anyone else think of Anakin(solo) when they read about Ben?

Knightdawg: I think you're extrapolating the 'confusion between the Anakins' aspect in the wrong way. The interview says that Lucas was worried about people confusing the two. It does not state, nor does it suggest, that this is because the characters were too similar (and thus, one was a rip-off of the other). Rather, I think it goes about as far as the fact that they have similar names, and stops there. Lucas doesn't pay that close attention to the EU.

 

SlackJawedJedi: Agreed completely.

 

Downhill....because there isn't a decent redemption story? The SW movies was a 6-part storyline about redemption...that doesn't mean the entire SW Universe always has to be about redemption....that's like beating a dead horse. If Anakin Solo was so great, he would still be alive. He's dead. He's just a character....not a living being. Let's not get so attached...the SW EU is soooooooo big and great. Thousands and thousands of storyline potentials out there with other characters.

I applaud the decision to move Ben Skywalker into the "heir" position, Jacen turning evil, and Jaina taking training from the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy. The EU continues to get better and better in every timeline!!

 

Ben has nothing in common with Anikan Solo. Anikan Solo is the greatest hero of the NJO. Ben Skywalker is a war criminal who should be doing hard time in prison for what he did in LOTF. Sorry, can't stand Ben so far. He's growing on me in Fury but after books 1 - 6 made me hate him immensely it'll take ALOT before I can stand him as the main character of the franchise. Let him (ben) act like Luke did in the OT and then we'll talk. I'm sick to death of dark conflicted hero's which is why Anikan was so great he was exactly like Luke was in the OT.

Edit: People like seeing stories where the classical hero kicks the bad guys butt from here to Albuquerque. They always have & always will be They don't mind a little questioning but when they whine & complain like Ani SKywalker & Jacen solo does it's too much and people tune out. In the star wars EU there is not one single character capable of filling the shoes of the classical hero. Ben Skywalker is a compelete failure as a character. I love star wars but I will not read ANOTHER story where a skywalker goes dark & kills people for no reason. ROTS was only 2 1/2 years ago and we're already on the 2nd skywalker following that path since then (Jacen, ben). Thank god for Legacy. The end Issue #18 brought a very big smile to my face. Something the books havn't done since Bantam had the contract.

 

I have to say I don't feel much similarity between the characters of Anakin and Ben...

Anakin was truly a clear-cut hero, respectful (most of the time ) apprentice who wanted nothing more than to be a true Jedi Knight.

He was truly pegged as the next Luke Skywalker, and then he was cut down before his time.

Ben has had a completely different upbringing, and rather than the Jedi Grandmaster being his Jedi Master, he's had a secret Sith Apprentice training him.

So of course Ben's view of the galaxy is alot greyer than Anakin's, and his personality matches that.

Now he has been taken as an apprentice to the same Jedi Master Anakin had, Ben could quite likely start approaching a more heroic character in the future under Luke's guidance. However he will definately be a hero of the era.

Anakin's era was coming out of the end of the Galactic Civil War and into the beginnings of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion where things were still mostly black and white.

Ben's era he has to face deception and lies and grey everywhere, and although I predict he will become as heroic and loved as Anakin, I suspect he will also hold some of Jacen's qualities his entire life, now that he's seen the galaxy for what it is. However he shall hopefully take Jacen's good qualities (before they got twisted by the dark side and insanity).

I predict Ben to end up as a mix between Anakin and Jacen, and to prove a suitable heir to Luke's legacy eventually..... but he's still very young, lets give him a chance to develop more before passing him off as a lost cause. Luke was much older than Ben by the time we first met him, Ben's got many years before he reaches that stage of his life.

 

KnightDawg: Master_Keralys has said most of what I would already. But...

Here's something to think about: it's Jacen who shares palpable, explicit parallels with the Anakin Skywalker of the Prequel series.

Yes, Anakin Solo shared the same name, and he was shaped to an extent by his grandfather's legacy (is that a rip-off of Luke in ESB and RotJ, too? )... but it's Jacen who's much more the "obvious rip-off", and you're APPLAUDING what's been done with him...

If Anakin Solo has a model, it's Annikin Starkiller, the Luke/Han prototype in the original rough draft script of "The Star Wars". He even gets caught by his Jedi Master making out with a blonde in an equipment locker.



I'd also say there was as much fanboying of Jacen as there was of Anakin. And what's wrong with that, anyway?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I really like Ben Skywalker. So far he has had a ton of character development compared to the other main characters. Look at what's he had to go through in his life thus far:

*Was kidnapped as a baby
*Nearly became a Killik Joiner
*Was repeatedly mindwiped by his cousin
*His aunt was killed
*Spent several days on Ziost with only an astromech droid and little girl for company
*Assassinated Dur Gejjen
*Was tortured by Jacen

Not to mention that's he only 14 years old right now. Luke didn't even get off Tattoine until he was 20. I'm sure that Ben will grow up to be fine Jedi Master eventually.

 

Oy. If Lucas hadn't said Anakin couldn't be the hero, he would have the Jacen storyline, and Jacen would have the Anakin storyline, and everyone would be talking about how Jacen was awesome and too bad he died so early. There was never a "young heroic figure lives" story planned. He was always intended to die. The only think Lucas' edict did was switch which name got assigned to that character.

 

I have a feeling that this is all fanon made by the fans who like what's going on now and are sick of people pining for hte good ole days of Anakin Solo. I've yet to see anything official that says Anakin Solo's road through the NJO would have ended up in the same way that Jacen's did. AND, most importantly, all this dark side/Sith Bpants going down with Jacen is an after-the-fact addendum when some fans fell of their horses decrying Vergere as a dark sider or a Sith despite the near pure light-siderism of Jacen Solo from the close of Traitor to the end of TUF. The dude was hardly changed, just more confident in his ability to use the Force to combat the evils he was faced with. AND he sought the most peaceful solution he could to the very end.

 

Sue: "His objection to Anakin Solo being the main series protagonist was, I think, possible confusion with Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogy of movies?Anakin was our first choice as the saga's hero, not Jacen. When George nixed that idea, we were forced to rethink everything very quickly, as the first book of the series was already being outlined."

If they were outlining the first book, then they must have already done the basic outline for the series as a whole. One assumes that they had their character roles assigned. Sue admits that the rethink was done quickly, and thus the evidence best supports the hypothesis that they reversed Jacen and Anakin's roles completely.

Ever wonder why, personality wise, YJK Jacen more closely correlates with NJO Anakin and vice versa?

It's "fanon" that the "kill Anakin" decision happened half way through the series.

Where does Hydro disagree with this? He was referring to their NJO plots. Would a living Anakin have had the "dark side/Sith bpants" added after the fact? I think it's less likely because of his name, sure. Even so, people were moaning about Jacen's survival/Anakin's death long before the DNT and LotF - and that's what H30, I think, was getting at.

Can't argue here... but I don't think anyone was.

 

Except...

First off, what did Lucas actually say - and when? How many other changes were the writers having to make at the last minute? When did Lucas say, for instance, that Luke couldn't be killed? Was it at the same time as regarding Anakin's not being the main protagonist? We don't know enough to say whether Jacen and Anakin's stories were switched; there's no evidence yet. The whole plotline was being dramatically rewritten at short notice, and we have no way of knowing to what degree.

And incidentally, if redemption is the theme of Star Wars, then without redemption it's not Star Wars.

Oh, and btw - another fact that has been stated is that Stackpole wrote his piece in such a way as trying to fight Anakin's corner. Stackpole's said so himself. The decision to kill Anakin may not have been made halfway through, but debate was certainly going on among the authors among how to make it work; and I recall some debate from quotes from Sue that indicated Keyes may not have known about it, too.

 

I won't switch this over to a Jacen argument, but I will say this; even with the potential role reversal you mentioned, I STILL wouldn't have missed Jacen that much. Once a whiny navel-gazer, always a whiny navel-gazer. And if you think about it, if Anakin Solo had REMOTELY been switched to the Jacen role in LOTF, then I would've felt more of an emotional investment in Anakin's fall, since he would've accomplished so much, and had become a grand hero by that point in the series, only to transform into something destructive.

But back to the whole Anakin/Ben argument. Firstly, for those that are saying Ben is becoming an appealing character, because of his trials, then what were Anakin Solo's experiences? Cakewalks? He was having his life threatened since his birth, as well. Anakin had to deal with a lot in his evolution, but he turned out to be, before the untimely end, a hero worth rooting for. Ben, even though he's starting to turn into something resembling "heroic", reminds me of that familiar Anime character model of a ultra-cocky character being put in his/her place, then becoming somewhat acceptable, but you still utterly dislike them in the end. Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that Ben was needed as an excuse to continue the Skywalker family line, I'd really want his character put to death by the end of LOTF.

 

I think about what might have been, and I metaphorically weep. Stupid, stupid[/b[ decision to killoff the only next gen. character to get decent characterization, development and evolution.

 

The point is, Jacen wouldn't be a "whiny navel-gazer". Anakin would be. Jacen would have been the "grand hero".

 

And the point is, it is this that is yet to be proven; it is this that is fanon.

 

When there was a "most tragic Star Wars character" poll, I nominated Ben Skywalker, even beating out Leia who has not had the easiest life in the Star Wars universe.

After LOTF is over, they should do some Ben Skywalker stand alone novels so we can see Ben Skywalker develop as a character more. It is way too late for a YJK type novel, but Ben acting like a prequel-era jedi would be much welcomed.


I view the so-so development of his character as a result of 1) the overall direction of the books and 2) father-son relationships.

If your father was LUKE SKYWALKER, but your relationship with the force was completely determined by the suffering you felt through it until you were eight years old, that is bound to cause some issues. Ben has completely grown up under the shadow of his father and has never had the chance to define himself since he has been manipulated by Jacen who is more of a controlling figure than a mentor. Ben also has absolutely no friends imo which makes it harder for his character to develop and for him to get some perspective on what is going on. It is not fair to completely blame Ben for being manipulated by Jacen up until Ziost - much of the blame for that also falls on his parents.


By the time Jacen and Jaina are eight, they have formed a relationship with eachother and are a lot more socially aware. Whereas they grew up separately from Han and Leia, they did not grow up in the shadow of their parents despite the fact that they were priviledged. They are able to have their own adventures and define their own interests and talents regardless of who their parents are. Although I haven't read books about Anakin Solo as a kid, I would assume much of the same applies to him.

If the Dark Nest Trilogy had been written differently, the first eight years of Ben's life would not have been taken out of the picture. But, as previously mentioned, the Star Wars galaxy has been made into a darker place. YJK had some age-appropriate (in Star Wars terms) adventures for Jacen and Jaina (Uncle Luke shows up at the last minute!) but since NJO the novels have become more realistic and darker. That means that the character of Ben has become more darker too - so I would blame that on book contracts and fan expectations more than anything else.


I know I'm taking about Jacen and Jaina rather than Anakin Solo, but that is what I know.

By the way, I'm not convinced that Anakin Solo would have been the next Luke Skywalker. I know there is all this talk about force-potenital and his ability to fight without ever getting scratched and the NJO Anakin books, but I wouldn't have been happy with that path.

But - Anakin Solo was special

 

You also have to factor in the times that we live in today. Fans of sci-fi and fantasy have become so desensetized over the last few years that business people in all forms of media and literature feel that politcal angst, death, and disaster is all the average consumer wants. And they may be right. We're living in a time where a movie like Sweeny Todd(a film based on a musical about a guy who slashes throats with a razor and then uses the dead bodies to make meat pies) is considered one of the best movies of 2007. Were as back in the 70's a movie musical like Tommy where people do nothing but sing and act like their on drugs and play pinball was considered the best. The differences between the status quo of American pop culture during the last twenty years is mind blowing if you think about it.

 

Well in the 70s, we also had Dawn of the Dead.

So, it's not that Fans have gotten more Cynical, it's the fact that Star Wars AUTHORS have started to pander to them.

 

I was thinking of you as I wrote that, actually.

KnightDawg: did you actually read any of what I wrote, or did you assume what I was trying to say and ignore everything actually on the page? Good grief! I outlined in detail the differences between the two characters. GL didn't want two heroes named Anakin; he knew next to nothing about how similar the characters were or weren't, and he hadn't even finished penning AotC when the story conferences that his decisions came to happened. For that matter, TPM was only out the year they did the story conferences.

- Keralys

 

Sweeney Todd IS one of the best movies of 2007. And I don't like the dark and bloody turn Star Wars has taken. The 70s weren't defined by Tommy, especially in the era when Star Wars came out. That was defined by Dirty Harry. Tommy wasn't even remotely the status quo of pop culture, American or otherwise.

 

I used to think that Ben was going to be a "replacement" for Anakin Solo, an aknowledgement from DR that they had made a mistake and without correcting it directly, at least creating a character in Anakin Solo's mould. But as LotF has progressed, it has seemed more and more that Ben is supposed to be more a new version of Anakin Skywalker than Anakin Solo. Perhaps he will evolve more towards the character of his father in the future, yet it is clear that he now is nothing like Anakin Solo anymore.

 

Ben and Anakin are as different as different could be. But I must defend young Ben a bit here. Ben wasn't trained by Luke, and really showed no inkling of even being interested in the force.

Ben-"I don't want to jump off the cliff, Dad!"

Luke-"Well, you and Jacen get along. What if I send you over the cliff together?"

Ben was basicly forced into the family business by Luke and was thus trained by Jacen from a very young age. I think Young Anakin Solo might have followed a different path if he had to deal with what Ben had too.
That said Ben's assassination of the Corellian Cheif of State was a horrible decision for which he should some day be punished, but I think he is far from being a horrible young man. He seems to be getting his act together now, hopefully just in time to save the galaxy. Or prehaps he will find himself exiled for his crimes and go found the Imperial Knights. It's a win/win for Ben Skywalker.

 

I think Ben is more like his mother than his father. That's why he's so independent most of the time.

 

Three points here:

1.) How far did they change the outline? Well... I strongly suspect that Luke was originally slated to be offed in VP: George's comments included "you can't kill Luke" and "not another Anakin as protagonist" - and the Solobrat switcharoo and the "kill Chewie" decision are BOTH said to have been made in a hurry when he outline for VP was being prepared. The former, at least, was a response to George's comments.

If Chewie was replaced by Luke, that means that they could swap around characters to fit the plot, without changing their essential traits. I admit that the Solo kids were much less developed characters than Luke and Chewie, and that it's possible to see echoes of the original plan in the plot-structure... but that doesn't mean you can just replace the names of "Anakin" and "Jacen" and say the characters were interchangeable - for the reasons why, read on!

2.) How much did the swap affect the kids' characterization? To an extent, it's true that Anakin was originally intended for the contemplative path, and Jacen the active one. However, I think that the switch actually strengthened the characterization. Anakin was the non-sneaky Solo kid, the "straight fight" one. He was also the internalized thinker, the one who kept his thoughts to himself. Jacen was the insecure, withdrawn one, who tended more to fall into adventures, than to go out and find them.

Anakin's concept of the dark side as something to be overcome drove him to be a hero, without explaining why to anyone; whereas Jacen's rather Jungian fear/confidence dualism kept him rooted where he was, and made him hide his weakness behind a smokescreen of philosophy: a much better fit for their personalities than vice versa.

3.) Mike Stackpole has said that he wrote Anakin the way he did because he disagreed with the decision, felt that it was a waste of a character, and hoped the decision could be reversed. Since the second and third novels were written with the authorial aim TO KEEP ANAKIN ALIVE, I don't think we can say the decision was fixed before VP.

This also, obviously, impacts on the characterization. Stackpole was presumably thinking of JJK-kin, as he was working semi-concurrently with VP. AoC:JE and EoV:C also lean heavily on parts of Anakin's pre-NJO backstory.

Think about what it meant to have Jacen, not Anakin, take the decision to not-fire Centerpoint. Think about how right it is that Anakin, the engineer, uses the lightsaber to bridge the gap between the Yuuzhan Vong and the wider world in Conquest.

Maybe those plot-points, or something similar, were originally intended for Jacen. But Little Brother took them over, did them better, made them his own.

Interesting - do you have any idea where this might have been?

I'm honoured.

My work here is done.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

It's speculation supported by the evidence we have. Much better supported than the "it happened half way through" idea, or the, "they were going to kill off the quiet, contemplative one" suggestion.

How does the latter make any sense? Jacen's arc through the NJO works because he started out as "the wussy one". The problem is that Anakin (prior to NJO) was always the "special one" and so even though Jacen-as-Hero works (because he took Anakin's role) it doesn't make much sense in light of the the stuff that preceded the NJO.

McE
I don't think you can replace the names completely as things stand. After all, as you point out - there are elements of their pre-NJO characterisation worked into their NJO-characters.

Anakin was always the machine whizzkid and he's still the machine whizzkid... and he certainly hasn't become the older sibling and twin to Jaina all of a sudden. I just think one can be justified in making the assumption that they had decided that the overarching plot would be:

"The Heroic Solo dies, whilst the quiet, introspective, "wussy" one goes on to become the true Hero."

I think Jacen would have better fit the former, whilst Anakin would have been more suited to the latter.