Lit Fate of the Jedi. What?

The Lost Tribe are probably the best (if not main good) thing about FOTJ.

 

I liked Ben in some of the books, especially Backlash. I also thought Luie was great in the last couple books before the end, when he used love and compassion to fuel his powers. Nice contrast to his stance in Joiner King and the Sith of FOTJ

 

But Vergere was a Sith.

I just think it's a complete sense of tone deafness when it comes to writing any sort of depth. I think the guy thinks purely in "story" terms. He doesn't consider characterization much if at all; characters do what the story requires, and the story is built around the "rules" of the franchise. The whole Vergere controversy doesn't arise out of any ethical or moral objection to what she does, although the fact that she's ostensibly a collaborator if you squint your eyes is apparently sufficient justification, but I think the retcon is purely motivated by this literal reading in which she seemingly contradicts the "rules" of the franchise concerning the dark side. That is, after all, the only thing he mentions in his blog entry to promote Crucible. For him, in Star Wars, "using the dark side" is unethical or evil, but that's not defined in any mundane sense that's grounded in reality.

Which is why the Jedi can commit acts identical in moral quality to the Sith and be heroes, because they "use the light side" and the Sith "use the dark side." And that's the sole deciding factor.

I mean, I guess if you break it down, he is rather ironically espousing an "ends justify the means" consequentialist ethical model in his writing while having the main antagonist motivated by that exact same ethical model. The Jedi can morally Order 66 the Sith because the Sith are bad and eliminating them is ultimately a good consequence, whereas the Sith are immoral for Order 66ing the Jedi because the Jedi are good and eliminating them is a negative outcome. The only difference between Luke and Caedus is that the former ostensibly "uses the light side" while the latter "uses the dark side."

So while I agree with your opinion that it's pretty creepy, unfortunately I think a majority of the human race operates off of a moral system in which their sense of morals breaks down upon encountering someone they consider to be outside of their moral community -- "since they're not following my moral system (id est, they're "evil"), my moral system (e.g. thou shalt not kill) doesn't apply to them and I can kill them with impunity."

This is one of the themes explored in the NJO series. Which again is ironic since Denning wrote a novel for it.

 

She probably lied about that also, my money is on that she is a Sorcerer of Tund

 

It's really amusing that what Vergere argues against in Traitor is basically exactly what Denning has the Jedi do. She says something to the effect of "So you're telling me it's okay to kill a bunch of people as long as you're emotionless when you do it? Isn't that sick?" Then all of Denning's Jedi kill a bunch of people but it's okay because they're emotionless about it.

Er...that makes even less sense than her being a Sith.

 

DM: Thank you for admitting the major thing about Jedi, I can't stand: doing exactly the same things as Sith with no consequence whatever due to labels. It makes Jedi huge hypocrites.

 

Jedi as portrayed by Denning - not necessarily Jedi as portrayed by most other Star Wars authors, including Lucas.

 

Cushing's Admirer

Depends on who is writing them and which Jedi we're talking about.

Revanfan1

yeah, that is pretty much the deciding factor between whether an action is moral or immoral in his writing. For instance, Luke refuses to face Caedus because of some sort of dark side taint which I guess is implied to be negative emotions surrounding his wife's murder. So in that specific instance, it is ok for Jaina to murder Jacen for the greater good, but it isn't ok for Luke to do it because he'll enjoy it or do it in anger.

This is pretty much a really superficial and literal take on what Yoda says in the films. The problem isn't literally acting in anger regardless of the actual action taken, but the action that anger produces. Taken literally, fans confuse the causality. This is the whole crux of the discussions between Vergere and Luke in Destiny's Way.

After more thought, I can't really even say Denning is espousing consequentialism because of what I said about both Luke and Caedus operating off that system of ethics. I think it is purely this light side/dark side dichotomy which is wholly arbitrary.

 

For many perhaps, DM. Not me. I don't like Jedi straight out and it started with films not books.

 

Actually, I'm stupid, you could definitely say that Denning had a consequentialist view of ethics since all his characters do.

But "in Star Wars," the distinction between good and bad is arbitrary.

 

It's like video game logic. Luke can't fight Jacen even though he's the best option, because he's not the protagonist (that's supposed to be Jaina, but I think you could make the argument that Ben filled that role way more than she did because she did absolutely nothing important for the first five books), so there has to be the convenient "Dark Side Points gained" excuse for why he can't do it. Jaina can without getting dark side points, however, because she's the Sword of the Jedi and so it's her job to kill people that are bad, and she doesn't have to deal with the moral consequences of that. And since Caedus was killed "in" the fight it doesn't affect her morality, either. It's like in SWTOR how when you strike down all these enemies in combat there's no dark side shift, but the ones where you injure them in combat and then have dialogue where you can choose to kill or spare them, killing them suddenly becomes bad even though you just killed a bunch of other dudes without suffering dark side points. Jaina didn't wound Caedus and then "dialogue-execute" him; she just killed him in combat and then felt bad about it after, so it's okay.

What's really funny though is that it would've been okay for Mara to "dialogue-execute" Jacen because she was protecting her son–he was trapped under boulders and she was going to shoot him dead right on the spot, and she even pulled the trigger–but he Force-blasted the rubble away, got free, and fought her. But then he magically became evil when killing her with poison even though he was just defending himself. I don't know, LOTF's "morality system" is so wonky. It's like "bad guys killing people is bad" and "good guys killing people is okay" unless that good guy is Luke because Luke can't kill people; when he kills Lumiya he feels guilty for it and then he says he can't kill Jacen because it would turn him dark.

I would argue, though, that Luke's morality is the only one that makes sense throughout LOTF and Luke is portrayed way better in most of LOTF than he is in FOTJ. Because he is actually portrayed like "Luke." Some have argued that it was OOC for him to cut Lumiya's head off after Mara died. Was it, though? We saw Luke lose his temper at the idea of Leia being turned dark in ROTJ; how can we say what's in or out of character for him to do when he feels his wife die? And then, after he recovers from it, it's understandable he wouldn't want to kill Jacen. In fact, he even tries to give him one last chance at redemption in Revelation, which I really like. The only downside of it all is that he decided on execution rather than attempted capture in Invincible.

 

"mercy is for those who deserve it



The Luke/Ben dynamic was well done in my opinion, after them pretty much being at odds for half of the previous series due to Caedus. Was nice to see them just really being father and son, and how they got along now that Mara was out of the picture.

 

I think there's a legitimate expectation on the part of the audience that when Luke is at the age he is in LOTF, he's acquired the wisdom of Obi-Wan. And look at how Obi-Wan reacted when the woman he loved was killed in front of him (at a younger age than Luke, as well). Of course, I've heard arguments that Luke isn't Obi-Wan so this is an unreasonable expectation on my part. But given Luke's hero's journey and development as a character in the films alone, I think it makes much more sense for him to behave like Obi-Wan and not Anakin, especially as he gets older and wiser. You mention how Luke behaves when Leia is threatened: that's the moment where he integrated the shadow because he finally recognized the faults of his father within himself and at that moment chose not to give them power over himself. So you can't point to that as justification for a repetition of that character moment. He overcame that.

 

There are so many pages, so I'm not going to try and read everything to see if this has already been covered. But originally, the series was to be called "Oddessy" because Luke and Ben's journey resembled the one of Greek Myths. I like the title, because the jedi that fell under Abeloth's control, the threat of the Sith, the threat of the Empire regaining control of the galaxy, and just Abeloth in general were ways that the Jedi could we wiped out.

 

Oh, I agree. I'm just saying it could make sense; you never know what is going to make someone snap. But yes, I would've far preferred Luke's reaction being similar to Obi-Wan's when Maul struck Satine down. Sorrow, but acceptance. Obi-Wan never sought vengeance against Maul after her death, he merely tried to return to the Republic to get help for Bo-Katan and her group. And even when he was no doubt in extreme emotional turmoil inwardly, outwardly he remained his usual self.

 

Yeah, I've just always felt it's ultimately a silly argument (and I'm not impugning you for bringing it up), because in reality you can use that to counter any claim of bad characterization. "You don't know how character X would react in situation Y, so you can't claim it's bad characterization." It's an out.

For the specific example, it's a common character arc in Star Wars for a character to overcome their darkness to become a more complete and balanced person. Jacen does it in Traitor. Jaina does it in Dark Journey. Luke overcomes his anger in Return of the Jedi and his need to shoulder the burden in Dark Empire. I mean, using Dark Empire as an example, a common complaint is that it cheapens or ruins Luke casting aside his lightsaber and declaring that he'll never turn to the dark side. But in Dark Empire, Luke isn't struggling with his anger. First, the whole scenario is couched by the fact that Luke is feigning allegiance to Palpatine to learn how to defeat him: Palpatine threatens to possess Luke if he strikes him down, and Luke doesn't know if that's a legitimate threat or not. But even to the extent that Luke does struggle with his flaws in the story, it's his need to shoulder the burden, to selfishly be the hero, because he believes no one else can. He shuts out Leia, who is trying to help him every step of the way, and all his other friends and allies and tries to save the galaxy on his own. And when he finally does "fall to the dark side" in the sense that Palpatine feels he succeeded, it's because Luke failed. He couldn't beat Palpatine in a duel. And if he can't, who can? The galaxy is doomed, and Luke gives into despair. But all he had to do is accept the help of others.

But back to my point about this being a common thing, it really makes no sense from a character standpoint to call back to these moments long after they've been resolved and the character has grown as justification for regressing the character back to that point.

I just wanted to talk about Luke's awesome arc in Dark Empire.

 

In terms of the cheapening of Luke casting aside his lightsaber in DE, if we're counting all sources, Luke notes in Truce at Bakura, which is taking place in the days right after that event, that the Dark Side is something that needs to be confronted and rejected every day. Doing it once therefore doesn't mean a person isn't still tempted by it, as Luke is in DE and in Hand of Thrawn.

I obviously agree though, as i've stated before anyways, and Luke in fact has a moment in HoT where he believes Mara is killed and reacts much more true to his character than he does in LOTF.

 

Oh, I absolutely love that scene. One of my hallmark Luke moments (along with all of LSATSOM).

 

Luke can't kill people: yes he can, but if he is doing so as an act of Vengeance, he should'nt.

 

I know; that's exactly what I'm saying. My point is that in LOTF it's written as if Luke killing people at all is dark side, because he kills Lumiya in vengeance and then is afraid to kill Caedus because he thinks he'll do the same. And IIRC, he doesn't really kill anyone else in the whole series. So it's portrayed as if Luke can't kill anybody. Whereas in FOTJ it's almost exactly the opposite and Luke kills without mercy, and it's okay because he's the Grand Jedi Master and he's got justice and good on his side so anybody he kills must be bad. Neither extreme is good, and that's why I much prefer NJO's look at him; he stays cautious about killing but is willing to do it when necessary.

 

When did he kill without mercy?? Just because he fought the night sisters from a distance and killed them with boulders? So what!!

 

Basically any Sith he fights. Cuts 'em in half, chops their heads off, stabs 'em, etc. Of course, they're fighting him, so in my book that makes it okay, but there are other problems–like authorizing the Jedi to Order 66 the Sith.

 

The sith are evil. Kill them or get stabbed in the back later

 

Probably because they were trying to make it seem like the fate of the jedi was at risk through the series, or that the series changed the fate of the jedi, I can feel like the latter after reading apocalypse... gosh that book just makes me feel so different about the future of Star Wars.