Lit FOTJ–what people dislike about it

First off, this isn't a read through thread–I am reading through FOTJ at the moment, but this thread isn't intended for a read-along of any kind. Instead, I want to know, just what it is that I should be looking out for, especially in the last two books (which seem to be the most universally hated of the series) that make the series so bad. I just finished Conviction last night, and I've noted some things that I have heard people don't like, but only one of them really effects the series as a whole.

-"Compassion is for those who deserve it." Luke is badly characterized as a harsh man in Allies–he's pretty rough even given the fact that he's dealing with Sith.
-The Jedi are badly characterized. I'd go as far as saying that it was Hamner who was badly characterized–and even he only in Denning's books. In Outcast and Backlash he was kriffing awesome, and in Omen and Allies he was at least acceptable.
-The Jedi coup. This is the only thing I have a problem with as far as the overall plot of the series goes, at least for the most part. The Jedi coup felt like a retread of ROTS except without so much legitimate justification as "the Chancellor's a Sith." Daala was corrupt, yes–and her being Chief of State in the first place is ridiculous, but that reflects on LOTF more than FOTJ–but was a Jedi coup necessary?

So what else is there? I mean, overall the series is imperfect, nowhere near the awesome levels of NJO, but I also find that it's not nearly as bad as LOTF. There are some good plotlines, some good characters, and though Luke killing Abeloth in Vortex (twice!) was a bit ridiculous after he'd just killed her in Allies, I think she was a better villain than Darth Caedus by far. The Lost Tribe was unnecessary but ended up working, until they became Abeloth's henchmen.

 

I started this series right before Allies was released, so I read all of those books straight through. At first I loved the series. Outcast felt like a nice change of pace from what we had previously received. It had a similar tone to the Bantam era, which I aslo liked. Probably due to my enjoyment of this book, I enjoyed all of them through Allies. Looking back I agree with what people point out about Luke's characterization, Kenth Hammer's portrayal, and the Jedi Coup.

My opinion changed when I finally read Vortex and after that I couldn't finish the series. The book just didn't feel like Star Wars to me, the universe felt dead and the characters came across as lacking personality. I don't know what exactly was missing; I just know that when I read most of the books up to the NJO, the universe is alive and detailed. That wasn't the case while reading Vortex. After this, I wasn't interested in finishing the series.

I'm not too much of a fan of what I heard happens in the last three books. Vestara not being redeemed is the most disappointing.

 

Its built on the osik that is LotF?

 

A lack of comprehension of other people's material that is then ruined through use.

Plus Vestara's fate. Denning doesn't seem to really get Star Wars and what it is about. Or character development in general. How did Vestara change as a character from start to finish? How about Ben? I guess maybe he learned the Sith are irredeemable but I'm not sure what else.

Really, it is just a problem with Denning in general. There's really not much to differentiate JINO in DNT from Caedus in Invincible. There's no development, he just writes the characters the way he wants them to be.

 

JediKnight75, Vortex also seemed kind of "dead" to me. Conviction did a good job of feeling more alive, but yeah, Vortex was very...blah. Like there was no effort to give any of the characters character. They existed only to serve the plot (though that's not unusual for a Denning book), and their personalities didn't factor in. In fact, I'll post my findings when I finish the series, but Vortex might be my least favorite book in the series.

Zeta1127, fair enough. That's enough for some people.

DigitalMessiah, what specific lack of understanding of other people's material? Mortis is a big one, I know, and I look forward to posting my thoughts on that after I finish Apocalypse. Are there others? Agreed on Vestara. Denning's whole "I want to show that not everyone can be redeemed" thing was kind of proven in Invincible already, was it not? Wasn't that the exact explanation he gave for killing off Caedus? If so then doing it again with Vestara was just dumb. Especially given how close to redemption she seemed in Conviction.

Character development. You've got me there. I made a post about The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey about how, in the movie, they had to develop all of the characters, rather than just Bilbo and Thorin, like in the books. For example, Bofur starts out openly mocking Bilbo, but by the end he's the guy who is willing to let Bilbo sneak off and go home, and says "I wish you all the luck in the world." That's development. That's something we don't really see in FOTJ. Vestara would've been an exception, if she had not gone back to the dark side. Her personality in Conviction vs. Backlash or Allies was very different–but they just shunted her old personality back on her to turn her back to the dark side.

To continue with my AUJ comparison–FOTJ is, I guess, sort of like what would've happened if they'd made AUJ exactly as it is now, but without anybody getting character development. Bilbo never stops whining about wanting to go home, Thorin never stops degrading Bilbo, etc. The only thing differentiating it from The Hobbit novel would have been the added action scenes. FOTJ has some action scenes that read pretty nice, but not a lot of development. It's all sizzle and no substance, for the most part. Which isn't bad if you go in wanting to read some fairly-well-written action scenes (the battle at the end of Backlash comes to mind), but if you want to read a deep character piece, go pick up Traitor. Sort of like a Michael Bay movie, I guess.

 

Plus Vestara's fate. Denning doesn't seem to really get Star Wars and what it is about. Or character development in general. How did Vestara change as a character from start to finish? How about Ben? I guess maybe he learned the Sith are irredeemable but I'm not sure what else.

Really, it is just a problem with Denning in general. There's really not much to differentiate JINO in DNT from Caedus in Invincible. There's no development, he just writes the characters the way he wants them to be.

Denning didn't stop at FOTJ, Crucible was even worse

 

Crucible's a whole different ballgame, IMO. It's kind of where Denning brings out the worst of all his flaws. The graphic violence, inane Force theories, crazy overpowered Force users, villains with no real motivation...

 

I like Denning as a writer and actually appreciated his books from LotF the most, save for Daala becoming Chief of State. He gives fun interviews and has some old-school cred from writing those old CYOA books that are actually some of the coolest Star Wars books ever. To his credit, I don't think Denning is really the problem with Fate of the Jedi. Allston and Golden's books are equally terrible and confounding. The overall problem is that there is no real plot here. Abeloth's goals are vague and unclear besides "conquering the galaxy" and the Lost Tribe of the Sith make no sense as an actual menacing threat on a galactic scale. Both require the heroes to act very passive in order for them to "succeed" before getting their butts kicked in the final act.

I found myself echoing a lot of the complaints of Jeff_Ferguson from the old book threads, and I think its interesting to watch a generally positive reviewer gradually begin to give up hope by the end.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-official-fate-of-the-jedi-outcast-discussion-thread.29817474/page-21#post-29916419]Outcast[/url] review
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-official-fate-of-the-jedi-omen-discussion-thread-spoilers-allowed.30141897/page-8#post-30184158]Omen[/url] review
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-official-fate-of-the-jedi-iii-abyss-discussion-thread-spoilers-allowed.30301998/page-8#post-30356909]Abyss[/url] review
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-official-fate-of-the-jedi-iv-backlash-discussion-thread-spoilers-allowed.30769950/page-14#post-30797789]Backlash[/url] review
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-official-fate-of-the-jedi-v-allies-discussion-thread-spoilers-allowed.30927177/page-21#post-30963659]Allies[/url] review
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-official-fate-of-the-jedi-vortex-discussion-thread.31367092/page-19#post-31415451]Vortex[/url] review
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-official-fate-of-the-jedi-conviction-discussion-thread.31697423/page-20#post-31752753]Conviction[/url] review
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-official-fate-of-the-jedi-ascension-discussion-thread-spoilers-allowed.31813807/page-17#post-31869866]Ascension[/url] review

I think he basically just gave up after that book, which is understandable.

 

If we had to list all of FotJ's problems, we'd be here all day, but here's a relatively brief list of all of everything wrong with FotJ-

Jedi inaction- For most of the series, almost every Jedi is stuck on Coruscant, and sometimes literally stuck in the Jedi Temple. They're hit with surprise attacks not once, but twice there! There's also no preparation. When they're under siege the second time, they're actually almost out of tranquilizers to keep the young crazy Jedi under control, so are about to head out to get more then whoops, the Mandos are there. When Luke goes to face Abeloth for the first time, the Jedi on Coruscant are so helpless, Luke has to rely on Sith help to deal with Abeloth, as a sign of how bad things are. And of course the Sith screw things up, whether they're trying to backstab Luke or they're too stupid to make a deal with Abeloth.

The crazy Jedi plot- it is reused way, way too much to fill page space. "Hello, this is so and so, and they're 20, whoops, they're going crazy." It doesn't take a genius to see the connection, but the series has nothing better to do, so they just come up with another crazy Jedi to make the NJO look worse and provide some action scenes. Also, the first time in years that Mirax, Valin and Jysella have some page time... and almost of it is from their crazy POV. That's depressing.

Speaking of depressing, they seem to have dug up almost all of Luke's old girlfriends just to kill them off. Callista and Akanah at least. While I didn't love either character, they don't deserve that fate. Not to mention Luke having to kill Abeloth at least half a dozen times, it just won't take.

The Lost Tribe of the Sith- the good guys have won, Daala aside, so they have to come up with an entirely new enemy. Its kind of a repeat of the Vong, but with much less preparation. Sure, the galaxy is mostly stable and then boom, thousands of Sith. Luke and the NJO can't ever get a break. Then there's how fast they rise to galactic power. Palpatine and the Banite Order planned for centuries to take over.

The Lecersen/Treen conspiracy. Evil Kuati female Senator? Been there, done that, boring. What's more depressing is that independent of Daala's influence, even independent of Imperial influence, there has been a really powerful group in the GA that wants to make it back into a galactic empire. If you thought the incompetent and idiotic Senators we saw during the NJO were bad enough, this is much worse. The Jedi coup was bad, but worse how it played into that conspiracy's hands.

Daala is just annoying, worse yet how everyone treats her fairly and all the authors gloss over her past, since if any details were brought up, it would be obvious how insane it is she became Chief of State. Though the Chief of State post has become something of a joke (by the end, count how many people have held the post, for instance). And while she was never a good character, her sudden anti-Jedi obsession just serves the plot, nothing else.

Speaking of that, there's also Tahiri's trial, dragged out across five, six books. Its mostly a sideshow, there to fill pages, Vortex in particular is a waste of time, look at how many lawyers she goes through. In... Backlash, I think, she mentions she could break out, but that would make her look bad. Then four books later, after she's lost the trial (as rumors of a "Jedi coup" filtered through to the jury, despite how the Jedi haven't completely taken over, but of course details like that didn't leak through), then she takes advantage of Daala's out breakout to escape too, so she could have just done that four books earlier and saved everyone a lot of trouble.

One last thing- the Jaina and Jag engagement. That by itself isn't bad, though it wasn't written that interestingly. What was stupid was in Allies, she basically asked to borrow the Imperial fleet, Jag said no (since that is a bit too much, even to his fiancee), then she kind of broke off their engagement. Later on Jag found out why she was so desperate, and they got back together off-screen, but its just such a boring way to try to make their romance more interesting.

And then there's the whole Ben and Vestara relationship, which is just really messy.

The last two books, Ascension and Apocalypse, have plenty more stupid moments, and I just covered the general plots of the first seven books, there are many more low points (such as the "Compassion is for those who deserve it" line).

 

My main problem with FotJ specifically (aside from things that ultimately stem from LotF) is that it takes several story ideas that would be great on their own and forces them into one giant plot. It's not really a story as much as an anthology of different things that happen to be going on concurrently.

 

If you aren't a Jedi or aren't on Coruscant, you don't matter.

 

I see your point here. The Jedi were inactive to the point of idiocy throughout the first half of the series–although I enjoyed their action in Abyss, and they actually did beat back the Mandos in Backlash as opposed to sitting around helplessly like they did in Allies and the first half of Vortex.

I thought the crazy Jedi plot was all right at first, although you're right, it did get tired when it dragged on. I'm just glad they ended it (except for Valin and Jysella) at Allies, and didn't carry it all the way to the end of the series. That would've been eyeball-scratching-inducing.

I think they actually did a good job with Callista–she was a mystery, an unknown quantity, and they found a way to tie that off. Akanah was totally unnecessary, I agree. However, I love the ending they gave Callista in Conviction, with her finally getting to rejoin the light side and her spirit seeing Luke one last time. I know it was never confirmed, but the general consensus is that the opening paragraph of Outcast and the closing paragraph of Apocalypse are about Callista, right?

True enough. This series was supposed to be smaller scale as Allston envisioned it, which likely would've just meant the odyssey to find out what turned Jacen to the dark side. Which, I think, was a better premise for the series as a whole before Abeloth was introduced. I don't know whose idea Abeloth was–but I'm pretty sure Allston, when he came up with the idea for the series, just wanted it to be about the crazy Jedi and tracing Jacen's five-year journey, and the two would've tied together with the crazy Jedi being tied to Jacen somehow, not Abeloth.

Treen was bleh, but I actually did enjoy Lecersen. The conspiracy was very dry at times but at others it was pretty fun. Lecersen had, I think, the best-written villain POVs of the series, although when your other options for villain POVs are Daala and the occasional one-off Sith Saber, there's not that much of a competition (and while I'm on the topic of the one-off Sith Sabers, I really liked Querdan Dei, the Sith killed by Leia in Conviction; he was an enjoyable villain).

Allston wrote Daala well in Outcast, IMO, but after that it felt like no one really tried with her–or, actually, no one knew how to try. Daala should've never been Chief of State, and having her in the role throughout the whole series, not as a military commander but a political leader, when previously she'd only been the former, meant that even the best of writers probably would've had no idea how to make that work for a nine-book series.

Tahiri's trial was awesome in Allies and Conviction. The rest of the time it was just filler. I think it was one of the best side plots in the series, even if it did drag out a bit. I think that, at the end of Allies, the trial might as well have been over–the Vortex portion was totally unnecessary–and the Conviction parts could've been worked into Vortex instead.

The breakup was ridiculous, and even though it was in Golden's book I believe it was actually Denning's idea to have them break up because he never liked Jag. Eventually he decided to "allow" them to get married but only on the stipulation that Jag retire as Head of State and come live at the Jedi Temple because "he can't write stories outside the Jedi Temple."

Ben and Ves work in Conviction...and that's about it. In Allies it's extremely abrupt–they'd shown no signs of attraction in Backlash, literally hours before the start of Allies, and yet at the start of that book Luke treats it like they've been flirting all along. Vortex, like I said earlier, made every character, no matter who they were, seem dead emotionally. But in Conviction, there was a nice balance–they acted like a boy and a girl that liked each other but it wasn't the focus of the story. And don't get me started on what happened between them in Ascension.

 

Raynar was pretty good through out the series.

 

Remind me which one had the Force domestic abuse?

 

Agreed, especially Backlash. And his willingness to sacrifice himself back to the Killiks in Apocalypse. I have always wondered, though, when he grinned at Hamner in Vortex while Hamner was hiding in the shadows, what that was meant to imply. It definitely seemed significant at the time.

Ascension.

 

Denning ruined the Fallanassi starting with Dark Nest when he made mindrape one of their powers because he never bothered reading Black Fleet. But he retconned planned all along to reveal it as a Sith power JINO learned before meeting Lumiya somehow. I guess he has the convenient out that they were possessed by Abeloth or something in Vortex. Aren't the Fallanassi extinct now? I also like how Akanah, who was an outcast with minimal training in BFC, was now their leader.

The Hobbit is the journey Bilbo would have taken before Denning's book, eschewing character development on the page. I guess it's too taxing for Denning as a writer?

 

Agreed, especially Backlash. And his willingness to sacrifice himself back to the Killiks in Apocalypse. I have always wondered, though, when he grinned at Hamner in Vortex while Hamner was hiding in the shadows, what that was meant to imply. It definitely seemed significant at the time.



Very good catch on that,, It was a moment that COULD have turned into great understanding of Raynar's oddness but was decided to do nothing instead.

 

I can't help but notice that virtually all of the positive comments in here are about the books written by Allston.

 

The first two books were very light-hearted. ABYSS was deep and dense, but it had a great introduction to Abeloth, and characterized the Sith well. It was nice to see Luke and Ben talk to the Force Ghosts of Anakin Solo, Mara, and Jacen. Vestara was a good creation.Then it all went downhill after that. Though it was nice to finally have slave rebellions.


I don't like the Lost Tribe and Abeloth in the same series.

I don't like the Lost Tribe adapting so quickly to galactic society. They should have been archaic warriors, confused by the current state of the galaxy, not expertly infiltrating all levels of galactic government within a couple years of getting spaceflight. And they should have been permanently dealt with by the end of the series, I was hoping at least a good amount of them would become Jedi after being exposed to their ways for the first time in millennia.

I don't like how Daala was handled. I would have liked it better if she wasn't Chief of State, but since she was, she should have been handled much better. She actually had legitimate points about the Jedi and their role in the galaxy, which books had been alluding to since at least the NJO. Instead of answering them, they made her back into a crazy villain. And as if her becoming leader of the GA wasn't bad enough, why in the world did they make her then try to become leader of the Empire right after, that's even more insane! And why the hell did they have a coup against Daala, would it really have been so hard to have a new election?

I don't like how Abeloth, this dark side monster, wanted... to become a politician. Who wants to politically rule the galaxy. Seriously? Like, seriously?

And tying this all into Mortis has to be one of the worst decisions in the EU.

And so much for Han and Leia proving they're good parents by raising Allana. Oh, and they decide to make Allana a killer?

Since they showed Jacen's spirit wasn't fully redeemed, I was hoping they'd somehow tie all this into his way of resurrecting himself, and being reborn as a (now effective and threatening) Darth Caedus. But nope. More lost potential.

They still didn't really know what to do with Jaina, and even more drama with her romantic life was totally unnecessary.
Oh, and so much for the Jedi proving they can function without Luke.

 

The end message about balance. God, I I hope someone can provide the quote but it's basically Luke going "Okay. There's Jedi and Sith and maybe we're supposed to be fighting forever. Yeah, that's the ticket." Whatever the real language is, I remember being repulsed by how wrong it sounded coming from the hero that completes his journey by throwing down his lightsaber.

 

And who also said only some deserve mercy... the same guy who showed mercy to Darth Vader, and saved the galaxy by doing it.

 

There was kind of like this whole announcement about there being no more balance due to the death of the Mortis Ones, so with no Son or Daughter, instead the Jedi and Sith would suffice.

Which is an awful idea, but I'm more surprised that Lucasfilm let a book get away with retconning the Chosen One prophecy, when usually they're so picky, like they refused to let Yoda visit Dagobah before. Unless that was a sign of Episode VII, so they didn't care about Mortis or the prophecy anymore.


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I don't think they even realized what Denning was doing. Or cared. He already ruined the NJO. Then he set his sights on the film saga.