Has your opinion of Jacen changed?

but CHarl, what if someone else took the shot, which was 100% likely, and killed others. Oh yeah, they did. Anakin had less chance of harming GFFA residents than the obvious Corellian firing it

 

Charlemagne19, it's interesting you would bring up Jacen's change of character from YJK to the NJO. That was indeed an important topic of discussion on The Jacen Solo FC for many days. It will be in more complete form in the final "bio", but here is what we could come up with:

• Luke taught them new ways to use the Force to help with things like Lightsaber fighting. Anakin liked the way the Force could help him move faster, and give him more strength. Jacen liked the way the Force could help guide his movements, and give him little insights into what his opponent would be doing next. Anakin sought to increase his skills with using the Force for speed and strength, while Jacen sought to gain a better understanding of the intricacies of the Force and the best ways to let it be his guide. (JediJSolo)
• Anakin's brash and unthinking use of the Force made Jacen think (I-poodoo)
• Jacen's labored jokes hid a more personal, introspective side(Balance_Point)
• A few months between the end of the YJK and the beginning of the NJO allowing plenty of time for a complete role reversal? (Balance_Point)
• In regards to any changes that Jacen has undergone, it would appear that they mostly happened when Jacen was apprenticed to Luke. (mj) The time Luke takes Jacen as apprentice is the time Luke ruminates the way of the Force most. (ForceAlly)
• Jacen is briefly mentioned in the Black Fleet Trilogy, where he is 7-8 years old. He is described as stubborn and possessing "irrepressible mischief." Fastforward a decade to the NJO. He is now stubborn enough to give up the Force, which he's really used all his life, for weeks and exhibits a mature form of mischief in sneaking out on Luke in Onslaught. Han is worried about (7 year old) Jacen's sedentary habits, quoting him as saying "Why to I have to be strong? Someday I'll be able to go anywhere I want, or get anything I want, just by thinking about it--like Uncle Luke." This reveals kind of a Force-as-a-tool mindset, which Anakin currently has. Perhaps Jacen has matured faster than his brother? (MaceWinducannotdie)

 

I still hate him and wish he'd died instead of jimmy

 

Although I dislike him, Id rather Jimmy snuffed it. He was getting too good. Unlike most others, he was becoming flawless. Corran was becoming less so. Jimmy was replacing him. Jacen, on the other hand has pros(I think, somewhere) and cons

 

I don't care a whole lot for him, but I admit that he's got an important role to play - but the way he felt so superior to Anakin kind of got me mad. Well, I don't hate him, I just perfer Anakin.

 

[But CHarl, what if someone else took the shot, which was 100% likely, and killed others. Oh yeah, they did. Anakin had less chance of harming GFFA residents than the obvious Corellian firing it]

I don't think Jacen took into account that anyone would be honestly stupid enough to fire the Centerpoint Canon without Anakin to correct the beam flow.

Also Again how do you know Anakin had less chance to harm residents? Do you think Jacen believed his brother capable of making vast hyperspace beam coordinate computations into his head?

Anakin was the one asking for his brother's advice!

Jacen misread the situation and paid for it! Is it any wonder he's so crazy in Balance Point?

Jacen's decision at Centerpoint Station is very similar to another well respected character in Star Wars literature.

General Riekann the commander of Echo Base.

As leader of the Alderaanian alliance faction he was onboard the planet's Space station when he recieved ADVANCED FORE WARNING of the Death Star's arrival.

Bail Organa gave Riekan the decision of whether or not to try and evacuate the planet Alderaan. While it is doubtful the entire population could have been evacuated millions of lives could have been saved at LEAST

However Riekkan gave the order against it due to the fact he couldnt' believe the Empire would do such a thing and the sight of so many ships taking off would inform the Empire up front of how deep Alderaan's support of the Rebel Alliance went

 

Actually I wasn't as big a Jacen fan as I am now. That is until the NJO. During the Bantam series he was mostly one of the three rugrats of the GFFA (not even having the character development of Chuckie or Tommy).
In fact I actually got pretty peeved at him and the other Solobrats a time or two like whenever he had some sarlaac-brained Imperials trying to kidnap him and his siblings as the heirs of DV every 3 books or so.

It wasn't until NJO that I really recognized him as a viable character. Actually in VP I was still trying to adjust to the change to really identify with any of the characters, but once i read Onslaught that was the book that made me get hooked on him.

P.S.
To be a fan of Jacen or any chracter you don't have to idolize him. For example some of us are fans of Darth Maul, but that doesn't mean we have to agree with or condone his actions or suppositions it just means we understand and recognize the viability of him as a character important in his own right to the story. The same is right for Jacen.
For example back when he did not use the force I did not agree with it or condone him not doing it, but I understood that Jacen was needed to have the oppinions and feelings he had that made him turn his back on the force as crucial to the overall story at the time. He was palying an important role in the story and filling out a crucial time of development for his own character's growth. (He later found out he was wrong: that is growth and bygolly I endorse any character growth even if I don't agree or condone with where that growth takes the chracter.)

 

JediMasterAaron: In your NJO analysis of Jacen, you neglected to include his statement in DTO where he explicitly states that he believes he has a better understanding of the Force than Luke. There's nothing subtle about that sort of arrogance.


But moving on to SBS, I have a question that hopefully someone can help me with: On page 579 Jacen is fighting the voxyn and has been severely injured. It says: "The darkness began to rise inside him." Is this darkness the Dark Side or is it more physical as Jacen starts to weaken from his injuries, as in the next couple of paragraphs he is too weak to kick, and overwhelmed by dizziness and collapses?

Perhaps it's just the way I'm reading it, but I find it very ambiguous. I am particularly curious as it is my impression that Jacen would have died from his injuries (remembering that he had seperated from the others so they couldn't assist him) if Vergere hadn't cried for him.

When Anakin was in his final fight he had some sort of epiphany regarding the Force. He could clearly see the Vong in the Force (presumably without the assistance of the lambent) and even Vong poison entering his system at this time was immediately burnt out by the Force. Jacen on the other hand, for all his philosophical musings in the past two years had no such moment.

In DTO Corran rebukes Valin for prompting those insects (sorry, can't remember exactly what they were) to bite Ganner, saying that it was vaguely Dark Side. So I'm wondering whether Jacen's manipulation of the voxyn to kill it's handlers somehow affected (for lack of a better word. I know it's not a good one) him. Jacen's a good fighter, but I find his failure to come up with any of the significant breakthroughs regarding the Vong to be telling (I remember after VP a lot of people were predicting that Jacen would be the first to find the Vong in the Force).

It's a lot easier to destroy than to create and I'm wondering whether Jacen's failure to translate his various Force abilities into anything more useful than slaughtering other beings (and for better or worse that is all he has done in the series - kill people, whether they be Vong or others) is significant. The deaths of friends and having to constantly kill enemies has taken it's toll on Jaina, I'm wondering if it hasn't done the same for Jacen. Look at how easy it was for him to summon memories of terror from the Shadow Academy. With his arrogance and refusal to examine himself with the same intensity that he looks at others this does not bode well.

 

I doubt that.

Tenel Ka and the loss of his brother took him down a notch.

Jacen will never fall to the Dark Side

 

I hope JJS forgives me if I respond to a few remarks here...

Darth Cerberus -

In your NJO analysis of Jacen, you neglected to include his statement in DTO where he explicitly states that he believes he has a better understanding of the Force than Luke.

Simply not true. You mentioned this in a previous thread and JJS handled this.

Here's what JJS said previously in response to your contention of Jacen's blatant arrogance to Luke in DTO:

I can?t find that statement in Onslaught...I instead found this: ??but [Jacen] envied his uncle?s connection to the Force. He wanted that intimacy himself, and he knew what sort of price his uncle had paid to earn it?(p. 149 Onslaught). That doesn?t exactly sound like someone who thinks of himself as having a better understanding of the Force than his uncle, does it?

Overweening and overbearing arrogance? Not at all. On the contrary, Jacen goes out of his way to ask Luke for advise in Balance Point also.

Check out the thread in full which responds to your contention here: Is it just me, or is Jacen the biggest hypocrite in the GFFA?

SbS Spoilers ahead

"The darkness began to rise inside him." Is this darkness the Dark Side or is it more physical as Jacen starts to weaken from his injuries

You are correct. The darkness is a result of his injuries with the voxyn queen. And had it not been for Vergere's tears, Jacen would surely have died.














END of SBS spoilers

 

You can respond to remarks, -Vergere-. I have a couple comments to make as well. I was just hopping that this thread would mostly stay on topic for a little bit. Speaking of which, I don?t think that Darth Cerberus directly commented on the topic of this thread?

SbS spoilers

















Jacen on the other hand, for all his philosophical musings in the past two years had no such moment.

Are you implying that the amount of raw Force energy that Anakin was using had little to do with the things that he accomplished, or are you implying that had Jacen been using that much Force, he would not have had similar revelations?

It's a lot easier to destroy than to create and I'm wondering whether Jacen's failure to translate his various Force abilities into anything more useful than slaughtering other beings (and for better or worse that is all he has done in the series - kill people, whether they be Vong or others) is significant.

He has used his abilities for more than just killing living things. He used his powers to find the Errant Venture (sp?), and he used his skills to create the battle meld. Both of these skills are not used to directly kill anything. Finding the Venture didn?t kill anything, and the battle meld only improved the teamwork of the group, nothing more.

















[/spoilers]

 

JMA's opinion of Jacen Solo and how it has evolved...Part 2

Balance Point: After the Centerpoint Fiasco

Well, needless to say, after reading the Agents of Chaos duology and wanting to dump Jacen Solo out of the trash chute in the middle of hyperspace, I was none too excited when I heard that BP was going to focus almost primarily on him. Lets face it, to this point the guy has not been a real exciting character. But still, Kathy Tyers is an excellent writer, and so I gave it a shot.

I had mixed feelings about Balance Point. It was very very well written, but I feel it showed just how misguided Jacen Solo really is. And since my disposition towards him was less than kindly anyway...I wasn't real sympathetic with the guy. A Jedi, one of the Skywalker bloodline, giving up the Force? Are you mad?!

He told Luke that he was serious enough to give up the Force entirely. I gasped and said "HE WOULDN"T?! SURELY HE'S NOT THAT STUPID!"

Boy was I ever wrong.

Anyway, about halfway through the book I'm just wishing it would end. All that was saving it was Anakin and Luke were off doing cool stuff. JEDI stuff. Jacen just confused the hell out of me with his swearing off of the Force. Just because a Jedi uses the Force doesn't mean that he feels he "Owns the universe" as he put it. A Jedi is a SERVANT first and foremost, at least a true Jedi is. A servant of the Republic. The Jedi use their special abilities, that they have gained through connection with the Force, in service of others. Jacen denying these abilities, and the responsibilities that come with them, totally, is the biggest crime of the NJO yet. Ah well.

Anyway, Balance Point comes to an end with Jacen finally using the Force again, albeit only to save his mother. I'll agree with Kyp Durron when I say that Jacen was the biggest form of hypocrite I have ever seen during Balance Point. Kyp pointed out that Jacen would not use the Force to save the lives of others, only of his family. It's possibly the only true word Kyp has ever spoken. Anyway, back to the end of BP. Jacen uses the Force in a most satisfactory way, and a ray of hope shines through for me concerning Jacen Solo. He seems to have found his place, and now he can get down to business, being all the Jedi he can be. My opinion of Jacen is slowly on the rise by the end of BP....

Edge of Victory Duology: Where in the World is Jacen Solo?

Well, time for Anakin's turn in the spotlight, so we don't see much of Jacen. Apparently his beliefs are much the same though throughout it. Still my feelings are slowly climbing upward for him, although they have a looooooooong way to go at this point to be dug out of the bottomless pit he was in already.

Star By Star: Jacen hits a new low for me early on, but redeems himself by leaps and bounds later on in the book.

I'm getting a bit tired of writing so we'll keep this short.

Jacen was flat out wrong to assume the worst of Anakin, and that mistake is nearly inexcusable. AGAIN he constantly is showing that he feels he knows the Force better than anyone present, and the line between light and dark. I found myself cheering Anakin on when he considered leaving Jacen at home. I thought he should have. This was not a mission suited to Jacen's talents.

But by the end of the book, I feel that Jacen had redeemed himself. Why? Because he had come to the realization that in a war one was forced to do things that he may not want to do. Jacen realized that he didn't have to like it, he just had to do it, and he couldn't allow his philosophical crap to get in the way. I was actually extremely proud of Jacen at the end of SbS, for fulfilling his mission even when he really had no desire to. He just knew it needed to be done. Way to go Jace.

So my opinion of Jacen has definitely changed for the better. While I'm not ready to become a member of the fanclub yet...give it time. I may be one soon.

JMA

 

Give the man some credit, he's like 19 now but he was 16 when this mess started.

At 20 years old I'm ashamed of the beliefs I held when I was sixteen. Beliefs that were formed of hatred, intolerance, and misguided facts that I was unable to distinguish from reality because I'd never thought of people using agendas so...

Just lying.

In fact I'm now a bigger enemy of the person I was than I've ever been before.

Yes Jacen made mistakes and while he assumed the worst of Anakin WILL YOU LOOK AROUND HIM.

He was swearing off the Force Ghandi style in hopes people would stop using it so recklessly like Wurth Skidder, Kyp, and the rest...

He forgot Ghandi's law which unfortunately is "Passive agressive resistance only works when your enemy give a darn whether you live or die" (paraphrased)

Kyp honestly didn't care Jacen was making a stand, he only saw it as a boy being a fool.
Jacen felt his demonstration would do more good in the end....perhaps he would have been right but choosing between watching hsi mother die and destroying Lah...he chose to stop him.

Perhaps he should have killed him but Jacen spared his life I think because I don't think killing is insticntual to him, good for him.

I am dissapointed in LEIA more than Jacen, her SON rescues her? YOU ARE THE OTHER!

Jacen is spouting philosophy and rhetoric of the Jedi but let's also realize that while Anakin learned how to sense the Vong first...

Anakin didn't spread it and died first

 

Quite interesting opinions, thanks JMA.