Characters Luke and Mara Index & Discussion (2.0)! *New Topic: Change is Hard!*

When I started reading the EU, I already knew Luke and Mara got together, so everything I read about them I read knowing it would happen and saw it in that light. Probably made me read into it more than the authors intended, but I certainly thought it was there in a few books (not enough, of course!). I don't remember what books I really saw it in, but as soon as JM77 said I, Jedi, I seem to recall thinking there was some subtle L/M in it.

I didn't realize they all knew the end game, I thought it was just a few that had that idea but it wasn't really shared between them because it wasn't a cohesive thing.

 

Yeah, I was VERY surprised to read that KJA had said something along the lines of that the Bantam era authors all knew they were going to get together all along, because reading them and following the publication of the books when they originally came out, it certainly didn't seem that way. I would speculate that KJA was told this when writing Darksabre and ending the Callista relationship, and he maybe assumed the other authors were all told the same, when maybe they hadn't. Either way, Bantam missed a real opportunity to properly develop the relationship due to lack of joined up story development. The 'cheat code' (I love that description!) was very necessary to make sure things were all neatly tied up. And whilst the 'bond' concept is kinda romantic (who wouldn't want a husband who understood all your deepest needs and desires?! Especially in the bedroom ), ultimately I'd have preferred to see it done properly over the whole series. Would have been so much more fun to read!

Hmm, looks like I have another idea to add to my writing list! I have a couple of others to get through first, and I need to re-read HoT first too! So it may be a while! Meanwhile I've been massively enjoying ThreadSketch 's 'I'll Come With You' story which touches on some similar ideas

 

I know KJA has said he knew by the time he was writing YJKs, because they had Mara show up for conjugal visits just to say hello quite a bit. There is some blink-and-you'll-miss-it L/M subtext in the Corellian Trilogy, but that may have just been to indicate that they were better friends than before rather than as a lead up to HoT. Darksaber actually had nice little L/M moment, which makes sense if that was the "get rid of Callista" book.

But I do wonder whether it's a bit of hindsight talking when authors say they "all knew" L/M were endgame.


Off topic, but here's my challenge response:

Celestial Love

 

Like Mav, I when I started reading the EU, I already knew Luke ended up with Mara (actually, by the time I started ~2007/8, they had already killed her off ) so maybe I read into the few pre-HoT LM scenes a bit too much, but I do remember I, Jedi having a definite hint of something. I gotta go back and read that book. It was actually enjoyable IIRC.

But I have my doubts on weather ALL the authors knew LM was the endgame. Kinda like how the Great Flanneled One says he always knew Luke and Leia were twins (really, would there REALLY have been that much kissing in ANH and ESB if they were twins from the start?).


Also, I'm a bit late to the convo, but I think the Force Bond definitely had a 'volume control'. At least, that's the way I depict it.

 

Did Mara actually turn up in YJK (or JJK)? I've not read them, but Wookiepedia doesn't mention her being in them (or even referred to) at all? Anyone know which ones she turns up in? I'm curious now...

 

I started reading Star Wars books in the late 70s and I have to tell you, if Lucas always knew Luke and Leia were twins he never told the guy who wrote The Splinter of the Mind's Eye. My first fanfic ( written in 1979) had Luke and Leia knocking boots!

 

Ouch! I always wondered what it must have been like to be a Luke/Leia shipper in 1983. A bit like if Mara now turned up in TFA and went 'hi Luke, I'm your half sister by Vader/Bo Katan!' I guess. I'd be like "Nooooo! That's not true! That's impossible!" and go and jump off something very high

Glad I'm a bit too young to have gone through that

 

Annia Piet, Mara never shows up in the YJK or JJK. Claiming that she snuck in for "conjugal visits" was KJA's way of cover his you-know-what. I think hindsight is 20:20 and people like Anderson who say that he "always" knew L/M were endgame is lying.

 

I'm not sure if ALL the authors knew, but it's been mentioned it at cons, specifically Dragon Con on panels with Zahn/Stackpole/Allston/KJA, so I'm inclined to believe at least all of them knew what was going to happen.

Actually, the first author I remember hearing saying that other people knew was Tim Zahn at Celebration VI, and I was kind of shocked by that. But then other authors confirmed what he said. *shrug*

 

Fair enough really. I can imagine a situation where KJA and a few others knew and assumed everyone else did too, but that editors hadn't communicated it that widely or well. Or that memory has got blurred with time. Still, all water under the bridge now! And the 'cheat code' does leave us something interesting to play with in fics

 

My challenge response is up.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/certainty-l-m-february-challenge.50027405/#post-52155480]Certainty[/url]

 

Well. if they knew, they certainly didn't tell poor Barbara Hambly

As for the bond, I agree with @Briannakin's description of "volume control." Zahn plays with it in Survivor's Quest: the really deep connection, where they act practically as one mind, works best when they are standing back to back and both are open to it.

I've been known to "tune out" my husband when he's next to me talking in my ear (but really, he should know better than to try and get my attention during certain television shows or when I'm reading certain things ); my head canon is both Luke and Mara can dial up and down their attention to each other's mental processes as necessary.

 

*wanders in and looks around curiously* Hello, all! Hope no one minds me slipping in every now and then...

I've often been curious myself about the whole 'who knew and when' situation in regards to Luke and Mara ultimately ending up together. I was actually just reading on Callista's Wookiepedia page (I know, I know - I was curious! ) that the woman was intended to be "the great love of Luke Skywalker's life", but by the time KJA was writing Darksaber, Lucasfilm had decided to capitalize on Mara's enormous popularity with the fans and so told KJA to work toward writing Callista out of Luke's life. Hambly got to have a brief reunion between Luke and Callista (the "look") in Planet of Twilight, and that supposedly left the way clear for Luke and Mara.

As for the cheat code, I'm of two minds about it. Leia and Han have a deep, wonderful, amazing relationship without the need of any overt Force bond or whathaveyou, so I'm not entirely certain why Luke and Mara needed one full time, even with volume control. I get Zahn's thinking that it was necessary due to the minor-to-non-existent build-up in the books previous to HoT. Maybe it would have been better if it was a momentary thing, perhaps a brief burst of sudden clarity and understanding of one another in the heat of trying to keep each other alive, and then going back to being two separate beings who get to build their relationship the way everyone else does.

Then again, I only know the bones of Luke and Mara's married life. I read Vector Prime - more specifically Chewie's death - promptly threw the book across the room and swore off the NJO. I've never even read Sacrifice, though I know what happens, of course. Most of what I know comes from Wookiepedia.

 

While JadeLotus mentioned some EU highlights, I'll freely admit I've gotten way more insight and enjoyment out of the L/M 'ship from fanfic than profic. There are some stellar fic authors out there who understand and express them with much more depth than whatever I got out of the stuff from the bookstore.


Well, that, and way too much Tumblr meta.

 

Me too - I kind of see the Legends books as more of a jumping off point, with fanfic really informing my enjoyment of the couple. I have so any beloved fanfics I've re-read over the years, but I rarely re-read the profic.

An interesting thought, AngelQueen, about the bond forming momentarily to make them face their feelings, and then having to date like a normal couple without the benefit of the bond. Plot bunny, perhaps?

 

And actually, there's more precedent to this type of "bond" for them in the profic, if we want to get technical - during Survivor's Quest they meld completely with each other to know when to use their lightsabers at the same time at just the right moment, but then they retreat. The profic seems to imply that the bond mostly exists only when they need to work together in a fight or other type of conflict or self-defense. The rest of the time it's kind of just in the background.

What makes "Teh Bond" interesting, though, is that it can serve as a contrast to a regular relationship like Han and Leia's without being better - or worse - than that. It's just different, and presents a whole other set of nuances and potential problems for them to work through. Considering how fiercely private Mara is, it's quite a development for her and it provides her with a thought-provoking challenge.

 

Here is my quote challenge fanfic: Breakfast on Yavin IV

 

Alright, odd question, but I'm going to preface it with: it's 2am here.

So, in the AU I'm working on (and easily arguably this can apply entire legacy EU and all the characters) Mara has seen some pretty messed up shavit (she was the last person alive at the end of the vong war before she gets transported to another reality). I want to portray her in character, but also show that she clearly has problems to work out. How do (or would) you guys do this?

(I'm just trying to open up a broader discussion, rather than focus on just my problems) but when you have an extreme AU (either good "no empire, everyone is happy" AU or a completely depressing AU) how do you show how the setting has impacted Luke and/or Mara while keeping them in character?


In other news, I would be really appreciative if someone could look over the first 3 chapters of a LM fic. I'm not looking for a beta, just someone to let me know if it is worth continuing to work on, or if Mara is just too OOC and to scrap it.

 

Very interesting question. I've been working on an AU where Mara's childhood is different (rescued from the Emperor type of thing) and I've been trying to work out what those 'core' traits of Mara are that make Mara Mara no matter what her past. A few points off the top of my head:

Sharp
Intelligent
Very capable
Natural grace
LOYALTY (this is a big one)
Strong sense of principles and right and wrong (but can be shaped one way or the other by upbringing/training/experiences)
Snark. I can't imagine Mara without the snark in any universe... Although it might be softer without her imperial upbringing.

Dunno if that helps much in your context, I'd be interested to know what others think are her core traits, it would help me a great deal too!

I'd imagine different personal histories would change what's layered on top - brought up by her parents, Mara may have been more light hearted, easy going, flirtatious, selfish etc etc.

 

AngelQueen - like Thread and others, ff drives and fuels my L/M love and made it deeper and stronger than ever profic could have.

Annia Piet - those are some great core traits that I can see Mara having no matter what her past. I agree that being rescued from the Emperor would give her much less baggage and knee-jerk resentment and/or distrust.

Briannakin - I'd love to have a looksee.

 

Are you saying everything is the same for her up to the Vong war and Luke and Ben are dead? Also what is this other reality like? Was there a Vong War? Are Ben and Luke alive. Is another version of her alive?

If she is one of the only people alive after the Vong war I would think she is majorly screwed up. I think she wouldn't want to get close to people. If you have been hurt and saw everybody you loved die...would you want to reopen those wounds. Also, if this is a new reality, it is not her reality. It is not her Luke or Ben. In the profics she would leave if things became too uncomfortable. I would think she would do the same thing. Go someplace where nobody knows her. She might go to the areas where the Vong first appeared in her reality and look for signs of a new invasion. If she couldn't be with her family perhaps she could save this galaxy's version of reality.

That is my take on it. I do think to make her recognizable you should maintain the snark like Annia Piet mentioned. In one of my AU fics my Mara was somewhat different. She had lost faith in the emperor years before his death and never got the last command. Despite these changes some reviewers over at FFN thought she didn't seem like Mara. She was too open and nice. They found it jarring. So some of the qualities have to remain or she is viewed as an OC with the name Mara Jade.

 

Thanks. That is sorta what I've been trying to do. I think you hit many of her core traits.

I dont wanna give too much away but yes, in Mara's reality, the Vong were never stopped, she and Luke were the last humans, Luke dies as she gets transported to the reality that we know as the "legacy cannon" post-FOTJ, so the Vong war happened as we know it and Luke and Ben are alive, but the other version of her died at the hands of Darth Al'acarpola (my new name for Jacen since I can never spell his Darth name).

Hmmm. Thanks. I completely agree with you, so I think my fic may be taking the wrong direction. She basically wants to make this Luke happy, but she believes she is betraying the Luke that died, so she is very conflicted. I think I may just shelf the project for now and start on something that doesn't hurt my head so much.

 

Briannakin I think it sounds like an interesting story. Maybe Mara wants to leave and Luke also doesn't want her around, but teenage Ben goes crazy at the thought of losing his mother a second time. He becomes suicidal. Luke is mad that this Mara brought back all these emotions for the boy. Mara is mad because she lost much more than them. How dare the farm boy put a guilt trip on her. He says she owes it to Ben to stay a while until he can get therapy for this emotional shock. He suggests Mara should do the same. She says she is not going to play house with him to ease the boy's grief. There can be a lot of angst at first and then maybe they both come around. Or maybe they don't and she leaves eventually and Luke realizes he misses her and pursues her like some stalker on Investigation Discovery.

 

The way I saw it was Ben wouldn't want another mother (and from the universe she came from, she aborted the pregnancy) so he wouldn't want Mara around. He has moved past her death, as most kids do after their parent dies, and he doesn't want another mother. He saw what her death did to his dad the first time and doesn't want him to go through that again. So Mara leaves out of respect for Ben. Ben then sees that her leaving has hurt his dad more than her dying so he goes after her.

 

I laughed really hard when we found out that Luke and Leia were supposed to be twins because the original Topps (released in 1977-80) baseball like cards had their ages at like 20 and 22. The first thing I said was - gee that must have been one helk of a delivery and labor. Then someone joked and said they were born in hyperspace and that accounted for the time age thing. Just food for thought on that one.

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I met Timothy Zahn a few weeks ago and he had an interesting story about Hot Chocolate and how he battled for it to be in the SW Universe as Hot Chocolate and not some SW word that meant the same. He said that he was sure that other places/planets would have it and any planet worth going to in the galaxy would have Chocolate. As you know he won. He then told us the sad story that he was as unaware about Mara being killed off as the fans were. The information of her demise was withheld from him because Lucasfilm was afraid he would leak it. I asked him if he would ever write Mara's backstory given the chance. He said no that he wanted it to remain mysterious. But he is hoping that he still gets offers for future SW projects.