Lit Mara Jade - what are her best depictions, and what her worst?

Best: Vecter Prime, and most of the NJO, TTT, Survivor's Quest

worst: UNION, sucky comic, and DN

 

What was so bad about Union? It had plenty of traditional Stackpole humor, as well as Mara's kindness toward the dress designer, and Luke's compassion toward the would-be plotters.

 

People have commented that it's a bit fanservicey - still, I liked their wedding vows to each other.

 

The wedding dress scene has this gem:

Designer: "But neo-Imperial designs are new and retro at the same time!"
Leia: "Yes, but the bride doesn't want to look like the father of the groom!"
Designer: "This is a problem why?"

 

I'm just curious but did Mara Jade actually defeat or outwit Darth Vader in Allegiance? Because i don't seem to remember that in the book, though i haven't read it in awhile, but if that's the case then that would be my least favorite moment. I'm not at all a Mara Jade hater and i don't mind if Vader is defeated by someone , but watching ESB Jade does not come across as someone who could defeat Vader both in combat and in intelligence at least for me.

 

She managed to stop him from turning her into shish kebab for a minute or two and all that saved her from that was Vader cooling off.

 

Yup - Fett 4's quoted the scene a couple of times before:

"I'm here on an important mission, and I need some assurance your presence here isn't going to get in the way."
“That my presence won't get in your way?" Vader demanded, his voice dropping half an octave. "Walk softly, Emperor's Hand."
"I don't walk softly where treason is involved," Mara countered. "I'm on the trail—"
"No!" Vader boomed, his voice slamming across the room and straight through Mara's skull. He took a long step around the end of the table toward her, his black cloak billowing, his gloved hand dropping to his lightsaber. "She is the key to finding him. She is mine!"
"What?" Mara managed, her own simmering anger vanishing in the realization that she was suddenly in big trouble. "No, I—"
But it was too late. Vader pulled the lightsaber from his belt, and with a snap-hiss the blazing red blade appeared. Holding the weapon in attack position, he strode toward her.
Mara took a step backward, snatching out her own lightsaber but leaving it closed down. The last thing she wanted to do was try to match blades with a Sith Lord. She threw a quick look at the door, shifting her weight in preparation for a dash for freedom.
But Vader either spotted the glance or read her body language. Shifting direction, he angled toward the door, blocking any chance of escape.
Grimacing, Mara shifted her weight in the other direction and threw herself sideways onto the conference table. A quick kick-and-roll off her left shoulder, and she had landed in a crouch on the floor on the far side. "Take it easy," she called as soothingly as she could. "What's Governor Choard to you, anyway?"
Raising his lightsaber high, Vader slashed the blade straight through the table. Mara took a quick step back as the two sections of the bisected table crashed to the floor. With the wall at her back, and Vader between her and the door, there was only one option left. "You want trouble?" she demanded, finally igniting her lightsaber and lifting it to blocking position in front of her. "Fine. Come and get it."
Vader's only reply was to shift his own weapon again into attack position as he stepped into the gap between the two sections of table. Stretching out to the Force, Mara reached to the wall behind him and switched off the lights.
It was a trick she would never have tried with a normal opponent. Their two lightsabers didn't give off a lot of light, but there was more than enough for biological eyes to work with while they adjusted to the gloom.
But Vader's helmet was equipped with optical sensors for use in dim light, with all the strengths and weaknesses inherent in such equipment. There was a chance that for the first crucial second before the contrast adjusted itself all he would see was her glowing lightsaber blade floating in a field of otherwise total darkness.
She was right. With a bellow, the Sith Lord angled his lightsaber and slashed it viciously in a horizontal arc through the air half a meter beneath the glowing magenta blade.
Only Mara wasn't there anymore. Using the Force to hold her lightsaber floating in place, she had dropped to the floor the instant the lights went out and rolled out of sight beneath one of the angled sections of the broken table.
Vader stopped in his tracks, and for a long moment the room was silent except for the hum of the lightsabers. Mara listened carefully, but the steadiness of the sound indicated that he was holding the weapon motionless. Was he finally coming to his senses? And then, to her relief, she heard the familiar sizzle as he closed down the weapon. A moment later, the room's lights came back on. "What were you saying about Governor Choard?" Vader asked, his voice calm again.
Cautiously, Mara emerged from cover, alert for any last-minute tricks. But Vader had taken a step back from the table, and his lightsaber was again hooked onto his belt. The brief madness was over.

 

Union is amazing, I don't know what you all are talking about. It has a Wookiee with a keg.

Also, it makes a great holder for a wedding ceremony script.

 

People probably forget that Union is arguably the coda to the Bantam era besides the marriage of Luke and Mara. The comic is understandably lighter in tone, and this is one of the few instances that Mara is slightly more likable than normal.

I'll have to echo the criticisms of Zahn's later portrayals of Mara. In many ways Mara is a symbol of the weaknesses of his later novels. The self-indulgence of the Vader Allegiance scenes, the laughable attempts at chemistry in Survivor's Quest, and the utter forgetfulness of Choices of One. Mara Jade, by the Emperor's Hand is a fun read despite being the birthplace of this neither light nor dark nonsense. Congratulations, by toning down the actions of Mara's past you dilute the power of her joining the New Republic. Same for this "I am the only Hand!" gibberish. Instead of characterizing Mara's growing internal conflict between the idealized past of the Emperor's service versus the reality of her finding out she is only one of many pawns you lessen the conflict. Meh.

 

NJO is still some of the worst, but i'd be remiss if I didn't mention LOTF Mara. She's an idiot, and mainly serves to worry over Ben, and get in Luke's way about suspecting Jacen, because she's afraid of driving Ben away from them.

 

im still crushed we never got a Union II: The Wedding of Jaina and Jagged


although it would have been more tragic than fanservice-y i guess because all their friends are dead

 

I never even thought of a second Union comic, but that sounds great. Now I have another thing to add to my "Things we'll never get list."

 

Denning's depiction of Jaina and Jag's wedding was awful. Who was in attendance? Were there other Fels there? Jag's surviving siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles --- or, heaven forbid, his parents? There are more surviving Fels than you think.

Seriously, was there some sort of legal prohibition about having the Baron appear in a book? The NJO/LOTF/FOTJ folks kept being handed on a silver platter reasons to use Soontir. Zahn introduces the Empire of the Hand as a group that surely should be key players in the upcoming alien invasion storyline... and then they're promptly ignored. Save for Baron's weird role in Refugee where the Empire of the Hand and the Chiss Ascendency were the same thing for some reason. Then Ostrander and Duursema establish that the Fel line goes on to rule the Empire... but the Baron still gets the shaft. Denning himself places Jag at the head of the Remnant... and then FOTJ doesn't at all address the fact that he has a family. Did they come and live with him in Imperial Space? Did he ever think about them? Did they attend his damn wedding?

Baron has always been a fan-favourite character. Hell, he's one of the few EU characters to have been made into an action figure twice. You know who else has? The heavyweights. Thrawn. Mara. Quinlan. Shira/Lumiya. And randomly Deena Shan, but whatever. So why, when there were so many reasons to use Baron Fel in one of their books, did they refuse to? Ugh.

 

Can I just give a hearty ditto to this? I like well-rounded characters. I love the fact that Mara is secretly a big music nerd - she pit-stopped on Chibias just to hear the Coruscant Full Symphony. Details like that make the characters feel more real. She can still be her awesome butt-kicking self while having distinctive and more low-key personality traits.

 

If I had to nominate a "worst" I'd say in The New Rebellion - because it does so little with her character. All she does is carry a ysalamir.

 

But she carries it...

... with style.

 

Sacrifice should also be among the worst. She learns an Skywalker line Jedi has gone Sith and decides to kill him herself without warning anyone of it. It ends as would have been expected, with her death and the Jedi non the wiser.

Good job.

 

If you read the above passage, Mara outsmarts Vader and is ahead on points when she ends the fight. Vader by contrast is outsmarted by the lights being turned off and "bellows" for some strange reason.

The are the other scenes in the book that leave in no doubt Mara is the better of the 2.

The first scene where she finds Vader on Google, has Vader being jealous of her, which from her OC view she dismisses but the reader is left in no doubt that is the case. She then accesses his Google history.

There is another scene where they have a stare down and Vader gives in, with another scene with Vader whining to Palpatine about Mara like a child to a parent about his sister, again Mara is on top. He even takes Ozzel as his flag captain to keep an eye on him on her recommendation about his untrustworthiness.

The author leave no doubt they are equal level with Mara the better more awesome person.

There is also Choices of One where she decides not to inform Vader about someone who would be the most wanted person in the Empire for no reason.
I forget the name of the comic where after the death of Palpatine she teams up with the Rebellion (again) to take down a corrupt Imperial in honour of his last command. Does the stupidity of that plot really need explaining

 

That would be:

 

So you are a loyal Imperial devoted to the Emperor and you team up with the organisation that killed him. Yeah sure !

 

Wookieepedia summary of the story:

Mara Jade lands on Kintoni in an attempt to escape the forces ofYsanne Isard. There she spots Rebel General Crix Madine being escorted by several Rebel guards to a local garrison. Mara infiltrates the building that Crix entered and sees him interrogating formerImperial Governor Barkale. Barkale insists he knows nothing of the location of his sector forces, and he is eventually sent back to his "quarters." Mara works her way through the building to Governor Barkale, until she finds a datapad showing the Executor. She links it into the main sensor feed. She continues through the garrison until she's stopped in Madine's quarters. Crix calls for reinforcements, but when he reaches for his robe, she shoots his blaster out of his hands and puts her own to his head just as the reinforcements arrive.

Meanwhile, the Executor is seen on the security screen (a product of Mara's sabotage), resulting in the alarm being sounded, allowing Mara to stun-blast the distracted guards. Mara makes a deal with Crix; one which apparently involves her and Governor Barkale getting out alive. Barkale leads Mara to his home nearby, where Mara discovers a sculpture and asks where it came from. Barkale claims he got it from the treasury, but Mara notices that it was reported by Barkale to be stolen or destroyed in a Rebel attack two years ago; as is the case for most of the art in the room. She charges him with treasonous embezzlement, but Barkale throws a vase at her head. She quickly ducks out of the way and shoots Governor Barkale with her blaster. Mara contacts General Madine, and gives him the address of Barkale's treasure stash; she muses that the Rebels would have found it regardless, and that them getting it a few days early was worth killing the traitorous Barkale. As dawn approaches, Mara boards a shuttle and flies off.