Lit Myrkr Is What Makes The NJO Work (And The Galaxy A Better Place)

DurararaFTW · Dec 9, 2016

xezene said: ↑

Okay, Anakin's Death/NJO essay time -- this is sorta long and I never expected it to be ... but ya'know... I love these characters and stories, so here it is:

The discussion of Anakin's death reminds me of the discussion/debate over the beginning of Alien³. The decision to open the film by essentially sending Ripley to hell and instantly killing two of the most sympathetic characters from the previous film, just killing them off on the start, and stranding Ripley on a planet full of prisoners and convicts, leaving her to make sense of the situation -- all of this has attracted criticism. And yet, it has many people who defend it as something that needed to happen. And if you are a believer in the concept of the film, they are right. In order to tell the story of Ripley dealing with all of this loss in a bleak and very unforgiving world of the Alien universe, we need to see it through her eyes, and we need there to be sometimes senseless loss, ripped away inexplicably. We need both things there in order for it to be effective. The whole essence of the film rests on one person's response to total bleakness, and the threat of more danger. And when you see it that way, it's impressive, actually, what Fincher did. Can a bunch of horrible, horrible convicts come together to save Earth? Laughable, most people would think this impossible. But this is what Ripley realistically achieves, in the face of despair, and to save humanity, she sacrifices herself. There's lots of stuff there, good narrative stuff, to chew on. While it's not a perfect film, I sympathize with defenders of this choice and I like the Assembly Cut final version of the film.

Now what does this have to do with Star by Star and the decision to kill Anakin? It's very much the same, or at least very similar. Except NJO eventually takes this in a very spectacular direction that Alien³ does not. For starters, we have a very sympathetic protagonist. He's liked by almost everyone and considered the future of the franchise. And yet, halfway through the series, the kid is straight-up killed. Not even just killed in an accident or something. He's murdered in combat. He gives his life for others, at least, so it's not completely senseless, but he's still dead. And he doesn't come back. Ever. And no one knows what to do. That's a helluva lot to take in.

Is it fair that Anakin died there? No.
Is it what the galaxy needed to happen? No.
Is it what any of us wanted to happen? No.
Is his death guaranteed to produce post-traumatic growth in other characters around him? No.
Does it fit with Star Wars, that our main hero would die halfway through the story? No.

But is it the best decision for the story? Yes.

In fact, scratch that: Undoubtedly, unquestionably, unshakably yes.

Anakin's death violates what we want. It refuses. It spits at us in the face. To our characters, death now says: ha! good luck making it out alive now. you being a hero means nothing to me. i come for you too. That little bubble that Han talked about in Vector Prime -- the one that sort of protected all the main characters? That he thought was destroyed when Chewie died? That's nothing. Chewie dying was sad, yes, but he was a side character from a previous age. He wasn't set up as the hero of the next generation. No, when Anakin died, that protective bubble? There wasn't just a hole in it now. It popped. And darkness flooded in. And our characters didn't know what to do with that.

And this is when, love the moment or hate it, the New Jedi Order grew its dark little angel wings and was ready to fly. Oh, and fly it did.

Did Anakin have to die? We can sit here and say yes or no, as readers. But the truth is, we don't know. Maybe the Jedi would have had a better chance with a superstar like Anakin surviving every time to save the day. That would wrap up the swashbuckler epic The New Jedi Order in a fun, righteous way!

Except, as others have said -- that's not what this series is about. We've seen that other series over and over again. No, instead, this series is about when that doesn't happen. When you trust the hero and he dies because not even he can get out of this thing alive. It's too much for him, so he has to give his life just on the off chance you can escape alive. (And now it's up to you to step up to the plate. Yikes!) It's like Dante's Inferno on a horrifying sci-fi scale. In fact, no, it's not just like Dante's Inferno -- it is Dante's Inferno. I quote from it:

In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there.

I cannot rightly say how I entered it. I was so full of sleep, at that point where I abandoned the true way. But when I reached the foot of a hill, where the valley, that had pierced my heart with fear, came to an end, I looked up and saw its shoulders brightened with the rays of that sun that leads men rightly on every road. Then the fear, that had settled in the lake of my heart, through the night that I had spent so miserably, became a little calmer. And as a man, who, with panting breath, has escaped from the deep sea to the shore, turns back towards the perilous waters and stares, so my mind, still fugitive, turned back to see that pass again, that no living person ever left.
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Star Wars had met Inferno and in the midst of it, it killed our hero and a lot of his friends and left our remaining characters feeling hollow, confused, shocked, horrified, and not knowing what to do. And it left us feeling the same way. This is when the story took on a life of it's own, for a key reason. There's an unspoken rule of Star Wars and most modern storytelling -- don't kill the hero. Or at least, don't kill one of our heroes. And we all sort of unconsciously accept this rule and come to expect it. That's why, I think, some said it violated the monomyth. It violates our sense of what the story should give us. We don't want it. And, to make sense in the world, the characters themselves unconsciously come to expect this protective bubble as well -- that's what Han was referring to above. ("Anakin won't die, he can't die. Han saved him instead of Chewie, so they wouldn't just let Anakin die. That would render Chewie's death meaningless!") And so, the New Jedi Order, Vector Prime, and most importantly Star by Star is a resounding message on this point. What does it say? It says: no. No, I won't give it to you. People die and things don't always turn out. If you want this to work, you are going to have to work for it. And you might not even survive if you win. The characters are gonna have to grow and figure this thing out themselves. Plot armor won't help them anymore. And now, even they know it. They're scared and they are ****ed up by all these events. They don't know what to do. Like real life. Growth means nothing if they don't have to work for it. The brightest light comes from the darkest night. And so NJO set up that "darkest night" pretty darn well.

I love that Jacen, the private, introspective, philosophical type, is suddenly thrust into this. He's not prepared. He's not the right guy. It should have been Anakin. He can't deal with this. And on top of that, he's getting tortured. He's got to actually change, actually grow now, to step up to the plate. He can't just twiddle his thumbs -- he's got to choose and act. He has to grow up, even though he doesn't know what to do or if he's right. Also like in real life. Same with Jaina. Both have to actually learn and do -- shock! -- character development in order to succeed. And it's hard and it hurts and it doesn't feel okay, but ya'know, sounding like a broken record here but: that's life.

There's a reason that NJO often resonates very deeply with those who connected to it. It's about what happens when our favorite fantasy characters meet a very bad situation with our real life world rules and have to deal with it. Because, as we know in our world, death spares no one. These guys have to deal with that. And they have to find the answers because at first no one knows what the hell to do with this. It's not easy and some make mistakes. But the most impressive thing about NJO is that it's bait-and-switch turns out to be one of the most powerful growth stories ever -- all this philosophical mumbo-jumbo, hemming and hawing by this side-show Jacen kid? all that distracting stuff in those early books? oh, I guess that has, like, a lot of relevance now. And, oh, I see why they did that... NJO actually managed to make the thing work as a cohesive whole, and you can look back and see Jacen as the protagonist the whole way, we only didn't realize it at first. Pretty darn good, I say.

And not only does Jacen grow, not only does he win, he owns it. The themes go in his direction. He achieves enlightenment on top of it. Would that have happened with Anakin? Who knows -- probably not -- but all we know is: this fell into Jacen's hands, so here's what he made of it. Not too shabby, Mr. Bodhisattva.

So, in conclusion to this long-winded post -- did it suck that Anakin died? Yeah. Was it unavoidable? Maybe. Maybe not. Like the surviving characters in the book, we imagine how it could have played out differently, and there is even some anger perhaps at why did it have to be this way. But does it make the story work, and does it make our characters work for it? Big time yes. They've got to deal with it, we've got to deal with it, and out of that darkness we reach a height that, at the end of it all, may be the highest ending the EU could possibly end on. And I can personally attest that Jacen went from one of my most indifferent characters to being my favorite of the EU. So yeah... Anakin, you were good, we loved ya, and we didn't want you to die. But you died, and our characters had to deal with it. But they turned that big lump of coal into a gold diamond in the end, and so, in that sense, you dying had its place -- and for this story to happen the way it did, it had to happen exactly how it did.
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Anakin wasn't "the" hero of NJO. At most he was this in Conquest and Star by Star till his death, in the story as a whole Jacen and Han were already just as big or bigger characters. And Luke, untouchable and unstoppable as he is, was also still around, pretty big deal.

Barriss_Coffee · Dec 9, 2016

xezene - That was... really excellent.

Charlemagne19 · Dec 9, 2016

DurararaFTW said: ↑

Anakin wasn't "the" hero of NJO. At most he was this in Conquest and Star by Star till his death, in the story as a whole Jacen and Han were already just as big or bigger characters. And Luke, untouchable and unstoppable as he is, was also still around, pretty big deal.
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Eh, Conquest was a big change for the story as it seemed to be a big reverse of the clumsy complete failures of before.

xezene · Dec 9, 2016

DurararaFTW said: ↑

Anakin wasn't "the" hero of NJO. At most he was this in Conquest and Star by Star till his death, in the story as a whole Jacen and Han were already just as big or bigger characters. And Luke, untouchable and unstoppable as he is, was also still around, pretty big deal.
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True, I suppose I meant in the classical sense. Anakin is the swashbuckling, hero type, and that was really played up till he died. A lot of people looked to him to be that moving forward, too, fans and characters alike, but we all know where that ended up.

Revanfan1 · Dec 10, 2016

xezene said: ↑

DurararaFTW said: ↑

Anakin wasn't "the" hero of NJO. At most he was this in Conquest and Star by Star till his death, in the story as a whole Jacen and Han were already just as big or bigger characters. And Luke, untouchable and unstoppable as he is, was also still around, pretty big deal.
Click to expand...

True, I suppose I meant in the classical sense. Anakin is the swashbuckling, hero type, and that was really played up till he died. A lot of people looked to him to be that moving forward, too, fans and characters alike, but we all know where that ended up.
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Yeah, in-universe everyone basically expected him to be the new Luke, and that was mentioned multiple times up to (and following) his death. "Ya got the makings of greatness in ya," to quote Treasure Planet, is how everyone looked at Anakin.

Barriss_Coffee · Dec 11, 2016

When they killed him -- the year the book came out -- I remember we all assumed it was a con and he'd be back as lead in the next book. Mainly because there was no one of his caliber to fill his shoes. We certainly didn't have high hopes for Jacen.

But that was what made it so brilliant in retrospect -- Anakin was destined to be the hero from the start of the series, and Jaina was always the dependable heroine. Jacen was the feet-dragging ruminating sibling who second-guessed everything all the time. There was no "hero's journey" for the first two because they were already heroes (Jaina having brief forays in the Dark Side notwithstanding). But Jacen had to really work to achieve the same status. And the major impetus for that was Anakin's fate, because Anakin had been his hero who he had, for whatever reason, always deferred to thinking he could never be as good.

(In retrospect after reading LOTF, perhaps he took mirroring Anakin a bit too far, re: "Don't you get it? You're exactly what I want to be when I grow up." "What, dead?" )

Grey1 · Dec 12, 2016

Re-reading the NJO, I was surprised how much of a jerk Anakin could be; basically him, Kyp and the pro-war Jedi used their negative emotions and amplified them into their characters. Pro-war Jedi were very quick to act up aggressively against the people on their side that didn't share their exact point of view. Anakin "winning" the NJO might therefore have ended with him as a Revan-like warlord or something. Now here's your "what if Anakin survived" fan fiction.

Charlemagne19 · Dec 12, 2016

I think the NJO would have been better if Anakin had taken the shot at Centerpoint and actually hit the target only for things to screw up afterward

Give him an inflated sense of awesome.

Darth Invictus · Dec 13, 2016

Someone needs to write a fanfic of Anakin's going dark and joining Lumiya after the Vong war and having to be put down by his family. Now that's a dark fanfic I'll read.

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Lit Myrkr Is What Makes The NJO Work (And The Galaxy A Better Place)

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