Lit SOB: Save Our Ben, Ben Skywalker

That's an interesting trope but it could have more simpler explanations such as writers and readers finding green eyed red heads appealing.

I never got the impression Palleaon was mutinous, stubborn somewhat but he wasn't cowardly either.

 

Pellaeon was the one who surrendered. I call that a coward.
Regarding Redheads in SW, maybe it's became too much. Shira Brie have them, Mara, Scout, Cade's girlfriend, and Daala. Seha Dorvald.
I'm guilty in finding them easy on the eyes.... But man, in Star Wars, you just have to open your eyes and they drop from the sky.

 

He didn't surrender-he put the empire's long term survival ahead of imperial pride and grand delusion. He stated as much to the Moffs "If we fight on the ideals of the new order will perish, if we surrender they can be preserved and when the new republic self destructs we will be positioned to rise again" (partial paraphrase).

Cade's girlfriend wasn't a red head-she had blue hair. As I recall Azlyn Rae was just a youthful crush of his.

I'm trying to think of non red heads-Tahiri, Danni, Nelani(IIRC), Leia, Jaina, Deliah an quite a few others.

 

Jello's main "Pellaeon the coward" reason isn't Hand of Thrawn - it's in The Thrawn Trilogy where he (in flashback) retreats at Endor despite outnumbering the Rebels, recommends a retreat in his very first scene in Heir to the Empire (Thrawn stays, and wins) and retreats after Bilbringi and Thrawn's death despite outgunning the New Republic fleet.

Throw in the Clone Wars comics retreat, and it's easy to see why it's become a theme. Though pragmatism rather that cowardice is the way the narrators tend to portray it.

 

Pragmatism saves lives and wins wars. Any reasonably competent officer understands this. All in all though Palleaon is a true believer in the empire as an institution and ideology. That's fascinating he isn't a darkside megalomaniac like Palpatine who sees the empire ultimately as a stepping stone to much greater power or a genius like Thrawn but someone who makes mistakes, yet also sometimes makes the right call as well.

I always figured Palleaon as a pragmatic idealist-he believes in the empire but he can also look beyond dreams of glory and reconquest and see reality as it is. That was something the empire sorely needed. And in the end at least in the Legends canon it payed off.

 

Also, keep in mind that Jello is clearly a post-Endor warlord hellbent on discrediting all possible leaders for the Empire except a conveniently-too-young-to-rule girl. Of course he badmouths Pellaeon.

 

While discussing LOTF and by extension Ben Skywalker I realized that in the end Lumiya won. She divided and broke Luke's family was indirectly responsible for Tahiri becoming a Sith and hence torturing Ben.

Re-reading Invincible just confirms that she won, somewhere in deep in Chaos she was laughing.

What an utter tragic ending.

 

Yeah, I wish Ben had redeemed Jacen. But apparently that would have been too much like Darth Vader (maybe because redemption is centre to the Star Wars Story!?)

 

Apparently Jacen dying unredeemed was Denning's idea.

 

Ben has already redeemed Tahiri. Using him to redeem Jacen would mean he is the great redeemer!

Maybe it can be revealed that Ben has a secret sibling. Like with the Chiss.

 

If Jacen had a greater part in FOTJ, where he redeemed himself from beyond the grave or helped more with the fight against Abeloth, then fine.

But I suppose Denning wouldn't have liked that.

 

No it was the Fan demand after Mara's death.

 

Denning has admitted publically he pushed hard for it.

 

Maybe but I guess the massive fan hatted against Jacen played into that aswell.

 

Probably-if anything it made it easier for that position to be palatable to the editors and such.

 

Well, thanks to the death of Jacen/Caedus, the line of Solo goes the way of the Plantagenets.
I consider Ania Solo to be a fluke. Is she confirmed to have Solo blood? Is she calling herself Solo as some sort of hero worship?
Anyway, is Kol and Nat's father confirmed to be Ben? Or is that mostly implied. I know Mara appeared to Cade, but hey, he didn't call her Grandma....

 

Ania references her ancestors, compares them to royalty and there is also the part of her backstory where she is stated to have rejected fate and bought a junkyard.

Problem is we don't know her ancestry? Is she Allana's descendant? A lost descendant of Jag and Jaina? Jacen and Tahiri? Anakin even?

They never told us exactly from whence she came-though it is clear Han and Leia were her more than likely great grand parents.

 

So much left unanswered. I'd rather know more about this, than new canon.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with you.

 

Why?

It's not like Mara never murdered anyone.

Having read (on audiobook) the TT I don't get all the love of Mara, since she is an unrepentant Palpatine follower.

Also Vader murdered a planet (or at least let it happen) and yet he was redeemed, so why not Jacen who wasn't nearly that bad

 

The thing about Mara is that we can understand her. Privilege, loyalty, depression... etc. To a certain extent I think people self inserted.
Now, all that, does it mean she is the one for Luke Skywalker? I'm more of a Luke/Shira Brie or Luke/Callista fan myself, but I can say Luke and Mara loved each other, and that's enough.

Die Jacen die? Someone have to pay! Vader got redeemed, yet still died. You can argue why Jacen isn't redeemed, but I guess you can't argue why he can't be alive....

I will say however, Mara's last words, "You are as vile as he is?" What the flying _____________! That's not Mara. So ____________ Out of character. So Palpatine is evil incarnate, but he was the father figure until full adulthood! Okay, someone found out the father figure is a serial killer, so the fact that he raised you, trained you, fed you, clothed you means nothing?

Edit: I'm also bummed that Ben is the only child.

 

Wait I didn't realize Luke/Shira Brie shippers existed. You have surprised me Mu.

Jacen didn't do that much in terms of overall villainy but he did sacrifice his own life for Allana and Tenel Ka.

It's also implied at the end of Invincible that the persona of Darth Caedus retreated somewhat and the light of Jacen shone through at least partially.

If Jacen was a fully unredeemable Dark Lord he would blasted Jaina into space. Something she acknowledged he was more than capable of doing.

 

That kind of "he's always been kind to me" allowing the character's perspective to be distorted, is selfishness - which isn't very Jedi.

Between TTT and LOTF, Mara's attitude to Palpatine soured considerably, the more she found out about his vile deeds and cold cruelties.

Survivor's Quest has a good moment of this:

"It's one thing to talk about ten years' worth of supplies for something this big," Luke commented as they walked past the stacked crates toward the next door leading aft. "It's something else to actually see them."
"And this is just one level," Mara murmured, an odd sensation creeping through her as she gazed at the rows of stacked cartons. All those people—nearly fifty thousand of them—all gone. Destroyed in a matter of seconds or minutes or hours.
Murdered on the orders of the man she'd once proudly served.
"Hey?"
She shook off the mood. Luke was looking at her, concern in his face. "You all right?" he asked.
"Sure," she assured him. "I'm fine."
Like she could actually fool him. "More ghosts from the past?" he asked quietly.
She looked over at Drask, off examining a stack of crates a few meters away. "It's strange," she told her husband softly. "I thought I'd been through this already. That I'd put it all behind me. But back on the Chaf Envoy, I actually started feeling... I don't know. It's hard to explain."
"You started feeling comfortable?" Luke suggested.
Mara tried out the word in her mind. "Yes, I suppose that's it," she agreed. "Fel and this new Five-Oh-First Legion seemed so different from what Palpatine had created that it felt like something I could actually enjoy being a part of."
Luke's forehead creased. "You're not seriously thinking of taking Parck up on his offer of a job with the Empire of the Hand, are you?"
"Of course not." Mara hesitated. "Well, no, that's not entirely accurate," she confessed. "I mean, I certainly wouldn't go anywhere without you. But at the same time..." She shook her head.
"I know," he said. "The New Republic hasn't exactly been a shining example of how to run a galaxy lately, has it?"
Mara snorted. "The understatement of the month," she said. "All those stupid little brush wars and conflicts—I thought they'd all die down after we finally found that intact copy of the Caamas Document. But half of them are still simmering, and the Senate hasn't done a thing to stop them."
"That's not entirely true," Luke said. "But you do have a point. Things were a lot quieter under the Empire, weren't they?"
"At least until your Rebellion got going," Mara countered. "Then it got noisy again."
"We tried," Luke said, smiling back. The smile faded, and he shrugged fractionally. "You can't play the what-ifs, Mara. Palpatine may have suppressed all those regional conflicts, but he also suppressed freedom and justice, especially for nonhumans. If someone else had been in charge... but we'll never know."
"I understand all that," Mara said. "But that's not really the point. The point is that I was just starting to feel kindly, even nostalgic, toward the Empire."
She gestured at the dusty stacks of crates around her. "And then I come face to face with something like this: supplies carefully laid in for people he knew he was going to have murdered." She let her hand drop to her side. "There was just something about the cold-bloodedness of it that was a sudden kick in the teeth, that's all."
"I know," Luke said, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. "You never really saw the results of Palpatine's policies, did you?"
"No, not usually," Mara said with a sigh. "Not the big ones, anyway. Alderaan and that sort. Mostly I dealt with individuals or small groups, and half of them were Imperial officials suspected of embezzlement or treason. I never saw anything on Outbound Flight's scale."
"It makes sense that he shielded you from as much of that as possible," Luke pointed out. "You might have started having doubts, and he couldn't risk that."