Lit Sword of the Jedi by Christie Golden

Padme is just a bad name. And I'm so sick of the naming-after-people thing. It can be done some of the time, but it shouldn't be done all the time. It's apparently mostly a Corellian thing anyway, given that we mainly see it showing up in the Antilles, Fel, and Horn families (OOU, it's clearly a Stackpole thing that Allston's kind of latched onto). I can see Jaina and/or Jag wanting to make some kind of gesture toward their departed siblings, but it wouldn't work that well OOU and isn't necessary. Also, that's why we have middle names.

Well, alright, Emperor Jacen Fel would be kind of hilarious, but I'm really doubting that'll happen.

I really do hope that Jaina doesn't have kids in SOTJ, though. That's not an arc we need -- get her married, get her kids in the series where she's supposed to shine. Let her do her thing and then let her have kids. She shouldn't be waiting until she's fifty, but it doesn't need to be "get married, start popping out kids the next year" either. That's definitely the wrong kind of statement for a character who's already had such a messed-up treatment of her love life and her agency as a character. She's only thirty-five now; let her hold off and have her kids at 38 and 41 or something. Also, just mathematically, if you assume that Roan was 60 in Legacy, that gives us thirty-three years from Apocalypse for his father to come into being and have him, so unlike Ben, she's not in crunch time just to make the math work yet.

As for raising the kids, you bring up a good point. I do think she benefits from the fact that the story density just isn't as high anymore as it was in the Bantam era, so it doesn't need to be "every year, a series of adventures" for an action character. She can go do stuff and still have plenty of time to be a mother in-between; she also doesn't have as demanding a day job as Leia did. She also benefits from having family, unlike the Skywalker twins -- Han and Leia can provide child care that's much better, from a parenting standpoint, than just "foist them off on Threepio or Winter." Grandma and Grandpa watching the kids while Mommy and Daddy have to go accomplish something feels a lot different than just leaving them with the nanny.

As for Allana, she's Amelia Solo when she's with Han and Leia, because of the whole stupid adoption cover story. I would think that her legal name is Allana Djo, though. I would love, though, for the name to be kept alive by, at some point, a son or grandson rejecting the whole Hapan royalty/matriarchy thing and striking off while taking up the Solo name. Of course, the traditional Hapan striking-off profession is pirate . . .

 

She was announced at the wedding as "Allana Djo Solo".

 

Still leaves the question of what name her kids are going to be using, though.

 

If I've figured it out correctly, First-name, Solo, Father's-family-name.

 

I don't know. Tenel Ka stayed with just her mother's last name; we still don't even know the preexisting royal family's name, or if it even had one. Allana has both her father's and mother's last names. So will "Djo Solo" pass as a unit to her kids, and if so, will it still be agglomerated with yet more names from the other parent? Is it a recognition of Jacen's place outside the Hapan (and Dathomiri) matriarchy, that his name passes, as it does in his culture, as well as Tenel Ka's name passing as it does in hers, such that the last names of Allana's kids will depend on the origin of their father? Or will her children still be Djos, as the addition of "Solo" as a nod to her father won't be continued down the matriarchal line? I would think it the unlikeliest outcome that the patriarchal name Solo supercedes the matriarchal name Djo, of the matriarchal royal house, at least based on any IU logic. It's possible that Allana's upbringing and socialization outside Hapes, and her strong association with her Solo relatives, leads her to prefer to keep the Solo name alive for her descendants rather than the Djo name, certainly. But it's kind of an obvious OOU stretch to keep the name alive. And I'd just far prefer the storytelling potential in a character reclaiming the Solo mantle by not just carrying the name as a royal and/or Jedi, but actively taking it up and taking off for the fringe to have fringey adventures.

 

Trouble is, I don't think Isolder's full name (or his mother's) has ever appeared in print - unless one of the members knows different - so there's nothing to really compare to.

 

Well, that's the point -- we don't know exactly what's gone on before this. We've gotten only two full names, in which the royal heir has her mother's name passed on to her, and then her own daughter, the royal heir, has her mother and father's last names. We don't have a pattern yet, so while Allana might have the Solo name, we still don't know what the situation of her descendents is going to be.

 

This is so wizard! I can't wait! This is the happiest day of my life! My younglinghood has been officially anti-raped!

...

By the way, I was being sarcastic.

 

Whoops, missed more astute posts than mine. Nevermind.

 

I sort of had a culture shock.

Where I come from everyone names their children after someone. I'm named after my father, my older brother is named after my great-grandfather, and my eldest brother is named after my grandfather. Being from the South I have plenty of culture shocks via the internet, so I'll be okay.

 

No, no it's not. Winter and Threepio may not have been the best child-rearers possible, but they never let the Solo kids keep a Nexu as a pet.

As for Allana's last name, she could just pass "Djo-Solo" on to her kids as a compound surname.

 

Wookiepedia does clarify her name is Allana Djo-Solo.

 

Hey, that Nexu totally didn't eat her!

Besides, didn't Threepio accidentally let some toddlers escape and take a turbolift down to the bottom of Coruscant to hang out with potentially murderous hobos or something? I'm sure I remember that happening in one of the Bantam books...

 

The key word being "accidentally". Sure, the droid's utterly ineffectual at... well, everything, up to and including governing children, but at least he tried to avoid endangering his charges in stupid ways.

 

That...does not fill me with confidence about his ability to keep children safe?

I mean ultimately it's a daft argument to be having because you can just shoot back at me that Leia, for some reason, thought it was a good idea to leave a protocol droid who can't bend at the waist and has fixed arm joints in charge of a pair of toddlers, and frankly that was ALWAYS a decision that baffled me.

But as far as the Nexu goes, people do keep exotic pets, and arguments about whether it's humane to the pets aside, Leia has the money and resources to ensure it's properly and safely cared for. I mean it hasn't eaten her YET, right?

 

Exotic pets- yes- but nexus are pretty extreme. They took a lot of precautions (clipped claws, dulled talons, jaw restrictor) though- and Anji did turn out to be very loyal.

 

I was actually just wondering about Anji when I read the thread about an Allana YA series...

What do you think they'll do with it when Allana gets older? I mean, yeah, Dathomiri have been keeping fully grown rancors for generations, so it's not much different, but... will she just plonk it in Hapes and forget about it, or continue to have it tag along?

Chewie might have been a big dog, but at least he could talk.

Or is this how she unites the galaxy around her white throne: disagree and the nexu eats you.

 

The fact that they've been kept for generations is what makes rancors "safer" they've been coexisting with the Dathomiri so long they're, at least in some sense, "more domestic"- nexus by contrast, as far as I can tell, are wild- they can be tamed, but they've never been domesticated.

 

Well, that particular style of diplomacy does run in the family...

 

Actually, that's a point... aren't rancors even "semi-sentient" (ridiculous as I find that) compared to nexu?

 

Why did Tenel Ka keep her mom's last name? I've only read a few books so I'm not sure.

 

Indeed. And they talk. And use crude tools.

 

I assume just because Hapans (and Dathomiri) are matriarchal societies so the authors have chosen to invert the patriarchal western tradition of keeping your father's name? I think it's as simple as that.

 

Thankee!

And about Golden as the author: I just read her latest World of Warcraft novel and it was actually really good on many accounts. Not perfect, but it had very good moments.