Lit The Legendary 181st Imperial Discussion Group: Rebirth!

She's complaining more about the sensations of pregnancy - mood swings, nausea, etc.

 

You know, I don't remember Mara's pregnancy complaints being annoying...but now that I think of it, maybe I didn't find it annoying because it was all such a huge complaining pregnant woman cliche. Maybe I've been conditioned to believe that the complaining pregnant woman as portrayed in fiction is realistic. Being a man, I've never really thought about it and I have very limited experience with pregnant women.

Tracy's comments have inspired me to at least reconsider. Maybe the complaining pregnant woman didn't annoy me because it just wasn't annoying. Maybe it actually is realistic. Maybe it's realistic because fiction has made it reality by influencing the behavior of real people. Maybe it's just a cliche used for entertainment. Or maybe it's a load of nonsense that people have been conditioned to accept thanks to sheer repetition in fiction and lack of real life experience suggesting otherwise.

 

This. And I say it's pretty close in tone to the "father is overprotective of his daughter" trope that Han was dragged through once his (thirty year old) girl brought a colleague for dinner. Say what you want about the prequels, but they didn't go out of their way to drag everything down into western civilization stupidity, did they now.

 

They planned vaguely to give Luke and Mara a kid at some point, probably toward the end of the series, but Tyers was the one who advocated for it to be pushed up and locked in. I think she made the right call, since shuffling Mara to the side with a pregnancy toward the end would be awkward, and having a kid at the big finale as some symbol of hope or something would be pretty cliche. Moving it to the middle of the series ended the Mara's illness subplot before it dragged out too long, let Mara take time off at a more opportune point in the narrative, and created a more unique situation with a greater sense of stakes by having a child born in the middle of a horrible war, someone who could be a mingled source of hope and fear over the future. It's a richer, more ambiguous and complex symbolism. Also, it let Anakin meet him, which is just nice to have.

I also liked the fact that Keyes made the subplot about Han and Jacen clashing and connecting over moral issues. It's a good dynamic, as Han would be the one in the family who would least understand philosophical vacillation, and it's a family connection we don't see played out as much. Jacen tended to gravitate more toward Luke and Leia in the NJO. It gave a sort of timekiller plot some philosophical and emotional depth.

And speaking of timekilling, I think that was the biggest problem for the book. Conquest was wonderfully focused and tight, showcasing Anakin. Rebirth went wider in scope, but it didn't really seem sure of how to use the characters. Nothing that happens feels that important, and I struggle to tell you what would be the book's A-plot. All of them feel like B- or C-plots at best. Anakin, Tahiri, and Corran is a lot of fun, but it never feels like a major storyline. It feels like a sideline adventure. Luke and Mara and Ben is important for the end result, but doesn't really have anything going on. Jacen, Han, and Leia are in a total sideline adventure. Like the Yag'dhul plotline, it feels like something you make up to keep the other half of your cast busy, not a storyline you anchor a book with. Jaina, Kyp, and Wedge have a plotline that feels like it should be important but it's never given the attention to make you really feel like there's a big superweapon battle happening. Keyes never finds a center for his book, and I think it harms it by making it feel unfocused, unimportant, listless. There's no throughline as strong as "the Vong attack!" or "it's the Battle of Dantooine and also Garqi" or "it's the book where the Vong kill Ithor" or "Han goes off on his own and grieves" or "the fall of Duro" or "Anakin saves the Jedi students." It's just a jumble of minor notes, and the result is unsatisfying even if a lot of the components are good. Separate these plotlines and pair them up with strong A-plots, and you've got winners.

 

Which is pretty interesting since Rebirth is kind of the book that was actually meant to be written while Conquest was kind of made up on the spot. But of course it's very likely that Conquest being added took away from Keyes' resources for Rebirth.

But I couldn't agree more, this book definitely lives up to the idea that the hardcover books are supposed to be the major cornerstones. It's an important but not too exciting set up episode before the huge season finale. And it does help set up some character relations and setting parameters for the next year; Anakin's established just a bit more as someone going places (especially with the relationship), and there's more foreshadowing of his death; the Solo family is tightening up again, which is preparation for the loss of Jacen to some degree (but to be honest, I completely forgot the nice little Han/Jacen subplot except for the lightsaber through the table), and it makes Jacen much more relatable than his short scenes in Conquest; Tahiri gets set up as the Vong expert (and as the tragic lover, which the NJO actually didn't dwell on all that much I think, which resulted in this coming up again in LOTF); Jaina and Kyp are set up for their clash and for Kyp's turnaround (and it even seeds Jaina's vaguely romantic feelings for Kyp, which of course didn't lead to much, either); Luke is moved into a more active position, the Mara sickness subplot is abandoned, and Ben is introduced as a factor (which would normally have been just a huge cornerstone moment as the pregnancy revelation in BP, but then again who wants a birth scene in an action blockbuster [->irony]); Nen Yim is moved into a new spot; the Republic is making a new move into its own demise; the Vong take a staging point for their core assault and for better or worse, the truce is openly broken thanks to the Sernpidal assault.

EOV is funny in that regard. The Vong propose a fake truce, the audience believes its obviously fake, Lah comes out and tells us straight into our faces that it's a fake truce - but then the Jedi and the Republic Heroes do exactly those kinds of proactive things that make it look as if they violate the truce and the Vong have "the right" to feel offended. Only the Yag'dhul situation feels as if the Vong violate anything since the Jedi simply dabble in a non-Republic affair; therefore it seemed different to the Hutt space revelations setting this up in the book's beginning. And then it's core assault preparations, that makes it feel more aggressive again. Other than that, it really appears as if the Jedi and their friends bring all further invasion activities on the Republic. Which is ironic since their PR value goes up once the Republic actually falls.

 

Taking this book out on its own and seeing it as a snapshot of the huge story that was going on over a decade ago - well, what exactly is our relation to Anakin Skywalker today? It's a long time since the character was active in the EU. Does he really only live on as this kind of "died too young, we'd gotten cool stories if he'd lived" figure? I know he's mostly universally loved, but to be honest - he does feel a bit strange to me, seeing him in his prime again (and I suppose I didn't read about non-kid Anakin since 2003 or something, when I originally read Star By Star). Seeing him as this kind of extremely talented Vong killing expert who's also got a secret weapon (the lambent) and all kinds of chips on his shoulders.

Who is Anakin Solo? And do we truly remember him today, or do we just remember that "that Solo kid" died all of a sudden?