Lit Timothy Zahn Reddit AMA

Mara is already unique by being an agent of the Emperor. Why does she need to be the "only agent", with a telepathic link to the Emperor? She works as a counterpoint to Luke in a lot of ways, none of which are predicated on her being the most special of the Emperor's soldiers.

Also, what unique purpose? To be someone who was neither part of the dark side or the light side? That was only written as a cop out so that Mara could be exonerated from her crimes of serving the Empire. It makes no narrative sense for the Emperor to have such a person or for the evil Empire to even want such an agent.

My only point is that Zahn already made Mara a unique and compelling character with her background and attitude. Why does he insist on pushing back against the "many Hands" plot point? I don't see how the Emperor having other agents similar to Mara devalues her.

 

When did you read TTT?

 

I suppose it has been awhile, but I'm not sure how what I'm saying is running counter to it. And Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand makes a point of singling out Mara as an experiment in training someone to be not on the dark side or on the light side, which appears to be a response by Zahn to some of the criticism that Mara received after the release of TTT, especially in light of some of the comments made in Star Wars Galaxy back in the day.

 

Indeed, part of why Zahn altering this annoys me (can't speak for Protectorate) is because the "many Hands" revelation is actually part of a fairly important moment in TTT. Someone said something about Zahn feeling that later authors missed the point, but it's hard to shake the feeling that he's the one who later missed the point of his own story.

 

Well the ones Traviss came up with are really sucky so maybe that.

 

There being other Hands made sense to me.

 

Mara being "little more than a glorified courier" was shown to be Thrawn lying though, by Mara's access to the Emperor's top-level codes.

 

Hmm. I remember that. I didn’t think Thrawn was lying, though – I just thought he was wrong. Presumably, Thrawn knew that there was a person or category of persons known as the Emperors Hands, but underestimated them, either because the Emperor misled him or because he formed the wrong conclusions. I kind of like that, actually, as it shows Thrawn, like Mara, wasn’t everything he thought he was.

 

That is another valid possibility. Still - Voss Parck did say Thrawn thought very highly of Mara. But then, Parck is trying to recruit her.

 

Technically, we know the Republic and the Jedi were involved.

But the only statement in the Thrawn Trilogy that mentions anything about it was this line:

"Given the destruction they'd unleashed on the galaxy, Pellaeon had always assumed that the clonemasters had eventually found at least a partial solution to the problem [of clone madness]."

That gives us almost zero content about who they were, what they were doing... I mean, it was probably a foregone conclusion that the Clone Wars involved clones. But it was clear that LFL was enforcing a mandate there - steer clear of the Clone Wars.

 

There's also a line in there about how crazy some of the early clones "the Fleet had faced" were, though. The definite implication is that the Republic and the 'clonemasters' were on opposite sides. The way people react to finding out Thrawn is using cloned soldiers is at least suggestive of something similar as well.

(Which, admittedly, is kind of the obvious inference from calling them the Clone Wars).

 

And the first Clone Wars EU reference is, technically, from Han Solo's Revenge (where it mentioned the restrictions on genetic engineering following the war).

But I think the old SWE summed up the pre-PT knowledge:

Clone Wars A terrible series of conflicts that occurred sometime before the Battle of Yavin, the wars produced such heroes as Bail Organa, Anakin Skywalker, and General Obi-Wan Kenobi.

 

IIRC there's a reference in the Lando books as well. Someone does something totally innocuous and Lando says, "What do they think this is, the Clone Wars?" Still waiting for the retcon that incorporates that one.

 

In Dark Force Rising doesn't Thrawn tell Mara that there are other hands and she is all like "No thats not true! Its impossible!" Been a few years since I've read it so could be wrong.

 

That's the scene people have been referencing, yes.

 

Thanks dude i'm a lil late to the party

 

I kind of always figured that Lando is jokeing about it, since the last major war in the galaxy would have been the Clone Wars.

 

When Timothy Zahn talks about the uniqueness of Mara Jade and everyone discusses how he has the right to be clear about his characters, I'm genuinely confused. Mostly because he has the EXACT SAME PROBLEM as George Lucas in forgetting his own writing.

Which is that Zahn, himself, had Thrawn tell Mara she wasn't the only Hand.

 

Zahn would probably say "Thrawn was wrong about Mara being a glorified courier - you were intended to infer that he was wrong about her not being the only Hand, too."

That said - there are definitely things that changed over time - like Mara's level of experience with a lightsaber. Went from "having picked one up a handful of times" to her being a virtuoso with it.

 

That's the problem with writing in a shared universe -- other writers saw what he wrote and went with it and created other Emperor's Hands, and at that point it's not for Zahn to decide whether Mara was the only hand, because she wasn't.

 

Yup. Luke knows Blackhole is an Emperor's Hand, in Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor. Before he even meets Mara properly, chronologically.

 

Which sounds ridiculous to me from a storytelling perspective for a number of reasons.

* Mara Jade has unrealistic ideas about the Emperor the entire way through. We're meant to understand she views her relationship with Palpatine through rose-colored glasses.

* Grand Admiral Thrawn is one of the Space Nazi Inner Circle, a Rommel or Donitz. Mara is more a fanatical devotee/Hitler Youth.

* Grand Admiral Thrawn knows lots of secrets about the Empire Mara doesn't, like the bugging device in the Imperial Palace and the Noghri. Mara knows about the store house but just barely.

* Palpatine pretending someone is important to him only to discard them like unwanted playing cards at a Poker Match is something that's explictly one of his few defined character traits from the Original Trilogy.

* A lot of Dark Force Rising's theme is Mara Jade coming to terms with the fact the Empire is a bunch of backstabbing jerks and always has been.

It really is a major part of Mara Jade's growth as a character that she realizes she's NOT important to the Emperor. Which isn't a bad thing because he's not worthy of being important to.

Even Darth Vader was just his apprentice until a better one came along. By attempting to make Mara more important to Palpatine, I think Zahn makes it a worse story because the original is perfectly fine on its own and Mara becomes a far better character by divorcing herself of the Emperor to build a healthier relationship with the present. I liken it to the idea of discovering Han Solo was actually the Imperial Navy's greatest TIE fighter pilot and a multi-decorated war veteran. Yeah, you could do that, but it'd seem dissonant he wasn't just a grunt.

 

That's the weird thing about it, though. Even if he was telling the truth, there being multiple Emperor's Hands isn't a big deal. There's 12 Grand Admirals and that was still a pretty big deal for Thrawn to be one.

Ditto the Grand Moffs.

Even if Mara Jade was the only Emperor's Hand, she's still "just" the Emperor's personal assassin. Which is never going to be all that important because Vader does most of the Emperor's leg-breaking as is yet isn't a small deal either.

Her job will always be, "doing the stuff not important enough to assign Vader" while still acknowledging that can be some pretty important stuff. A dozen personal assassins for the Emperor is still nothing to sneeze at.

I always got the impression Mara thought Palpatine was her substitute FATHER, though, which is why she reacted so negatively. It wasn't a job for her but a family and calling.

Thrawn was saying, "you're a tool."