Why should we care about DJ? A book focusing on a character means they'll just kill them in the next

As they did with Anakin. I invested a lot of time reading NJO, and the moment Anakin died,it quit being fun. It became sick. Building up a character so that he has a lot of fans, then killing him is just a little too weird for me. Ultimately, we all read Star Wars for fun, and a little bit of escapism. So, folowing the pattern, Jaina is doomed to die, or her love-interest whom we all might start to care about, is next.

 

and then Jacen, yeah?


Get over it. People die in books. Read any popular literatry work, and they will. WOuld you rather they hadnt done anything with Jimmy before offing him?

 

Naboo...
"So, folowing the pattern, Jaina is doomed to die, or her love-interest whom we all might start to care about, is next..."

So, you think Del Rey is going to toss away all of their own NJO plans and instead follow a fan-speculated pattern they found at TF.N? ?

 

Everyone's gonna die (and is already dead, ya know, a long time ago...) when the 35th clone of Thrawn will suddenly appear out of his Hand at the helm of his brand new Galaxy Annihilator.

 

Characters die in books, but not before their role has been played.

Gatsby didn't die in the second chapter, Melanie didn't die before the Civil War,
Dimesdale didn't die right after Pearl's birth. They died once they fulfilled their role.

Killing Anakin after building him up is like killing Han in the battle of Hoth, or killing Luke at Jabba's palace. Or killing Anakin Skywalker before he turns to the Dark Side. That would make the Trilogy rather worthless.

My point is that, it is hard to get emotionally involved with a story if there will be no fulfillment. They didn't have to build up Anakin and his romance with Tahiri, yet they did. So now, why should we tune in to see the adventures of the others, if it is very possible that they won't be around to finish the story they started?

 

I like Xizors idea, makes sense to me.

 

Not to worry Naboo_Queen. I don't think we've seen the last of Anakin.

 

"Get over it. People die in books. Read any popular literatry work, and they will. WOuld you rather they hadnt done anything with Jimmy before offing him?"

I would have. Good literature for me has always been the development of characters through conflict. What Del Rey has done is to develop a character halfway, to make him start down a particular path, and then killed him before he achieved his goal.

What if Luke died trying to defeat Vader in ESB? It would have seemed to the audience incongruous with the rest of the SW saga to that point- Luke was not a character written to die halfway through the galactic civil war.

Some of us feel the same way about the Anakin death- it just doesn't mesh. This has nothing to do with "getting over" the death of a fictional character, and everything to do with disagreeing on how the death and the books leading to it were put together.

I am a big Anakin fan. I admit that. But my disagreement with killing off Anakin's character isn't caused by my wanting the kid to stay alive. The truth is, I was finally beginning to appreciate Anakin's character because of the books directly before SbS. The book was like a dead end entrance ramp.

To develop Anakin fans' interests in the series, and to foreshadow coming greatness for him, then to kill him without having achieved full development or a smiggin of said greatness, is less a justified "realism" in the plot and more a broken promise to Anakin fans.

It's not as though the death accomplished anything. Anakin's death served no real purpose.

"Getting over it" is not the problem for me. The problem is what led up to the death, and the lack of future purpose that it served.

 

I disagree.

Anakin Skywalker-Solo was not meant to be the hero of the NJO sage and while he was built up to be one of the greats of the story hindsight is 20-20.

I liken in fact the reaction to the death in Star by Star as the audience's reaction to Obi Wan Kenobi's death in Star Wars.

Luke is now for all we know the last of the Jedi yet he is completely untrained in their ways nor likely ever will be because Obi Wan is dead.

In effect we watch in a single moment the Jedi as a religious order become extinct.

That's what happens when you think about it too hard without a sequel.

Anakin might become a spirit, Tahari might be pushed over to the Dark Side (get her own book), etc.

Jaina already feels that there will be serious reprocussions to Anakin's death all round.

I think however they didn't kill Anakin for shock value (that was Chewie) but to bring home the most startling fact. That in War sometimes true love does not conquer anything.

If Han had died in ESB then Lucas had introduced say...Mara Jade and had a love triangle between her and Leia with him in the middle we'd not have considered Han that important in the Saga.

His building romance with Leia merely an aspect of the overall character

 

i would have to think that we haven't heard the last of Anakin, not because i want to see him back but because if we dont its simply bad writing. Theses authors are professionals so i gotta think that this will all play out in the future and then everything will make sense. but as of now anakins death just seemed like a desperate attempt to make the series more interesting.
besides i cant help but remember what ikrit said to tahiri and anakin in conquest.
i think he'll be back somehow i just hope its not cheesy how they bring him back

 

A book focusing on a character means they'll just kill them in the next - Naboo Queen

Yes, just like they killed off Han after Agents of Chaos I - Hero's Trial.

 

You guys don't get it do you? I use to be on this whole, "he'll be back" bandwagon. Now I'm not so sure. And I don't think Del Rey is going to kill off everyone just to hurt us. Chewies death served a purpose, it got everyone's attention and made us realize that this series is gonna be diffenet (and it has been). Chewies life had basically been fulfilled anyway, he'd been around for a long time and he died saving Han's son, something he would have wanted; so his death was proper.
Anakin's death is diffent. It shocked us more because Anakin is young and because we were just starting to get to know him. Someone said it before, in war, people die. Killing Anakin served another purpose. Sometimes in life, and in war, people with potential to do great things die. People we love and care about and look foward to seeing what they'll do in the future die, their lives get snuffed out before we think they should've been. Anakin's death made everyone feel that way and now it has the chance to effect all the other charactors, because if you think about it, the only two that REALLY seemed affected by chewies death was Han and Anakin. Anakins death is gonna affect everyone. This doesn't mean that everyone is doomed to die in the NJO. This year the series should start to turn around for the better. So stop being so pessimistic.

 

Pessimistic? No, the title of this thread is rather sarcastic...

 

"Why should we care about DJ? A book focusing on a character means they'll just kill them in the next."

We all know Chewbacca was a major character in both Visions of the Future and Vector Prime...

 

It was intended to be sarcastic. That is true. Also a little bit of Devil's Advocate.

 

Yeah, just like he was a major character in basically all of Star Wars. The whole "big four" thing, you know.

I'm of the get-over-it mentality. Anakin did his thing, died honorably, yada yada Yoda. Had he stuck around beyond SbS, he would have just become another super-Jedi uber character and ruled the galaxy. Would any of you have preferred that? At least in death, Anakin served a purpose. And yes, we were all shocked that he died. We were also shocked that Chewie died. Guess what? We got over it. I for one am looking forward to what will happen in DJ (which, by the way, I got today) and the other NJO books to come; I'm eager to see how the galaxy will change. Note that I did not say that Anakin's death changed the galaxy-- it did not. Neither did it change the GFFA in any meaningful way. He died, Qui-Gon died, Obi-Wan died, Yoda died, and eventually (heaven forbid) Luke will die. These things serve a purpose, you see. Instead of dwelling on how much Anakin's death sucked (and it didn't; Denning handled it very well), how about acknowledging the various interesting dilemmas it has caused?

And speaking as a writer, I have to say that I find all this complaining a tad bit silly. You're all acting like you own Anakin and should be able to dictate his future. You don't, you can't. It's George's galaxy. Let him run it.