Lit Why all the LOTF hate?

Mostly, from my perception, people seemed to not like LOTF because Jacen was suppost to be a nice little boy that loves animals.

For the most part I like LOTF. There were things I would have done differently of course, but all in all it is still fun.

 

Am I the only one that hated Anakin Sal-Solo and the Star Destroyer Anakin Solo in LOTF? Terrible ways of bringing back Anakin in LOTF. I can see Thrackan doing the former since its him but as a SD? Wow.

 

*raises hand* Oh, oh, oh! Does anyone else remember where Jacen Solo (Darth Caedus) thinks and decides that he actually hated his younger brother and thought him to have been an annoying little twerp?!

 

Thracken Sal-Solo should have died at the end of Corellian Trilogy! He was 0-dimensional villain there too.

 

How on Earth did Thracken get back get back in the good graces of Corellia after Ylesia anyway?

 

This. The crux of her supposed philosophy, according to Dark Nest, was that so long as you were acting in good faith, you could do anything you wanted. Shoot lightning, kriff with people's minds, kill and kill and kill and kill. Except that's not close to the truth of what she suggests. She preaches a lot about personal responsibility and self control, to be sure. But when she dismisses the notion of a dark side external to the self, she's basically saying "You chose to do evil. You make the first step. You didn't lose control, you gave it up."

Outside of LOTF's spotty writing, this is a major issue. Because the supposed philosophy that led Jacen to his fall (coupled with his possessiveness of his wife and child) just doesn't work if you look at it. If Denning wanted to play it smart, he could say that Jacen learned wrong. "Is it what the teacher teaches...", etc. Better still, he could have played up Jacen's five year journey. But Denning doesn't have the care or finesse to do so, so instead he just settles for "Sith brainwashing".

There's nothing wrong with Jacen turning to the dark side, although it's really awful that 2/3 Solo children are dead. The bigger issue is if it was believable. Combining a retread of Anakin's motives from the prequels with a complete trampling on another author's work is just poor in taste. At the very least, you should be careful when working in a shared universe.

LOTF doesn't show that care. Be it Mara's death, the revelation of Vergere as a Sith, or the lack of effort towards Jacen's redemption. As a stand alone series, removed from the larger canon, it might be passable but once you toss it back into the larger context of the EU, it's just careless.

 

Ugh. Wish they would have kept him out of power after NJO but I digress.

 

Lest we forget, despite DNT forgetting, Luke never fully bought into what Vergere taught or told him she taught. In TUF Luke takes on some of what Vergere says into consideration, but he ultimately comes up with a metaphysical outlook that embraces both traditional Jedi doctrine and the idea that the dark side isn't necessarily inherent to the Force. And that is what should have been the driving force behind the New Jedi Order going forward. To the point of him saying they needed to step back from galactic politics for a while and do some introspection. When we pick it back up, there is no evidence what so ever that the Order has done so... and they are more entangled than ever with galactic politics.

It's not merely a misconception of Vergere's philosophy that was distorted to becoming unrecognizable to make DNT/LOTF possible... but also Luke's and the NJO's.

 

I do marvel at how the Order goes from the Conclave on Zenoma Sekot to Plan Delta. If LOTF is derivative of the prequel trilogy, Luke's Jedi Order also manages to pull off an amazing imitation of the prequel Jedi Order.

 

I think that was their intent. They've got a Jedi Temple on Coruscant, senior Jedi meet with the Chancellor, er, Chief of State in their office regularly, we've got a useless Jedi Council... yep, they're going for the prequel structure. And I still miss old Yavin Temple too by the way.

Yeah, that was another annoying aspect, having to deal with Thracken again! When their main use of continuity is to bring back old villains (Thracken, Lumiya, even Aurra Sing), it gets depressing. Can't possibly have old heroes or Jedi show up to help the NJO, they have to be the sole force for good in the galaxy after the GA turned into a dictatorship in five minutes. And not even a military one but one headed by Caedus.

Even moreso as Thracken didn't really serve a purpose, aside from some jokes about Han looking like Thracken so he couldn't just use a beard as a disguise. Same old jerk, Anakin Sal-Solo was a really sad moment, and then he's killed in the second book, replaced by someone just as bad, and after Gejjen dies, they're replaced by someone even more stupid. And the Confederation stops really playing a role by the end anyway (since by then they have time to go invade the Roche asteroid belt).

Vergere's philosophy in Traitor was interesting, as it sounded different, but at the same time, she never went for mwa-ha-ha, electrocute people. Even if we accept her having Sith training, after everything we saw in NJO, her being just a power-hungry Sith is such a letdown. Not to mention Force-ghost Vergere, but they would probably chalk that up as a hallucination on Jacen's part. Although even in NJO they had a hard time portraying her philosophy consistently, although she usually wasn't a villain. Really cryptic and mysterious and with her own agenda, but far from the maniacal Vong. Only a recent odd audio recording from during the Vong War, in the Warfare Guide, did it portray Vergere as well-meaning.

Jacen's fall was just... painful to watch. Heck, I'll take Anakin Skywalker's fall over that. The war obviously escalated mainly due to Lumiya (an assassination here, fake invasion plans there), but Jacen just got really nasty by the second book, much less by the sixth, where he decides to set Chewbacca's homeworld on fire. After everything that happened in NJO, its just sad to see it come to this. If zombie Chewie had shown up from Serpindal to smack Caedus around, i wouldn't have minded much by that point. Would probably be less traumatizing than Jaina killing her own twin.

 

I don't mind Thracken being there but in power of Corellia? Again? Good grief.

 

If the Jedi had been limited to Ossus that would have been GREAT!

 

Can't have that happen lol because despite the fact they fell and made mistakes the OJO is the pinnacle of Jedi society, so of course writers decided to make the NJO nearly a carbon copy of that.

 

Maybe he was thinking of him self in NJO?

 

I, also liked LOTF for the most part. I can understand why people might not like it, but I found it a good read.

 

yeah so much good was built in the njo series, and it was twisted by del rey and the authors into the breeding ground for Jacen becoming a sith. It sounds like the original thread maker just started reading star wars with LOTF. because you did not grow up with the classics like Thrawn trilogy, and did not read the NJO series, you don't see the absolute tragedy of it. We lost Mara Jade, and then Jacen who made such progress by the end of the NJO series, becomes a Sith Lord, and even worse cannot be redeemed. But really to me all this starts with Denning and what he did with Jacen in DNT. TUF was a great cap end to the NJO series and left the future with great hope. It's funny that the events in Traitor were the so called cause of Jacen going dark, but we see the opposite of that in the last few books in the NJO series. No, sadly it was Jacen experiencing the force like few ever had in Star wars history and the lust for feeling that power again driving him to that 5 year journey. Ironically it was what won the war, that turned Jacen the wrong way.

 

This really drove me crazy too.

 

One thing that i really hated was Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus becoming a threat way too quickly, instead of training in the dark side of the force for several years first and slowly manipulating events and situations into something that he can use for his own benefit, he quickly takes action and abuses his authority and newfound powers, makes himself an enemy of the Jedi quickly, makes himself into a tyrant quickly, shows his true colors too soon and makes no attempt to look like a hero that is taking emergency actions with reluctance, he basically jumps into his role as ruler of the Galactic Alliance, abuses his power in that role, makes no real attempt to hide his power becoming darker, shows too much mercy toward his friends when he should be prepared to destroy them at a moments notice, he really shows no real patience or sense because he moves into the actions that he takes way too quickly and his turn to the dark side becomes obvious quickly.

It would have been better if Jacen/Caedus had waited several years and slowly caused events to happen, manipulating more groups and parties AKA Darth Sidious and creating drama so that he could step in and act as a hero of the GA but also grab emergency powers in the process, basically growing in power and learning more powers in the dark side while publicly appearing to be a nice guy, but he quickly takes the wrong actions and looks like a bad guy about a year into his rule, does not have enough followers and people on his side to defeat the jedi and their friends, this is why he gets defeated and killed, he was intelligent as Jacen but he was impatient and rash as Caedus, he was very foolish to come out so openly so quickly, he should have waited longer, he should have remained hidden and let someone else become public enemy number one, while decrying them in public.

Then he moves and wipes out the jedi when they think that worse is over with, then along comes Abeloth and Caedus is either screwed big time and not able to stop her, or he crushes her easily and learns her secrets in the process, i would have loved to see how he would have reacted to her showing up, after he had destroyed the New Jedi Order and established his rulership over the Galactic Alliance.

 

Agreed Matthew78 that Jacen's turn should have taken a bit longer but don't let it be like Palpatine. It's a PT ripoff already, no need to make it even more so.
I can't believe in Bloodlines that Jacen saved Han and Leia but in Tempest tried to kill them. I know they had bad words at the end of Bloodlines but to go to the opposite extreme in 1 book? Wow.

 

And to blast a hole through the family camper that he'd grown up in, too.

 

I am pretty sure it TUF Jacen went off into the galaxy to learn other Force Using groups views on it. In the DNT Jacen shows no signs of true Darkness. By that I mean he wasn't plotting downfalls of people.or aything like that. But when he was going to leave to rejoin the galaxy the woman instructing him voiced her concern since Jacen had not just learned their views but been taught their Force Technics so he wa more dangerous them Darth Vader.

The Flow-Walking stuff is confusing since it was implied that you WERE traveling back in time instead of just viewing the events of the past but then they said that you were just viewing the past.

It gets worse when in the DNT or LotF Jacen doesn't even think of these visions he had on his trips but suddenly he did?? Blast it Del Rey, I can see that that's a bad plot.

And to add to the mess LotF decides that Luke has Dream Visions like his father and he's had them for years but I don't remember him having them and if so they were vague and far between.

 

One thing about LOTF and FOTJ I appreciated was the following of Alema Rar and Raynar Thul after what happened to them in DNT. I loathed them in DNT but enjoyed their perspectives in LOTF and FOTJ.

 

Author fiat.

 

For most questions regarding LOTF, refer to:

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