Books CRUCIBLE by Troy Denning: The Official Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Oh, no... you misunderstand me. It's clear (or it appears clear, I should clarify) there was absolutely no plan. But that doesn't eliminate evidence that was planted that allowed those set-ups to occur later. The seeds of Jacen's fall being planted as far back as Balance Point. The fact that Vergere is spouting Sith philosophy. All these things are individual pieces that you can point to later and say "See, not a retcon!"

That still doesn't mean it was planned, at least until it was.

So I totally agree with you there.

 

I'm beginning to think there might be a fourth possibility: Maybe he simply works cheap.

 

The point I am making is I never thought Vergere was a Sith in the first place and didn't see these other seeds of Jacen's fall, so its a retcon to me.

 

To show a character struggle with the dark side only to ultimately overcome it isn't "planting seeds" for him to turn to the dark side. Otherwise, people shouldn't complain about Luke turning in Dark Empire because it was foreshadowed in Return of the Jedi when he choked those pig guards, and when he spazzed out on Vader! Nevermind that he rejected that path immediately afterward, they were planting seeds!

Ben should turn to the dark side, they planted seeds in Inferno when he cut a guy in half!

To suggest that a character having any sort of momentary struggle justifies that character being turned is absurd. No character has no moments of conflict, and if they don't, they're poorly written and boring.

 

Nope, not really, I say lets move on and tell new stories thats all. Enough with the past.

 

You know, I got to agree with this. Granted the books after the NJO may have been hit or miss, but they weren't bad. One thing that I noticed about star wars was that it works in cycles. When the OT came out, the books that preceded it afterwards to include the rebirth of the EU followed the OT formula. With the occassional abberation. Then the pequels came and the material was geared that way. Notice the similarity between the clones and the vong. The jedi at the end can't really feel them. I guess that was why order 66 was created. Most of the other stuff continued the same way. We know that in the prequels we have cloning....well ever since then now we have a lot of stories with clones. You have both clone wars series that covered this, TFU stuff, there was that small platform game that had X-1 and X-2 that were jedi and clones, etc etc.
We also have the fall from Anakin replicated with the fall of Jacen. We have the civil war of the republic vs confederates played out again with the Galactic Alliance and the Coreliian Conferate allaince. Its all the same stuff with different names and characters but sane premsies, and I bet that some of you will be able to dig up more simularitites oif you put your mind to it.
This also translated to the novels and comic books. I guess with the new Rebels series and new movies things will change and cycle again.

 

That's true, the Expanded Universe almost always pastiches the films. The Bantam EU was almost always a pastiche of the OT. But I disagree that the New Jedi Order is a pastiche of the prequels. The Yuuzhan Vong were invented long before Episode II was written, it was planned out during the production of Episode I. The New Jedi Order is really the only EU series which doesn't pastiche the films to some extent. Afterward, I agree, the Legacy of the Force series is one huge pastiche of the prequels, and SW Legacy and Fate of the Jedi are dominated by the Jedi vs Sith paradigm that the prequels created, albeit on a larger scale. Star Wars Legacy is unique in that it pastiches the Expanded Universe as a whole, taking unique elements from a lot of different stories.

 

That sounds exactly like a classic retcon to me . . .

I highly doubt those "seeds" were placed there on purpose

 

Picked up my first EU audibook in over a decade for my moving trip. The chap does an adequate Han, but the Leia is a bit questionable. Gender switching for voice actors can be a little hard.


Re Tahiri/Ben, or the continual validation of "geek equal sign no sex" I am seeing. Ben has information Darth Tahiri wants. Enter Darth Tahiri.

"Ben, have you ever seen these? I'll show you mine if you give me the info."

"Yes, the information is etc. insert this star system, can I see you naked? They that big?"

"Bigger than your brains." Exit Darth Tahiri with intel, Ben sad, roll evil Sith cackle. Truly hard concept to comprehend.

 

This 100%. Haven't they already admitted that Jacen was not supposed to fall to the dark side, that it was supposed to be Anakin but they had to kill him in Star by Star so they used Jacen instead?

Whether Jacen's fall was planned in NJO or not it was very poorly written. LOTF and FOTJ have been horrible as an overarching series, (half the books feel like filler, the narratives don't connect, characters are different, exct...


As for sex in the EU, I fully support it works well with telling epic stories. Or maybe I've been spoiled by ASOIF.

 

So then you admit that it's not a retcon and it was planned from the beginning then?

 

I wasn't even gonna respond...but yeah.

 

If the EU works in tandem with the workings of the movies and whatnot, it makes me all the more curious (and slightly dreading) about what's to come in regards to the Sequels Trilogy.

I mean, surely, if the EU were to be overwritten, they would have done so by now? Why are we still getting Crucible, a possible book trilogy, and a bunch of comics?

 

They probably don't want to lose sales leading up to 2015.

 

LFL stopped working in tandem with the EU when TCW rewrote the Clone Wars for no reason.

 

As long as tie in literature to the sequel trilogy is adult standard (ie not Christie Golden, Jude Watson, KJA etc) then I will be happy.
Even the not so great EU books I love reading unless I find them too stupid.

Honestly I wouldn't have even cared at all about TCW tv series overwriting EU novels if it hadn't been an idiotic cartoon

 

Mmm, no. Jacen was supposed to be the hero, never to turn to the dark side. Anakin was supposed to fill the role of hero, and Jacen killed off. But then Anakin was killed of at GL's request and Jacen became the hero. It was Denning's idea to turn Jacen to turn to the dark side.

 

That's actually not quite true either.

Lucas didn't order anyone be killed. Lucasfilm simply said that Anakin couldn't be the prophesied hero because that would be redundant to the films and suggested switching the role of hero to Jacen. That was the extent of their involvement (and there's no indication that Lucas himself was involved anywhere in the process). After that point, Del Rey could have chosen to spare Anakin and not kill either him or his brother.

Yeah, this is kind of a technicality, but LFL didn't actually say "Kill Anakin Solo."

 

For those who have read the book: Is there any mention of Riege or what the Remnant is up to?

 

No. Not really any mention of anything other than Big 3, Jaina, Ben, Tahiri, Lando & family, The jedi temple on Shedu Maad and that the GA and Jedi are not getting along.
The GA senate is still blaming the Jedi for what happened in Apocalypse.

 

Thanks. Any mention of Jag? What's he up to now that he's unemployed?

 

Oh yeah I forgot about Jag. He has a cameo, basically he's just hanging out with the Jedi Order as a commando with special skills or something.

 

Because of the screw ups in post-NJO and TCW, I'm creating my own timeline and my own version of the Legacy of the Force (eliminating Dark Nest), making Lomi Plo and Welk just Dark Jedi, and Vergere revealing she was insane due to all her time with the Yuuzhan Vong and her time "training" Jacen was part of the madness. I will post it all on FanFiction board soon.