Lit Reading NJO...Again

Yeah I remember reading TUF thinking Han was a goner. He gets poisoned I think?

 

Yup.

 

Han gets poisoned?

Nom Anor tries it but Jacen human shields him. Otherwise Luke gets poisoned.

 

Luke was poisoned by Shimmra's scepter.

 

Han is poisoned on that mission with Leia, Kyp and that commando group where they find out Alpha Red was used. He survives in the end bc AR had deteriorated or something.

 

The amphistaffs were succumbing to Alpha Red so their poison wasn't as potent, so Han survived because it was diluted.

 

I would believe it. And I think, by and large, they did well with it.

As for the poison, wasn't it implied or even outright stated that Luke would never be the same due to it? If that's the case, which I think it was, then the post-NJO novels totally ignored that major aspect.

 

Oh man that brings me back. I remember reading TUF for the first time and I was so shocked when Han got bitten right on the neck, IIRC. I was sure that meant he was going to die due to everything we've seen about amphistaffs in the rest of the series and I got shivers thinking that they had the balls to kill of Han.

 

I think that the Jedi would have almost collapsed with Luke gone and left them rudderless, which would have played better into Kyp's storyline with him doing his own thing and the resulting disagreements with Borsk's government. And it would have interesting to read as various characters tried to lead the Jedi after such a cataclysmic event and form a workable solution.

I like Chewie, but what did he really add to the books? He is a much better character on screen than in print, and largely gets shuffled off camera in the novels.

Killing Luke would be akin to killing Ned Stark in Game of Thrones...totally unexpected and really changing our view of what this war was going to do to the Jedi.

 

I could write at length about this and I haven't really had time which is why I've been scarce.

Luke's role in the NJO as it exists is very flawed. He certainly doesn't add to the books. He plays a larger role than Chewbacca, but that is constantly being reined in. He's Jacen's master, but their interactions in the series are confined largely to Vector Prime and The Unifying Force, with some in the FH trilogy.

For what the series is about, it requires Luke to be somehow incomplete in understanding. He represents the Bantam EU. He's wrong. Ideally, you might want the NJO to be about Luke instead of Jacen, or have Luke go through that arc himself in those Bantam years.

Before the reset, that was my interest, assembling a post hoc arc for Luke from Bantam and Dark Horse.

lol, I wonder if Luceno having Luke think about all the time he wasted with Ysalamiri in Agents of Chaos was a jab at how Luke was handled then, which I would argue is seemingly corrected albeit through non-use in the current nucanon

 

Luke was still important to the story-the philosophical debates he had with Jacen and his general participation were key to a lot of stuff in the NJO. He's instrumental in the founding of the GA, the Jedi's acceptance of the unifying force, he probably influenced the Treaty of Zonama Sekot, among other things.

Ned Stark's death is also key to the story-the following events would have gone very differently if he lived.

I'd argue Chewbacca served the Ned Stark death well-it had a very grievous effect on Han and nearly destroyed his marriage, drove Anakin into grief and doubt then into pushing himself harder and harder and as Jacen put it "shattered the protective cocoon" around the family. It also shows to the reader that the Vong are indeed a very real and potent threat and their methods of doing things isn't like the empire-after all they dropped a moon on Sernpidal showing their tactics and technology was alien to what the inhabitants of the Galaxy and reader had seen this far.

 

I'm not expecting the NJO to go identical to the way that it went if Luke died.

I'm expecting it to be better.

 

I'm not sure how you could make the NJO better besides wrapping up some dropped subplots exploring some introduced yet dropped ideas(like NR Warlordism and droid sentience) and maybe better coordination between the authors.

Remember it was a mammoth project that was planned to be even larger so I think it worked pretty well given what came after. And on its own its merits far outweigh any flaws one can find.

 

there's a lot of flaws to the NJO that could be improved upon

Luke's absence of an arc is one of them.

And I say this as person that's dedicated a lot of time to the NJO.

 

Luke is a Jedi master at this point with a family and a child born midway through the series? What sort of arc should he go on? He's a foil for Jacen. The revelation of the Vong's true history, their redemption, and the suffering of the war simply makes him arguably a better master(at least in TUF) more humble more wise and more open to new ideas and possibilities he had not considered before.

 

Yoda went on an arc through the saga. Obi-Wan did.

Anakin more played the role of Jacen's foil, especially as the series progressed.

 

Did Obi-Wan? He didn't really have an arc in the OT, nor did Yoda.

 

It's kind of like Peter Jackson messing up Aragorn's character in the movies. In the books Aragorn is already well on the path to kingship and the fellowship is his last adventure. A man in his eighties with the throne in his future(albeit being numenorian he lives to over 200) he can't really go though much of an arc.

Luke is somewhat like this-yes he struggles with the philosophical issues the Vong pose and has to deal with issues more personal-his wife's illness, his brother in law's grief and sister's grief and the paths his nephews and niece take as well as running the Jedi order and keeping Kyp Durron under control as well as having a working relationship with the NR government. That doesn't leave much room for an arc.

 

They did across the film saga.

Luke's influence on the plot is more than Yoda and Obi-Wan in the OT combined.

And Luke has an arc in TLJ. Hell, he has more of one in one 150 min movie (of which he's absence for an act) than he does through the NJO.

 

Or maybe we would have gotten the book I, Jedi Master

 

Obi-Wan really has a character arc in TPM - going from arrogant padawan to mentor to Anakin after taking up the request of his dying father-figure.

Is Vector Prime the first novel that establishes other Jedi Masters in the order besides Luke, or were there any others in the Bantam run, too?

 

Streen takes over the praxeum in black fleet.

 

I'm on Conquest now, at the Praxeum and expecting to see Strewn at some point. Been a while so maybe I wont. Don't remember which is cool because it's like reading it for the first time...again.

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Because he was portrayed as a broken, complete failure at the start of the film . . . the existence of an arc isn't some be all and end all definition of quality. Luke in TLJ would have been better with no arc at all than what we got, but that's just my opinion.

Luke is very much a "background" character in most of the NJO, albeit one that gets a lot of screen time if that makes sense. He definitely goes through an arc anyway, the whole way he views the force, light-side/dark-side, what the Jedi's role should be etc. In many respects him and Jacen go through this together.

 

So what are everyone's favorite lines in the NJO?

Mine include but are not limited to:

"Jacen Solo. Listen well. Everything I tell you is a lie. Every question I ask a trick, you will find no truth in me. Though you believe nothing else you may rest your faith on this." Vergere

"Shimmra was Shimmra and I am I." Onimi

"Kiss Tahiri for me" Anakin Solo

And my personal favorite(tied with the first one)


"There are thousands of warriors out here. You are only one man!"

"I am only one Jedi."

"You're insane!"

"No. I am Ganner. This threshold is mine. I claim it for my own. Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don't give a damn. None shall pass."

Nom Anor and Ganner Rhysode

The NJO really does have so awesome quotes and quite a few cinematic moments-it would quite frankly be awesome as a series of movies or tv show.