Alema Rar(Dark Nest spoilers)

I don't understand why everyone was written with such a bloodlust to take her out. I have never seen Luke so out of character in any of the other books than this one regarding her. To Luke it didn't even seem to really matter to him if she was redeemed or not, especially ironic since he claims he knew her fall was coming all along. He just seems only to want to take her out. As does Leia which is more understandable considering some of the circumstances and unlike Luke she wasn't painted for the last 30 years as being forgiving to the point of naive.

If she had the last name Solo or Skywalker it would of been completly differnt while people would have bent over backwards for her going on about what a hard life she had with the death of her sister, and her early youth as a whore, and they would all forgive her like it was nothing. Forgiveness is a big theme in star wars atleast in my opinion from Vader, to Kyp, to Ulic, to Revan. Not Alema though she was an open and shut case, hell she didn't even do anything that bad, she was even following the same goals as the heros, just in differnt ways.

I'm not even a fan of her character I am just curious on the opinions of the other fans regarding her and the overall situation and the fact that she seemed to have a piece cut off of her in each and every outing.

 

At heart, the only explanation I think is that Luke and Leia consider Alema a traitor. They offered her succor, friendship, and everything they could to help her but she voluntarily chose to betray them to the Sith despite all the hand they gave her. At heart, Alema chose to voluntarily set herself against people who'd been nothing but her friend.

Alema doesn't get pity. Only contempt and death deserved to one who turned on her only friends.

Luke is a man whom is far from condoning evil. I figure he and Leia know that only crushing her will knock some sense in her. She is not their equal or archrival, she's not even in their League and making her recognize her insignificance is the only way that she might recant.

I also doubt Luke will waste any sleep over a waste of flesh like her.

 

Luke offered Brakkiss redemption time and time again and Alema did nothing worse than he did. I would consider Zekk's and Jaina's actions more abhorrent than hers, but that is more of my opinion than a Galactic one. Kyp Durron but Luke in a coma and destroyed a star system, a star system! Granted Kyp was possessed by a sith lord, but was that much differnt, Alema could of been considered possessed by Lomi Plo.

 

Alema voluntarily chose to become a bug while Zekk and Jaina were enslaved. So was Kyp Duroun. At heart, Brakiss was willing but even when he lead an army to the Academy's door, he didn't attempt to use Luke's family against him. Nor did Brakiss offer anything but sincere remorse rather than revenge that he was too weak to resist the Empire's allure.

Again, what it boils down to is that she thought that by serving the Dark Side that she could become Luke and Leia's superior. Luke and Leia will chop her down one piece at a time until she gets it through her head that she's not worth their time.

Frankly, I think its refreshing compared to treating every little Reborn like they're some sort of sob story. I hope her final death is suitably grizzly. You can't teach stupid it would seem.

 

Frankly, I think its refreshing compared to treating every little Reborn like they're some sort of sob story. I hope her final death is suitably grizzly. You can't teach stupid it would seem.

Wow, I'v never felt that way about anyone, even fictional or real.

 

Huh, authors fail to invoke a sufficently nasty reaction in the fiction you've read?

Really, not even the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Honestly, Alema successfully surpasses Palpatine in that she's such an incompetent evil doer.

 

I always hate the bad guys in a story. And I do feel hatred. But I keep it under control...most of the time.

For example, is The Saga of Seven Suns, I utterly despise the Terran Hanseatic League, however, I don't wish the evil Chairman Wencelas death, etc.

 

Wait... I don't necessarily disagree with you, and I don't quite understand the things this thread talks about, but what did Jaina and Zekk do that was so bad? I can't really remember anything that major.

-Paul

 

For me, I recognize that redemption is pretty much wasted on characters that are so utterly set on their course. Their destruction is a sign that they are never going to harm anyone else ever again.

 

Just the fact that their actions are so selfish and un-jedi like to the point they forget all about their objectiveness and join and rejoin the nest out of their selfish reasons of wanting to belong. They murder hordes and hordes of Chiss without even a second thought to what the Chiss' reasoning is, even while they know what it is. They give little thought to how their actions are damaging the jedi order and straining relations between the jedi and the alliance. Hell it looked like the great sword of the jedi tried to stab te order.

 

I never understood this redemption thing...they take it too far sometimes. If they only would kill their opponet and stop being so damn bleeding heart "I need to redeem them" then there opponet wouldn't get away and cause them more troubles in the future. This is part of the reason why I hope Jacen kills all the jedi. He's the only logical Jedi in the order. KILL THEM ALL JACEN...KILL THEM ALL!!!! And be sure to take care of ol' bug slut too.

 

I sorta agree with DM, cept I don't want Jacen to kill them all I want Jacen taken out as an irredeemable bad guy.

 

Yet, ironically, its Jacen who lets Alema go...

 

Eh, let the Chiss kill 'em all.

 

I'm with Charles. Sometimes Evil needs to really be dealt with. If everyone who committed an evil act could just pretend to be sorry and have the forgiveness of the Jedi, things would go South really fast. The fact is she IS NOT sorry. Even after being fed to some animal and forced to take time off to recuperate she fails to see things for what they are. She's a crazy bugslut and deserves no pity.

Carnage

 

Personally, I tended to think Alema is a TRAGIC character in that she's had a hard life but so is Darth Maul. The man was brutalized from literal infancy in order to become a killer with absolutely no qualms about killing. That doesn't mean that I think Darth Maul could have been redeemed. Frankly, Vader would have been iredeemable if not for the fact that his son was able to appeal to his better nature. Had Luke Skywalker been killed along with Leia then I doubt any force in the universe could have dissuaded Vader from his darkness.

I liked that Jedi Quest had Kyle Katarn spare someone's life and then the next game, she's already trying to kill him again.

 

Leaving out the Legacy of the Force-books, what evidence do we have, that Luke and Co. offered Alema - as you put it - succor, friendship and everything they could to help her? To me it looks as if they said to her "If you have a problem come to us" and then went on with business as usual.

Talk-talk, but no do-do.

And that despite Luke knew/felt, that she could/would fall. Once again the great Jedi-Master acts like an imbecile (at best). At worst he is a hypocrite. Kyp was controlled by Exar Kun, so it is okay, if he blew up a few stars (and at least one inhabitated planet). Alema fell under the control of the DarkNest, so it is okay to mutilate her and have her eaten by an animal (and she should have stayed dead after that), while we forgive all the other Jedi-brats, who also became joiners, but didn't fall as far as Alema, because they had more stabalizing influences in their lives.

How much treatment do people/soldiers, who got traumatized in a war get in the GFFA anyway? Not much it seems.

 

I personally also did not like the way that Alema was treated, especially considering her background and the treatment the rich boy Raynar Thul got - who is another Jedi to get away with nasty deeds (not to forget Jaina&Zekk; considering that they served and Raynar lead a government that had attacked GA member worlds, they could have all been charged with treason.) And Luke did act like an idiot during all those years after SbS where he saw that she would fall. Especially bad was the glee that Leia had when she went against Alema in the later books. It felt like class hate really.

But now in LotF the main characters have done much wrangling and little in effect to turn Jacen from his path and redeem him, so that probably Balances things a bit, like the Alema we meet in Tempest would say.

What comes Denning, after DN I started to wonder if he is misogynist considering the treatment that he gave to Alema... A beautiful, sexually active female who gets mutilated and becomes the total opposite what she was before...

 

With all due respect FTeik, we know they have psychologists at the Temple for people like Raynar (Cighal apparently also performs this function). The fact remains that Luke apparently knows she's Dark Side inclined but aside from expelling her for a feeling or killing her, there's not much he can do. Alema is a selfish brat whom willingly embraced the community of the Dark Nest (it's why she maintains her 'sanity' so to speak while others are utterly dominated into bug huggers)

No, Alema represents the people whom you can do everything for but its wasted on. She had five years to make other connections than Anakin and her sister, to move on with her life but she chose not to. Then she savagely turned on her friends. I hope next time Leia uses a Rancor.

 

There needs to be something to redeem first.

By nature, Alema and her sister had been brought up with only two goals; survival and pleasure. (I'd actually have said just survival if not for the scene in EL where Alema tries to seduce Lando.) Probably the darkest reflection on Alema is a throwaway comment in Destiny's Way that she 'loved' Anakin Solo ('in her own way') - indicating that for Alema, love is possessiveness, because on reading SbS you can see that all Alema actually wanted was to possess Anakin - in her own sexual way, of course. By nature, Alema was brought up with self on the throne. It wasn't that she'd once walked in the light and then fell to the darkness; she was always walking in a darkened zone, and finally plunged. A very different scenario to the ones we've seen redeemed.

We see Alema and her sister as extremely self-driven, and also, as early as SbS, Alema is driven by a desire for revenge and shows more tolerance of the DarkSiders than anyone else. She has a connection with Lomi Plo even that far back that disturbs Jaina on the mission to Myrkr.

As the Jedi experimented with the mind-meld in DW, we see Luke reflecting that the meld is almost healing (see his speech about Tahiri); thus, in sending Alema out to work as part of the meld, he's hoping her wounds will be healed. Ultimately, however, at heart Alema is self-driven - and Vergere was right about one thing; the Dark Side is rooted in selfishness (see DT for Corran Horn's similar reflections on the subject).

 

One of the reasons or causes for their animonisty might be a respect factor.
In Vader's case, he was Luke's father and still had the good in him. Luke respected and loved him enough to bring him back.
Jacen: Luke can see that he has just lost his way and is TRYING to do the right thing, albeit unsuccessfully, which Luke can rationalize with.
Brakkiss: Again, lost his way, and Luke put it on himself because he was one of his students.

In Alema's case, she was some other Jedi's apprentice, so Luke didn't have that burden. She also KNOWINGLY and willingly wanted to do something to decieve them and cause them trouble. No spark of the light so to speak. Anyone who is evil for the sake of evil (even if they don't know it, which includes Mara before she realized everything) deserves what comes to them. If Alema showed any repentence, Luke would probably have been willingly to try and bring her back, but alas, there was none.

 

The problem with this for me is that how one could reasonably redeem and forgive a person like Anakin Skywalker or Jacen Solo who are basically the big fishes in Sith the pond and then claim at the same time that the lowly minions are beyond hope of redemption. It might be humanly understandable that Luke wants to redeem them, but morally he should be as willing to try to redeem people who are not his relatives and have done far less evil. Occasionally he has done this, but not in the case of Alema.

 

Big Fish?

If your rank people by power level Sure they are Big fish.

But to me they both are sith "succers". Anakin believed that Palpatine would save Pademe, I mean the Guy was an extreme Sadist, who took perverse pleasure in having the Confederacy and the Republic fight each other with disposible soilders that wreaked havok on the known worlds. And whats Best succerd his predicessor into a fight he probably couldnt win with false belives of aid if he(Dooku) would fail.

Jacen is to Succerd into sithood with Lumyia proabably Lying about everything she told Jacen, and preying on the fact that he had no overt desire to be a Jedi. And the Fact that the GFFA was going down the toilet due to her and Thrakan.

how would you feel if You went through all of Jacen went through, saved the galaxy and low and behold a mere 12 years later everything goes back doen the crapper.


Hell you can even say Dooku was a Sucker trusting palpatine, and that the sith would de-corrupt the galaxy.

I can be said the the strongest asset of Palpatines order was the ability to lie and succer Jedi into sith ranks.

But no one scouted Alema, no sith or dark master watched her. Picked out just the right way to crack her personality. While Many Jedi Joiner's did fight for the Unu and Jacen never converted period, only Alema went to the darknest.
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