Anakin Solo's death, why did it happen?

This isn't any far fetched theory or any such stuff. I'm just suddenly looking at three various different theories. I wouldn't have posted this but for the introduction of the third theory which was vastly different than the first two.

The first and second theories are basically that originally Jacen was supposed to die in Star by Star, and then George Lucas came in and said something, and because of it Anakin and Jacen's roles were switched, and since then Del Ray has been struggling to fix the Star Wars setting to catch up to the fact that the character they had been developing (Anakin) was no longer around to fill the role they had planned, so they had to work with something new. The first theory said that GL said that Anakin Skywalker and Anakin Solo would be too confusing so they needed to kill off the Solo. The second theory said that having two Anakins as the hero was no good, so Anakin Solo couldn't be the main character of future EU novels, so the DR people decided to swap his role with Jacen and have him become the major leading character.

These theories were similar enough to not have me make a separate thread about them.

But recently patchworkz7 posted something that was vastly different from either of these theories:

Now where did this theory come from? Is there any validity to it? I'm not saying that it's untrue, it's just the first time I've heard it, and it's a very far cry from the previously stated theories. He says that it's "been shown time and time again" but I've never heard of it before.

Does anyone have a real concrete answer?

 

The OOU reasons are contained in the round table interview that is in the back of the paperback version of TUF, at least it's in my paperback version. I'll go dig it out shortly for the exact quotes, but there are two what I see as conflicting quotes regarding this. Anyway to set the scene they are basically discussing the planning and development process and the input that GL had into this process, it's clear from the dialogue that they are only currently at the outline stage. The first comment is from Sue Rostoni (or maybe it's Shelley Shapiro, I'll check when I get the proper quotes) in which she says GL said that they had to kill Anakin instead of Jacen which they had originally planned the other way around. The second comment is from James Luceno, but what he says is that GL didn't want Anakin as the main protagonist of the series, then he speculates that this is because of the potential confusion between Anakin Skywalker and Anakin Solo, though he doesn't say that GL actually said this.

So even with this interview things are a little bit ambiguous, did GL actually say that they had to kill Anakin Solo, or did he simply say that he couldn't be the central protagonist of the series. Either way, the interview makes it clear that this decision was made when they handed GL an outline plan for the series, not halfway through the writing of the series. Some other things he objected to at various stages were dark side force users as the main enemy and the description of Onimi as "dwarfish".

 

Ah, okay. Thanks for the clarification.

 

The decision was made early in the process: when GL got back to them and said Anakin Solo couldn't be the hero, R.A. Salvatore was in the process of formally outlining Vector Prime. Probably, Stackpole and Luceno, as members of the planning committee, already had some idea where they were going with the subsequent novels, too.

It's in the round-table in the VP e-book:

---

?[i]When George nixed that idea, we were forced to rethink everything very quickly, as the first book of the series was already being outlined.[/i]?
-- James Luceno[hr][/blockquote]
However, this doesn't mean that the decision was absolutely fixed from that date onwards, and it may have also been rather rushed and fluid. As Luceno says in that quote, they had to "rethink everything very quickly", and the basic decision was to make Jacen the protagonist, [b]not[/b] to kill Anakin.

Moreover, Mike Stackpole has said explicitly in a podcast interview that he disagreed with the decision to kill Anakin: part of the reason he wrote Anakin the way he did in [i]Dark Tide[/i] was that he was hoping that the decision would be reversed, and the character reprieved.

Bearing in mind during the outline of VP, I'm also goint to juxtapose a couple more quotes from the roundtable. First, on George Lucas's involvement in the storyline:
[blockquote][hr]?[i]He's the one who said... that we couldn't kill Luke.[/i]?
-- Shelly Shapiro[hr][/blockquote]
Second, on the decision to write out Chewie:
[blockquote][hr]?[i]I remember going home and thinking about it and grieving even before Bob Salvatore submitted his outline.[/i]?
-- Sue Rostoni[hr][/blockquote]
So George said that they couldn't kill Luke. And Sue Rostoni associates the decision to kill Chewie with the period when Salvatore was in the process of outlining VP, the same period that the decision to swap Anakin and Jacen was taken.

Was Chewie's death a relatively hurried substitution for [i]Luke Skywalker's[/i]...?!

- The Imperial Ewok

 

For completeness

Question: How much of a role did GL play in shaping the series?

Lucy Wilson: GL had been involed in all of the spin-off SW publishing, but only on the big concepts or plot points. The initial five-year NJO plot outline and early thoughts on who might die were sent to him in the form of a Q&A memo and subsequently discussed by phone.

Shelley Shapiro: I would characterise his role as limited but important. He's the one who said the alien invaders could not be dark side force users, that we couldn't kill Luke, that we had to kill Anakin instead of Jacen (we had originally planned it the other way around). Other than than, he occasionally answered some basic questions for us, but that was rare. Mostly he leaves the books to his licensing people, trusting them to get it right.

James Luceno: Several times at Skywalker ranch, G was sitting almost within arm's reach, but I never got to speak with him. But he played a major role in giving shape to the NJO by commenting extensively on the early version of the five-year story arc, as Lucy and Shelley have said. His objection to Anakin Solo being the main series protagonist, was, I think, possible confusion with Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogy of movies. There would be too many Anakins out there! And I distinctly recall G's taking particular exception to our careless description of Onimi as "dwarfish".

 

I was just speculating on this in a thread I created regarding the direction of the EU overall. I think Anakin Solo was long-slated to die in the NJO. Remember, a lot of the NJO was made to kind of 'disenchant' the Star Wars universe in the sense that they were out to prove from the start that big names could die. It started w/ Chewie, and then had to end somewhere. Anakin is the most likely choice b/c he's the Luke-figure in the NJO up until SBS--he's the fighter, the hero, etc. In essence, his storyline demonstrates that the Luke-type hero sometimes finds his story ending not in triumph but gut-wrenching, tragic failure.

What I question is what happened afterwards. The kill-order on Anakin was out for a while, but I think that one of the biggest things it did was turn Jacen into a more primary hero in the NJO. Look at how he is portrayed in the first half vs. the second--he basically is main subject material for Traitor and then one of the most important throughout the rest of the series, matched only by Luke and Jaina.

Now w/ LOTF, it seems that they were setting him up for a more prominent role as a Sith Lord. But I wonder about that...b/c I think the NJO was actually basically designed to make Jacen and Jaina the twin heroes of the remaining EU. She's the "Sword of the Jedi," he's the "living Jedi dream." She's Luke, he's Yoda.

I get the feeling that there was a change in direction following that series where it was decided that Ben Skywalker (emphasis on the SKYWALKER, the biggest name in Star Wars) should be the main hero in the rest of the EU. So they accelerated the timeline up, first 5 years then another 5, to reach the current conflict, and turned Jacen bad so that Ben would have his first big enemy to knock out.

 

I think one of the issues is that either noone told Greg keyes or he chose to ignor it, because he used Anakin as the hero in his duology and it was he who added the prophecy by Ikrit.

The interview suggests that they had their plan with Anakin and then were told to kill anakin and not Jacen. this led to a lot of hurried changes and i think it is quite plausible that many of the early elements where Anakin is the hero were intended to be there before. They may have known that Jacen would eventually be the hero and not Anakin but they couldn't figure a way to overhaul the series ideas completely so they kept Anakin's role the same until his death. Thats's one suggestion anyway, I don't think anybody has all of the answers.

 

I just speculated much the same thing in that thread, that they are now shaping Ben Skywalker to be the Jedi hero and to finally take the Jedi mantle from Luke, to fill the void left by the death of Anakin Solo.

Jaina is almost too emotional, too much of a hardened fighter (or at least she was during the NJO, now she's just a footnote is half the stories), Jacen on the other hand was too much of a thinker, more philosophical, more interested in the deeper mysteries of the force. Anakin was the balance between the two, the middle ground balanced Jedi who pays attention to philosophy when it is required and is a great fighter when required, and more than anything everything seemed to flow naturally to him, he was a hero, essentially the Luke of the NJO generation. Without him they had no other real choices, so they needed someone new to fill that void, cue Ben Skywalker.

 

That's what made his death so tragic. He "got" what it meant to be a Jedi in a way that Jacen never could and never would (except for that one moment in TUF).

 

It happened because things like that, vast injustice, happen everyday. Kids die by getting hit by drunks, taking bad risks. Many many other things. It's never for a good reason. Tragedies happen all the time.

 

I figured Anakin was their Ben Kenobi.

A guy who went down fighting like a hero. It helps reinforce the war while also showing what a great Jedi he was.

 

Well put. It showed that even the bravest souls die, and that even those that show the most promise are not immune to cruel death in a war. Anakin did show all the traits that should have carried him through the NJO as the hero, but it wasn't to be, it was bad luck and war that caused him to die at the hands of a vicious enemy.

Jacen was a more philisophical person who wasn't the "man of action" that Anakin was, or even that Luke was, but he still faced horrific punishment at the Vong hands and came through the fire forged into something that could survive the war, but the shame was the it seems he couldn't survive the peace.

It almost seems as if the NJO authors did their job too well, as it's clear that the authors knew starting the project that Anakin would not make it to being the true hero and at some point his death was decided, but now the fans are so sure that Anakin SHOULD have been the hero and that there must be some OOU explination because Anakin's path followed the usual hero's path that they don't believe it could have been planned and that the plan actually came off so well and effective.

 

Well put. It showed that even the bravest souls die, and that even those that show the most promise are not immune to cruel death in a war. Anakin did show all the traits that should have carried him through the NJO as the hero, but it wasn't to be, it was bad luck and war that caused him to die at the hands of a vicious enemy.

Except, oddly, I think we were to assume went out bravely. It's not like he died in a speeder accident.

 

I think one of the funniest and most peculiar aspects of the "Del Rey suXX0rs/killing Anakin was BAD/Jacen is st00pid" aspect of fandom is this whole badass, rebel-without-a-cause persona they've ascribed to Greg Keyes because he wrote ONE book where Anakin had center stage. It's like Keyes is the Hunter S. Thompson of Star Wars all of the sudden.

 

That totally sounds like an audience with the leader of a cult. I'm wondering if GL was wearing a Palpy-ish cloak and the authors' answers ended with "Yes, Master."?


Question: Did killing off Anakin actually benefit DR, or did it rather hurt them?

 

I actually thought Traitor and Destiny's Way were the high points, though I've previously stated in this thread that I really liked the idea as Jacen for the hero of the series. After all, the idea is that what comes out of the whole thing is a NEW Jedi Order, and Jacen seemed to be the only one (other than Luke, arguably) who was really struggling with the question of what it meant to be a Jedi and the nature of the Force. Everyone else more or less continued to do what too many of the old Jedi did, which was to use the Force simply as a tool for getting impossible and heroic missions done--even Anakin is fairly guilty of this, as he likens himself to the early version of Uncle Luke, a sword.

Anakin's storyline is too generically heroic, it would have burned out or fallen into stereotypes. The most distinguishing things about him were the whole I'm-named-after-my-evil-grandfather thing and the fact that his actions led to Chewie's death. But if they let him survive, he would have escaped the first problem with one of those takeaway morals like "I'm my own person, no matter who I'm named after" after defeating Shimmra and Onimi. And the second was already more or less dealt with when Han decided to forgive him--or at least, a full reunion of the two of them could have been made had he returned from SbS's Myrkyr mission.

 

it's definitely a mixed bag. Sure, we're talking about it, but in the course of our discussions, we tend to repeat over and over again that DR/LFL screwed up. My personal pet theory is that they hate the hardcore fans.

I'm not sure that Traitor or Destiny's Way are the high points of the NJO. They're where things change, and we begin to see Luke waking up -after all, there's not the next Luke Skywalker there to clean up the mess anymore, and we all know Jacen isn't going to do it. I'd have to say that the series peaked at the Keyes' duology. As for Jacen being the hero, I can't see it. Star Wars is fantasy lit. Regardless of the fact that there's spaceships and laser guns, it's high fantasy. Sure, Jacen stopped the war, he killed or neutralized or whatever Onimi, but IMO that didn't do anything for the underlying fantasy aspect of the series - it didn't cure the main problem of the YV which is their lack of presence in the underlying good/evil structure of the GFFA, the Force. Anakin did that and then he died. As for understanding what it meant to be a Jedi and the nature of the Force, frankly, I think Anakin did a whole lot better than Jacen. Especially towards the end. Let's be serious here, Jacen admits at the end of TUF that he's going to be searching for power, for that feeling of euphoria which power gave him, for the rest of his life.

Additionally, Jacen then goes and convinces his Uncle to put the entire Jedi Order of the path to the Dark Side via the Potentium teachings.

Frankly, the fact that Anakin's storyline, followed the HEro's Journey over the course of the NJO series itself is part of what I liked about his characterization in the NJO. Sure, it could be construed as a generic hero character, but again, this is high fantasy. The storyline NEEDS someone that is an archtypical HERO. As for the "I'm-named-after-my-evil-grandfather" thing, he actually dealt with that during the JJK.

Frankly, the entire EU storyline has been floundering since Anakin's death, as it struggled to find a replacement for the HERO character that was killed by committee fiat rather than the natural progression of the plot.

 

Anakin had everything that I looked for in a hero. He was brave, powerful but had flaws. He had a destiny to achieve and a woman who he would die for. Traitor is probably the best written star wars story in my opinion, but I will always believe Anakin should have survived and that Del Rey should have done something other than kills him. The future of Starwas has been signifcantly shaped by his death both oou and within it. It's all very interesting to watch but I don't have an optimistic view of the universe from an internal persepctive and that's a shame because that is what always made star wars fun to me. I'm well aware other see it differently and i just wish i could be like them in that respect

Anakin was truly Han Solo's son in the truest sense and a jedi like his uncle and grandfather, what more could one ask from a jedi? I always saw him as being the true epitomy of what Anakin Skywallker could have been because he was trained from birth unlike Luke or Ani. Plus he had both of his parents.

 

Almost, as stories in themselves I put Traitor as the high point of the NJO, with SbS a close second. Either the way the point remains, that they put an epic story with a massively influential event halfway through the series, which after it the rest of the novels (for me, Traitor aside) couldn't live up to. Don't get me wrong, I like the rest of the NJO, but it was generally heading downwards from a peak after SbS.

 

My one big problem with Anakin's death is that it cheapened Chewie's death, in my perspective. In VP, Chewbacca sacrifices his life for Anakin. After that point, it was my belief that they were going to take this noble sacrifice and let Anakin become the Jedi that the series needed. But after Anakin's death, it made it seem as if Chewie died in vain. It's pretty easy to picture a scene in SbS or a novel following where Han laments this same fact. Something along the lines of "Chewie died to save him...and he still died." Yes, Han had dealt with his anger and grief, but it's easy to picture this as some sort of "cut scene".

Don't get me wrong, I understand the reasonings behind Chewbacca's death. Yes, it showed that the heroes weren't invulnerable. Yes, Chewie had become a very difficult character to utilize. Hell, he spent the entire HoT duology babysitting the Solo kids on Kashyyyk, and then only made a couple of cameos in YJK. Sure, he was the right character to kill-off, but the death of Anakin Solo seems to cheapen the sacrifice of Chewbacca.

 

Given that the decision was still made early in the process, I've wondered if all of Anakin's story was handed to Jacen from the start - that we would have seen Anakin struggling over the role of the Jedi, thinking about being a hermit, etc, etc. If I were DR, and found out that the character that I was planning to make the hero wouldn't be allowed to have the arc I had planned, I would have wanted to keep the persona I thought was good and given it to another character. (It's not like DR seemed to care about personality continuity anyway).

Perhaps had GL not nixed Anakin as the hero, we'd have a dead Jacen, and the same folks would still lament that the wrong brother had been killed.

 

Had Chewie not saved Anakin, Anakin wouldn't have been around to insure the success of the Myrkyr mission.

Chewie, by saving Anakin, saved all of the Jedi. And by saving them, the galaxy.

 

Money. They knew their series wasn't going anywhere, so they decided to kill someone off just to boost sales. Ever since then, the writers have dished out some of the worst pieces of literature to ever grace the reading community.