Lit Anyone else think that Abeloth origins were a brilliant retcon ?

Or more accurately, a very brilliant use of one iconic SW quote ?

''Always in motion, the future is''

Traduction : don't try to change the future according to your visions, as I'm subtly trying to discourage you of doing, Luke-it's the tool of Abeloth for getting released.

 

Retcon = reconciling continuity. RetCon.

Retcon =/= linking to other works.

Abeloth is not a retcon.



Just a pet peeve of mine

 

Nope.

 

There is no t in reconciling.

 

Aahh, I meant to put retroactive continuity. Oh well, same idea.

 

I wouldn't call it "brilliant" so much as it was lazy, uninspired, insulting to the readership, and a clear indication that they had no idea where they were going until the eleventh hour when a deus ex machina appeared.

 

meh, i would say it is at least sort of a retcon.

It was retroactive, and abeloth's origins are a part of continuity so . . .

 

Brilliant? Maybe as a quick fix to having an esoteric villain with no character or backstory it's sorta clever. But writing themselves into that corner in the first place definitely wasn't.

It might have been executed well if Denning knew how mysticism and mythology worked and didn't write it as literal and unsubtle as possible.

At this point the crappy idea would have gone better if they ersatzed a DnD Aboleth instead of just aping the name. Since those things are actually scary.

 

You mean the pathetic attempt to connect Force Cthulu with the awful Mortis idea? One is bad and the other is worse, and putting the two together just proves that 1 + 1 equals crap.

 

Could've been a nice idea if it had been planned from the start, not a last minute improv.

 

Retcon implies that there was something to overwrite in the first place. Up until Apocalypse I don't think we really knew anything about Abeloth, just vague ominous generic "ancient Force monster" stuff.

As for what you're referring to... well, there was a lot of stuff implied and maybe forgotten along the way. Like Centerpoint blowing up released her, then Jacen changing the Throne of Balance vision released her, but then if visions are never quite certain, does changing any futures count? And there were all those crazy young Jedi using abilities that only Jacen had ever used before, which seems to have been completely forgotten by the later books (not that the crazy young Jedi contributed much to any plot either).

Throwing in Mortis just made things even more convoluted and didn't really help that much, at least in this series, and I don't count "planting future plots" as a productive use of page space. We've seen how "well" they transition from era to era with the five years between TUF and DNT. We already occasionally have weird monsters, and at least most of them are dealt with in one big explosion (Waru, the Mother from Riptide I think), but Abeloth still isn't finished after all of that, and the special Force-god killing dagger from an old report on what may have been a dream, a vision, real, or a physical metaphor or just another odd TCW episode is their only clue.

Not having any clues earlier in the series, and I'm pretty sure there was an interview that mentioned they added the Mortis element somewhere around the second book (relatively early, but still a sign of how bad the planning was when in theory an entire series should be planned out before the first book is even published) and since it didn't really change any of the final battles (everyone just kept stabbing various pieces of her until she died), it didn't contribute. Yeah, searching for the dagger might be a decent plot, maybe, but I doubt it, and it dragged out the Abeloth thing even more. And at the end of it, it just made Jacen an even bigger screw-up then he already was, ruining his character even more (Anakin Skywalker sided with evil and Palpatine ruled the galaxy for a few decades, but then his grandson apparently unleashed a being whose appearance is the sign of the end times).

 

The Mortis episodes didn't air until a year and a half after the second book was published. Hell, it took them until the second book to develop any badguys at all. The Lost Tribe were still in the development phase when Outcast was finished, which resulted in an unfocused, pointless sidequest of a book without a real climax or any sense of direction. And this is supposed to get us excited about the rest of the series?

Damn I hate FOTJ. So, so much.

 

The author also tries to make out that Anakin failed to realize his destiny as the Chosen One by not taking the Father's place in Mortis, which goes against....well, just about everything else really.

 

For some reason, I liked Abeloth being connected to Mortis and the Father/the Son/the Daughter.

 

Although, I previously thought he was a Celestial.

 

I cannot advocate the words "Abeloth" and "brilliant" in the same sentence.

 

Abeloth in ABYSS was brilliant. Enigmatic, powerful, not easily defeated. It all went downhill after that book.

 

Nah, Abeloth is a garbage antagonist from begining to end. A character stright out of bad fan fiction.

 

I don't mind having Abeloth being connected to the Ones; I just dislike the way they linked Anakin Skywalker to the whole thing too.

 

I don't liked they way FOTJ explained Luke's vision.

If you don't know what I am talking about, I am talking about the vision Luke had in Legacy of the Force. At first, I thought the dark figure was Lumiya or Jacen, but later on (in FOTJ) they revealed it was Krayt.

 

While I didn't like Abeloth or Mortis, I do like introducing a fourth part to the equation of Light vs Darkness, Order vs. Chaos... Will we see Force Users who are agents of Chaos with no Order soon?

 

Well, if they ever decided to do another story about the Sorcerers of Rhand, they're basically the poster boys of the Chaos movement.

 

I'll say that having no experience whatsoever with FOTJ, I like the idea of Abeloth; an enormously dangerous antagonist that isn't Sith that sounds like she's ripped directly from Lovecraft? Sure, sounds like it has potential. It's also a somewhat clever way to get around the "no Sith can be more powerful than Palpatine" rule, so that Luke can be challenged in a confrontation.

Of course, I can already tell I'd be annoyed with the "killed every book" schtick. It's too bad they apparently messed up a fairly cool premise (or maybe everyone else simply hates the premise).

 

Yup. I am always up for Lovecraftian beasties, but the execution left a lot to be desired. I mean, Cthullu never ran for president in any of Lovecraft's stories...

This puts her even behind Splendid App as a Lovecraft inspired villain in Star Wars. Splendid App.