Ben Skywalker vs Anakin Solo

I think the time has come to bring this up.
Why is it that Anakin Solo, age 16-17 was a much more compelling, well developed, and important character than Ben Skywalker is at the same age?
Ok, so they killed off one of the best characters in the eu 8 years ago which really sucked, but I think what is even worse is that the literary replacement, ie ben, still hasnt been fleshed out enough for me to really care about him.

In LOTF he was Jacens croney for the first half and seemed overly impressionable throughout the series. Yes, towards the end he seemed to be making small strides towards being a hero, but no where near to the extent Anakin was by SBS.

Now as FOTJ begins, he just seems like a kid again, just along for the ride with his uber powerful dad. Dont get me wrong, I love the father and son stuff in FOTJ, but my point is that Ben seems to be developing to slow for such an important character.

I look at it this way, Anakin was so important that his death not only had major ramifications on the yv war and everyone involved, but it also has pretty much shaped the state of the galaxy as we know it at this point.
If Ben, on the other hand, were to die in the next book, would it really be a galaxy shakeing event? Other than because its the death of Lukes son and legacy (which we know cant happen). But Ben, as an individual, really doesnt matter to the galaxy in the way Anakin did at his age...and that sort of puzzles me. We need a cambellian hero now more than ever but no one seems to be in any hurry to develop one.

So, why kill off an established cambellian character like Anakin who was so important to the galaxy already at the time of his death only to replace him with Ben who is more or less "just another character" at this point? Maybe I just need to be patient and see where FOTJ goes...but the arc just doesnt seem to be there for him to be as important as Anakin was in terms of his impact on the galaxy. Anakin had conections with most major players in the jedi order and in the new republic of the time, Ben on the other hand is kind of a loner who doesnt even really have friends.
Maybe its del rays way of saying that we wont be seeing a changing of the guard anytime soon.

any thoughts?

 

Ben could grow up faster, yes, but I wouldn't mind if he didn't. I don't feel that his position in FotJ makes him any less independent, especially given that he goes against Luke's wishes in Omen. He might be "a good kid," given that he was going to listen to Luke, but that doesn't make him will-less. And the funny thing is that we're saying he isn't growing up as fast as the Solo kids (Anakin, at least), when it's quite possible that Ben went through many more trying events than Anakin did at his age. I'll also point out that I got the impression that the "family support system" was rather lacking in NJO, which made the Solo kids seem a lot more lonely (and perhaps independent), while Ben and Luke are spending a lot of time together. Different, but not necessarily worse.

 

Ben Skywalker is not a replacement for Anakin Solo. I think that has kind of been the point. To kill off Anakin and have Ben step right in and assume the same role would have been pointless. Not to mention it would have further established "Breed with a Skysolo....create a force Dynamo or Sith Lord" motif.

Pretty early on, there were indications that Ben was going to be somewhat different. Maybe a little in the second half of NJO and more in TDN we see Ben hiding from the force supposedly due to how terrible the Vong War deaths felt to him in the force. His associating "Force = Bad" in some of the most impressionable years of his life certainly would have stunted his development. He didn't start training with the force until Jacen took him on...at which point Jacen was already heading down the path to Sithdom. On the other hand, the Solo kids were being readied to hand over to Luke for instruction before the cord was cut (and in Anakin's case, probably earlier with the whole Emperor Reborn thing). In the intervening years, Luke probably learned a little bit about Jedi instruction. Enough to realize "Hey, if we just smack Ben around and make him be a Jedi...things probably won't work out." Anakin started training at around age 4 or 5. Ben I would say didn't really start training until he was around 11 or 12. That puts Anakin 7 years ahead of Ben.

Also realize that while Anakin grew up more or less idolizing Uncle Luke, Ben grew up more or less idolizing Uncle Han. Anakin looked to a force dynamo to be a role model. Ben looked towards a really clever former smuggler as his. At Age 14, Anakin had to be taught by Mara Jade how to not let the body and mind atrophy by constantly using the force as a crutch. At age 14, Ben really started to be pushed by Jacen not to let his force skills atrophy by constantly counting on his body and mind. Those two paths are worlds apart.

When Ben really began training in the ways of the force, he was being guided by a Sith Lord but somehow came out of it with a good sense of right and wrong. He didn't abandon the little girl on Ziost and, perhaps more importantly, stepped up to the plate and decided to try to redeem Tahiri when everyone else was pretty much focused on killing. When everyone was ready to say "Lumiya killed Mara...that's a wrap" and then "Alema killed Mara...that's a wrap" he pushed forward and went off to find the truth. He accepted his role in the conflict...organizing the evacuation of Endor and the like and performed it very very well. He was instrumental in bringing Luke Skywalker, Grand Master of the Jedi Order, out of his post-Mara depression. He did some things that were not as visible as cutting down Vong by the creche-load, but were as important in regards to the crisis at hand. Remember one of TESB oft quoted mantras...."War does not make one great". Ben may never develop into the awesome force fueled warrior that Anakin was, but he has his strengths. Give them time to develop now that he is out from under Jacen's shadow.

 

Another point is that Anakin Solo had a young reader series all his own. Ben never did. We got to see a lot more of Anakin as a young child than we saw Ben. He was in a few books as an infant on about a page apiece. Then we didn't see Ben again until he was seven.

Another problem for poor Ben was that when we *did* meet him as that seven year old child, he was already a Gorog Joiner and, therefore, not all that appealing.

Then we fast-forward to LotF. I thought Ben was great in Betrayal. Unfortunately, then at the age of seven, the cousin he adored and admired made him into a GAG trooper and into an assassin of heads of state at the age of 13! Once again, we were not presented with a very likeable Ben... until late in the LotF series when he investigated his mother's death in a very mature way; helped spark his father back into action after the loss of Mara, and even helped "redeem" Tahiri, who had tortured him.

I think Ben is on the right track now, and I am very much enjoying the father/son journey, dynamics, and teamwork in FotJ. I think this was very needed to further develop the relationship between Luke and Ben, but mostly, to show the readers a far more engaging side of Ben, and to reintroduce us to this character as one who *can* become a very major hero in the future.

 

I think something that hurts it is that we really haven't seen him without mom, dad or cousin Jacen. He never really developed a group of friends to hang out and have adventures with like the Solo kids did. These adventures may not be epic displays of skills, but they build the character up as competent, expose the character for who they really are more than internal monologues can and allow them to take charge and show the kind of leadership that Anakin had. Adventuring with a group of friends means that the character is responsible for more than just their own well being. They have to work with the team, taking charge when needed and knowing when to follow. Other people also give us a better opportunity to get to know the character through how they react to him/her and how they show their trust. As it has been so far, Ben has pretty much always been in a supporting player in his adventures, playing second fiddle to the bid damn heroes that take center stage.

The only time he was in charge with a group on an adventure was when he was with the morally questionable and largely faceless GAG. He only really developed two relationships that we saw, and in both of them he was still in more of a younger brother position IMO. Both Shevu and Lekauf felt they had to look after him, and never really gave him a chance to look after them. Plus when Ben was running around with the GAG there was always a sense that it was somewhat ridiculous to have a largely untrained 14 year old giving orders to the secret police.

The only other time he was really alone adventuring was the mission to Ziost, but I don't think that does a whole lot as he was largely by himself. It was all very nice that he saved that girl, but he was really only responsible for himself, not any of his friends.

 

bschuster:
Simple reason: We read a lot more about Anakin. That, and Del Rey's apparently on a quest to find what will make Star Wars jump the shark. (Alien invasion? Chewie's death? Tahiri's interrogation techniques?)

Also, the Solo kids had friends, while Ben doesn't seem to.

COW:
Could you imagine a children's book series about Ben? I mean, after LOTF? I can't. Because he's a child soldier who has been tortured and "interrogated". When YJK came out, there were no plans for the Vong war, no plans for Anakin to die and Jacen to go nuts.

Ben is in many ways like his father:

The Force caused both of them intense pain. (Shira's apparent death in Luke's case, Ben feeling everyone dying) This led to both of them not really wanting the Force for a while.
Both were trained to kill heads of state by people they considered family.
Both do have a faith in everyone around them, more than the degree of angst their lives have had so far would imply. They even try to redeem people as they're being tortured. (Luke with Vader, Ben with Tahiri)

 

well a children's book series would probably have been like the YJK series with the solo kids when they were between what, 7-12 or something?

after LotF, Ben isnt in line for a children's series anymore than Anakin was after the NJO started and they were relatively the same age if not the same?


we never saw anything focused on Ben before LotF, so we really didnt see his childhood
those little parts of DN dont really count in my opinion


i think that is why people think we didnt see his childhood, because we really didnt
We never saw him at the academy as a youngling like the solo kids were
We only have seen Ben during huge galactic conflicts


that all said, i am really glad they didnt make him just the next Anakin Solo but with a different name
He doesnt really seem to be all powerful like they were turning Anakin into
Which so far, works for me

 

Partially because he simply wasn't there.

 

well a children's book series would probably have been like the YJK series with the solo kids when they were between what, 7-12 or something?

Teens, actually. YJK is in 23 ABY. JJK is in 22 ABY.

 

I was under the impression they killed off Anakin specifically and personally to annoy you, bschuster? Have I be wrong all this time?

 

With all this talk of teen book series, once they've finished outlining Jacen's backstory in FOTJ, I actually wouldn't be averse to them going back to, say, 35-40 ABY and having a Clone-Wars-Anakin-&-Ahsoka-esque young adult series with Jacen and Ben.

That period needs fleshing out anyway, and it'd be nice to see more of Ben as a carefree kid, rather than a child soldier carrying around the baggage of a man twice his age. Plus, as with Anakin, it would give Jacen some more ordinary hero time before the eventual fall.

If nothing else, I'd find it a more interesting children's book series than whatever it is they're doing currently with that new publisher... which evidently must be so interesting given I've totally forgotten what they are even about.

 

I think we just haven't been given the opportunity to get to know Ben like we did the Solo kids. Until FOTJ we have only seen Ben during OMG GALACTIC CRISIS stories and his character hasn't been fleshed out. The Solo kids had minor roles in Bantam and their own series (YJK) where we got to see them with friends. Ben has no friends. i thought we just hadn't seen them, but Luke openly points that out in Omen and neither Luke nor Ben seems concerned about this.

I blame the large jumps in time. We have seen Ben as an infant, as a bratty 8-9 year old for his tiny cameo in DN and as a teenager. I practically didn't have a clue who Ben Skywalker was in Betrayal. Don't get me wrong, I knew he existed, but no time had been spent on his character before throwing him into major events.

 

Anakin was better than Ben in every way. Of course he had the most ethical and right parents you could find. He was very much his father's son and thoughtful, intelligent, no one's patsy.

Handsome, too, and gifted. He would never be led around b the bit like Ben was. Esp. by someone like Jacen, he'd call him out immediately.

IMO, Ben still has to redeem himself for being a killer. He's 16, but has bad manners and is rude, and stubborn. He's not very mature and thinks he knows everything. He's his mother's son, unfortunately. He seems sort of weak, not morally, but he's not a sterling jedi. He hides behind his father's position. He hasn't really served the greater good yet. Anakin was saving lives as a damn toddler.

Hopefully, his sojourn with Luke will show Ben how to behave, and how to treat others. Ben had a bad start, thanks to Denning, and he's still recovering from it. He was introduced as a disloyal brat that cared more about a Gorog than his mother, at 8, and a Jacen acolyte, to boot, and I never liked Jacen much....

 

Great juxtaposition, Carnage. I hadn't ever thought of that before.

I'm surprised a "vs" thread has lasted so long, though.

 

Ben is tainted. Anakin was pure.

Just started Omen. Love the fact that now Ben is into gadgets like Anakin?? (According to Leia). Anyway, Ben's ok with me, though. The writer's just need to figure out what to do with him. They are trying to make him into Anakin Solo in the fans eyes, but he needs action to get there, not just other characters building him up. The thing I miss most about Anakin Solo was that he was a Jedi and he was also like a cool cat... like Anakin Skywalker if he wasn't a whinny brat. Han Solo as a Jedi, basically. That could have been a fun character as an adult.

But you guys are really going to love this. At comic-con they announced that at the end of Invincible Anakin Solo was supposed to come back!!!

Toldja!

They said they scrapped it because it was to big of a can of worms. Too bad, they could have found a way to do it easily without flow-walking changing things. And it would have made Jacen's death have more meaning if he died bringing his little brother back. It would have felt like a natural arc for him from Star by Star since Anakin's death is what set him on his journey of growth and change. And think of where they could have gone with Tahiri and Ben and Anakin. Sigh...

 

Is there a specific quote covering that?

The thing with "supposed to come back" is it might just refer to as a Force ghost (which is all I ever personally expected during Invincible, as I wanted him to simply appear as the McGuffin that prompted Jacen to give his life for Allana; an "it is not too late to turn back" moment).

 

It was at the Fate of the Jedi panel.

Not as a Force ghost. As in full on back to life. Denning said he was hesitant to kill another Solo and didn't want such a dark ending to Invincible. He really wanted to bring Anakin back to life and when he and Sue Rostoni announced it the whole room was like "awwwwww" you should have done it!

I could tell they sort of regreated not doing it. So did the people in the room.

bet we could ask either Troy or Sue for more details.

Let's just hope they don't bring him back now. That ship has sailed.

They also said the Solo name will probably live on through Jaina or Allana. I

 

I don't know; Anakin was supposedly tainted in his mother's womb. Palpy and all. (Possibly the only thing he had in common with his namesake, if the Sith can be trusted.) Yet his light shone brighter than anyone else's. He's the only Solo to never go darkside, and he freed the imprisoned Sith from hell the golden globe when he was just a child. Anakin went against Palpatine?before being born!

Ben, on the other hand, is tainted, yes, but by a much more mundane trauma. Namely, war. And his own actions during that war. (The name Cal Omas comes to mind.)

 

Then do SOMETHING. At the end of this seris have Luke go back and have a Holocron made that will summon Anakin's spirit when he is needed, and present it to Leia.
Have Luke say, "This is the most precious Holocron you will ever posses, it's completes a circle of sorts........"

Then Luke hands it to her and then we next see Leia in a room by herself, mildly curious, and Anakin's spirit appears and smiles and says 'Greetings Mother......'

 

I pretty much see Ben Skywalker as the poor man's Anakin Solo.

 

The Ben haters in this thread make Anakin sound like a thoroughly unlikeable Mary Sue. Especially this post, which is rather over-the-top in its Anakin worship:

NelanisGhost:
Anakin was better than Ben in every way. Of course he had the most ethical and right parents you could find. He was very much his father's son and thoughtful, intelligent, no one's patsy.

Handsome, too, and gifted. He would never be led around b the bit like Ben was. Esp. by someone like Jacen, he'd call him out immediately.

IMO, Ben still has to redeem himself for being a killer. He's 16, but has bad manners and is rude, and stubborn. He's not very mature and thinks he knows everything. He's his mother's son, unfortunately. He seems sort of weak, not morally, but he's not a sterling jedi. He hides behind his father's position. He hasn't really served the greater good yet. Anakin was saving lives as a damn toddler.


Why does Ben have to redeem himself for being a killer any more than other soldiers do? He was acting under the orders of a legitimate head of state, just like any other soldier on both sides. He thought he was following a truly good and wise Jedi Knight. It's difficult enough as an adult to know when killing is an act of war and when it is just plain murder. There are too many sides to any story, complicated by the fact that each side thinks they're doing the right thing. How can you expect a 13/14 year old to figure all that out when he's under the impression that he's following a good person?

Bad table manners doesn't make someone a bad person, or a rude person in general. He's not afraid to speak his mind, but neither is Luke. He's clearly proud of his father in FotJ, wanted his approval in LotF, and part of his reason for being in the GAG was to step out from his father's shadow. I don't recall Ben ever hiding behind his father's position.

By the way, a "damn toddler" saving the day was ridiculous in JAT, and it's ridiculous for Anakin too.

 

As much as I like Anakin, he was going toe to toe with Palpatine while still in Leia's womb. That's, a bit overpowered.

With Ben, it's more his storylines that?I mean, training under Jacen was torture. With Luke's approval. I'm sure Luke didn't know how abusive Jacen was, putting Ben in the Embrace of Pain and all that, but it still didn't sit well with me. In fact, most of LOTF didn't.

 

Are you serious? Are they?

From my experience they (and especially Troy Denning) just like to mess with the fans when it comes to Anakin Solo.

 

I pictured as something similar to Ben helping to purge the disease from Mara's body while he was still in the womb. I've always attributed those things more to inherent purity/goodness/innocence rather than instinctive use of power.

Didn't Luke discover Ben in the Embrace or something? Plus I'm sure Ben would have told his dad about it by FotJ.

 

I remember that when Luke snuck in to rescue Ben when everyone thought Luke had just died, it was when Ben was in the Embrace of Pain
So he did know about that

plus, in one of the first 2 books of FotJ, i think with the Aing Ti, they had something called the Embrace
and Luke had some thoughts on how Ben would react due to it sounding like the Embrace of Pain that Jacen used to torture him
So Luke does know


I think Luke didnt quite know all of the earlier training that could be considered torture i guess
But he certainly suspected it, and only didnt pull his approval because of Mara's feelings and Ben wanting to stay
Looking back, i think he would say that was a mistake