Lit "Choose. And act." Vergere, Gardening, and Jacen vs. JINO

The way I see it, even with the title of Jedi, there is still individuality. In the PT it's less apparent because all the Jedi are brown-robed warrior-monks. But it becomes more apparent with the likes of Anakin, Jacen, Ganner, and Corran (just to use the four basic non-Luke Jedi from the series). They're all Jedi, but they're all different. Is Anakin's manner of Jedi-ing wrong? No, of course not, because it's Anakin's way. Ganner became the same, before he died. He decided to just be Ganner, and in doing so he was the person–and the Jedi–he had to be. Corran is different than all of them: more by-the-book, has his own way of doing things, etc. But none of them are wrong about what it means to be a Jedi. That's why you can't just say "I'm a Jedi." It doesn't explain the deeper truths of your personality. Anakin's brash, Jacen's a bleeding-heart, Ganner's a grand-stander, Corran's egotistic but wise in his own way.

 

“The overriding philosophy in Episode I — and in all the Star Wars movies, for that matter — is the balance between good and evil. The Force itself breaks into two sides: the living Force and a greater, cosmic Force. The living Force makes you sensitive to other living things, makes you intuitive, and allows you to read other people’s minds, et cetera. But the greater Force has to do with destiny. In working with the Force, you can find your destiny and you can choose to either follow it, or not.”

This is what Luceno is referring to:

"We also wanted Vergere to demystify the Force, or at least convey a sense that the ability to use the Force was not simply an accident of birth."

There's a reason why the final novel is titled The Unifying Force.

In being who they are, Ganner and Jacen fulfilled their respective destinies, Ganner at the well of the world brain, Jacen in facing Onimi. Perhaps in fulfilling his destiny, Jacen should have gone out like Galahad (or Anakin Skywalker or Ganner) — which would fit with the fact that he achieved unity with the Cosmic Force as Qui-Gon, Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Anakin achieved, while Jacen was still in a living state — and we would have avoided this mess altogether.

 

I don't think we should play fast and loose with the "be true to yourself" thing, especially when being true to themselves means being terrible. It encourages philosophical laziness and discourages self-improvement.

I had some examples but they really belong in the thread I abandoned.

 

My sarcasm detector is broken, sir.

The subject is a lot more dense than discussed here and I went in a lot more depth in my frequently derailed thread. But I'll just name drop integrating the shadow and quote some other article someone wrote about it because I'm well and truly burned out by you people.

FWIW, though I stand by what I said about looking beyond fear and meeting the universe with love. Vergere seems to agree:

"You found the power that arises of acting without hope... and also without fear. I was... I am... very proud of you."

So does Dale Cooper, whom I shamelessly plagiarized last night:


I'm not suggesting that being true to yourself is connected to morality or ethics though. Vergere is pretty uninterested in that discussion. Jacen's ethics are his own affair.

 

On what it feels like to be a hero, what matters regarding intentions and consequences, etc.:

Interesting that Revanfan brings up Corran - his hero's journey is very similar.

Corran thinks he needs to be a Jedi, so he stops being Corran. It is no coincidence that he changes his name. Then he thinks to be Corran he CANNOT be a Jedi. Finally he learns to become Corran Horn, Jedi Knight. A Jedi is WHAT he is, not WHO he is.

Corran and Ganner's arcs are less controversial than Jacen's because they are less dramatic and more straightforward. Jacen has to be stripped down to nothing else to see who he is. He is a questioner by nature, and has to learn that he can be an answer.

 

I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about a trend I've noticed of people taking any behavior, no matter how stupid or terrible, and claiming it as the person being true to themselves.

 

Not sure which characters these people are defending, but I suppose maybe the prequel Jedi just were really boring people devoid of personality.

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

Edit: Actually, I suppose you're referring to the Jedi that kill each other over disagreements and get into Force shoving matches and whatnot. But that doesn't really deserve deeper analysis, does it?

 

The three I had in mind were Anakin Solo, Kyp Durron...and Corran Horn. Though Horn wasn't about being stupid or terrible, and more about not being himself.

All confined to the NJO. I'm not even thinking about what came after.

But if I was going to get into this, I'd post it in that other thread.

 

I don't really want to interrupt the new conversation that's ongoing in the thread, but I figured I should reply openly to some stuff that was in reply to me, and if I'm honest, I'm really finding the exchange useful in getting my own thoughts in order.

If anyone wants to reply to anything without interrupting the thread, they're welcome to bounce me a PM.

Not a problem - I hope you don't mind if I respond to your remarks, though?

In broad terms, you speak of "what's wrong with" Jacen after the NJO, and I don't actually think we disagree about that being the key topic here - the difference is that you see the wrongness as an artifice of OOU storytelling decisions, whereas I see it as an expression of the character's psychology, and as something that's well-grounded in who he was in the NJO and even YJK...

Hold that in mind for what follows...

A long, long time before the NJO, she was a member of the same Jedi Order as Count Dooku, Quin Vos, the teenage Darth Vader, Barriss Offee, and such old-canon characters as Sora Bulq, Jerec and Nikkos Tyris. I don't think that guarantees that she actually corresponded to the Jedi ideal, even then.

I'd forgotten she was in Cloak of Deception, tbh - we don't really get any glimpses inside her head, and she has about one line of dialogue, but it does remind me that she was the apprentice of Thracia Cho Leem, who was not exactly know for following the rules of the Jedi Order as it existed in that era...

In Rogue Planet, what we see is a message that she leaves for the Jedi Order, so it's natural that it would be phrased in "Jedi" terms; but within the context of that story, we learn that she's been collaborating quite freely with a Potentium "heretic", which reinforces the emphasis that she isnot adhering to the standard Prequel Jedi rules...

In short, both of those novels emphasize Vergere's lack of real adherence to the Jedi Code.

Now yes, nothing there shows that she's a Sith, because she clearly hadn't been characterized as one at that point, but she is placed in a context of mysterious non-standard opinions...

I had also forgotten that she appears on the page in Rebirth, which just goes to show that I'm out of the loop when it comes to my STAR WARS these days...

... and in that novel, Vergere puts Tsavong Lah onto the trail of the Falcon, in an attempt to get Jacen into Yuuzhan Vong custody - Han and Leia and Threepio being presumably expendable in her plan... which is an overt indicator that (even if we choose to believe that she was just a rule-breaking Jedi in the Prequel era) she's capable of very ruthless actions, and a reminder that getting Jacen into YV hands is always part of her plan, and something she prioritizes to a very extreme extent...

Then why is it a problem if Jacen selfidentifies as Sith?

And more to the point, is there any reason at all to think that the colour of cloak Jacen wears actually causes the issues we're discussing here?

Assuming at least (for the sake of a thought-experiment) that Vergere wanted Jacen to call himself a Sith and wear a black cloak, would the sort of person she envisaged have been a bad thing (or would it just have been Traitor!Jacen with slightly more clothes)?

Discuss!

I didn't feel I needed to go into this point in detail - Vergere's attitude makes Luke very uneasy in Destiny's Way. Do we disagree?

Which adds further evidence to suggest that Vergere's overt status is a deception to allow her relatively free movement within their society, and that important people in the YV opposition are "in" on the deception. Do we agree on this?

No, in Hero's Trial she makes the decision not to betray Elan, then she makes the decision not to return to the Jedi. But the discussion that Ganner sees makes clear that Ganner is part of Jacen and Vergere's plans...

Really? I can't think of many places since the NJO that her YV past has been terribly relevant at all, tbh....

Actually, it's still on the site. I linked to it when I was replying to Revanfan, and my response is still the same: Assuming we can take what Denning says in his old StarWars.com interview at face value, he did suggest behind the scenes that the idea could or should be taken seriously... but as he notes, "The important thing was that the editors liked it." This was an idea that was fully accepted and embraced by the story team.

I'm not sure what points in DN3 you're referring to, though, or why they matter: to quote you on the topic, "despite the retcon and how it was pushed, plausible deniability is pervasive".

Thanks - now this is interesting; this is something I've noticed being explored thematically in Denning's novels in particular, and also in Shadows of Mindor.

Even so, I can't help but think that Han needs to sit down with some Jedi and explain to them how a repulsorlift works.

Just for clarification - this doesn't quite correspond to what I was recalling (or misremembering); I'd have thought t was a more recent remark by Shapiro or Rostoni...

The presentation of her as a Jedi with a rule-breaking master and an interest in heresy hardly makes her correspond to the conventional ideals of "the Republic-era Jedi".

Vergere's actions in Rebirth and Luke's lack of trust in Destiny's Way shows that the character had been further problematized within the NJO, before we even get to her actions in Star by Star or the her "there is no dark side" teachings in Traitor itself.

Is there anywhere in the novels that you would say this original "intention" with regard to Vergere was presented?

The entire trilogy that was supposed to precede Star by Star was rejected for some reason, and Zahn has used an anecdote about the number of passes he took on a scene involving a simple docking manoeuvre to illustrate the care the editors take.

That makes me suspect that if something in one of the novels jarred the editors, it would be chaged.

Well, do you agree that we can disagree on all of that?

I'm not sure what we're discussing, then, if we agree that the storyline is fully compatible with both our interpretations of Vergere...

Oh? I'd be really interested to know why you think that?

Nothing? Jacen returned to the society he'd never been comfortable with in the first place, and tried to fit back into it armed with his new knowledge.

Now that was never going to work, because his new knowledge was not anything to do with fitting in honestly in society, and now I think about it, his difficulty in corresponding to conventional values was probably a bigger motor for Jacen's discomfort than anything else...

So we can say that it's all about the hypocrisies of society when it comes to violence, status and masculinity - a point that Stover's mentioned in the past, if I recall (and the question of how and whether the hero can fit into society is another Stover point, as well)...

That's not nothing. That's everything. "Who is Jacen Solo, when he's not in the highly unusual scenario of Traitor?"

Good. We agree again!

If you agree with Vergere, "there is no dark side", then why do you object to Jacen becoming a Sith?

The point I'm trying to get to here is that just as we appear to agree that Jacen's direction after Traitor cannot be directly to Vergere's plans for him (she certainly didn't intend him to end up roadkill on Jaina's lightsaber), it has nothing in particular to do with the fact he starts to call himself a Sith and wears black leather, either, and I think that if you accept that, you have to reinterpret everything in the post-NJO novels.

Deconstructing the character in this way - "who is Jacen Solo?", as it were - leads me to the conclusion that what happens to Jacen is all about Jacen the human being, and has relatively little to do with Vergere, or being Sith, anything else.

Arguably, Jacen's humanity (his empathy, and his difficulty in expressing it) was what prevented him from becoming a more successful Sith, whether or not you think that's what Vergere wanted, and to be honest, I'm struggling to see why she'd have objected.

Vergere engineers Jacen's capture. The whole scheme is hers.

Yes, I'm talking about that conversation; since talking to hallucinations is established as something Jacen does in Traitor, and since fuzzy blue Jedi have been essentially not used since the start of the DelRey run, I'm equally puzzled why you're so insistent on that not being what's going on here (though I do respect your right to read it your way, if you prefer)...

Yeah.

Back in the days when I wasn't worried about anyone thinking my opinions carried any weight, I regularly liked to point out that Lord Skywalker has been the reigning representative of the Banite Sith lineage since he assassinated his Master on Ossus - Palpatine even accuses him of being driven by his repressed ambition in those comics.

Do I think is the "right" reading of the novels? Not really, no.

But I was never particularly hesitant about throwing the idea out there for fun.

Except a lot of nameless Chazrakh and Yuuzhan Vong extras throughout the NJO...?

I dunno. Questioning the morality of the Jedi tendency to turn their opponents' weapons back against them is a reputable position to take (Akanah to Luke in Shield of Lies, for example)...

And a couple of responses to the comedy comments, too...

To give this more of a serious answer than it deserves, the fact that Obi-Wan sends Luke from Hoth to Dagobah, the fact that Yoda joins in the conversation they have on Dagobah in ESB, and the fact that the discussion in RotJ provides important spoilers for the Prequels tend to indicate that all these appearances are legitimate...

But it was a funny comment, and I enjoyed it.

I love it.


Mac

 

I'll answer a few questions, but like I said I'm not particularly interested in debating the point, and I'm not going to dig up quotes (except one and Sam Witwer).

In other words, I can't help it.

Jacen attributes teachings which are conducive to his becoming Darth Caedus to Vergere which she never said. I suppose we're supposed to assume that she told him these things off the page, in the same sense that Jacen has more character development between The Unifying Force and The Joiner King off the page than he has in the entirety of Legacy of the Force. Furthermore, these things which Jacen attributes to her are incongruous with what we do read her telling him.

I think to cast Thracia Cho Leem as a rule-breaker is potentially retroactive continuity, insofar as that her having children isn't regarded as an issue when it is brought up (Ki-Adi-Mundi was a polygamist, requiring a retcon as well). She also left the Jedi order by the point we see her, which again makes it ambiguous as to whether she was a "rule-breaker" when Vergere was her padawan. Plus, this seems to be a guilt by association fallacy, insofar as that Qui-Gon is viewed as a rule-breaker but Obi-Wan is as straight-laced as they come. And yet Anakin is another rule-breaker.

Concerning the former -- and I haven't read Rebirth in a few years -- I don't think it's necessarily out of character for an Old Republic Jedi to have her mindset. Yoda and Obi-Wan have a conversation in Revenge of the Sith (the novel) that they would sacrifice each other if it meant ending the war one day earlier, so they seem to be of a pretty utilitarian mindset (never mind that Yoda is a hypocrite here). If Vergere believed Jacen was the only way to end the war in a manner which didn't result in utter extinction for one or both sides, I don't think that's incongruous with the way that the Old Republic Jedi are depicted for her to behave as she did. Regarding the latter, I don't think it's surprising at all that Luke is skeptical of Vergere. Why wouldn't he be? It would be out of character if he just embraced her with open arms.

Regarding the former, I was given to believe it was an issue of quality rather than story content (see: Escape from Dagu). Mike Stackpole had a novel of his own cancelled and rolled the content into Ruin, so we do have an example of an NJO novel being cancelled for other considerations. Concerning the latter, I believe the editors had an issue with Artoo flying the X-Wing by himself. Which he does in TCW with a Jedi starfighter anyway. I think the editors at LucasFilm have extremely poor priorities, and I don't think they were or are particularly on the ball in that regard. But I suppose you would know better than I about this, potentially? I also have my own theories based on what's been publicly aired (such as Stackpole's novel being cancelled) about the behind the scenes of the NJO and its successors, which I won't state publicly, since it's highly critical of certain people involved.

Yeah, but I don't think it should be. Unless you're referring explicitly to the NJO. But Luceno seems to make it pretty clear that Vergere was to Jacen as Yoda was to Luke in the series, so I think you would have to subscribe to death of the author. I find myself in-between, as I like to look at the intent to guide my interpretation of a text. I've been warned by RC-1991 that you like to read against the text.

I don't think your characterization of Vergere is consistent to what we've seen, including Ostrander's depiction and Denning et al.'s second hand depiction of her in Dark Nest and Legacy of the Force. She lays it on pretty thick and reveals her plans while cackling like a stereotypical villain. Perhaps that wasn't your intent. I haven't read that piece in a while either.

That goes against The Return in the hero's journey. I suppose that's a discussion in itself, and perhaps the same argument could be made about Luke at the end of the film saga. Which is why I found the fake TV show synopsis (Reclamation was its name, IIRC) that was floating around a few years ago before SW Rebels was announced to be interesting with what it did with Luke. And wouldn't have minded seeing Jacen used in a similar vein after the NJO. I wouldn't say that a knight-errant like Qui-Gon necessarily "fits" into society.

Well, he seems to decide that he's a student and a teacher. And this follows with his depiction leading up to Traitor (as a student), and afterward. And we see a glimpse of this (the teacher part) in his interaction with Ganner at the conclusion of Traitor. I'll admit that the teacher part wasn't followed up on very well (or really, at all) in the rest of the series, which I attribute to poor execution rather than rolling back on the idea.

I think this is a false dichotomy. You don't have to either interpret this situation as "Vergere is right and there is no dark side" or "Vergere is wrong," because there's always context. Note that she repetitively uses the phrase "what you call the dark side." I would say it's reductive to take Vergere at face value here anyway. To briefly touch on it, Stover makes the same exact point in Shatterpoint (and reinforces Traitor and Shatterpoint on this point in Revenge of the Sith, which I guess was line-edited by George Lucas? APPEAL TO AUTHORITY), but it's not viewed as controversial in Shatterpoint. Luke makes the same point himself in The Unifying Force. I guess it's noteworthy that even if we take everything at face value and Vergere believes there's no dark side, she objects to Anakin Skywalker becoming a Sith. Unless she's lying. But that seems pretty counter-intuitive to the motives that are later cast on her, does it not?

If you wish to see my extensive thoughts on this and Vergere in Traitor, I have a massive thread about it. You can pick through and read my individual posts, as it isn't as daunting as it looks given the frequent derailments.

I think the intent early on was that Darth Caedus was wholly due to Vergere. The Joiner King is pretty open about this in the way that it not only depicts Jacen, but the Jedi order as a whole after ostensibly having adopted Vergere's teachings, even partially. Amusingly, I think Luke's ultimate repudiation of this near the conclusion of that novel is more in line with what Vergere was getting at, at least when it comes to Force metaphysics. But most importantly, Luke outright repudiates Vergere in DN3, while Jacen does not. And given what the Jedi were up to before Luke rolled back on Denning's version of a "Vergereified" Jedi order, Jacen's becoming Caedus or even choosing to attempt to be a Sith, having not rejected her ways, certainly implies a causal relationship.

I think most think these things would preclude him even making the attempt to become a Sith, and apart from that we're told repeatedly that he no longer has those traits, both before and after he becomes a Sith. If that is the intent, it was very poorly executed. But I don't think that it was.

Well, to start with, Luke and Jacen don't read it that way in The Unifying Force. But a major point I wanted to make is that all these characters have fallibility, so I don't think any character in the New Jedi Order has it "all" right, including Vergere. She concedes as much.. going back to your point about her orchestrating Jacen's capture, she felt the only way she could teach Jacen what she wanted to teach him was through pain -- and I think this particular lesson, or rather prerequisite lesson, was a rejection of hedonism. And she says that maybe Jacen can teach her a better way. Because he manages to teach Ganner the exact same lesson in a much shorter timespan. I suppose it's worth noting that Jacen similarly serves the Vergere role for Ganner, including getting him captured. Of course, that wasn't his intent. But he still made it happen.

So now that I've defeated my own argument (and had a short tangent), it's worth noting that Jacen doesn't "hallucinate" Vergere until after she dies, and she conveys knowledge of her death to him, which he was previously ignorant about. I believe that's the same argument you used in favor of Obi-Wan? I suppose I could make similar arguments "reading against the text" concerning Obi-Wan, including that it was Yoda using the apparition of Obi-Wan, rather than Obi-Wan himself, thus causing Luke to hallucinate -- at least in The Empire Strikes Back. Though I suppose in Return of the Jedi, Luke's receipt of a prequel spoiler from Obi-Wan could be his own subconscious putting together what Yoda just told him on his deathbed, "there is another Skywalker." In fact, I believe Luke says it before Obi-Wan confirms it, just like Jacen asks Vergere if she's dead before she confirms it.

As for Jacen hallucinating in Traitor, we know that the first time that Vergere was causing it, which is certainly plausible in the third case. And the second was caused by the Vonglife creature. The fourth was either caused by Vergere or Ganner. But I think that's missing the point that's being conveyed by the ambiguity. But it does raise the question: what was the cause of his hallucination on Ebaq Nine?

As I mentioned before, the most useful evidence that Vergere was literally Vergere, and not a hallucination, was that after her death, Vergere continues to participate in the Jedi meld. So all the Jedi at Ebaq Nine would have been hallucinating the same thing at the same time.

Jacen's presence in the meld was calm. With Vergere. She's saved us.
Vergere, thought Luke. His reaction was strong enough to send his complex feelings into the Force-meld, and he felt the others react. Luke quickly dampened his contact with the meld. There were secrets he didn't want all Jedi to know.
Was Vergere with the Yuuzhan Vong? The complex idea took some time for Luke to formulate. If the answer to his question was yes, the Yuuzhan Vong knew of the Alpha Red weapon and this whole victory might be pointless.
No. Vergere's astringent personality flowed into the meld from wherever she had been concealing herself, and spoke with extraordinary clarity. I have been hiding among the New Republic forces. I stole a fighter and dived it into the moon to destroy the enemy.
Luke absorbed the implications of this. You gave your life to save the others.
Vergere's response was the answer she had given all along. It was necessary.

I suppose you could interpret that Vergere is still alive somehow as well, if you choose. Of course, I'd argue that her "extraordinary clarity" was a consequence of unity with the Unifying/Cosmic Force, which is what Luke and Jacen conclude in The Unifying Force.

I remember this. My Yoda comment is made in a similar vein.

I'm not sure who said Jacen didn't murder anyone, but I would agree that he didn't. Murder and killing are two different things. Yes, Jacen killed a lot of people in the NJO. Did he murder anyone? No. He murdered Nelani in Betrayal. Unless you subscribe to the idea that killing in war is murder, as in a complete rejection of warfare. But I doubt most people that are in the "Vergere was a bad seed" camp subscribe to that.

I find the Fallanassi interesting as an organization that embodies the so-called light side of the Force. There's a Sam Witwer quote I'm particularly fond of that he said in an interview to promote the Mortis trilogy,

"The dark side isn't necessarily just this malicious Force, it is the jagged destructive impulses that you sometimes need. But if you take them too far, they could destroy everything in your life. You can't eliminate it, though, because if you remove it, the universe becomes a very stagnant place. You need that destructive impulse having some form of influence. But if you lose the balance between the two, well then the Empire happens and the universe goes to hell. The dark side, while it is the destructive impulse, also creates a lot of action.

"I think that anyone would be kidding themselves if they said that the Jedi in the movies were purely all about the light side of the Force and had no destructive impulses. If they didn't have destructive impulses they couldn't defend themselves. They couldn't be the guardians of peace and justice because they couldn't take action. They couldn't be decisive. But they champion one side over the other, and that's the passive, peaceful, creative side of the Force -- the one that creates ideas and possibilities. So the creative impulse comes from the good side and the spark you need to make that happen perhaps comes from that slightly destructive side."

The Fallanassi have absolutely no influence on the galaxy whatsoever. If we look at them in terms of balance of the Force, I would suggest that this is how the light side gets out of balance. If the entire Jedi order adopted this sort of attitude -- and I would argue the Old Republic Jedi did in a sense, just enough, through their becoming entangled in the bureaucracy and politics of the Republic, which is again a whole other discussion -- then you get Edmund Burke's quote and balance quickly shifts from light to dark, as we saw on film.

 

I guess I'll add to the point about the prequel Jedi being utilitarian that Yoda just tells Anakin to let go of all he fears to lose when he goes to Yoda about visions of the death of a loved one, and that Yoda and Obi-Wan similarly are willing to allow Han and Leia to die to ensure that Luke completes his training. Is it right? iunno but I don't think it's out of the ordinary for Vergere to have a similar mindset.

I guess my attempt at an answer would be to say that it's a consequence of the Jedi being at war, whether it be the Clone War, the Yuuzhan Vong War, or simply engaging in a dichotomy with the Sith. It's not ideal -- it's not right -- but it's pretty much necessary from their perspective. Luke rises above it in the film saga. I suppose you could argue that the NJO is revisiting a settled question the same way that I would accuse LOTF of doing it with Jacen, but at least Luke is pretty hesitant about how to deal with the situation. I think he would seek to redeem the Yuuzhan Vong if he knew how, but he redeemed one man, not an entire species. And that's the new struggle for the Jedi. And Vergere doesn't think that her way is ideal either; she tells Jacen it's probably his job to teach her the better way. And I think that's what Luke does for Yoda and Obi-Wan. Of course, other people think they knew it but couldn't say it, or otherwise had to show Luke the door but he had to walk through it. Perhaps the same is true of Vergere. The situation is pretty hard to get a grasp on. Luke is distrustful of Vergere, so if she did abandon the Yuuzhan Vong in Jedi Eclipse, I wonder if he would be more willing to trust her. Perhaps so, if she healed Mara then and there. But perhaps not. And if not, what sort of influence or impact could she have on the war? Could she train Jacen? And if so, would those circumstances allow Jacen to become who he is?

A lot of hypotheticals.

I chose. I acted. And then I resolved to face the consequences. Tell me then, young Jedi -- was I wrong?

I guess something that no one has really done, at least that I've seen, is examined Vergere's arc as presented in the NJO and Rogue Planet and Cloak of Deception. She was only a Jedi Knight for a few years when she went to Zonama Sekot, and so she wasn't Yoda facing the Yuuzhan Vong, and had her own self-doubt. I would suggest that this isn't any different in the NJO itself. Even Yoda has self-doubt. But we never get in Vergere's headspace. I'd like to see someone's take on the character that plays it completely straight, in terms of what she's thinking when she makes her decisions. Generally when people imagine Vergere, we look at her as either this devious Sith whose actions are dictated to some extent by malice and Machiavellianism, or as this wise Jedi guru. But I'd like to think that, like Yoda, she had her moments of doubt. She didn't know Jacen's destiny. She just wanted him to fulfill it. She didn't have plans for him at all. She was like Ganner. Just the sidekick that allows the real hero to do his job.

 

Just to be pedantically clear, I'm not clear what exactly you think "the point" under discussion is ("who is Jacen Solo?"), and I'm not sure what you "can't help" either (continuing the conversation?)...

Thanks for the reply, though. As I said before, you're welcome to take this to PM if you don't want to interrupt the thread again...

I got that that was what you meant - it's examples of the attributions in question that I was looking for. You can just use a link if they're in another thread...?

Without knowing exactly what you're talking about, I'd broadly put it to you that Jacen might be internalizing and reinterpreting what he experienced in Traitor, producing misremembered and misinterpreted citations that express the arc of the process and the meaning the he took from it, rather than the literal details of what Vergere actually said or intended.

This is something that people do naturally, and something that I think we see Jacen doing anyway with the "green lightning" scene in Destiny's Way, so that's not a big issue for me...

The fact that Thracia leaves the Jedi defines her as a rule-breaker!!

It's true that she only formally leaves the Jedi after Rogue Planet - but she's been absent from the Temple for "many years" before her return to find out what's happened to Vergere, and in her own words, she decided to "take a break" at some point, and go travelling (these could describe the same thing, but chronologically, it seems her kids must predate her training of Vergere, unless she actually trained Vergere randomly somewhere unsupervised, and simply sent her to Coruscant for approval); it certainly seems like she's portraying her actions as non-standard, and posiitively flaunting her behaviour in the exchange she has with Mace in the Council Chamber - and it's made clear that Mace simply likesher too much to put her down.

It's all problematic and unorthodox, even before you get to the question of when the retcon about Jedi "attachments" happened, which I can't give you an immediate answer to.

You can add in the Potentium teaching, which Vergere at least seems to have some sympathy with (and now I wonder if Thracia knew Leor Hal)...

Luke has always been welcoming to all sorts of Jedi - his response in Destiny's Way emphasizes the fact that the depiction of Vergere in the previous novels was not straightforward, IMHO...

... and while I take your point about righteously utilitarian Jedi... well, firstly, Vergere herself seems to condemn that attitude ("Isn't that a littlesick?"), and secondly, where is the line between a utilitarian Jedi and Jacen in DN3...?

And yes, I realise those points appear to be mutually contradictory, but you'd have to find an answer to reconcile her critique with herown actions, as well...

Well, I don't think I'm breaking any confidences if I say that my experience with WARFARE was that everyone involved was very committed to getting things right (and that meant that not all of my proposals got through the process, nor did I expect them to); I've spoken about this in the past, in terms of the difference between stuff I think is fun for fan discussion, stuff I think is appropriate to propose for inclusion in official material, and the eventual product which is meditated on by people well above the level I was at...

...but I have absolutely no insight into the NJO process beyond what's available on the internet. What I was really hoping to do here was distinguish our engagement with the text from our fannish attempts to work out "authorial intent" one way or another - we do not know as much as we think, and you can normally produce an opposing POV from the same evidence.

(I learned this lesson when I convinced myself that there was an extended homage to Voltaire's Candide in Traitor. Fortunately, that doesn't change my basic response to the novel itself, and it certainly makes no difference whatsoever to the story in itself...)

That's all...

That depends what you mean (and bear in mind that in what follows, I'm talking about a version of myself that hasn't been active in this fandom since around 2010, until I saw this thread).

Occasionally, I've thrown out ideas that are genuinely against-the-text (such as my once-notorious suggestion that the story of the Thrawn trilogy had been "censored by NRI", and the role of the Noghri was actually played by the Ewoks), but in general, those are just for fun (c'mon, Grand Admiral Thrawn and an Ewok - think about it a moment??).

When I'm actually playing it straight, I tend to pick up on details which raise questions about the ostensible narrative (inconsistencies between the novels, for instance), and to explain those without actually contradicting the actual scenes of the story as we're presented with it... this more-or-less requires me to accept the integrity of the text (what we used to call the canon) as the basis of the story, including the seeming contradictions, since when you start to pick and choose, you can argue just about anything (and at this point, I'll give you the image of an Ewok doing flying leaps to execute bridge crew members on the Chimaera)...

It's only when a text contains indications of its own constructed nature (as with the autobiographical I, Jedi, the framing scenes of Shadows of Mindor, and the editing tricks and spatial impossibilities of the movies) that I find it permissible to actually unpack the integrity of the "text" (but I tend to be "minimalist" even there)...

I also have a preference not to make fanboy assumptions about what the writers might have intended, since we're working obliquely from a limited selection of comments that were not designed to answer our questions, and may not tell the whole story of the creative process (unless an author directly rebuts a fan-theory, which is a very different matter)...

So, I prioritize the text above the (individual) intent(s) of the (various) author(s), (not least because the NJO is a collaborative series and it sum must be greater than its parts,) but you could only really say I subscribe to the inscrutability of the author, nothing more than that...

Wow, that was a lot of electrons devoted to explaining my old internet personality. Will anyone actually read it, or care?

So, anyway, with regard to Vergere, I think that the character as she developed on the page takes priority - we can both argue contrasting positions about what was intended, but that isn't the same as talking about what was achieved...

And, when you say you "don't think it should be", am I right to think that you believe that your interpretation is "more right", on the basis of your analysis of the behind-the-scenes evidence regarding the intent of the creative team? If so, all I can do is (politely!) point out that I have a contradictory reading of the same evidence for intent, and I'm not aware of anything that means either take can be verified; so aren't we back to agreeing to disagree, and falling back to the text?

I agree that the reader who's read the NJO should see this as a different persona, even a dissonant one, but that's a clue in itself (I couldn't credibly see her using her Jacen persona in front of Ngaaluh and Mezhan Kwaad)...

Above all, I wrote her performing for an audience (another Stover trope!) so, the question becomes, who is she acting for...?

That was the authorial intent, anyway.

Exactly! The question of the nature of The Return is what I was leading you to here. Well, that, and the question of characterization (which I think is all-important for the question of "who is Jacen Solo?")...

I don't remember this fake synopsis, but I agree with you about Qui-Gon.

We also see that Jacen, in The Unifying Force itself, makes the decision to be a Knight Errant - and he trains a brilliant apprentice in the form of Nelani Dinn (yes, the implication that Jacen trained her during his sabbatical is probably a result of them not changing a line when they extended the gap after Dark Nest, but my attitude to the text says "keep it with all that that implies")...

Yet that in itself is something of an admission that Jacen has difficulties interacting with society in normal ways; some people can accept that, but in his case, because it's related to his empathy, his over-awarness, he's naturally over-aware of the resulting awkward moments...

See above with regard to Nelani. But I didn't ask "who does Jacen Solo think he is?"; I was really asking what is his personality...?

I'm not sure I follow. The motives attributed to her later would imply that she is lying when she expresses shock at what became of Vader.

And to be honest, I always thought she was, for the simple reason that I I find it hard to believe that by Traitor, Vergere hadn't discovered that Vader went Sith - so yes, she might feel pity for what Vader became (and this is true regardless of whether she's any sort of Sith), but her expressions of shock and surprise seem unlikely, suggesting that she's doing this entirely for Jacen's benefit.

My reading of that scene has always been that Vergere is subtly mocking Jacen's categorizations, by using a subtle false note (based on the dichotomy between what's to be genuinely pitied about Vader, and the "Lord of the Sith" designation that still scares Jacen), and thus that she wants Jacen to ask where Vader really went wrong, not in terms of "a Lord of the Sith", but in terms of practical actions and missteps...

All of which works perfectly regardless of whether Vergere regards Sith Lord as a valid designation for a hero; but I see absolutely no reason why she shouldn't - it's not what you call yourself, it's what you do...

Thanks. I'll go looking for the link.

There are two levels on which I'd disagree: firstly, there's the fact that Luke experiments with the new approach, falls into a dangerous pattern, and steps back. Jacen, in contrast, doesn't. That difference in responses suggests that is less about Vergere and her teaching, than it is about their contrasting personalities and personal responses...

Secondly, there's the question of what we mean by "Vergere"; Luke has so little contact with her, and so little trust in her when he does, that what we're really talking about here is not "Vergere", but the result of Jacen's own philosophical journey, and the fairly straightforward Potentium teachings preserved on Zonoma Sekot (which Vergere seems to have been sympathetic towards)...

I don't think we can really deny that the idea of the Jedi accepting the Potentium was a part of the NJO; or that DN3 is a series about the difficulties that can arise when you try to codify that sort of teaching...

What if he's denying his empathy, because of the pain? Surely that makes sense of both points, simultaneously, while being utterly in-character for Jacen?

I find it hard to accept that Jacen wouldn't have registered what happened with the A-wing, especially if they were both in the battle-meld. This is simply about him recognizing it (more evidence for the Jacen-in-denial hypothesis!)...

I'd forgotten about this part of the scene, but I'd be inclined to interpret this as all a product of Jacen's psyche...

(And of course, if Jacen hallucinates a Tyler Durden Vergere, then we have even more of an explanation for those later misquotes you mentioned)...

And ultimately, what I was reaching for here was to see if we could both accept that both readings of the scene are at least to some extent valid?

Do you have any evidence to back it up, though? I mean, the fact that Lord Skywalker was Sidious' final apprentice, and killed him while his Sith Master protested that he was giving in to his desire for power over the Force is undisputable on-page continuity...

Am I in that camp?

No, they just don't take credit for what they do. Saving Han and Chewie and countless other people in Tyrant's Test is one time we barely glimpse them doing whatever it is they do; and Nelani nudging Luke Skywalker back on his path to be a Jedi is another ripple of their teaching; trying to communicate with Jacen in DN3 is yet another...

... and at this point, I realise that they were also the point of continuity I couldn't quite see that tied together one of my own crazy theories. Hah!

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Not drawing your lightsaber and going on a religious crusade against different religions doesn't mean she wasn't adhering to prequal jedi rules. ALL Rogue Planet tells us is that Vergere found a dire situation an tried to deal with it as diplomatically as possible.

 

I mean debating Vergere. It's been over a decade and I think most people have settled into their interpretations so no one is going to change their mind (maybe). I'm not. Which isn't to say that I'm closed minded. My take on all this in 2002-2003 was a lot different than it is now.

And I can't help but respond.

Well, this is what I meant when I didn't want to continue arguing the point (by which I mean Vergere):

"Pain no longer troubled him. Pain was his servant; he had learned that from Vergere."

I think this is incongruous with chapter one of Traitor. Jacen rejects philosophical hedonism and realizes that pain is not inherently bad. But "pain was his servant"? Sure, in Traitor Jacen overcomes letting physical pain affect him as we see in chapter four, but the second sentence seems wholly unnecessary and is coloring this with what I consider a negative connotation.

"What about the will of the Force, Jacen? Why not trust it?"

The reference to the Jedi's new understanding of the Force made Jacen think of Vergere...

Why does the will of the Force make Jacen think of Vergere? She never discusses it. Based on the content of DN and LOTF, I get the impression that Denning was trying to move away from the concept (by associating it with Vergere).

Didn't Vergere teach that our intentions make an act dark or light?" Tenel Ka asked.

"She did," Jacen admitted.

Really?

There was a time, before Vergere and the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, when Jacen would have felt guilty for having to use such a powerful attack on a nine-year-old boy.

Again, an attribution with a negative connotation. Does Jacen ever do anything in the NJO, after Traitor, to suggest he would have done this?

With the Jedi essentially leaderless and in disarray, he had no doubts about their eventual decision. In times of turmoil, most people were eager to follow a being with a vision. Vergere had taught him that.

When?

That was one of the reasons Jacen believed he ought to be the one to confront Lomi Plo. He had no doubts -- of any kind. Vergere had scorched them out of him in a crucible of pain.

Jacen has no doubts after Traitor? Really?

But pain was only dangerous when it was feared -- that had been one of Vergere's first lessons.

Was it?

Anakin Skywalker had understood his own strength, and -- at one time, at least -- he had tried to use that strength to bring peace. Vergere would have approved. Power unused was power wasted, and whatever had happened to him later, Anakin Skywalker had at least attempted to use his for a good end.

Would she have?

"I'm not saying Vergere's teachings are immoral," Luke replied. "In fact, they don't concern themselves with morality at all. They provide no guidance."

"Exactly!" Jacen said. "They're about ridding ourselves of illusions, about seeing that nothing is ever truly dark or light, completely good or evil."

The bottom line here is that Denning shows a predilection to tell the reader what Vergere stood for. I read Traitor, I'm not a moron, I don't need Denning to tell me what Traitor was about. And I'd have more respect for his writing if he showed it instead of just telling me. But he didn't write Traitor, he just wanted the final word on it. Because really what he's doing is "canonizing" his view of Traitor, or rather an interpretation of it which is conducive toward what he's trying to do.

"Still, I don’t buy much of what is implied about the Force in Traitor. I believe that the Force is more of a mythic element than a psychological one, that its relevance is more collective than personal. Apparently, two Star Wars authors have different views of the Force. Imagine that."

Well, in chapter six, we have this exchange:

"You know," Jacen murmured, still gazing up into the sky, "that's exactly what you said when you brought me into the Nursery. Those same words. Just like that."

"Truly?" Her wind-chime laughter tinkled around him. "You recall all that I say to you?"

"Every word," Jacen answered grimly.

I guess I'd point out that in Traitor, Jacen is a POV character and Vergere is not, so we literally see how Jacen interprets what Vergere says. And I dislike this idea that he can misinterpret it later. Luke might as well misinterpret Yoda later. Maybe that caused Dark Empire rather than Yoda being a Sith Lord, iunno.

Even so, guilt by association. I'm not an expert on Thracia, but the early prequel Jedi order in the Expanded Universe was a lot more permissive before Episode II. An'ya Kuro was a Jedi for Christ's sake.

Vergere isn't sympathetic to the Potentium at all.

"They were believers in the Potentium, the doctrine that the Force is light only and that evil and the dark side are a kind of illusion."

She sort of ridicules it to Jacen:

"I tried to protect the Magister, but in the end I failed him. A Yuuzhan Vong squadron attacked his palace, and that brave, inventive man was killed. His belief that evil was an illusion did not save him."

Of course, it's important to distinguish what the Potentium is, as it seems early on (early 2000s) it became conflated with the common interpretation of Vergere, and indeed was done so in a novel (!!) Patterns of Force.

Advocates of the concept had believed that the Force could not push one into evil, that the universe was infiltrated by a benevolent field of life energy whose instructions were inevitably good. The Potentium, as they called it, was the beginning and ending of all things, and one's connection with it should not be mediated or obscured by any sort of training or discipline. Followers of the Potentium insisted that the Jedi Masters and the Temple hierarchy could not accept the universal good of the Potentium because it meant they were no longer needed.

It's a pretty distinct set of beliefs that reject the Jedi order as an institution, and believe the Force is inherently good. I suppose it's easy to understand why this would be conflated with Vergere, since A) it appears in the NJO, B) she says there's no dark side, and that seems to mesh with the belief that the Force is inherently good, and C) Jacen himself believes in Vector Prime that there shouldn't be any sort of hierarchy in the Jedi order or association with government bureaucracy in his rejection of Luke's effort to recreate the Jedi council.

But it's important to note that in Traitor, Vergere says

"The Force is one, Jacen Solo. The Force is everything, and everything is the Force. I've told you already: the Force does not take sides."

That's slightly different than saying that the Force is inherently good.

Yes, but from Luke's perspective, Vergere tortured Jacen. He isn't skeptical or suspicious of her because of her beliefs, but is suspicious of her beliefs because he's suspicious of her. And he still ultimately comes around to them in The Unifying Force.

Jacen's actions are more consequentialist than utilitarian. He's not looking for the greatest good, even if he tells himself that he is. He's fundamentally just acting off of the ends justifying the means, but his end isn't the greatest good.

The sum of my, I suppose, opinion of intent is based off my efforts to find as much behind the scenes information as possible, as well as being told some behind the scenes stuff concerning post-NJO works in confidence. I was told by the mods I wasn't allowed to discuss the latter here (not sure if I should even if not told that, either) unless Del Rey no longer held the license, but it has colored my opinions. So I suppose for those that are really curious, my supra-negativity might tell you something?

Also, on the subject of intent, we do have Denning's word that no one involved with the NJO intended for Vergere to be a Sith, at the very least -- save possibly Denning himself. He had to pitch the idea to the editors after the series ended.

Well, Stover gave an interview about Traitor before he clammed up about it here death of the author style, in which he was pretty clear that he felt Vergere made Jacen a better Jedi. So I've kind of taken that as confirmation that this was the intent behind the writing of Traitor. Beyond that, I have my own analysis of the book as Jacen's katabasis or Journey to the Underworld of his hero's journey, with the objective of recovery being self-knowledge.

When it comes to contradictions in the books, specifically regarding this example of Vergere, for instance, there's definitely inconsistencies even in the NJO in her portrayal. Looking at it purely from an authorial intent perspective, I'm so jaded and cynical as to believe that her portrayal in Star by Star was Denning deliberately setting up the idea that she was a Sith or otherwise untrustworthy in order to roll back on the changes that the NJO made to the status quo concerning the Jedi. But I consider the overall intent of the "showrunners" to be paramount in guiding my own interpretation -- and I would have come to this interpretation regardless -- and that seems to be that Vergere was a mentor for Jacen on his hero's journey, someone who had a positive impact on his character growth. What Dark Nest did, and LOTF after that, in having her negatively affect Jacen and turn him from hero into villain, ultimately renders the New Jedi Order and five years of publishing of null storytelling purpose in Star Wars. It changes the literary equivalent of the film saga into a huge con in which the heroes are led astray. Hence my joke about Yoda being a Sith Lord. The impact that Yoda being a Sith would have on how we view the films would ultimately render them a lesser experience. And this is the negative side of continuity: what followed the NJO ultimately lessened it.

It's difficult to find online since revealed to be a hoax, but the implication of the "leaked material" was that Luke vanished sometime after ROTJ, and there was a new conflict being fought between the New Republic and the Empire, and there was a figure known as "The Shade" or something similar that was accompanied by an Artoo droid which would interfere with battles and end them without taking a single life.

I suppose that's true that he trained Nelani. Which raises an interesting point, IMO... we sort of have it as canon now that consequentialist Jacen manifested immediately after The Unifying Force (thanks to some awful timeline retcons in FOTJ...). And you also mention that the original intent was that he trained her between Dark Nest and Betrayal. But she doesn't display the consequentialist mindset that Jacen does, and finds it troubling -- although peculiar that if he was supposed to have trained her after Dark Nest, she would find it all that alarming in Betrayal. That just goes back to my point about Vergere and her teacher.

Well, his personality is on display for sixteen novels. I don't find that personality particularly similar at all to the one we saw in the subsequent twelve. JINO as a term exists because apparently a lot of people feel the same way.

Why would further reinforcing that Sith = bad be conducive to her LOTF ascribed motives? Her secondhand portrayal in DN and LOTF suggest she all but was a Sith toward Jacen. And under that interpretation, she seems to take a "permissive" attitude toward the dark side. Why not similarly take a "permissive" attitude toward the Sith? Outright decrying that Anakin became one seems counter-intuitive toward her alleged strategy of slowing making Jacen accept Sith teachings.

But Jacen, in the NJO, would have stepped back quicker than Luke. This is the guy that didn't want Anakin to fire Centerpoint, decided at one point to stop fighting altogether, and outright refused military aid from Sekot. What changed and why? Denning directly tells us multiple times that Vergere is what caused the change in the above quotes.

I already commented on Potentium above, and how it's distinct from both what Vergere taught, and also how the Jedi behave in Dark Nest. The Potentium was purposely written to be wrong in Rogue Planet, and is completely distinct from Vergere or anything the Jedi adopt, either in The Unifying Force or Dark Nest. And it's important to note that Dark Nest is Denning's take on what Luke says in The Unifying Force, and they're both incongruous as well. And if you want to argue that they're not... well that isn't something I'm going to spend my time arguing about any longer on this forum (unless I can't help it), but I'll simply raise the question of what the point of the NJO was if the Jedi we see in The Joiner King are the intended outcome.

I could say the same about Obi-Wan conveying to Luke that Leia is his sister.

Under this premise, Jacen's fictional Vergere is incongruous with his own interpretation of what she has to say in Traitor.

I honestly think that it's really stretching it to interpret Vergere's ghost in Destiny's Way to be a hallucination, especially given the nature of the Force-meld.

I do have an answer. But it's my answer, not yours. You will find no truth in me. Ask yourself. Where else can one look?

The Fallanassi act in Tyrant's Test under Luke's influence. My recollection is they sort of felt indebted to Luke because Akanah sort of dicked him around and did it as a favor. Prior to Luke's arrival they did nothing except project the illusion that their temple was ruins so they would be unmolested, and indeed that follows with their hiding from the Galactic Empire. Your example is the exception.

I get the general sense that we simply have two contrasting philosophies when it comes to the Expanded Universe. I value narrative, and more specifically good narrative, over continuity, whereas my understanding of your position is an effort to coalesce contradicting novels into a single whole. In this particular instance, I find it to be wholly unsatisfying as a narrative, versus the one I have adopted, I suppose you could say based on authorial intent, re: Luceno in the round robin and Stover's interview on TFN, as well as Stover's own posts on this forum.

And yeah, I'll admit your reading is equally plausible. But the way Star Wars continuity has been handled throughout the life of the Expanded Universe (1976-2014 RIP), anything is plausible. Following your example, we might as well recast the NJO-LOTF as an internecine Sith War between Luke Skywalker and Vergere/Lumiya. And that's equally valid.

If someone came along and wrote a novel that retconned Yoda to be a Sith Lord, as I often joke, and completely recast the film saga as a consequence, my choice would be to disregard this addition and view the films as they were meant to be viewed. The same is true of the New Jedi Order series.

NON-FORMATTING/SPELLING/GRAMMAR EDIT:

I just realized that my NJO/Traitor thread probably has a lot more effort and depth to it than Denning's Vergere compendium did.

 

Actually, this kind of bothers me:

Why is Luke being suspicious of Vergere at all related to her not being depicted straightforward? Luke isn't omniscient. All he knows about Vergere is that she provided Han with tears that temporarily healed Mara Jade, and that she accompanied Jacen during his captivity, and from his perspective, tortured him, or allowed him to be tortured by omission of action. Luke isn't aware of her serving as an advisor to the warmaster. Not even Jacen is. All this sinister stuff about Vergere, including what you wrote, Luke is completely ignorant about it.

So why is Luke's suspicion evidence of anything, or even noteworthy? You've got a conclusion and you're working back toward it.

 

You're forgetting that Luke has a unique Force ability - Sense Alignment or something - that allows him to immediately determine the redeemability of any Force user. Don't you read the books?

 

Holy scheisse, DigitalMessiah, you got behind-the-scenes access to post-NJO works? No wonder you're so jaded about the whole thing

 

Yeah, there's some public info in the Essential Reader's Companion, and what I've heard is an elaboration on that, as well as the general "stuff" (trying to be vague here) that went into LOTF.

I don't think it's really revealing anything to say that my take on it is that Denning and Shapiro weren't happy with the mantle passing from Luke to Jacen (Shapiro openly admits it -- or rather denies that it even happened -- in the NJO round table, as well as admits her dislike for the Force philosophy in the series), and that dissatisfaction was the driving force of Star Wars publishing (in terms of these large literary projects) for nearly a decade as a result. When Denning says he pitched the idea that Vergere was a Sith, and the editors (Shapiro) liked it, it's a no-brainer why, because as something of an ad hominem on Jacen's mentor it allows all that stuff to be undone.

Edit: Appropriate quote from Shapiro:

"I personally would like to see the Force return to the more mystical life force we saw in the first three movies, but in the end, the plot and the characters are more in charge than I am, and they moved in that direction naturally."

The irony is that Vergere isn't really teaching Jacen anything different about the Force than Yoda taught Luke. Vergere is rhetorically cryptic with Jacen, whereas with Yoda, I think the most profound and important training Luke receives is when he goes into the cave, and that is just as cryptic as anything that Vergere says, but since it's a product of the visual medium, and Vergere is a product of the written medium, they're not taken the same way. And they're similar lessons, but what Jacen needs to learn in that regard is different than what Luke needs to learn.

I think when you break down the original trilogy, really The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the Force is equally ambiguous, and what I find interesting is that most people that write about Star Wars, from a Campbellian or Jungian or otherwise analytical perspective, get it, but twenty years ago, you have West End Games and most of the 90s Expanded Universe taking it extremely reductively. Maybe that's a consequence of West End Games serving as the foundation of the early Expanded Universe, and their rule system had to take it that way to serve the gameplay, and the authors were content to leave it at that. But it colored the Expanded Universe until Episode I and the New Jedi Order and other post-TPM EU broached the depth that was there all along, and a lot of fans disliked this because they were used to the more basic duality.

From my perspective, we got this period from 1999-2005, I guess concurrent with the prequels, where the Expanded Universe was mostly willing to embrace this depth, and then starting with Dark Nest in the back end of 2005, there was a movement in the EU to return to the more basic dualism. There were outliers after 2005, mostly in TCW, but it robbed the Expanded Universe of depth in the sense that any real examination of characterization or moral consequences became replaced by Luke doing the exact same things the Sith are doing, but it's okay because he's Luke and he's a Jedi.

 

I would just like to say that he seemed rather comfortable in the YJK books so I don't think we can say that he 'never' was comfortable with the society he lived in. Or am I misunderstanding what you are talking about?

He also know that Vergere had a chance to jump ship to the Republic when she provided Han with tears but did not. If I remember right so where her explanation to why she did not do it something along the line of "You would not trust me then." and personally I would probably distrust somebody rather much for using the explanation, at least in the situation the galaxy was right then.

 

What an incredibly rubbish sentence, it's of award-winning awfulness.

 

An interesting quote from Luceno in that round robin:

"But that’s not to say that the members of the creative team were always of one mind about the changes that crept into the story arc, and as we approached the end of the series, we probably had too many voices weighing in with comments and criticisms, and perhaps too many authors, as well. Some outlines went through as many as nine drafts before they were approved. Some books were canceled before they were written, and others were canceled after they had been completed. Had there been time enough, a lot of inconsistencies and continuity errors would have been eliminated, and perhaps some plot points would have been jettisoned entirely. But all this seems part and parcel of ambitious sagas. Even when there is a “guiding vision,” it’s difficult to sustain the initial vision through five years of changes."

And Shelly Shapiro on something that got discussed here:

"The writers had a lot of freedom, provided they didn’t contradict existing continuity and that they hit the major plot points we required to keep the overall story arc moving along."

Rostoni's follow-up comment:

"For instance, we told Troy Denning that Anakin’s demise was a part of his book, Star by Star, but he created the setting and action."

Luceno:

"At times it was like: “Start at A, go to B, then C, and make certain to wind up at D—but we don’t care how you get there.” Lucy, Sue, and Howard did request that we stick with existing worlds and make use of established Star Wars species, critters, and items whenever possible."

Tangentially, I feel like this last sentence is kind of a problem that the EU has had since Del Rey took over. The Bantam stuff wasn't required to stick with existing worlds and established species... it invented that stuff. And I think that's part of the reason why the EU became stale. Luceno goes on to say that the series needed to invent new stuff given the nature of the Yuuzhan Vong, and I think that's why it wasn't readily apparent in this series, but it does explain why this series seemed to trample Bantam. They apparently weren't allowed to create all new planets to destroy, they had to destroy existing ones.

Luceno says in the same comment:

"Given that we were dealing with Episode 1’s new revelations about the Force, as well as with an extragalactic species against whom the Force couldn’t be used, there were many, many discussions about the Force, right up to the end of the series."

This was followed up by Luceno's comment about Vergere's role in the series, and Shapiro expressing dislike for the direction, to which Lucy Wilson replied:

"But you know, we didn’t really change anything about the Force. It’s more how the Jedi understand, think about, and use the Force. That definitely evolved as the series was written."

Another tangential comment (Shapiro):

"The sadomasochistic theology was not planned, and while we tried to pull back on it, not stress it so much (we really wanted it only to be the extra-fanatical Domain Shai—of which Shedao Shai was a part), it took on a life of its own."

And the fun one!

DR: Would you agree that the NJO series is Jacen’s story— the tale of his coming of age, and the passing of the Jedi crown, as it were, from Luke to Jacen?

Sue Rostoni: Absolutely. It was our intention from the beginning to make this Jacen’s story, ultimately.

Lucy Wilson: Jacen is the focus of the NJO, but I don’t think that makes it his story exactly. Or not only his story. Just as the films are about Anakin’s rise, fall, and redemption through his son, so, too, we wanted the books to be multigenerational, with a strong role for both the original cast from the films and the children of Han and Leia—who are, after all, the future.

Shelly Shapiro: I would add that Jacen isn’t taking the “crown” from Luke. If anything, he is serving as a catalyst to help Luke grow into his next level of leadership.

Jim Luceno: To me, the NJO is about the evolution of the Jedis’ perception of the Force and the rise of a new generation of Jedi Knights to be the vanguard in allying themselves with a more inclusive, more unifying vision of the Force.

 

That last bit is really interesting, because it sort of gets at one of the really big reasons why I find the post-NJO so baffling: there's definitely some kind of behind-the-scenes desire to get away from the perceived changes the NJO had brought and "back" to the OT as it was interpreted before as a simple good-versus-evil dualism. And likewise, as can be seen with Shapiro, the desire to re-elevate Luke (and/or a resurrected Anakin as "Luke 2.0") to a position of preeminence. But in practice it just made Luke and the Jedi look completely awful, to the point that your quip about LOTF as a Sith war between Dark Lords Luke and Lumiya through their proxy Solo twins almost makes more in-universe sense then what we got. And that just completely amazes me.

 

Yeah, I mentioned in that Legends thread how Apocalypse killed my interest in Star Wars for about a year. When you break it all down, you've got this conflation of Vergere and the will of the Force, even though I think even Stover was resistant to the idea, at least when he wrote Traitor, e.g. Vergere saying "The Force is one, Jacen Solo. The Force is everything, and everything is the Force. I've told you already: the Force does not take sides" and Stover himself saying "I've often been a little bit bothered by the "deification" of the Force in the EU. The Force is not God -- it's not something "out there," a unitary entity with its own will and intention. It's right here. A Jedi is part of it -- and so is everything else. Its "will" (to use an inadequate word) is expressed in existence itself."

And the reason Denning did that is because Luke starts to talk about the will of the Force in The Unifying Force, and this new status quo for the Jedi is what's being undone, so even though Vergere never talks about the will of the Force to Jacen or Luke (indeed, only Sekot does, if by proxy through discussing the Unifying Force with Jacen), it is conflated with Vergere to justify Luke's rejection of the concept. And further, in Apocalypse, you've got Luke stating that all this talk about balance and the will of the Force, what Luceno termed "Episode 1’s new revelations about the Force," all that is meaningless now, because apparently every time Abeloth wakes is a new age, and now Star Wars is in a new age where all that stuff doesn't matter anymore, and the Jedi and the Sith will keep the balance. And the idea of that is completely antithetical to the films, but that's the point. He's shaping the storytelling against the films.

I think that's very problematic in tie-in fiction, and the Expanded Universe was elevated above being tie-in fiction, which makes it even more problematic. Traviss is criticized for her portrayal of the Jedi -- and while I think that her stance on the prequel Jedi isn't unfounded because I think that's the point, she does lay it on thick -- but what Denning did is ten times worse.

 

I wasn't suggesting in any sense that she should get her lightsaber out if she disagreed - that's a false duality (appropriately enough, considering the topic); but her acceptance of some if not all of the non-standard teachings of the Potentium is I think securely canon. More on this below...

Ah, but I'm not debating Vergere. I'm merely debating whether the post-NJO development of Jacen's character can be seen as a legitimate develoopment based on the earlier novels.

My only difference from your interpretation of Vergere in Traitor, I think, is to suggest that Vergere would not object to Jacen using a black cloak, a red lightsaber, and presenting as a Sith, so long as his actions were based on what she saw as right. She might even think he suited the look.

We also seem to disagree whether she was a conventionally utilitarian Prequel Jedi (which is your position based on the original authorial intent), or some sort of enigmatic non-standard Force-user (which seems to me to be a stronger reading, based on just about every item of actual information on her in the novels), but oddly enough, this is completely irrelevant for Traitor. And if we can agree that both POVs are valid, we would seem to have a consensus framework even there...

I'm not in any way objecting to holding your opinion, either, and nor would I object to someone whose opinion was that Vergere was a siths-and-giggles Dark Jedi messing with the other characters (though that would, I agree, tend rather less towards authorial intent with regard to Traitor); I'm ultimately arguing for the compatibility of the text with more than one interpretation (including the one that the text went on to, as it were, canonize by virtue of its later continuations - though that is where we genuinely differ, as we're debating whether this version of Jacen is a mischaracterization)...

Thanks. In the interest of brevity, I'm not going to reply to these directly. PM me if you're interested in a longer discussion.

My view remains the same as it was - insofar as this departs from the events of Traitor (and tbh I see it as rather less incongruous than you, or at least I see a different incongruity), the dissonance can be entirely explained by Jacen's psychology and his very human reinterpretation of what he remembers.

As to the Denning quote, it seems to me that he's emphasising the fact that both his view and Stover's are valid - the exact opposite of the POV you impute. Might you be reading against authorial intent?

My reading of this scene is that that Jacen thinks he remembers everything, which Vergere mocks (not least because Jacen is remembering it in the form of aphorisms, rather than lessons). Which sort of backs up my entire argument about Jacen misremembering and misinterpreting in retrospect.

I mean, you don't have to accept that as your personal POV - you just have to agree that it's credible...

I don't recall her ever getting a retcon, and I don't see her doing anything unorthodox (as distinct from being completely kriffing awesome).

You raise a good point here - as defined by Vergere in that passage in Destiny's Way, the original Potentium ideology did differ from her view, but there is one small detail in the Magister's version of "there is no dark side" which Vergere omits in Destiny's Way, which was his enthusiasm for the construction of powerful weapons to destroy the Yuuzhan Vong ("The Magister had said that would be good", according to Sekot, Rogue Planet, p. 305; I think that this may even mean a Force lightning superlaser)...

This rather remarkable omission, which effectively turns everything Vergere says on its head, can only be rationalized by assuming that Vergere is being all "certain point of view" here in order to critique Jacen's own aversion to confronting his opponents.

So the exact question of where and whether Vergere and the Magister differed becomes less certain, and more subtle. And Vergere is lying to Jacen.

Perhaps more importantly, she does share the broader "Potentium" belief which perceives the Force as a unified totality with no "dark side", and which the Jedi learn more about on ZS later in the NJO (hence the Ferroans described Sekot as the Potentium of Zonoma)...

I'm not sure Denning actually disagrees much, either. This is pretty much Crucible.

This from the man who took Kyp kriffing Durron back? And trained Brakiss out of pure altruism?

I don't necessarily disagree with your interpretation, though. My point is simply that Luke's reading of Vergere in Destiny's Way emphasizes her problematic status and the uncertainty about her. However we define his doubt about her, it exists in the text.

And yes, Luke does come round to agree more with what you call "her beliefs" in TUF. Then he repudiates them in DN3, because of his experience in those novels about where the formalization of that sort of attitude can lead to.

This isn't to critique Traitor, though - it's to comment on the difference between the journey Jacen goes on in that novel, and the attempt of the Jedi to assimilate the same teaching (or rather, the wider Potentium POV) in an institutional way.

I'd say the distinction you're drawing here is entirely psychological - Jacen, as you say, "tells himself that he is" being utilitarian.

What you call "utilitarian" is thus his conscious ideology; what you call "consiquentialist" is his actual, human pattern of behaviour. I don't entirely follow where this differs from your critique of other utilitarian Jedi.

Well, I don't know what any of this means, but I know that people in this fandom are sometimes led to interpret situations wrongly, and act accordingly (I've known some pretty absurd examples of this)...

I don't think I necessarily disagree, but nor do I think it's necessarily relevant. The question of whether Vergere calls herself Sith does not change what she taught.

I don't think I dispute that. I don't think I've disputed that anywhere in this discussion. The two points I've proposed are, firstly, that Vergere's definition of "a better Jedi" involves such a critique of the terminology that's normally used that it doesn't in any sense preclude Jacen wearing a black cloak and calling himself a Sith, and second, that Jacen's subsequent development represents a derailment from the focus he'd achieved in Traitor...

Your insistence that the character development you call JINO is supposed to have happened because of Vergere is what I disagree with. I see it as primarily an expression of the ongoing interaction between his personalty and experience.

I'd argue that the problem here is the construct of "consiequentialist Jacen", which is a definition being imposed on the text. I see no reason why we shouldn't see him as a complex character with the potential to do contradictory things - his desire to be the ligtsaber-wiedling hero who can chat up pretty girls and his tendency to shy away from conflict and involvement, his instinctive empathy and his difficulties in expressing how he feels, his compassion and his deadliness, all of them intensified and complicated by his experience of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, his teaching by Vergere, and his unsatisfied and unsatisfying quest for answers afterwards, his manipulation by Lumiya and his bad jokes, his willingness to do anything to protect his daughter and his loyalty to the idea of the greater good.

Jacen is all these things. Due to the contradiction between them, due to the unspeakable sense of pain assailing his sense of empathy, due to his need to rationalize and understand, and due to his repression of the shocking things he did in war, he retreated into self-denial, and was unable to sustain the poise which Vergere had enabled him to achieve in Traitor.

And you exclude the possibility that he was the same character operating under abnormal stress?

That, I'd say, is the tragedy of Darth Caedus, that his fans were so busy denying that he was the same character that they could no longer empathize with him.

Kind of ironic, isn't it?

I actually answered this - I'd say Vergere is subtly making Jacen aware of the difference between his naive fear of "Lords of the Sith", and the specific and complex question of what was wrong with Vader's actions...

This is also the guy that throws himself into single combat on Belkadan, the guy that slices the leg off Tsavong Lah, the guy who kills the voxyn single-handed, the guy who fried Vong with Force lightning in Traitor, and the guy who had a experience of profound satisfaction when he vaped his opponent in TUF. Jacen's tendency to step back has been combined with a tendency to attack with a lightsaber ever since Shadow Academy.

And no, in the quotes you used, Jacen tells himself that he's following Vergere's teachings. Totally different thing.

I don't think they are. They're still wrestling with the experience. I think the Jedi in Crucible are the endpoint of that journey.

Perspnally, I also gained a huge respect for the Yuuzhan Vong as an addition to the Star Wars mythos, I think Jaina Solo is an awesome character who seems almost totally unruffled by any of the philosophy the other Jedi are involved in, I really enjoyed Traitor, and I still 'ship A/T out of pure optimism.

Among other things.

Yes, but you'd be ignoring all the other stuff Ben says that Luke doesn't and can't know, and the conversation that Yoda's involved in.

Besides, it is Luke who figures out that Leia's his sister.

Yes. Jacen's recollection shifts to accommodate his journey. This happens.

And I think it's a much easier interpretation (that, or she faked it and sent that A-wing in on autopilot). We can agree to disagree, which is fine by me?

Yes, it's your answer I'm interested in.

No, that's what they're pretending to do. There are Fallanassi aboard the Black Fleet ships, who have rescued all the prisoners from the Yevetha by that point, leaving only White Current illusions, and the one aboard Intimidator also protects Han to an extent and facilitates the Wookiee rescue of him.

Because, you know, the whole point of the Fallanassi is that you don't see what they're doing.

I value the narrative as well, and I don't find the problems and contradictions that you do. I don't repudiate what Stover did in Traitor or the idea of a "unified" Force. I don't think Denning's novels do so either.

I'd simply query whether the initial intention regarding Vergere as reported in Luceno's comment was sustained in the actual novels (but I don't think that's actually terribly important), and I'd argue that Jacen's journey after TUF is a continuation of his journey after Traitor, caused not "by Vergere", but by the wider parameters of his personality and experience...

Because it's part of a pattern in the NJO which characterizes Vergere as ambiguous and potentially dangerous, not as a straightforward, trustworthy Jedi.

I think so, but in a useful way that illustrates a wider point - Jacen's characterization in YJK lays down (I think) the basis of a lot of his later storyline, with his enthusiasm for the Jedi way leading him to oscillate between lightsaber-swinging enthusiasm and a cautious fear of making missteps, and with his evident empathy that enables him to relate well to animals yet while his attempts to interact socially are stylized presentations of his jokes; there's no sense of them being negative traits at that point (nor does there need to be), but they do suggest that he isn't really the sort of sixteen-year-old who makes easy small-talk and gets make-out sessions behind the speeder sheds...

Now there's nothing wrong with that, but it means that Jacen really isn't sure where he fits in socially, and he perhaps beats himself up too much psychologically when his attempts don't always work out...


- The Imperial Ewok

 

I get the sense we've reached an impasse where we're not going to give further ground, but to address a few things:

I'm not sure why the concept of Vergere being a ghost isn't even a consideration on your part.

Yes, but Jacen's hallucinations don't share a common cause, so I can attribute everything else Ben tells Luke that he doesn't know to Yoda using Luke's image of Ben to reinforce himself or convey information to Luke prior to their meeting, e.g. Yoda trying to convince Luke not to go to Bespin, and failing in that, conjuring up an image of Ben as someone Luke might listen to, and as in the earlier example, conjuring up Ben to communicate to him to go to Dagobah. I'm just using the example of Obi-Wan ostensibly conveying to Luke that Leia is his sister to Luke's Tyler Durden version of Obi-Wan because by that point Yoda was dead.

I think that covers all of Obi-Wan's ghostly appearances in the films, besides his disembodied voice in the first film, which again could be Yoda, or could similarly be Luke remembering what Ben told him. Yoda tells Luke that he's watched him clairvoyantly for a long time so I don't think this is beyond reason, especially in the new canon where we see Yoda communicating with Kanan and Ezra through clairvoyance as well.

Oh, and there's also the end scene of the three Jedi appearing to Luke, but again that could be Luke's Tyler Durden version of all three, especially since no one else sees them and they don't convey any information to Luke.

I don't really know whether you're anti-war or not, and whether you consider Vergere a bad seed based on our conversation? I don't think your interpretation of the character is the same as those that consider her evil, but I also don't see what purpose her character serves in a gestalt narrative sense with your interpretation either. My view on your take is that Star Wars is a narrative and thematic mishmash where random crap is flung on the wall and some stuff sticks and some stuff doesn't. If I was to assume your take on Jacen is correct, I think it's poorly written and doesn't have an underlying point or purpose to it, in contrast with Luke's arc in the films, or Anakin's arc. Where you say Jacen is this complex character due to his differing portrayals, I say he's just poorly and inconsistently written where he's this utter mess of contradictions and competing ideas that surface or submerge based on who is writing him.

You seem to think that's true of the NJO even, but then Luke Skywalker destroyed the Death Star while redeeming his father, so to use examples of

I think, is to some degree disingenuous, because, I mean, killing the voxyn is an example of Jacen being prone to being a Sith? Come on. Luke has done worse stuff than all of that. I don't think that justifies Luke becoming an irredeemable Sith Lord. Jacen, at his core, is more innocent, more pure, than Luke. And that's my reading in contrasting Traitor with LSATSOM (which I think were intentionally written to be contrasted that way).

There's a scene in Traitor where Jacen goes into the belly of the beast, and in one of his subsequent "hallucinations," in recounting what happened, is told: your dark side ain't all that dark, big brother

I'd like to think there was a point to the character study of Jacen in Traitor and scenes like these. I suppose it's noteworthy that their author declines comment on the direction the character took afterward. I hate to appeal to authority here (but at least I'm honest about it), but I don't think he would agree that where Jacen ended up is a logical conclusion from his novel. I base that opinion on my correspondence with him in the past.

I guess I'll just conclude by saying that I think in the NJO, Jacen is fundamentally more good than even Luke, and Jaina is much more morally dubious as a character in that series. And as I've said before, you can find examples of any Jedi character struggling with the dark side as that's part of the journey, and I think it's completely disingenuous to point back to it and say "here! see! this justifies it!" Jaina is worse in SBS and Dark Journey than Jacen is in all 19 books. And she doesn't have Jacen's sense of purity to mitigate that either.