Lit Heading into the Denningverse for the first time (DNT, LotF reading journal)

The end of NJO made it clear the planet would be a mess for decades to come. It's not like a city getting bombed, it's more like Chernobyl.

As well NJO set up a new capital, yet they rush to move it back to Coruscant, as if the place wasn't a total ruin and full of horrors.

 

It's been a while since I read it, but mostly uninhabited and constant mentions of how its changed doesn't describe what I remember. More like sublevels being filled with weird sewer people being replaced with sublevels being filled with weird bio-engineered creatures. The setting didn't seem to be changed in any meaningful way. If nothing had happened to Coruscant in NJO, would the story have been any different in DNT (and beyond)? If the story is not going to address dealing with your ecumenopolis being transformed into a jungle world, what is the storytelling purpose in returning there? Why not start developing a new world that is important (in-universe), but barely showcased in the story to this point (out-of-universe)?

 

One of the best things out of the new Canon was the decision not to use Coruscant as the capital. The rotating capital was a good idea (though preferred it to be once every four or five years instead of every year) and stop reliance on Coruscant as, just short of a superweapon like Starkiller Base wiping out the system, would mean that if the capital was attacked then its no morale crusher really as it isn't a permanent one.

 

I was enthusiastic at first about the scene on Zonama Sekot in vol.1 and the hints of a changed Coruscant, though the suddenly-reappearing Jedi Temple seemed rather off. But like you say, Denning never really does anything with the changes except mention them as a background fact. That is one huge missed opportunity there.

***

Moving on.

TK and Jacen have a shadow child now, upping the dysfunction in their generation of Jedi Knights.

Also Ben is now Jacen's Padawan, which makes good sense considering Ben's issues and Jacen's established empathetic talents. I would have liked to see Luke and Mara make that decision on screen, though - can't have been easy, considering how dismissive of Jacen Luke was for much of the previous book.

The TK+kid/Jacen/Ben reunion lasts all of a page before things escalate really hard, really quickly. Ben almost bashes Tenel Ka's head in, then Jacen chokes him until he blacks out. (It's not a Force Choke though, so I guess it's okay?) Also, Dark Nest Killiks are trying to killik the baby. Turns out Tenel Ka's grandma put them up to it (I'm skipping over two chapters of Corran being Lawful Good and Luke&Han boyscouting on Whatever here), so Jacen's next stop is the old woman's private spa, where he "interrogates" her (the more appropriate word here would require trigger warnings) before turning her into a vegetable.

Now, I knew Jacen would turn dark and darther in the Denningverse - but I was not expecting it to be quite as quick and as dirty.

Meanwhile, the Jedi Council is holding a teleconference that mostly feels like actual adults talking. Progress! (Maybe they should just not be in the same room together for debates. In retrospect, most of the previous debates now seem like they could have been much more productive on Slack.)

The funniest bit is Jaina-and-Zekk's "In Killik Colony, Gorog finds you" routine. But my favorite part is Cilghal calling in to explain how the Fizz is terraforming nanotech that helped the worlds inside the nebula recover from a supernova.
Am I inconsistent for liking this sort of thing but cringing at Cilghal's equally-technobabbly Force Neurology 101 explanations? Probably.

Back on Woteba, Raynar has summoned Luke and Han to… hand them merchandise? Like, Hasbro Star Wars toys? Well that was unexpected.

The dynamic of UnuThul making up self-serving explanations / lapping up Alema's retcons is actually pretty fascinating. Frustrating too, and frightening in a child-with-an-axe way, but definitely interesting. I like how Luke is much better at handling the cognitive dissonance than Han, who probably wants nothing more than to slap Raynar in the face with evidence until he has no choice but to see.

I can't help thinking of "The Elephant in the Brain", a rather disturbing book I read a while ago that shows how we keep doing essentially the same thing as Raynar all the time - systematically deceiving ourselves about our actual motives (so we can better deceive others in turn, because we actually believe our own lies). Gorog totally is the elephant in Unu's brain - and I can see clearer-thinking aliens being as frustrated by talking to us as Han is talking to Raynar.

 

You have to keep in mind that by all accounts, Denning essentially believes that Jacen turned to the dark side in Traitor. At the very least, he seems to believe that Jacen adopted a philosophy of pure consequentialism. If the character believes that what he does doesn't matter so long as it creates a positive outcome, everything he does post-NJO makes sense. I don't think Denning believes that he took Jacen to the dark side quickly. Which goes back to what I said in an earlier post - best not to think of the Denningverse as a sequel to NJO (or anything else before them). Jacen can be an interesting character (for now, don't get too attached) - but he doesn't have to be the Jacen that came before.

 

Indeed, its best to see the Denningverse more what Troy Denning thought or believed about Jacen, or I suspect-what he preferred. Personally I think the idea of a consequentialist Jacen-who makes his calls on the basis of "weeds and flowers" could have been an interesting direction if it had been handled consistently. But that's a complaint for a different time.

And I concur, with @Havac Denning is often very pulpy and self indulgent. And TBH, he's not even really that good at generating fanservice. At least not in my opinion. Maybe because, what I would consider a fanservicey pleasing scene or story and what he would are entirely two different things. Maybe.

I do like the Killiks-their similar to the Borg, but are not malevolent by nature as the Borg seem to be. In the hands of more imaginative and disciplined authors, they could have made an interesting set of antagonists or even foils for say the Chiss or normal GFFA society.

 

I've started to think that the Jacen Solo of the Denningverse was actually a clone, replaced either before the Yuuzhan Vong War or after he was captured on the Baanu Rass over Myrkr.

 

I actually had similar thoughts. TFU and Thrawn Trilogy established that you can't clone Jedi without them going mad, so in that sense everything Jacen or Jaacen does makes a bit more sense that way. Probably not what the authors intended, but helps things a little.

 

And aren't Paul S. Kemps post NJO books about a plot involving clones.....

just saying.

 

I don't know if it changes later on, but the flow walking parts I've read so far can be interpreted as Clone madness too. Hell even DNT's five year journey thing kind of works as a set up for him being replaced when he goes out exploring the galaxy.

 

That is my assumption.

Flow walking I assumed was more a 'three-d vision' than anything else.

 

Ha! The elusive Kemp duology would have been The Retcon To Fix Them All

 

We still don't know what that was about do we?

 

We do know a lot about the Kemp books but not enough. I do wonder though, if they went the clone Jacen angle... would real Jacen emerge in the Legacy comic era.. kinda kept alive like Revan for centuries?

 

Was his duology even going to be set in the LOTF-FOTJ era?

 

Makes sense to me.

Not confirmed but highly likely.

 

A chapter of mysteries exploding: Alema breaks the DRM on Artoo's next RotJ clip, so Luke and Han (locked in a Killik prison) get to watch Anakin cut down the younglings.

Which could have been an enormously impactful scene… if anything had come of it. Instead, we just get Han being annoying while Luke tries to center himself. (Or am I missing subtext here and this is all part of that code they are using? Still seems inappropriate in-universe, and like a huge wasted opportunity OOU.

Instead of insights about Anakin/Vader or the darkness in Luke himself, the rest of the scene gives us some Han/Juun& Tarfang banter and the odd reveal that Raynar's merchandise is actually vac-compressed Gorog assassin larvae or something. Somehow this whole plotline reads like a dream journal - "My former student who's a bug now gave me an… X-Wing souvenir? ... which looked like glass but actually it was more bugs? I don't know man, dreams are weird."


Admiral Bwua'tu - Nek Bwua'tu - has no patience for Jedi. This chapter was great fun, with Leia, Saba, Gavin and Bwua'tu all testing each other's patience. Generally, in this book, I feel like Denning does the politics bits really well - the next chapter, with Cal Omas bringing the Jedi Council under control, is great too, despite the Jedi being once again unable to hold back from infighting in front of others.


Speaking of Jedi infighting: I am getting very impatient with the permanent power struggles among the masters. In the Ossus chapter, Denning uses that annoyance - by making Jacen show up, cut through the BS and get his gang back together while the masters are still busy slapfighting. I did not expect that I would cheer for Jacen in this story after what he pulled at the spa, but here I did. Even though, yes, he was explicitly doing it all with the goal of "doing to the Killiks what he had done to Ta'a Chume", which is… a weird thing for the Force to want. But apparently, according to his vision, it will be genocide or endless war, so what's a man to do?

 

Right! I've never been upset by this move. Her threat to both Tenel Ka AND Allana were quite clear.

Not going to lie, Hav....that was about the best defense of flow-walking I've seen. Never understood the controversy it generated at the time.

 

Unpopular opinion here: I think Jacen is way more interesting as a dark protagonist than as a hero.

 

Well I never knew what he was going to do (or why he would do it), so in that sense he is interesting.

I would have agreed until I read Inferno. When Jacen was made a weak loser and all the people with him were stupid and insane.

Jacen going dark and being redeemed could have been interesting, but it wasn't.

He isn't treated like a fallen hero or part of the family. They treat him like a big Sith bad, right away with no effort to redeem him. Luke seems very happy to have his nephew killed (by his neice) and Han and leia have no reaction at all.

The fact that the first plan was to end with Jaina's wedding, shows (to me at least) that Denning didn't think that Jacens death was any more tragic than the Emperor dying.

 

The characterization was wildly inconsistent, with ever-changing reasons, and with poor execution overall.

 

As I said, I like the idea of Vergere's "weeds and flowers" being used as by an anti hero or villainous Jacen.

LOTF on that basis-would have been far more compelling if it had based on that sole concept. Jacen thinks some people are weeds that need to be removed and some people are flowers and nurtured and grown. A consequentialist sith lord.

I'll say more when the OP gets to LOTF-but the "flowers and weeds" idea if applied to LOTF on a consistent and logical basis I could believe to work for a villainous or "dark protagonist" Jacen.

The problem is-this and no other consistent theme of Jacen's downfall was ever put into practice. But authors vying with different concepts and motivations, that while perhaps interesting on their own failed because they weren't the actual concept in practice.

 

You know this is very subjective and not reading the books I have no really tell on if any of this is true.

But so much of when people talk about the Denningsverse and what not, I feel like it lacks so much of the Tone and Ethos that I come for with Star Wars, that I can see why some might find it unappealing.

 

With a ridiculously compressed time-frame as well. Which is what made it so frustrating to read. @Xammer is right, though...Jacen could have been really interesting dark protagonist.

Yes. What's the underlying them to ALL of Star Wars? Redemption. What do the post-NJO books lack? Any attempt to redeem. Jacen, Alema, Lumiya, Vestara (from what I've read here...haven't actually read FotJ)...all were just cast out.

Before you gang up on my about trying to redeem Lumiya, let me say this: where had she been for 20-odd years? I don't recall seeing her outside of any of the comic books in the 'X-Wing' series....(admittedly, my memory is suspect)...so do we really know if she was truly evil? Does being Vader's hand not make her at least a sympathetic character?

Why is it that the movies spend so much time trying to redeem the one's they loved, but the books spend some 20 books on NOT doing that?