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

I first became attracted to Star Wars when I watched the prequels back-to-back for the first time, and back then I thought the theme was "if you plan something deeply enough, it works". Star Wars can be many things to many people, you shouldn't necessarily go in with a redemption-oriented mindset.

 

I would agree with that.

However I do believe that Star Wars does have an ethos and a feeling towards it that eventually bending it in one direction or another you are eventually asking it to be a franchise or a universe it was never meant to be.

Yes Star Wars can be many things to many people

But I do believe their comes a point when it stops becoming Star Wars

Thankfully it's a wide net and can be stretched quite a bit, but I do believe there is a barrier that one should not cross at a point when it just eventually stops.

 

This really hits the nail on the head.

Jacen was not just a jedi but a friend and son of the heroes, but they all act like he is a total stranger/bad guy. He does something slightly dodgy and they all just throw up their hands and say "Well he is evil, better kill him." Same with Alema, they just write her off.

How Vestara was treated, really gets up blood boiling. She doesn't do anything more evil than Ben (her most 'evil' act in FotJ is to save someone), but EVERYONE acts like she is pure evil and always was. And they never get any blow back for this, they act like/think she was always evil, we the reader know this is not the case, but nothing happens.

Also fun fact, in popculture, when Vestara is thought of she is described as "Ben's girlfriend who he brought in from the darkside." The reason for this, I feel, is that people expect that to happen. People expect redemption in Star Wars.

 

From what I also heard about the book Luke seems pretty okay with killing his own Nephew and pretty happy when it was over.

You'd think even if he died there be a little more...tragedy and sorrow about it.

Again that's what I heard, I might be wrong about the context on how Luke behaves in the book. Or the rest of the family.

 

Oh yeah Luke is happy it is done. He sends Jaina to do it. Here is a Quote from their fight

Jacen "We don't have time for this" Jaina "Then hurry up and die". Please note that Jacen is trying to save his child, while this fight is happening.

 

WOW!

Look, if Jacen didn't get redeemed and stayed Evil at the end...Fine...But come on, this is his sister doing the deed....I mean...lets see some sympathy, some sadness...Jaina doesn't seem very Jedi right now...Just saying.

 

Well to me he seemed as redeemable as Vader, if not more so, but apparently Denning thought that was 'derivative'

Ah but that is how you know your in the Denningverse, without saying too much, let me end with "Jedi assassins".

 

Everyone in the Star Wars Universe in later Legends fell to the bottom level of Jerk***/Dumb***, in addition to everyone forgetting that Ben Skywalker was only 14! during Invincible. And yet this is what people want to return to whilst hating on the new canon.

 

I remember, as do others. I don't miss the denningverse, but it was not as bleak as new canon. At least Han and Leia still had one good kid and Luke had a good kid.

No one here wants the Denningverse back. Doesn't mean what we have now is better.

 

Considering that aside from certain characters, none of the new canon has even qualified for the on-screen stuff (Movies & TV). The novels, particularly Aftermath, could easily be ignored and you can have your own interpretation of what happened to lead into the Sequels or even Ventress' fate. I waver sometimes.

 

I mean all fandom is 'head canon' to a greater or lesser extent, since very few people can read/watch/play every bit of lore.

Yes. In some cases the new movies (mostly RoS) contradict the new EU.

 

I feel like ignoring the Aftermath trilogy courtesy of Jar Jar Binks being a clown (shiver) and the New Republic abandoning the Wookiees when clearly it was in the right strategic place to be liberated from the Empire quickly.

 

Personally I believe Vestara will be redeemed one day.

It is important to note however that she is an inherently selfish and self interested person. She will put her survival and the survival of the people she cares about(which can be counted on one hand) over the survival or well being of strangers. She isn't Palpatine, she just cares about herself more.

So long as she holds to that deeply ingrained mindset, she will not be fully redeemed.

 

To me this actually makes her worse, at least in that regard, than say Caedus or Revan, they at least had a reason greater than themselves to become Sith. Yes Ves might occasionally be nice to an extremly small circle of people she cares about but that doesn´t make her a good person. Also where both Caedus and Revan admit and consider the actions a nessesary evil and feel at least some regret about what they believe they have to do, Vestara doesn´t seem to see much wrong with careing mainly for herself.

 

In some sense yes. Ves' world is very small. Anything outside of it is inconsequential to her.

 

Lucas himself has said that the first two trilogies were a story of redemption. The prequel was basically just telling us how Vader got to where he was in Ep 4.

I'll admit to knowing very little about Ves....but I hope you're right. I think, however, that she'll fade away as a character with this 'reboot'...as will the rest of the 'Legends' characters. I doubt Disney has any interest in keeping two timelines going, and I find that depressing.

 

Well they pretty much have Ben Vestara in their canon, just switched the genders and called them Kylo and Rey instead.

 

Ves was raised as a Sith. It is literally all she has ever known, this is all she has ever known.

Ves wants to not die, either her self or her family. No human has infinite empathy and Ves has been taught from birth that this is the correct way to act.

As well Ves is VERY selfless and loyal to 'her people'. She put her self at risk to protect the location of the Tribe, then we she works with the Jedi, she puts herself at risk to save them when they enter the Jedi Temple. In the end her flaw is not wanting to die, when cornered she opts for trickery and deception.

Also Revan wanted to rule to galaxy out of ego, so hardly better than Ves.

 

If we are talking about playing out the rest of the story in our heads, I 100% agree that Vestara redemption is the way to go. If we are talking about if the books were allowed to continue, I don't think Troy Denning had any intention of taking things that direction. Of course, no guarantee he would continue as de facto showrunner, so there could be a change in vision and all bets are off.

I think the Ben/Vestara relationship is one of the best things FOTJ had going for it (full disclosure: that is faint praise, but I did like the storyline). It seems that there is a belief in fandom that light-turned-dark characters are the only ones ripe for redemption, but getting inside Vestara's head flipped this for me. She has never known anyone to show her love, or trust, or compassion. Her eyes are open for the first time that there could be another way. This alternative has appeal for her. Contract with someone who knows what both sides have to offer - and choose darkness. Agreed, her character doesn't quite get there - she never learns to accept love. However, I see that being the most satisfying end game for her character.

The end of their story was wildly disappointing. Vestara's character arc: learning to accept that other world views exist, and that the life she has grown up with is not the only way? Nope - back to where she started. Ben's character arc: coming of age, standing by his guns for what he believes no matter that everyone else thought it impossible, and putting his full faith into the basic decency of all humanity (in a species neutral sense)? Nope - aw shucks, guess you were right Dad, I'll just trust your opinion from now on. Luke's character arc: recognizing that he has his own blind spots based on the experiences he has had, realizing he has become dogmatic, and that he has become like his own mentors: doubtful of the optimism of the next generation - then overcoming all of it to put his full faith in his son, much as he had once put his full faith in his father. Nope - he was right the whole time, his special power is Recognize Redeemability.

I think the end of FOTJ presented the perfect opportunity for Ben to have his own "tossing away the saber" moment (I would make it literal - but that really isn't the important part). Ben could have refused to let Vestara run, but refuse to fight her. They could go one of three ways from there:
1. The predictable way: Vestara refuses to kill Ben, and decides to try to become a Jedi.
2. The "gut punch" way: Vestara maims but doesn't kill Ben. She gets away, but is still on the dark side. Her emotional state at the end makes clear that she has changed, but that she is not yet where she needs to be yet. Ben and Luke both recognize her not killing him as a kind of "act of love" (as much love as she is able to give at this point in her life). Ben endeavors to save her soul. Luke commits himself fully to always challenge his worldview, and reconnects to his optimistic roots. Vestara is eventually redeemed, but it takes at least another series.
3. The middle ground: Vestara refuses to kill Ben, but doesn't accept the Jedi path either. Again, another series to move the character closer to the Jedi way.

 

Thing is she kills that Jedi at the end of Ascension. Not Denning's Apocalypse. If she was going to be redeemed I suspect they were going to draw it out a long time. But with Denning, who knows? Maybe he would have had Ben kill her and end up with Tahiri.

And Denning had another trilogy after Crucible, so I am afraid he would have remained de facto in charge.

 

For me Benstara is THE BEST THING to come out of FotJ and when Denning killed it at the end. That, that was when Star Wars died for me. Invincible left me feeling depressed. Legacy of the Force was the second Star Wars book series I got into (Darth Bane trilogy was the first and I ended up reading a few of the Clone Wars multimedia project novels), I was excited, I thought this was the start of the new multimedia project "legacy". Then I found it was not. But that was ok Jacen would live be redeemed and all would be good.

but he was not.

Then we come to FotJ, a new Sith, a new Sith GIRL with Ben. And it was teased, everyone BUT Denning seemed to think Ben X Vestara was happening. Bu unfortunately he got the last word. More on the ending in a sec.

I can only like this once so I will comment.

Luke was being dogmatic and judgemental, Ben SHOULD have stood up to him. This would have been a great ending. Ben sees his dad is flawed and Luke sees that his son is now his own man, a wise man, a good man.

But it was not.

In the Denningverse there is no redemption (unless you molest a kid), you DON'T disagree with Luke. If the author says the heroes are good they can murder people and still be saints. And if the author says they are bad then they will be bad, stupid losers, who lose and are evil.

It is petty childish and weak writing.

I think the end of FOTJ presented the perfect opportunity for Ben to have his own "tossing away the saber" moment (I would make it literal - but that really isn't the important part). Ben could have refused to let Vestara run, but refuse to fight her. They could go one of three ways from there:
1. The predictable way: Vestara refuses to kill Ben, and decides to try to become a Jedi.[/QUOTE]

I wanted Ves to be a jedi. But I always say her as more of an anti-hero jedi.

She is the rough one, the Batman to Ben's Superman. The Renegade to Ben's Paragon. She can even keep calling herself a Sith (Person: "You won't kill an unarmed slaver, jedi don't do that." Ves: "I am not a Jedi I am Sith, I just work with a Jedi.")

To me at it's heart Star Wars is about redemption, but there was none here, not mush hope either.

For me knowing, that, no redemption any more, that killed Star Wars for me.

Please no, not even as a joke, please just no.

I honestly think Denning did want Benhiri.

I still think fan opinion (and Benstara was/is popular) would have swayed it, just like Luke and Mara.

 

We're getting well ahead of the thread, but FOTJ was an absolute mess. A bunch of ideas being thrown together without anyone figuring out where it was going or how they fit together, and yet nobody figuring out how to make the ideas go for nine books, so the third act was a total disaster. The Lost Tribe was a big contributor to that; there's little that could be a more terrible idea than throwing yet more hidden Sith out of nowhere into the era, and the authors almost never showed any interest in actually developing them outside of Vestara. And, again, their third-act usage where they'd miraculously infiltrated every single level of society and become hidden galactic powers after discovering indoor plumbing last week is beyond terrible. They had a lot of interesting concepts behind them -- a stranded society of Sith, forced to channel ruthless competitiveness into a community framework -- as JJM's novellas showed, and the concept of the heroes being forced to cooperate with untrustworthy Sith in pursuit of a greater threat is dramatically strong. The problem is that they were badly executed and out of place in that era, and looking at how they were used overall, it's quite clear that they were ultimately just a vessel to introduce the character of Vestara; their whole purpose ends up being to introduce a dark side love interest for Ben. Which is a tired dynamic -- Luke already married a redeemed bad girl; does his son really need to go down the exact same romantic road? -- but the execution was really pretty good, and as you say, it was one of the higher points of an extremely weak series. In retrospect, with the Lost Tribe being so badly used and overall pointless, I think it's clear the writers would have been far better off finding another way to introduce the concept of an untrustworthy dark side collaborator in the hunt for Abeloth who could be a romantic interest for Ben. Make her father Tremayne, or have her be from a Dathomiri Nightsister family, and the Nightsisters have a run-in with Abeloth that has them cooperating. Or go wild and actually tie things in and make her an escaped clone from the Kemp books' program. Something that doesn't call for introducing a whole planet full of Sith just to get Ben a bad girl. But, yes, what they actually had with her dynamic was one of the few bright spots of the series, and then Denning utterly bungled the ending. I'm fine with the idea of the character not being redeemed right away -- it is, after all, a bit of a convention. It might have been much more interesting to have Vestara not quite be able to bring herself to accept the light side, and run off, and leave Ben with a longer-term dynamic of this kind of romantic foil where he may spend years chasing her, trying to get her to see the light, at once love interest and nemesis. That would at least be a pretty fresh dynamic, so I would be very inclined to go with your option number two (Ben, after all, has to lose a limb somehow). Other authors could have still tried to get that out of the outcome we had, but the real problem is Denning's tone -- he's very definitive about how she's just evil, and the characters, especially Luke, are inexcusably callous and dismissive, which is part of his larger issue with brutal, callous, "badass" heroes who are allowed to do anything, write off everybody, and kill indiscriminately, with zero evidence of Jedi morality, and still be passed off as heroes.

 

Not to defend Denning but as I said, she kills that Jedi at the end of Ascension. So she shows herself to be a selfish person even in Golden's book.

Whether that meant they were just pulling out the rug under the readers, or Denning's "she's evil" line of thought was simply unquestioned is unclear.

I do like the idea of Vestara as a Catwoman of sorts to Ben's batman. A selfish bad person who he chases both as an enemy with romantic tension between them. They could have dragged out such a dynamic for years. With all the "will they won't they" writing clichés to go with it.

I don't even think Denning cares so much about badass heroes, as much as he likes his cynical edgy "mature" SW where the heroes act monstrously but are still treated heroically.