Jacen, Anakin Solo and the resurrection of dead Force users through Dark Side powers

Hello? anyone play force unleashed 2? they cloned starkiller like, a billion times.

 

And he - as has been claimed by others - possibly died twice during TFU...

What I meant with my original post was mainly the idea of literally "calling" back the spirit of the deceased from the Netherworld of the Force, Chaos, whatever word one uses for it. It can be done, like The Dark Underland and Magna Ragnos' canonical resurrections show - and didn't in the Empire's End Empatojayos Brand claim that the spirits of the dead Jedi would - and thus, assumedly, would be needed to - keep Palpatine's spirit from returning to the material world of the living?

So, when considering the reason for his Force Jouney and the fact that Jacen later went Sith, I thought myself: Why not use this method to achieve Anakin's resurrection? Shouldn't Jacen have, at some point, at least entertained the idea? Wouldn't it have been a good extra way of luring Tahiri becoming his Sith apprentice?

One question that comes to my mind now - why wouldn't dead Sith Lords overall organize groups of cultists (like The Master did in Doctor Who) to call them back from the dead if they would fail in their quests for power and immortality? It would seem like a decent sort of back-up plan to me personally...

 

So has the ship sailed on my black wing idea?

Also bender42 no I didn't cause I don't play an action/adventure game, that only has 5 levels and one of them has no action

Also the plot is not what I care about and it never interested me.

 

Ragnos did it.

 

The real plot was actually quite subtle: Vader had already created the perfect dark side clone, but he needed to be tested. In lieu of that, we got the clone that we played through as. Now I agree; that the game was WAY too short AND repetitive, but I did enjoy the fact that the story was more about what was going on BEHIND the scenes. Without the dark apprentice, FU-2 would be an epic-fail, on the LARGEST of scales. With him, the entire dynamic changes, and for the better.

My two pennies, at least.

 

Yeah, without the dark apprentice, the story would have been pretty bad and FU 2 would have been a lot worse. Thank God I only rented the game since it was so short. Now for the original question, there should not be a resurrection of any kind for Anakin and Jacen since the dead should just stay dead in Star Wars and have it be left at that.

 

That's your personal opinion, I think, but look who end up cheating death succesfully in the movies? It's the good guys who become immortal Force Ghosts. So, I would say myself that it seems like it's not the goal of immortality that make Sith etc search for immortality bad, it's just the methods they use.

Some characters being "truly dead" and others dead, but less so, is also your personal opinion, I feel myself. There are also what I agree can indeed be said to have been kind of "truly dead" characters, but who have returned, if only briefly, like The Dark Underlord, Marka Ragnos and perhaps even Palpatine between RotJ and gaining his first clone body in my opinion.

Then there's TFU&TFU2 with likely and implied deaths and clones and the rest.

I personally don't see difference between resurrecting a "truly dead" character to retconning an officially dead character to have survived, like it's the case with several PT era Jedi. Or bringing back characters who have been for all purposes seemed to be as good as dead, like Boba Fett and the former Mrs Boba Fett in LotF. If resurrections are acceptable in the Fett family, why not in the Solo family too?

In the end, I think myself that it all goes to personal opinion: How much we want to see some character again and whether we consider a particular story (where the character dies) to be more important than that particular character. I think myself that it's surprisingly common to accept and demand that some character is "truly dead" and still accept and support the resurrection of another based on preferences, but in the end I think that's all they are, personal preferences, instead of something that I myself personally feel we should demand to be guiding lights for all EU.

There's also a question what dying means in Star Wars EU now: For a long time, I think myself personally, it looked like death would be the actual end for individual consciousness; it's still what Anakin Skywalker expects when he dies in the Ryder Windham biography of him, but especially with FotJ I feel myself that we have moved from a more Buddhist or even a kind of Atheist view of what death means in Star Wars to a version very like Christianity, especially in it's Catholic form. There were some early versions of this in the comics with hints of this kind of afterlife, but FotJ, I feel, represents the triump of this afterlife moulded on the basis of Christianity over the more Buddhist/Atheist like version of death. With this, I feel myself personally, EU could end up making death even less permanent state than it was before.

 

Yeah, I know it's my opinion that they shouldn't be brought back, but I think I stated good reasons.

There is a common misconception here that I need to clear up, though, the confusion really bugs me.

Immortality =/= Resurrection

One is staying alive, one is coming back from the dead. Big difference. But usually jumbled together.

That's not really personal opinion. We know at least Palpatine survived between ROTJ and DE, he body hopped into one of his Hands I believe, after enduring the void for a period.

That has not been resolved, and since TFU3 was cancelled it will probably never be.

Because they were not proven beyond a doubt to be dead. We saw Anakin die. They all felt him die in the Force. They burned his body. Jacen told Tahiri that he couldn't come back. They saw him in the Netherworld. The only way to bring him back would be literal Resurrection of the Dead.

I think you need to take Anakin Solo's advice in ABYSS to heart.

Bringing back Anakin Solo would be like bringing back Gwen Stacy and Uncle Ben in Spider-Man, it would destroy all credibility.

You know, if he were to come back, he'd probably go to the dark side or be insane or something like that, right? Or be victim of stupid plots. And him and Tahiri could never be together, huge age difference now.

The death of Anakin Solo only rings on because the death has now overshadowed the character. The character was imperfect, written by imperfect authors, his martyrdom overcasts everything else. Bring him back and you'll also destroy his character, and your feelings toward that character, it could never live up to your expectations.

It's time to let it go. One of the main lessons of Star Wars.

What's the importance of a single character when the story, the setting, and all credibility are destroyed?

It's a fictional character. What do you expect him to do when he comes back? How do you expect he'll be written? Do you think his resurrection would somehow make the authors only write rainbow-filled happy endings from now on? Come on, man.

Why did you like Anakin Solo in the first place?

 

oops

 

You say so, but I would say the same about many of the resurrections we have seen in Star Wars. After Palpatine and Boba Fett's resurrections in DE I have personally considered this barrier broken permanently.

And it seems to me that it's only those characters I want to see resurrected - mainly Anakin and Jacen - are the ones that people really want to see permanently dead. For some reason people seem to make their deaths some kind of sacred acts of their own personal EU that couldn't be overturned for the sake of something they consider important, like the stories that led to their deaths. Every other new resurrection seems to cause some amount of complaints, but people usually move on quickly, accepting the fact. The common "Character A seemingly dies in chapter 10, is mourned in chapter 11 and shown to be alive in chapter 12" doesn't tend to cause even that in my own opinion... Would Anakin and Jacen really be so different?

In NJO he developed and started to feel to me like a classical Star Wars hero, like Luke or Han. The kind of SW person I like reading about. A great creation. I never felt as much with Jacen, and Jaina and Ben Skywalker are characters that just feel flat and unspiring to me. Anakin felt normal in the role of the hero, Ben doesn't. Overall, I myself personally feel that the novels and comics too lack a central hero who could be the center of things, like Luke was in OT.

Ben isn't that, Cade isn't that, Jaina certainly isn't that to me personally. None of them seem me to be - or even intended to be - characters who can rally people around them and be leaders. In my eyes, Ben is a loner, Cade does have few friends but he doesn't want to be a Jedi hero or their leader, but some kind of agonized martyr fighting a one man's war nowadays, and Jaina is a lone, "false moon" - like Earth's "second moon" asteroid 3753 Cruithne - which occasionally orbits Jagged Fel, and otherwise wanders the galaxy herself, drifting from the Jedi to the GA military, from there to Jedi, and then to the Killiks, back to GA military, back among the Jedi, then to the Mandalorians, then the Jedi...

Of all the characters since Luke Skywalker, I myself feel that Anakin is the only one who could have been a strong and unifying leader of the Jedi. Ben will eventually be one, Luke has told as much in FotJ, but does he look and feel like one? Does he feel and act like a hero? Ben doesn't lead in my opinion, he tends to follow as I see it and be in the shadow of different characters, most recently of his father.

Simply put it, to me personally Anakin Solo was the kind of character that the current EU lacks in the younger generation in my own personal opinion.

I feel myself that they had to, because Jacen claims to be facing eternal damnation and same has been claimed of other darksiders. Eternal torment, not just one hundred years of sleep and then becoming part of the Force. Marka Ragnos' spirit was there 5000 years after his death still and there's no evidence I know that he tied his spirit to anything. In Path of Destruction Bane finds the tombs of Korriban devoid of Sith spirits. The recently dead Lost Sith appear active and malign in Allies towards one of the living Lost Sith.

Also, Mara was to me in a kind of state

 

Exactly. The man-crush on him here on these forums needs to be laid to rest. Anakin Skywalker is DEAD and bringing him back would be something Marvel Comics and DC Comics does over and over again. This is Star Wars. Please let dead be dead, unless its something unnatural (twisted from the Dark Side). A Light Side force user accepts death.

 

You know, considering DR's complete and utter incompetence in creating characters that last... screw it. I would prefer the can of worms at this point. Because it truly could not be as what's been offered. I mean seriously. Shock value deaths? Well, why not shock value resurrections? Because it's lame? I'd argue that shock value deaths are worse... because they are.

Darth-Ghost... no. I will not get over Anakin Solo's death. It was poorly done for crap reasons that made no sense then and make less sense now. And I will not be silent about it either. The only way for the PTB to know how they're messing up is by being proactive, not reactive. Rouge77 is right. Anakin was the only next gen character to receive decent character development enabling him to be a leader. His death was stupid, is stupid and will be stupid.

So, yeah. Bring him back. And Lusa, and Lyric and Jacen and Mara. Because what we've got now is that bad.

 

LOL....yet the sales of Del Ray's SW novels says otherwise. SW is doing just fine. The SW Universe is better than any one character (even Luke). Anakin Solo died a hero and is not coming back. People die, it happens in the real world and it happens in the sci-fi world. The NJO was probably the lowest point in SW history . The writers and creators have moved on and so has the vast majority of fans (except on here). Hey, I thought Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Wendu, Kit Fisto, and Aayla Secura were all cool characters too...but guess what, they're not coming back either and I'm ok with that. Obviously you started getting deeply into SW during the NJO era and that's what you want, but like reality....things evolve. A zombie-Anakin coming back from the dead is not needed (unless its a slapstick comedy non-canon story).

 

And i don't give a damn about sales. Pure quality and writing it's below the barrel. And I'm so sorry my legit complaints about their incompetence in handling characters is getting old... except it's not. Because they've proven time and again shock value deaths' what they're 'best' at. Yes, people die in the real world. Good freakin' lord I realize that. Shame this isn't the real world!

And you're okay with it? Cool. I'm not. Therefore, I post my grievances.

 

i think bringing Anakin back from the dead now will be just another bad decision made by the authors

The solution is to write better stories, not have gimicks to bring people in. Jacen turning Sith Lord was cool when you hear about it, but then when you read about it, he is a Sith Lord for about a month then is killed.

Bringing Anakin back sounds cool, but thats only because of how bad they are butchering the current charactors. They bring Anakin back and he will most likely be butchered in the same way.

So until they learn to write any charactors in a better way, nothing will really help

 

S^3:
(Spoilers removed.)

...an epic-fail, on the LARGEST of scales.

You do realize, of course, that "epic" means "on the largest of scales", right? That said, TFU2 is still an epic fail, simply because it interferes with the cosmology of Star Wars.

Rogue77:
Um, atheists don't believe you come back as a blue ghost. Buddhists do have the concept of bodhistvas, though. Which you might be thinking of. Of course, DE wrecks all this with the concept of Chaos (still workable; Buddhism does have demons representing desire, after all), and FOTJ just pees on its gravestone with Force purgatory. This is unfortunate, since I saw the Force as being made from life, creating life, sorta like FF7's Lifestream concept.

Darth-Ghost:
Don't forget, Star Wars has made it abundantly clear that the only immortality will be blue ghosties. Not the immortality a Sith wants, nor one a Sith can ever attain, since the Sith only think of themselves.

So, just for Rogue77 and RK, here we go:

Luke Skywalker had finally gathered all seven balls in one spot. He arranged them in a hexagon, the seventh in the center. At this point, he said "I call upon the power of the eternal dragon Shen-long."

The dragon appeared and said "You have summoned me. I will grant you one wish."

Luke replied "I wish that everyone who was killed by the Yuuzhan Vong come back."

With that, the dragon said "It is done."

And there, before Luke, was the teenage boy he had trained as a Jedi, the one to be his successor. The boy said "Uncle Luke? What happened?"

"You were dead, but you're back now."

"Awesome! So, how are Jacen and Jaina?"

"Um, about Jacen..."

Hey, we already have power levels, a.k.a. midichlorian counts.

 

Well unfortunately, for you, Del Rey and LFL does. So as long as the sales remain at the level they're at, they'll simply view you and your "complaints" as the "vocal minority."

It would be a bad dicision. A very bad one. That's why they haven't made it.

Everything in writing can be considered a "gimick." It's all something to create a story to sell to people.

LotF seemed like a good concept that was hampered by poor writing, to a degree. While FotJ seems to be a "poor concept" that actually works do to good writing. These things could be due to various reasons. Like writer coordination/cooperation. There actually seems to be some of that this time around.

Speak for yourself. Sounds like a bad idea from the get-go to me.

I find it highly ironic that someone is criticizing the writing of others while mis-spelling words. These characters are being "butchered" how, exactly?

 

I am not sure why all the snark?

Oh you know how FotJ and future novels will end? Please fill us in then, unless you are saying that based on all the novels we have been given,

I?d say there?s a difference between a gimmick to get people to buy a book and a good story. But if you want to play this game, then in a way, nothing at all can be considered a gimmick, as maybe they are writing for the pure joy of writing and don?t care about selling it to anyone.

Is there a reason you don?t bother to read the rest of the thought before criticizing? Because you completely missed what I was saying there, either on purpose, which is odd, or because you were in such a hurry to write an opposing view.

I don?t claim to be an author or someone writing these stories, or someone who obsesses over making sure his posts are completely perfectly written, only someone who gives his opinion on them in a forum that is for giving opinions on the literature. But if you have an issue with my typing, which I find laughable why you would care, please proofread your own as you apparently do not know how to spell decision.

 

How does TFU2 interfere with the cosmology of Star Wars?

 

No? Boba Fett never died (even the movie script says he would be kept alive for a thousand years), and Palpatine was shown to have anchored his spirit so he never died.

Well, they're main character, and they're pretty much confirmed dead.

I could see Darth Caedus rising again, if he tied his spirit to something in the physical world that could be used to summon him back, but not Anakin Solo.

Their deaths, especially Anakin Solo's, are the defining points of the entire EU.

There has never been a REAL resurrection, for someone truly dead.

And this is what they wanted. The early NJO only made Anakin Solo into a classical hero because they knew he was going to be killed off. They made him so reckless and heroic because they knew that would logically lead to him being killed, by making it in-character for him to accept a suicidal mission like the Mykyr mission. They made him into a classical hero so they could kill him off and show that classical heroes weren't going to work here. It would have also been very boring from a storytelling point of view to just repeat the classical hero cycle with Anakin Solo. Also, if Jacen was killed instead of Anakin, then Jacen would have been the proactive heroic one and Anakin would have been the brooding philsopher and likely future Sith Lord. The authors also wanted to make that point that you can't depend on one perfect hero to save everyone, they don't want a classical hero at the center.

You're right, they're not meant to be.

But they don't want a strong and unifying leader for the Jedi.

I doubt Ben will be one. That's what Luke wants, but not what the authors seem to want for Ben.

If you really want another Anakin Solo, why not a new character? This is fiction. Why does it have to be a resurrection?

 

It's be nearly ten years and a half since the release of Star by Star. Resurrecting Anakin would be one heck of a curveball since I doubt a lot of readers of the current LotF and FotJ books have read any meaningful first hand experience with him (and those who have did it, what ten years ago)? The lack of familiarity or deep attachment to Anakin by at least some readers is something that LFL and DR will have to consider as possibility in derailing future sales.

Lucasfilm and Del Rey are businesses. They have a pretty good thing going on with the LotF series right now, and why should they risk it on a gambit that could backfire on them badly and in most likelihood wouldn't improve their profit margins?

 

I'm an atheist, but overall the SW idea of death seemed in the past to mainly be what we atheist believe it to be: The end of our existence, with the Force Ghosts being the exception. In the SW universe the Force is real, so I think that there could theoretically have been a some semi-scientific explanation for the Force Ghosts too.

What comes to the Force Purgatory... I have to personally ask that what is the point of having a Force Purgatory and Force Hell(Chaos), if there isn't a Force Heaven too? And why would the Force want people to think after death what wrong things they have done, to atone for their deeds, or why at all would the Force want to punish them in Chaos? Isn't the Force becoming very much like a god with an agenda of it's own?

That's not necessary in my own opinion, as I think myself that the aforementioned examples show that Sith magic can call back the spirits of the dead that are un-anchored to the material world and I don't think that there's any actual mention - that I myself know of - that Palpatine actually tied his spirit to anything material, the taking over the body of a Dark Side adept of his took some time.

Even Light Side takeover of people by the FGs might be possible; Obi-wan took control of Luke in Splinter of the Mind's Eye for a moment and perhaps Light Side Force Ghosts could take over permanently the body of another being even without the Dark Side effects that Callista experienced?

I have to personally disagree. Their deaths have been extremely badly used in my own personal opinion, and overall I myself see that they were mainly killed so that the characters could be disposed of and their deaths would offer some shock effect, not so that their deaths would be somehow highpoints of the EU as I see it. I can't make myself see Invincible as any highpoint of EU personally. Anakin's death gets the token mention here and there and was used as a retcon in Invincible to explain Jacen's behaviour and I feel myself that it was an utter failure, because no mention of it had been made to explain Jacen's behaviour in any of the novels before it. On the contrary, Jacen's few thoughts about Anakin earlier in LotF were dismissive, and in DN Anakin didn't come up at all in connection to Jacen as far as I personally can recall.

There has been, I think myself, and I have mentioned them already earlier, so no more of that from me.

 

A question if i may.

Abeloth has seemed to posess many weird powers. This is a scenario where she had somehow captured Jacen during his sojourn(as he apparently was supposed to be tied somehow in the original FOTJ series blurb, awakening something and all that) and bent another to look and believe that this other was Jacen Solo. Should the origianl Jacen be found, would this be considered a resurrection in anyones eyes?

 

I would personally consider it a de facto resurrection, although technically it wouldn't be I feel, but overall I don't personally think that such differences are all that important, just what they cause, aka the character again being known to be alive.

 

I think Ben pretty much is that character for the time being. With perhaps Allana taking a bigger role a little down the line. Beyond that, unless Jaina has kids, I don?t see it happening. She seems to have been passed by in the eyes of the authors, which is a shame.
Legacy has kind of stuck them with needing a Skywalker in charge though, since Kol is so high profile. That means Ben (most likely) needs to survive and have kids.
He is still so young though, so I think there is time for his character to properly develop.
I do agree though, it most likely will not be a new character.

This is definitely needed, as Kyp, Corran, Kyle, etc are basically seen as nobodys, except to drop names that a ?powerful? master is around. Not seeing them ever do anything is a bit frustrating, and if a character would be resurrected, there would definitely be no hope for these characters
I think that developing the characters we have, would be more beneficial to the story than resurrecting Anakin. He had a heroic death, too young, but heroic nonetheless. Let?s maybe keep him around as a force ghost? He could definitely add something to the story still in that regard.