Jedi: The Dark Side #1 (of 5)

Ah, the BTS in Xanatos's Wookiee probably needs fixing then.

 

I had a very bad feeling about this comic ever since I read an interview with the author and he admitted to knowing next to nothing about Qui-Gon Jinn. Why would Dark Horse give someone like that this assignment? My fears were realized when I read the first issue. I was immediately put off by the cliche of the padawan with a superiority complex because of his "noble birth". Any padawan raised in the Jedi temple would not dare speak aloud the sort of over the top dialogue that Xanatos speaks here. Even if a padawan were somehow to ignore every single thing he was taught for his entire life and actually feel that his "nobility" made him better than his fellow Jedi (which also goes against the concept of the Force taught by the Jedi) why would you say it out loud in front of your master? Another point that irked me was Xanatos referring to Dooku as "Count Dooku". At this point in the timeline he was referred to as Master Dooku, as Matt Stover so eloquently described him in "Shatterpoint". Again, why give this assignment to someone who doesn't have the slightest respect for the source material?

I think this points to a growing problem in the EU; if Lucas can rewrite anything at a whim, then it makes the creative teams on these projects care even less about continuity than they already do. It's the consequence of Clone Wars retconning, and it makes me even less likely to spend money on stories that are apocryphal, at best, to the main saga.

 

Xanatos' portrayal comes from the juvenile novels, and even Luke decided in DW that Tenel Ka deserved the first place among the young Jedi because of her birth and position as the Hapan heir. So, the Jedi can even encourage that kind of thinking.

 

Yeah. While I haven't read it yet myself, it sounds like Xanatos is quite in keeping with his existing characterisation.

 

Uh didn't Dooku think he was better than everyone because of his position in life? Isn't that the entire point of his character's fall?

 

Even if a padawan were somehow to ignore every single thing he was taught for his entire life and actually feel that his "nobility" made him better than his fellow Jedi (which also goes against the concept of the Force taught by the Jedi) why would you say it out loud in front of your

That's the crux of Xanatos' issues and why he fell from grace. That was the point of his entire Jedi Apprentice characterisation - he couldn't leave his old life behind and he chose his father over the Jedi.

 

Though I liked the story (as I posted previously), Grendelspyce brought up something that irked me too. I didn't like it when Xanatos referred to Dooku as "Count". Also, I can see how Xanatos's talking about his own noble origins doesn't fit with the nonattachment preached by the Jedi.

 

While it's clearly a didn't-think-about-it use of the Count title (like it's the full name or something), it would actually make sense that Xanatos referred to those of noble blood by their title if he himself still believed in that stuff.

And while I agree that it's really over the top how he's the biggest brat the Jedi ever produced, EU has plenty of such portrayals because they never did get stuff into their head like "no Jedi knows about birth family or home planet, because except for Anakin, all of them were babies when they enlisted". Raynar, Tenel Ka when she was written out of the Jedi, but with Luke's Jedi, at least those really know about their origins. Then the Draay controversy that shows a rich man still being a rich man at heart because he's got that trust that he continues to work on, even if for the good of the Jedi.

But at the same time, would it be believable if Xanatos failed out of the blue? OK, it would be stronger if he failed because of some flaw that's almost invisible, out of some need to help those people who appeal to him so intensely even though he doesn't know them. A bit like when Obi-Wan stayed on that planet with the defenders of the dead. But then again, I think I'm just too used to EU taking the easy path for readers who don't get all the nuances of a story anyway. By that standard it's okay.