Lit Books LOTF - First Time Read Thread - No spoilers post-Invincible

I would compare Caedus more to Revan than to Vader. He didn't really fall, he choose the Dark Side as means of fighting against an even bigger evil. I don't think he knew that threat to specifically be Darth Krayt, it was more subconscious and whatever kinda visions he got on his journeys that a Dark Man would come, who we now know to be Krayt, but he didn't at the time. He choose to become a Dark Knight to take on that darker man.

And, just like Revan, Caedus' problem came from the fact that you can't just have a little Dark Side and then you're done. The more you use it, the more it dominates how you do things, how you conduct yourself. The Force fundamentally does not care if you bomb Kashyyyk, given that Jedi have done more than their share of planetary bombardments, but it does seem to snap back when you try to push it too hard, which Caedus clearly attempted to do as much as ironically his unseen opponent Krayt did.

Vergere fits surprisingly well as his Kreia/Traya, and Tahiri is obviously Malak.

 

Umm...would Darth Malak have done to Ben Skywalker what Tahiri did in Invincible?

Denning stepped a line and I'm still annoyed with that.

 

So thinking about Lumiya, I have always appreciated how both...self aware she is? She knows she's broken and bitter. So much so, she has to emphatically deny being driven by revenge.

Jacen Solo for Lumiya is the crowning victory of an otherwise failed and miserable life. A failed service to Palpatine-that ended with her unable to save him or the empire, a failed time as an imperial agent, unable to bring down Luke Skywalker, forced to work with mediocrities or hide in the shadows because she lacked the power and social capital to lead the Remnant or restore the Sith Order.

Jacen Solo is in some sense her "redemption"-the vindication of all her patience, the decades she spent alone in a broken body, watching the galaxy forget her. Comparing her to Mara-whose life after Palpatine while not without its hiccups was much more rewarding, joyous and happy.

How could she not be pleased, how she could not be satisfied at the end of Sacrifice? All her life's labors, striving, and grief-have culminated in the crowning achievement that is Darth Caedus.

What ever happened after Terephon-Lumiya won. She passed on the Sith Legacy, she built something that was real and had more than a passing impact on the currents of history, and she settled the score with Luke Skywalker.

Lumiya is the ultimate victor of LOTF-not because Jacen Solo won, but because she passed on the legacy she knew she was unworthy of carrying herself, and became however briefly the master in the eternal Banite cycle. When she fought Luke, she didn't have anything to fear at all. There was nothing Luke could remotely do to her. Nothing at all. She had nothing to lose, and nothing to regret because in her last hours-she had gained and won everything she had ever wanted.

Lumiya won and she went to her death at peace. No unfinished business, no enemies getting the last laugh, no shame at a life poorly lived.

Its inspiring in its finality and certainty.