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

Well Anakin DID die in the war, so it isn't totally out of order.

I don't recall the Jedi ever saying they are equal. In fact the Denningverse is all about establishing that the Jedi AREN'T equal. Luke rules the rest obey.

I also think the Smuggler was saying that to Jacen since he betrayed her.

 

So did millions of other soldiers. Many of whom didn't die on a poorly-planned, horribly-executed, strategically-questionable mission...that they themselves came up with.

But he didn't....not really. He paid her a handsome fee for her to sell out her fellow smugglers and let her leave. Granted, he didn't let her leave in ship, but that's not really betrayal since he never specified which ship she'd be leaving on.

Your comment about this series saying that the Jedi AREN'T equal is quite profound.

 

Yes, but that makes him a HERO! I mean it wouldn't be the first time something go named after someone who didn't deserve it. He has some justification is my point.


To her it is. To her he changed the deal. She was being petty.

 

I disagree. But that is a conversation we can have on the NJO thread.

As I read this story again, I now understand that they used the name Anakin Solo purely as a way to rile up the faithful. And it worked. Which, now that I think about it, does bring up an interesting question: How much of this was written purely as an exercise to see how much they could polarize the fanbase?

 

If I remember right, I think before LotF started they were teasing something about Anakin. And the name Anakin was used several times, but none of them were exactly used in a good way. Remember that droid Anakin, that they used to bypass Centerpoint's locked controls? That was weird (and kind of sad). And then a few books later they got direct control of Centerpoint anyway, so that droid looks even more like a waste of time. Though that probably applies to most post-NJO books too.

I'm not sure my memory is quite right, but apparently at one point there was a possible plan for Anakin Solo to come back to life or something, at the end of LotF? Maybe it was cited in the Essential Reader's companion or something like that? Or maybe its just my memory being way off. It was a convoluted plot, but then not like the actual published book was much better either anyway. And sure would have fit into all the other things they did to mess up Tahiri's sanity.

With all the other idiotic things going on in the novels, might as well as have brought Anakin back to life for the heck of it, but then they were mostly killing off characters (some from the Bantam days even) rather than developing them.

 

Pretty much....the series ignores and contradicts itself a fair bit.


Moving on with Book4: Wedge meets with Jacen to discuss terms. Which really doesn't make any sense. We have the Commander-in-Chief of the Corellian Armed Forces meeting with....a high-ranking anti-terrorist officer? Jacen isn't a fleet Admiral, he isn't even the Solo's Captain...so what authority does he have to negotiate on behalf of the GA? Answer: None. This is meeting is a waste of time for Wedge, Jacen, and the reader.

But....the conversation does have some interesting lines. Wedge maintains that he had no knowledge of the coup attempt, which is plausibly true, but practically irrelevant. He's the Commander-in-Chief, so is responsible for all actions done under his command. He goes on to say that if he actually been in charge, the coup wouldn't have failed. Imagine: one of your parent's closest friends just announces that he didn't know about the plot to kill your best friend, but then brags that he would have if only they'd ask for his help. I'd have just chucked Wedge out of the airlock at that point. But wait....there's more!! Wedge wants the Corellians to rejoin the GA so that he'd be able to collect the pension that he'd worked so hard to obtain. This comment was probably tongue-in-cheek, but still rankles...and Jacen should have called him out on it. Wedge, basically, wants to return to the antebellum position...which the Queen Mother is certainly not going to go for.

This conversation, like the one between Jacen and the smuggler last chapter, is essentially written around the last comment: "Hobbie once said that you can always tell a fanatic because they lose their sense of humor. What happened to your sense of humor, Jacen?" Because Wedge has known Jacen since he was a wee kiddo, this question does have impact...and does cause some introspection, so at least Allston is attempting a path for 'redemption'.

Han limps the Falcon to Lando's place, which is kind of a fun scene. Lando compains about being bored now that he's wealthy...and feels guilty because he's got it easy compared to his friend.

Luke, Mara, and Kyp meet with Niathal and Omas about raising Jacen to the rank of Master. "He's not mature enough." Luke states. "He doesn't seek guidance." Mara argues. Kyp had made the comment earlier about keeping Jacen in the tent rather than out of it, and they probably should have tried that tack instead of holding the title out like some reward. Furthermore, Jacen worked, as far as we know, IN the Jedi Temple for the last five years....shouldn't some of these concerns been addressed during that time? We are again just ignoring the interim time because it raises uncomfortable questions.

Luke has internal conversations about someone being Jacen's 'political' patron, which is something that should be explored...but probably will not be. He also thinks about Niathal's political posturing and ambitions. Do Admirals have political ambitions? Certainly. But they wait until they retire from military duty to make that move. For Luke to suggest that she is acting for purely political reasons is insulting....as is this series' elevating her to the rank of Co-Chief later. This make the GA seem like a banana republic, and cheapens the series.

 

I liked that the series had friends, family and heroes on all sides of the conflict initially. Wedge with Corellia, even the Skysolos divided about the issue, etc. and not all heroes in the same camp always. Sure over time execution lacked and quickly most if not all got slotted back to the same side as new evil emerged. But with more in depth character exploration instead of a massive cast and quick stories it would have worked much better. Like how well they explored Boba Fett and in depth in all facettes. Humanising all factions and keeping heroes on all sides as well as villains. The resulting conflict not overshadowed by a new villain, but the slower fall and breaking of a hero, Jacen, trying to make sense of a chaotic world and conflict with good and bad on both side of the scale, not as clearcut as a good vs. evil scenario.

Add to that a counterpart in Lumiya who is responsible only in part for his fall and through him gets as manipulated as he is by her. More a mutual apprenticeship given his sojourn and knowledge and ultimately as he falls to darkness, she falls to the light and may even survive in exile or killed later on. That'd show a quite different scenario and interesting new character concepts and setups and add angles of greatness to Jacen's fall. Tragic if he can redeem even the darkest of remaining Sith but not himself. It'd give him much more of a Revan scenario, torn up between factions trying to find a hidden threat, saving others while falling himself. Followed up maybe not by assassinating him but considering a Revan-style brainwash? Give him a new name even? (lol not Ben Solo, unless you like One Canon and want to see him fall again!).

 

Hopefully this isn’t a spoiler, but the galactic alliance splitting into its own civil war in Revelation I always thought was just so...damning of the GA’s internal stability.

Somehow-the galactic alliance armed forces split depending on whether they are loyal to Caedus or Niathal. Now yes I get it’s a military junta and law and normal procedure have been thrown out the window, but still what government is so brittle that it starts fighting itself in the midst of a galactic war.

A RL example might be...I dunno McClellan overthrowing Lincoln with Grant or something and then the Union splitting between them while fighting the Confederacy at the same time.

I can’t think of any RL historical situation comparable.

Any government that splits apart to something like the loyalty of the troops to one warlord or another should not consider itself stable or strong. Or even institutionally modern. Modern states don’t break down into warlordist factionalism. At least there are institutional norms and barriers to prevent that-even during times of war and crisis.

 

I think the series does try to paint both sides of this conflict as grey, (well, except for Jacen....something we've touched on a lot) but...as you mentioned....fall flat in execution. Wedge's character (for example) has been decently well-written from a 'humanizing' standpoint, but his motivations aren't properly explained and we're wondering why he's agreed to be Commander-in-Chief. We don't really get his feelings towards Saxan, but we know he dislikes Sal-Solo and Gejjen, so why serve? He's already told Jacen that he doesn't want Corellia to leave the GA....so why the hell is he siding with them?

Not spoiling anything for me...but what is odd is this: Omas is still handling things fairly well. He hasn't flown off the rails, hasn't done anything unreasonable...so it's hard to say that the GA's internal stability is any different than it was before the Vong War. There will always be issues, but the authors have tried to paint this 'rot from within' storyline without actually showing us any of the rot. As it stands right now in book 4, the only 'rot' is with Corellia...and maybe Bothawui.

 

The GA did kidnap him, after all. That can have an affect.

Though that question is dealt with in this book.

Also Lumyia.

 

Disclaimer- I'm going off memory, so quite possibly a lot of my remarks are inaccurate.

I think Wedge was hoping to act as a moderating influence on the Corellians, to help end the war as quickly and cleanly as possible. You see that in the first book when he and Tycho are basically still working together. But after Saxan is assassinated, well, Wedge obviously isn't going to have much influence with Thracken or the cheap replacement not-Thracken, er, Gejjen. Which is why by book 4 he just leaves.

And I think Exile had him ripping the Corellian support for a Hapan coup, of how idiotic it was to waste those ships on that rather than on defending Corellia. Not that he was that big a supporter of Corellia, but that it was an idiotic plan and now Corellia is even more desperate.

The GA "rot" was odd, but then that was partially Del Rey ripping off the prequels and just copying the Old Republic's corruption over to the post-NJO era. Its... frustrating when Pellaeon, the lifelong Imperial, resigns in protest and then the GA just goes full steam ahead anyway. But then the books have a serious problem with having anyone as the good guys, aside from the Jedi (and they sure don't act like it much either, I just mean the narrative designates them the good guy, no matter whether it fits or not).

And it gets even worse later on, in LotF and FotJ. Too much of the franchise is just too set on the scenario of the good guys not getting to have support from a not-malevolent galactic government, too many Star Wars stories are too obsessed with the empire vs. rebels status quo (both old EU and new).

 

I believe Troy Denning wrote an alternate ending of Invincible where due to time travel, Jacen dies at Myrkr and Anakin comes back in Invincible or something. Denning himself said he wrote it as some sort of therapeutic response to the darkness of the novel. Or something.

(I’m not sure how that’s supposed to be a happy fanfic ending unless you absolutely hate Jacen but whatever).

I imagine the idea of Anakin being resurrected was something discussed by LOTF’s writers, and probably quite seriously at that. The fundamental reason being that I don’t think they really liked Jacen or knew what to do with him as a character-Anakin is far more easy, given he is a lot more conventional as a protagonist.

The only reason they didn’t, I would have to guess is because of the bad precedent it would set. SW usually doesn’t do comic book resurrections. The amount of resurrections of actually dead characters-can be counted on one hand. Bring back Anakin through time travel and why can’t you bring back Chewie, or make the Vong invasion not happen, or stop the empire from forming, it’s a mess for continuity and a coherent believable secondary world, something DC and Marvel have massive problems with.

But I do think the idea of resurrecting Anakin, and having Jacen die at Myrkr, was seriously considered.

 

I honestly wonder why though. Ben is very similar to Anakin in therms of being a standart protagonist.

 

Anakin still had a large fandom, and there has been a long undercurrent in the EU fandom of "Jacen should have died in the NJO, Anakin would have been a better protagonist"-this is rarely explicitly stated, but such a sentiment has long been just on the tip of many a tongue. Bringing Anakin back, would have been a golden chalice of fan service for such feelings.

In some ways-the sentiment isn't wrong, Jacen is not...easy to write. He doesn't have a conventional personality or interests-the way say Luke is bland conventional good guy with sword who defeats bad guy and such, archetype. With Jacen, you have to write a really introspective character, with loads of specific spiritual ideas and emotional nuances, Anakin is just "I'm good, love Tahiri, kill Sith". Its easier both for the writers, and the fans.

Bringing back Anakin, may have been seen as a way to...either pander to that fandom, or the authors and editors(who agreed with it), or because well they didn't have any better ideas.

Ben is still pretty young in LOTF, far too young to be a leading protagonist, Jaina never got center focus, and they seemed incapable of making Jacen a central protagonist, so...bringing back Anakin may have been seen as correcting what was a major structural problem-that is Jacen doesn't fit well with the narrative tropes and ideas they were comfortable with or the fans wanted.

 

They didn't like Jacen cause he required them to think. I mean Jacen is a peace maker. Which is a really interesting type of character and not one we have seen before.

But Denning and others only saw Star Wars as a full action story, with an action hero as leader.

 

That might ultimately be a limitation of SW itself, it doesn’t lend itself well narratively or structurally to that sort of complex introspective protagonist Jacen is.

Maybe not, but it’s clear that they had no idea how to handle that sort of character. Whereas having him die at Myrkr and bringing back Luke 2.0 Anakin Solo-is a lot easier to work with.

That said, they didn’t. I have to wonder, though if the authors when writing LOTF and FOTJ and Crucible felt hamstrung or otherwise limited because they didn’t have a Luke 2.0 protagonist.

 

See to me that misses the point of NJO. It was that violence wasn't always the only option and that HOW you did stuff was as import as what you did. Also even Anakin was introspective at times in NJO, not that I expect Denning to notice given how he writes Luke.

 

Probably was an attempt to have something happy from Jacen's death, since what was actually printed was Jacen died, Daala in charge, and that's their idea of a happy ending? I don't think bringing Anakin back would have worked as a good ending either, but it does feel like Jacen's death was for nothing (and it gets even worse after FotJ).

Star Wars can be introspective sometimes but it requires a conflict, an enemy that challenges the heroes, and a decent amount of time to show their struggle. The Vong weren't inherently evil, but their lack of Force presence was a big mystery, and they matched Jacen with the battle to defeat the Vong without just killing them all. LotF (and FotJ) rushed a war by reusing prequel plots and bringing back darksiders, and all this while Ben was still too young to be the action hero they wanted, so instead they wasted Jacen as the villain and then had Jaina as the hero to strike him down.

EDIT (hit post button too early)- Or like how the prequel era Jedi had serious problems, they were too arrogant and blind, but that was after centuries of stagnation and decay, shoving Luke and his nascent NJO into that role just didn't fit. You can't just rush through too many galactic wars, and even if you skip the build-up to it, a story could at least show the scope of it, but more recent Star Wars works have been too lazy to bother with details like that. The NJO novels mostly managed that, as did the Clone Wars books, its just too bad not much else has come close to that since.

 

My impression is Denning wrote it for himself, it was never published, I'm not even sure if this fanfic ending of Invincible was ever even shared to the other authors and editors. (Which makes it even more odd, that so much attention was placed on it-even in the reader's companion).

It makes me wonder, if there were any last minute discussions about seriously using time travel, or Denning had something like that in mind, as a serious consideration but is playing it down as his alternate fanfic ending, I dunno. (Maybe that's the ending he really wanted? Given he did write Anakin's death, so maybe he was told no?) Its all speculation, but its an interesting inquiry regardless.

I'd really like to see it released(if it still exists, even as a manuscript on his desk), just to see what this idea would have looked like, and how it would have been framed.

 

I think one of the problems with LOTF and FOTJ might have been that there were three authors writing the series, and they kept switching between authors. I think maybe if they made one author write the series, or maybe even two, there would have been less random subplots and a better story.

 

The nine book three author rotation system was odd, I wonder if it had more to do with publishing deadlines than any sort of creative rationale.

 

We may see something similar with the High Republic novels, if the plan is three books per phase.

 

Maybe it was so they could write more books. But the system didn’t help the story at all.

 

Not to mention missing the point of the Star Wars Saga. Luke only wins by looking inside of himself and realizing what he could become if he tries to do the right thing in the wrong way or for the wrong reason. He makes the decision NOT to be the action hero, and that is the only way he prevails.

I don't care for being locked into one viewpoint for a whole series (if the series is more than a trilogy), but I think it would have been much better to do 3-3-3 than to do the rotating author system. I don't mind if a sideplot and associated characters pop up for a few books, resolve their story, and move on. That was Bantam and NJO. When a subplot pops up, is dropped for two books and its characters don't appear, than return for a book, then disappear for two books, etc. it is really jarring. To be fair: it was at least handled better in FOTJ than it was in LOTF.

 

i just posted in the post NJO topic... feels there is a lot of overlap between it and this one here, so why are both needed again? Maybe one should merge them or the current discussion at least be kept in one only? regardless, check my post over there, it is relevant to recent posts. thx