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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

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

Discussion in 'Literature' started by OutsiderJediSam, Dec 3, 2017.

  1. AusStig

    AusStig Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 3, 2010
    Not overly, it seems. Also Lumiya apparently had the power to convince Jacen of anything, since she could get him to think Vergre is a Sith.


    Only seemed to be military, since we don't see any GA forces/people inside the cluster.

    Ok.

    Ben Skywalker. Space Police.

    But what do people think is the biggest missed opportunity of the series? I think it was the lack of Vong.
     
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  2. ColeFardreamer

    ColeFardreamer Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 24, 2013
    The biggest missed opportunity?

    Adressing the elefant in the room: Everybody was lying to him/herself, except Jacen. The Jedi behaved un-Jedi like, the heroes unheroic and everybody claimed to be good and doing well. Only Jacen Solo knew when he was doing something bad and called it that even, even if in the name of his vision and greater good after the evil means.

    Jaina became a murderer and thinks it is the Jedi Way
    Luke and the Council condoned it, ordered it
    The Solos and everyone jumps too quickly to "kill the problem" as only option

    I would be ok with Jacens fall, would they adress these problems and have him, even while evil, the only one true to himself. Everyone else needs to be portrayed as flawed and pay the price of that... not get a go free from jail card like Jaina did.

    No wonder the logical conclusion to LOTF was FOTJ with Daala, madness and Abeloth...

    If only they had listened to Jacen. Then neither he would have fallen far, nor them.
     
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  3. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 8, 2016
    One line I did like in Invincible is Jacen admitting to himself he had become a monster like Palpatine and Exar Kun. I wish LOTF had run more with this idea-if they were going to do that. Have Jacen a conscious self aware Sith, he knows what he is, what he is trying to do, and what he doesn't wish to become.

    That would have made it distinct from the Prequels where Anakin is more or less ensnared by false promises, Jacen on the other hand walks willingly, freely, and without any lies or dreams to drive him to the dark.

    Another missed opportunity has to be Skysolo family drama-I don't mind in principle(that is literarily speaking) a character being determined to be irredeemable, and thus death being the only option. But this is never something Jacen's family wrestles with, they just sort of accept it without the text really emphasizing what a massive blow, and mental and emotional catastrophe that would be.

    Deciding your own son/nephew/brother is no longer redeemable and well there is no other option-should be something massively emphasized and developed, not just something that just happens.
     
  4. Mira Grau

    Mira Grau Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 11, 2016
    I feel that line from Jacen was mainly there to spill out to people how evil he was now as if they couldn‘t figure that out themselves. Kind of comparable to the „This is how liberty dies...“ line in the PT.

    Jacen was nowhere near Palpatines level.
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2021
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  5. Jid123Sheeve

    Jid123Sheeve Guest

    Well for Jacen to be near Palpatine level he would have to pretty much not really have any sorta altruistic reason for doing the evil things he does.

    Like sure Palpatine says he's brining peace to the galaxy but I've always believed that he himself doesn't really believe in any of that so much as Palpatine is just all about power for himself with that sheer enjoyment of being Evil.
     
  6. ColeFardreamer

    ColeFardreamer Force Ghost star 5

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    Nov 24, 2013
    Palpatine did it all to prevent the Vong invasion!!!

    Gesendet von meinem FP3 mit Tapatalk
     
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  7. AusStig

    AusStig Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 3, 2010
    Building on this I would say Jacen was never a real Sith.

    Sith think about themselves and seek freedom (for themselves), while the societies of Sith often tend towards authoritarianism, the Sith themselves are more freewheeling.

    Jacen is only ever thinking of others, he is constantly restrained, chained by his thinking of others.
     
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  8. Xammer

    Xammer Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jan 31, 2009
    I think the characters in LOTF feel more lively than in all the other post-ROTJ EU series (Bantam, NJO and even FOTJ), in which everything and everyone seems to be just a prop for the Big Three to have more adventures (notable exceptions include both the Remnant and EotH prople in HoT). Here you have all these people like Cha Niathal, Dur Gejjen, Tahiri, Lon Shevu and even the Mandalorians (despite how superfluous they are generally regarded on these boards) or even the ones who are just sketched like Saxan who have very different kinds of stories and motivations. I feel that the Big Three cannot solve everything and this is shown in a highly organic way, by simply being a lot of powerful people around one cannot just ignore.
     
  9. Destiny975

    Destiny975 Jedi Knight star 3

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    Jan 18, 2021
    Lumiya. I though she was a really interesting character. Also Ben.
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2021
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  10. ColeFardreamer

    ColeFardreamer Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 24, 2013
    The best thing LOTF did? A lot in the details despite lacking in the overall plot. Sidecharacters like Jyella, Valin, etc.

    "Betrayal" was a well done storyline that featured the beloved shortlived Nelani Dinn and it really portrayed Jacen nicely and his intro spective that sadly was not followed up on enough by other authors. Betrayal was a great setup despite loathing Jacen's fall at first it was well done. Vectivus, fiction or fact aside, is a clever and interesting character as well.

    "Bloodlines" truly did wonders to Boba Fett as a character. Before it he was a good villain and a puzzle of a character that only this book for the first time ever unified into a cohesive epic biography with a lot of sadness and tragedy. Nobody knew what to do with Fett aside use him as villain before this. True the author is not flawless and especially in other works failed, like Sacrifice or Order66 novels, but this one is pure gold.

    "Invincible" was, for its shortness aside and the sad end and Jaina falling to the dark side in becoming a murderer, a well written book that sure had a lot of missing scenes, but it felt so classic YJK in many regards, especially with the quotes, that the sad end really hit home hard, no matter where else the book failed beforehand or lacked as an overall ending.



    PS: I think one main problem with LOTF was that nobody knew what to do with/about Corellia. Corellia is an empty spot designwise that aside namedrops had no previous movie appearances and only book, comic and game history that while cementing its looks, had its culture vary from book to book a lot and with it the relation of main characters to that place. Be it Imperial Corellia, Warlord Corellia, Business and Production Corellia or Home of the Heroes Corellia, etc. it is and can be all of that but one story has heroes not return there due to being hunted by law, others claim they love and miss their home, its messy. Medstar books are the first and only ones presenting a rather unique look into corellian customs and family traditions. That aside it either is random Imperial world, random world connected to heroes or random production world with strategic value only.
     
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  11. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Aug 8, 2016
    Jacen(and by extension the writers) are acknowledging he failed to be a truly different Sith. He gave into his anger, and committed atrocities.

    He killed Tebut, tortured Ailyn Vel to death, firebombed Kashyyyk, bombed Fondor after it surrendered, tortured Ben, among other things.

    He's telling himself "I didn't walk the straight and narrow as well as I wanted, I fell short."

    That's a level of self awareness in SW villains we rarely see. Shame we only got glimpses of it in his last book.

    I never minded "wild rebel Corellia that always wants to break from central authority". Han writ large. But that's not something easily translatable or easily applicable to LOTF's story. Are they crazed war mongering secessionists, or reasonable freedom minded people who are tired of tyranny? LOTF doesn't really answer that question. And so corellia itself fades from the narrative, as its role is merely a vehicle for the Skysolo plot, not for itself.

    I agree Nelani Dinn is memorable despite being only in a single book(and not very well described by the text either-there is no official fan art of her). She is an excellent foil to Lumiya, and a mirror of what Jacen is not.
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2021
  12. adalmentia

    adalmentia Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Nov 12, 2020
    I didn't have as much fun reading this Lumiya as when I discovered her in the original comic book series because of the context in which the character was acting, but her presence remains one of the few elements that I appreciated

    If you haven't already, I suggest you check out Lumiya's appearances in the original comic as well as her own short story Lumiya: Dark Star of the Empire
    She's really great in it

    Edit: I believe the short story is no longer available. I was able to find the French translation (I'm French) but I don't think that you can find it in English anymore
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2021
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  13. AusStig

    AusStig Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 3, 2010
    I should point out that it was Ben who suggested hitting the cities. Jacen was just going start a fire, Ben suggested directly targeting civilians.
     
  14. ColeFardreamer

    ColeFardreamer Force Ghost star 5

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    Nov 24, 2013
    Indeed and he never got punished for it !!!

    Gesendet von meinem FP3 mit Tapatalk
     
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  15. Noash_Retrac

    Noash_Retrac Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Nov 14, 2006
    I think its because the other writers swept it under the rug as fast as possible.
     
  16. AusStig

    AusStig Force Ghost star 5

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    Feb 3, 2010
    Which I think is kinda dumb. Since that would have been a GREAT way to get Luke to agree to Daala's terms, rather than threaten Kyp, she could say "Well if we can't get you then we will have to go after Ben".
     
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  17. ColeFardreamer

    ColeFardreamer Force Ghost star 5

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    Nov 24, 2013
    Why is there always a Jedi power struggle anyway?

    We had Luke vs. Kyp in NJO. It always seems as if they try to push Luke into a Jedi Dogma and have someone younger challenge that. Be it Kyp, Jacen, even later on the Imperial Knights etc.

    It would be more interesting had they stuck with Luke the Jedi Reformer, which he is and was. Not just rebuilding the old Jedi Order but a new one, despite researching the old Jedi he made his own way and did not carbon copy the PT order or TOTJ order.

    Then they could have followed up with K'krukh's reappearance and the Hidden Temple facing integration troubles into the New Jedi Order as not Luke is the dogmatic one, but the surviving PT Jedi are. They even could have done the same showing more integration processes of Dathomiri witches, Jensaarai and others who had student exchange programs and integration into Lukes order loosely as early as the first Jedi classes already!


    But no they had to turn it around 180 degrees and have Luke forget about his dream and copy paste a failed Jedi dogma out of the blue to the point of forbidding Jacen to simply copy Luke's life so he was forced to find his own path.


    Luke was tasked to be the last of the old Jedi, yet remade the order fresh into a new Jedi Order. Luke got the redhead, fathered a kid and before that went on a sojourn to study the force and gather, artifacts, lore and students.
    Jacen was raised as a new Jedi prodigy, went on a sojourn, collected students like Nelani, Ben etc. and was about to reform the New Jedi Order during Dark Nest... but when he got the redhead (or her him) and they had a kid, it suddendly was frowned upon and he went nuts.

    At least they did not kill his wife and hide the kid from him like with his grandfather... I still miss an untold future story of Allana and Ghost Jacen working together to get her on the throne of balance after all, kinda mirroring Vima Sunrider and Ulic Quel Droma a bit.
     
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  18. AusStig

    AusStig Force Ghost star 5

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    Feb 3, 2010
    To me the NJO issues were more about what role the Jedi should have in the galaxy in general and the war in particular. Something the new order need to work out. Growing pains.
     
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  19. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Aug 8, 2016
    I see it as more a story of a lost and broken people finding Eden again.

    Also its about a story of compassion and ferocious empathy, if the NJO has a summarized theme its "victory through compassion", as opposed to "victory through martial prowess"
     
  20. AusStig

    AusStig Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 3, 2010
    Where as LotF is about killing people who disagree with you.
     
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  21. ColeFardreamer

    ColeFardreamer Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 24, 2013
    The NJO is about many things, multifacetted as it is. For the Vong it is finding home and redemption after they had lost themselves in someone elses war and were trapped in a cycle of violence ever since. For the Jedi it is about expanding their definition of the Force, of Light and Darkness and their underlying true meanings which are far more complicated than just good or bad which are terrible analogues for them. Creation and Destruction, both natural and unnatural if over the top imbalanced befitting both terms. And for the Jedi this subsequently means to not repeat old mistakes of the PT era by being bound too close to governments or military but rather stepping aside and in between to mediate between them all. If ROTJ was how the rebirth of the Jedi started, the NJO was how it ended and reached their full potential in seeing and redeeming the Vong for what they truly were. (Despite the long road, Ossus Project and post Legacy integration into the GFFA took much longer the majority kickstarting it was done)
    Pity is that mostly a few Jedi saw this depth whereas others blinked and were puzzled about it to the point of awaiting Grandmaster decision if the few Jedi who saw the new, far older, path for the Jedi is serious and accepted. Even more to pity is that the visionaries that saw the deeper truth left after the war with Jacen on a sojourn, Tahiri with the Vong helping them rather than the Jedi that needed the same bridging and help to accept the new reality. No wonder, left alone with a new deeper cut of the Force, the Jedi rather went bananas in between and when Jacen and Tahiri returned in Dark Nest they found them in a bad, infighting place, too late to correct what their absence had damaged that could have been a great new start for the order.
    Hence Dark Nest amongst many things, is about the PTSD of the Vong War, the psychological trauma and how it influenced the future decisions. The younger Jedi try to repeat the redemption the Vong got with the Killiks and run blind into assimiliation as Joiners. The older Jedi, too skeptic about yet another monstrous enemy are nearly pushed back into government and military service by Omas half Council and demands. In between Jacen, Tahiri and few others walk shaking their heads and got other problems that keep them from sorting everyone elses mess out. The next generation looses itself in missions and putting those over their private lives till they collapse or break. A lot of PTSD on all fronts.

    Then LOTF comes, and it continues several of the previous trends sadly without showing a way out of it. LOTF is about misunderstanding balance. It is about everyone trying to do it right and everyone ending up broken and returning to old patterns due to giving up before success would have built up, unsatisfied due to slow progress or not continuing till the point where success becomes visible.
    The PT had misunderstood balance from a point of dominance. The Jedi believed balance meant the eradication of the Sith so they can shine. In LOTF though the balance between Empire, New Republic and everyone within the Galactic Alliance, between Jedi and hidden Sith, was fragile. Nobody wanted to break the balance and errupt a new war, and with everyone trying to protect the political balance as well as the Forceusers philosophical one, the muddier the balance became percieved as, the more people wanted clear cut structure back, black and white was easy, point and shoot too. But understanding, working with the "enemy/other", that was work, effort, slowgoing and despised quickly after a few years. Debate locks, failures, anything was blamed on each other soon and deterred and the more it threatened to get violent, the more control was asserted to keep it from going over board till we ended up with yet another totalitarian regime founded out of the best intentions.
    Hence LOTF is balance achieved by people not ready for it, not willing to go all the way to make it work. Sadly so. A too human quality sadly. It is a balance that tries to force itself on people, and it is people who believe they are in the right to force others to their luck, as well as to accept "minor" pains and losses to make it work, accepting that not all can be happy to achieve the majorities peace. It is the slow eroding of values and virtues out of desperate clinging to a balance that never could have lasted in the first place. It is good people failing because some had not learned their lessons yet and they denied them to do so. The galactic balance broke, shattered, because it was kept too rigidly. A local conflict here or there would have been better than a galactic war, to let local populations learn their lessons and grow into accepting the work balance and peace mean without everyone having to jump into a regional conflict to enlarge it to galactic proportions again. Sad as it is...
    And how did LOTF end? Well aside Jacen's life... it did NOT end at all, it just stopped, nothing learned, nothing achieved. It flowed seemless into FOTJ, with Jacen's life the sole marker separating both.

    FOTJ then was politically in no better place, neither philosophically. The only thing it cemeted was decentralisation and separation of state, Jedi and for all the madness, that Forceusers were a different class of citizens once more, like mutants, inhumans and other halfgods and the galaxy their plaything with mortals arming up to not be crushed by their troubles.

    In a way, crazy as it may sound, the post FOTJ galaxy is the very same as the post ROTJ one in Disney SW!!! Hidden Empires and Sith, overpowered few Jedi and a galactic government torn between centralism and decentralism as old problems grow in secret and shadows till resurfacing again in the Legacy comic era or ST trilogy respectively.
     
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  22. Vialco

    Vialco Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 6, 2007
    You're misremembering that passage. It's when Caedus is in the Anakin Solo's detention center, right before he enters Isolder's cell and kills him:

    Seen through the egalitarian lens of a detention cell’s one-way transparisteel, the acclaimed Prince Isolder did not look so different from other men. He was a bit taller, perhaps, with squarer shoulders and straighter teeth. And there was something in his upright bearing, even sitting alone in a cramped durasteel cell, that hinted at his unshakable sense of self-at the quiet dignity that seemed to give him strength in even the most desperate and trying of circumstances.

    This was a man who had married for love in a culture that laughed at love, a father who had raised a Jedi daughter in a society that scorned Jedi, a prince who had always served his subjects first and his vanity last. He was a man, in short, of the best sort, a man with the wisdom to follow his own heart, and a heart large enough to make the journey worthwhile.

    And Caedus would have liked to believe that those were the reasons he found himself so reluctant to kill the man...but he knew better.

    The reason he was hesitating was because he was not certain that it was the right thing to do.

    The logical course was to let Lecersen and the Moffs have their fun with their nanokiller. Eliminating Tenel Ka and Allana was certainly not going to hurt the Alliance’s chances of winning the battle, and it might even help.

    But how could Caedus sacrifice his own child so that all the other children in the galaxy would grow up in safety? The way of the Sith was the way of pain, he knew that, but he did not see how he could let the Moffs kill his daughter without becoming a monster even worse than Palpatine or Exar Kun.

    Could Allana’s life be the price the Force demanded for peace? For making his vision of the white throne a reality?

    No, Caedus realized. Allana had been one of the beings in the vision. Without her, there would be no white throne.

    The knot of fear that had been binding Caedus’s insides slackened, and, with a new clarity, he saw what he had to do. He had to stop the Moffs’ plan at any cost. If he wanted to bring peace to the galaxy, he had to save Allana-not sacrifice her.


    Caedus viewed himself as doing the right thing and being in the right up to the moment he died. As someone whose making necessary sacrifices, all so that the Galaxy can be at peace. In the above passage, he explicitly views himself as not being a monster like Palpatine and Exar Kun. Moreover, he doesn't want to be like them, which is why he chooses to spare Allana's life, indirectly costing him his own.

    Much of Caedus's arc is about how he keeps doing monstrous things but doesn't view himself as evil. It's really quite tragic that Caedus doesn't get why people keep turning on him. It's a consistent theme that we saw in his character when he first returned from his five-year sojourn. All of Jacen Solo's empathy and morality disappeared during those five years, leaving an empty void in his soul. A void that Lumiya was able to fill with dreams of conquest and galactic domination.

    I will say that I've come to appreciate those final glimpses of light in the Sith Lord. It's his one sliver of goodness that remains. Similar to Vader, he sacrifices his own life to save the person he loves. It's that moment of selfless love that leads to his death. I like that Caedus dies as Jacen Solo, trying to save his daughter and the woman he loved. But I also like that this action, while good, isn't enough to redeem him. That one moment of selfless sacrifice isn't enough to atone for all his sins.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2021
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  23. Darth Invictus

    Darth Invictus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 8, 2016
    I haven’t read the book in years. So your probably right. I do recall, doesn’t he say something in his internal POV about his regret in killing Tebut? Or am I misremembering?

    That said, I don’t think what I said is too far off. Jacen didn’t want to be like Palpatine or Kun or Vader. And he could only justify his actions on the grounds that “what I’m doing is different than them, I’m not like them”.

    Jacen fully believes that he is doing the righteous and moral thing. That is something that does, actually separate him from Palpatine and Vitiate, who made no such claims.

    Which leads to another question, is Queen Allana worth it? If she is worth it, if she had brought peace, then would his actions have evened out?

    Jacen fundamentally acts in the belief that his actions will result in a truly positive outcome. He isn’t in it so he can become immortal, or become sort of dark god or because he just wants an excuse to exercise power over others.

    If there is anything truly compelling about Caedus(well executed or not), it’s that he isn’t trying to create a universe around himself, but a universe around someone else. Jacen is a selfless Sith.

    That, that I think is why he is irredeemable. Because he acts for truly good reasons.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2021
  24. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    No one is irredeemable. Jacen is just not fully redeemed because he's not fully sorry.
     
  25. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Incredible summary of the NJO series onwards @ColeFardreamer.
    This helps make the whole era more tolerable.
    I remember reading a comment several years about Jacen's actions in JAT, TCT, YJK, NJO, DNT, setting up his fall in LOTF.
    Which helped the era a lot imo.
     
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