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

Lumiya doesn't have enough physical tissue to be a successor. Recall midi chlorians(and thus the depth of force connection) is based on blood and flesh. Lumiya has lost a lot. She doesn't have the power anymore, or even necessarily the right-she was never formally inducted into the order(even she did receive training and instruction), she sees herself as passing on the legacy to someone worthy, who is not herself.

You could read that as them desiring to corrupt him, just you know for corruption's sake. Or Vergere and Lumiya saw his fixation with moral questions and willingness to argue and advocate for them-even at practical cost, showed that he had both the seriousness and devotion to an ideal they found congenial.

My go to take is Han in his heart has always been sympathetic to Corellian nationalism(for lack of a better descriptor), and now these feelings have come to the surface. That said, yeah its dumb for Leia to join him in this(at least not without serious reservation or a very very good reason).

They were. Still yeah, I think all parents even Jedi parents wouldn't want a kid Ben's age exposed to the sort of violence and ugliness that being a door kicking secret police officer entails.

Jaina blows him off, I think in Bloodlines? But yeah the whole Jaina/Zekk/Jag love triangle is just sort of played out.

 

Have you read Bloodline and Betrayal?

Mostly yes, I agree.

But it was Thraken who killed the Hapens. I think if Anakin had fired it would have killed Han and some jedi freeing slaves. So I think that would have been worse for the galaxy and Anakin.

but yes it was a JEDI choice not a Sith.

I also don't think Lumiya or Jacen are true Sith.

 

Betrayal, yes. Bloodlines, no.
I liked the concept of Betrayal because it was interesting and different. They didn't execute it well, though. It could have been really great.

I definitely agree.

I suppose that makes sense. While their reasons for picking Jacen might make some sense, Jacen falling to the dark side does not.

 

@Destiny975

Do you think being in the GAG is more dangerous that going to Centrepoint with Jacen?

 

No, but they probably should have been more concerned about that too.

 

But jedi go into danger, and risk their lived all the time. It is one of the few constants about the order. And the other is child padawans.

So do you think no kids on missions at all?

 

I guess that is true, and I'm not against kids on missions, so I guess it makes sense that they aren't that mad about the GAG and centerpoint thing.

What I think they should have been more wary of was Jacen.

 

I think it’s less that and more Ben is kicking down doors as a secret police officer. That’s a bit different from say fighting pirates in the outer rim.

Think about what the GAG does regularly-they aren’t just fighting “bad guys”, they are breaking into people’s houses and either shooting them or dragging them to interment camps.

It’s unpleasant and violent work, and something he probably shouldn’t be exposed to or participating in at that age. What if Ben has to cut down some Corellian man in front of his kids because he wouldn’t surrender, or he has to put some old Bothan lady in handcuffs and drag her to questioning as she screams.

The books don’t go too much into those details-but that is the sort of thing Ben working with the GAG would be seeing pretty much everyday.

 

Yes, very much so. It is a major flaw of lotF is how they treat Jacen, they go from full denial of any issue to KILL, not middle ground.

Also a narrative flaw is that the books seem to not acknowledge he was ever a good guy

Well I mean Legacy comics show the Jedi killing a Pirate in front of his child, so it's like stuff like that can't happen with pirates.

I honestly like the jedi as police officers, but yeah the interment camps are a massive step and honestly I am surprised it happened before the war.

 

Just had a weird thought... Jacen's vision about the dark man and his fear of Luke falling to the Dark Side... what if he didn't see the future but the past and DARK EMPIRE, but thought it meant the future?

The Force shows him a warning of what his fate will be if he continous the path with Lumiya, like his uncles once in Dark Empire. But given the family kept quiet about Dark Empire and the kids never know it even happened, believing Luke near invincible, Jacen thought it is a vision of the future and was even more adamant to prevent it... just because the family never talked about it...

 

Do you really think a fourteen year old should be engaging in SWAT like "knock and kick" operations? The GAG is actively repressing and killing people, sure to prevent terrorism(ostensibly), but its a different sort of violence, an uglier less morally clear sort.

Jacen and Mara both have the maturity, discipline, and understanding to be involved in such an organization, Ben however is young and still somewhat innocent.

(Of course this is well and truly lost by the end, but can you blame his parents for not wanting it gone?)

My interpretation of the dark man is he could be many potential figures-Luke, Jacen, Krayt, Ben, perhaps even someone out of left field like a fallen Kyp or Kyle.

If Jacen had prevailed, and the golden future of Allana not come to pass, he would have been the dark man, if Ben had fallen and overthrown Jacen he would be, if Luke had fallen and taken Jacen's empire he would be, and so on.

The future is always in motion, so it stands to reason possible futures were being determined by choices and events in the present.

 

It likely would be distressing. But is it worse than fighting Pirates or attacking Centrepoint? Maybe don't have him go on super dangerous/high risk missions, but I think the GAG on PAPER isn't a bad thing for him to be in. We know they become a secret police force but at the start they seem like Rainbow 6.

 

I think the vision also included Jacen himself killing that dark Luke though...

I always felt it was just a fake created by Lumyia or Krayt. Just like I think Palpatine created Anakins visions.

 

I suppose it’s possible, given Lumiya’s mastery of illusions. But it seems to me sending visions and dreams would be a very different(and much greater power) than deceiving the eyes alone.

 

That explanation was always baloney. I'm glad the new EU has done away with that handwaving. (Nevermind the fact that it was midichlorians per cell, not total in the body).

 

Jacen killing dark Luke might not have to render it "the future" though. Sure while unlikely, I thought, what if Dark Empire Luke never got redeemed, and Jacen who in Jedi Academy trilogy as a young kid defended unconscious Luke against Exar Kun's spirit, instead would have had to face his dark uncle and defend someone else unconscious? Like an alternate timeline. In Balance Point he defended a broken Leia against the Vong, too. A scenario repeating all his life with different players in the same roles. And the one time he did not jump to defend others, his brother Anakin did in Star by Star and died! It kinda is his trauma to catch the saber, defeat the villain and defend others or else they die or fall to the dark.

 

I’m not sure what the problem with it is? Works well for me. It’s definitely better that the utter stupidity of Mortis or Rey being all the Jedi.

 

Mortis, and the TROS climax, are also stupid.

 

Basically force potential requires a connection to the force through the midi chlorians.

Lose midi chlorians and your possible potential goes down.

I get that some people may dislike it for demystifying the force, but I don’t see it as demystifying the force at all, but connecting the mystical to the profane.

 

That was the Legends explanation. Which is thankfully ignored by the new canon. And never made sense with Darth Vader, who was definitely a Sith. I like the explanation that it's about midichlorian concentration (such as per cell), not total count. Or else Yoda's "size matters not" is wrong, along with most interpretations of the Force.

 

Maybe all Star Wars is stupid and that’s why it’s great

 

Dude, that was George Lucas' explanation, he made it explicit with Vader. So I am using the same explanation for Lumiya(who coincidentally is Vader's protege and arguable heir).

There is no other reason, no other sensible explanation in the context of Lumiya's motivations for her to not pursue the Sith mantle, except the Legends' explanation for force potential.

 

Yes. I'm just saying it's a bad explanation. (And the Lucas explanation... not in the movies, just in DVD commentary or videos, and we know how often he changes his mind.) Though I still contend that if Vader can be a Sith, so can Lumiya.

 

Vader never reached his full potential. That's the point of the injuries, in relation to the midi chlorians, when he lost three of his limbs and burned on the lava bank, he could never achieve what he could have been.

Also why is it a bad explanation?

 

May I ask what you mean by stupid?

I don't like force gods, but I liked the Jedi voices for Rey.