Lumiya's Sith tassels discussion/speculation (LotF spoilers)

I've been wondering what sort of hints there are for the LotF series in the messages "written" in the tassels Lumiya gave Jacen. Here are the tassel statements that we know of in the best possible order given so far:




He will remake (rename) himself.

He will ruin those who deny justice.

He will choose the fate of the weak.

(unknown yellow & green tassel) ('He will immortalize his love' according to Bloodlines, though Lumiya says its the 3rd prophecy, when according to the doctor in Betrayal, it's the 4th tassel he cannot read).

He will choose how he will be loved.

He will win and break his chains.

He will shed his skin and choose a new skin.

He will strengthen himself through sacrifice.

He will crawl through his cloak.

He will know brotherhood.

He will make a pet (fabricate a pet).

He will strengthen himself through pain.

He will be drawn from peace into conflict (or 'His life will be balanced between peace and conflict'. Probably out of order).





Some of these are vague and trite Sith prophecies, like the one about "breaking chains." While others are specific enough that it makes me think the authors have specific reasons for writing them, like the one about "making a pet" (Mara, perhaps?). Also, the sheer number of them makes me think there is something more to it than Sith platitudes. If that were their purpose, their impact on the story could have been made with 4 or 5 tassels.

So which of these events have already taken place and how do you see the other prophecies coming to pass?

"He will choose the fate of the weak" draws a strong response from Jacen when the doctor in Betrayal reads it to him, as it is the same thing Vergere was telling him about being "the Gardener," and how it was his job to decide which beings are flowers and which are weeds. So he is essentially a Sith weed-whacker (Darth Whacker in the Darth Who contest?).

I think the tassels about "brotherhood" and Jacen "making a pet" are especially interesting

 

He will remake (rename) himself. - DarthWho

He will ruin those who deny justice. - Colonel GAG

He will choose the fate of the weak. - Again, Colonel GAG

(unknown yellow & green tassel) ('He will immortalize his love' according to Bloodlines, though Lumiya says its the 3rd prophecy, when according to the doctor in Betrayal, it's the 4th tassel he cannot read). - We know what we're SUPPOSED to think it means..

He will choose how he will be loved. - He chooses order over love, so, basically not at all.

He will win and break his chains. - Defeat Lumiya to triumph and do things "right"?

He will shed his skin and choose a new skin. - Mustafar family vacation anyone?

He will strengthen himself through sacrifice. - Well, let's just wait for the name-sake book to come out for this one..

He will crawl through his cloak. - *boggle*

He will know brotherhood. - Ben.. as a replacement for Anakin?

He will make a pet (fabricate a pet). - I'd say Alema, mind warped or some such, to maintain "The Balance"

He will strengthen himself through pain. - Traitor?

He will be drawn from peace into conflict (or 'His life will be balanced between peace and conflict'. Probably out of order). - Shadow Academy, YV war, Killik War, Corellian / GA war.. and when he becomes Darth Krayt, the Sith-Imperial war

 

After reading the excerpt from Tempest, I think that the pet refers to the World Brain.

As far as shedding his skin, I originally thought it was because he was Darth Krayt but now I don't believe that's the case. Perhaps it's simply him changing his name and denying who he used to be.

 

Well, you've just imploded another major prop of coherent continuity in LotF...

In Bloodlines, the three parts of the "prophecy of the Sith", as defined by the tassles, are, in order:

---

[i]He will strengthen himself through sacrifice.

He will ruin those who deny justice.

He will immortalize his love.[/i][hr][/blockquote]

Now the first and second of these are the [i]seventh[/i] and second in [i]Betrayal[/i], and Lumiya links them to Jacen's willingness to sacrifice friends and family, and his role commanding the GAG:

[blockquote][hr][i]"This is your final trial, Jacen. You've sacrificed a great deal-the approval of all those who meant most to you. You've taken extreme measures to deal with those who deny justice. Now you must consider the third prophecy."[/i][hr][/blockquote]

But it's clear from his reply that Jacen already knows the third phrase here, since he knows the translation, and he's thought of it before, "turned that phrase over in his mind a thousand times".

In fact, it does occur in [i]Betrayal[/i], but only in Lumiya's dialogue on the Bimmiel asteroid:

[blockquote][hr]... your greatest attainment of knowledge and power will come at the same time as your greatest act of sacrifice, when you give up something that is as dear to you as life-making your love immortal through its sacrifice.[hr][/blockquote]

Lumiya also cites [i]We strengthen ourselves through sacrifice[/i] to him in this scene.

In both the Bimmiel scenes and in [i]Bloodlines[/i], you can read the same basic three-part motif, the same three-stage progression: self-sacrifice, imposing justice on the guilty, and the willingness to do and allow harm to innocent people in pursuit of the greater goal...

So the theme remains (although it cries out for deconstruction!), but the continuity has gone a bit messy...

:p

Anyway, let's get back to [i]Betrayal[/i]...

[quote=YodaKenobi]He will remake (rename) himself.[/quote]

This is presumably to do with Sith names, although it could be something we don't expect...

Significantly, it's said to be a tassle from Firrerre, destroyed by one of its own people, a Sith wannabe, as a proof of loyalty to Darth Vader.

But it's also derived from a system designed to state names, bound up with the Firrerro belief about how control of the name can give control of the person. This suggests that we should look at [b]context[/b] as well as simply text.

[quote=YodaKenobi]He will ruin those who deny justice.[/quote]

A Bith recording message, originally designed for recording genealogies... I'm not sure if there's any significance in the Bith origin here, though it's worth noting that Clak'dor VII has been ravaged by war, turning its people into intelectual pacifists and musicians; but just as the previous tassel was probably to be read in terms of personal name, this one may be to be read in terms of genealogical justice, rightful inheritance...

Which, of course, challenges the meaning that Lumiya gives it in [i]Bloodlines[/i]...

[quote=YodaKenobi]He will choose the fate of the weak.[/quote]

Red and black, used by prisoners on Kessel. A secret language, used by those who have been incarcerated by the Galactic authorities in an infamous and corrupt penetentiary. From Jacen's POV - Ben notes that he reacts sharply - this presumably implies the hard choices involved in governing the weak, but it could also indicate [i]adopting[/i] the same fate as them, sharing [i]their[/i] suffering...

Set against/alongside the suggestion of a "genealogical" meaning in the previous prophecy, however, this becomes intriguing, suggesting meanings that have nothing to do with Jacen and Lumiya. If "the fate of the weak" here can be seen as sharing suffering in resistance to tyranny, is "justice" the act of those trying to impose order on the Galaxy, as Jacen dreams, or are people like him those who [i]deny[/i] justice, by dumping people onto a world like Kessel...?

[quote=YodaKenobi](unknown yellow & green tassel) ('He will immortalize his love' acco

 

Jacen's so gullible that she propably got them off the drapes of a hotel. Curtain holders.

"Behold the ancient tassels!" *hee hee, what an idiot!!*

 

Not the biggest fan of Jacen are we my dear.

Understandable seeing as he offed you, but now you get to join the after-life club of people who got killed by Jacen. Anakin Solo president, Ganner Rhysode vice-president and Wurth Skidder chief of finances.

I think that the quote, "he will make a pet" refers to his growing the World Brain.

 

"he will choose how he will be loved"

i think this has nothing to do with tenel ka and allana, but more to do with how he will be perceived by people of the present, his family included, and people of the future he seeks to create. he will choose a LEGACY over physical, romantic, and familiar love.

 

This has been discussed in another thread . . . somewhere. But I still don't know what tassels are.

 

Or, being unable to bring himself to kill her, he may choose to make Allana his apprentice.

 

From Wikipedia:

A tassel is a ball-shaped bunch of plaited or otherwise entangled threads from which at one end protrudes a cord on which the tassel is hung, and which may have loose, dangling threads at the other end. Tassels are normally decorative elements, and as such one often finds them attached, usually along the bottom hem, to garments, curtains, or other hangings; and to mortarboards... That the tassel is really a universal ornament is seen in versions in virtually every culture around the globe, and even as the 'silk' on a corn stalk, on the breast of a tom turkey, on the tasseled crab, and the "pine cone and tassel" is the state flower of the American state of Maine. Etc.

[image=http://www.trio-net.com/show-room/images/tassel/ts3.jpg]Tassel.

 

I always wonder how Jacen can read the tassel from Ziost. The expert can't, Nelani a Jedi Knight can't and Ben doesn't know what Ziost is.
Jacen explains this away by saying he has a broader learning of the Force.

So just what had Jacen been up to during his 5 year journey?

If he actually visited Ziost then he is in the right area at the right time to start the New Sith Order.

If not then he has certainly been reading up on the Sith.

Maybe Lumiya should ask herself who's playing who.

 

Jacen can read Sith, or at least understand, in Betrayal. There are
two ways to explain this; either the Sith writing can be "understood"
- put perhaps not "read", more like in the manner of some scientist
studying writing in dead languages, capable of explaining what it
means but not actually reading it - by using the Dark Side and
nothing else is needed, or else Jacen has learned at least to read
and even perhaps to speak Sith before Betrayal. There is no
implication that Vergere would have teached him to speak, read or
write Sith.

Interesting fact is that Lumiya does not - and according the timeline
really has not enough time - to teach the language to Jacen. But as
Lumiya has the holocron of King Adas, she almost certainly has to
be able to understand the language herself. So, somewhere between
TUF and Betrayal Jacen learned Sith. Which usually in itself means
the same as being corrupted by the Dark Side, as only a few Jedi
and scholars have been able to learn the language without being
corrupted during the many millennia since the old Sith Empire fell.

And now the question from whom did Jacen learn the language? Luke
may know it, but it would be unlikely that he would teach it to
Jacen. Tionne may know something about it, the Jensaarii may have
been able to teach him something, but perhaps not enough to be
able to read the writing of Ziost (if here really read and did
not just understood the meaning of it through the Dark Side). And
what little is said of Ziost in Betrayal seems indicate that Jacen
has been in there, so... How and from whom did Jacen learn Sith?

 

Fuzzy Blue Nelani: you have a point - the "expert" on Lorrd could be a setup...

The "cloak" thing makes me think of the Cloak of the Sith...

... which is where Kyle Katarn went looking for Daye Azur-Jamin, and got captured by him, and also the original base of Kaan's forces in the New Sith Wars...

And Jacen definately knows something about Ziost: he cites the citadel to Lumiya in contrast with Vectivius' "insane" tastes - first line is Jacen, second is Lumiya:

---

[i]"But it's not very Sithly. The Sith citadel at Ziost--"

"I've been there. Very gloomy place. Unnecessarily so."[/i][hr][/blockquote]

Jacen doesn't come out and say outright that he's visited, but it's clearly implied that he has a good idea of what the citadel looks like... and we know that both Lumiya and Ailyn Vel had [link=http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ziost]been there[/link]... as had Zekk, for what it's worth...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Are we sure Vergere is dead?

 

I sure hope she is. What are the tassels are prophecy of?

 

Do A-wings have ejectable seats?

 

That's a good one. I hadn't even thought of that for some reason

That's actually the way I read it the first couple times. I couldn't figure out why it drew such a strong reaction from Jacen if that's what it meant, because that seems to be right up his alley. But then, if you read it as him deciding the fate of the weak, the parallels between it and Vergere's teachings make sense.

Me either. It's best guess right now. The expert in Betrayal said he was reading them in order and couldn't read the 4th one.

That was my thought as well. I've thought that Jacen must have studied Sith teachings in his 5 years away and that scene sort of sent off warning bells for me.

 

There are others who can read Sith. I, Jedi mentions the Rebel Sullustan scout who found Yavin translated the Sith texts in the temple there.

Crawling through his cloak reminded me of the Vong cloaks the commanders wore.

And I like the theory proposed here that the "pet" Jacen makes is Krayt.

 

Kenobi_Kid will now use jungle knowledge to give great insights into the banana...I mean tassle prophecy!

He will remake (rename) himself.
Jacen gives himself a Sith title. Or a makeover

He will ruin those who deny justice.
Asassinates Cal Omas

He will choose the fate of the weak.
According to Lumiya, Palpatine was weak?

He will immortalize his love.
The dead are immortal

He will choose how he will be loved.
I.E. not at all

He will win and break his chains.
?Mr. Solo? You won these lovely chains in our raffle and...what? HEY! THOSE WERE %#@*& NEW!?

He will shed his skin and choose a new skin.
Major plastic surgery on the horizon

He will strengthen himself through sacrifice.
He?ll knock off Tenel Ka and beat his chest

He will crawl through his cloak.
For Lumiya?And then he?ll jump through a hoop!

He will know brotherhood.
He?ll join a frat

He will make a pet.
A gook. And he will call him Fluffy

He will strengthen himself through pain.
Pain is gain. Every gym instructor knows this

He will be drawn from peace into conflict.
There was peace till he got into RPG's

 

Okay . .. those are tassels. So . . . what's the deal with that tassel, then? Does Brie sleep with it as a comfort blanket, or what?

 

Why would the A Wing need an Ejecto Seat for Vergere to escape?
Whoever said she was ACTUALLY in the ship? Is there any proof other than Jacen saying she sacc'd herself (which isn't even proof..).

 

Jacen goes to korrabon for a "fact-finding" mission and finds a young man there who gives him a tour and teaches him a little "sithspeak" Young man mentions hes from a desert planet in the outer rim. Jacen remarks that that makes sense because he has breath like a Krayt dragon...bam two mysteries solved

 

Is that canon?