What could have made Darth Caedus better?

while i dont think its a crutch necessarily, i do agree with you

Palpatine in RotJ was so badass because he didnt seem to have an obvious weapon like a lightsaber with him
he controlled everything around him (or so he thought) to the point where he didnt need that weapon

then he comes around and fries Luke completely, showing his true weaponry

its a shame the PT lessened that scene for me, seeing everyone and their mother knowing about force lightning


but given his so called "exotic" skills in the force, there definitely should have been some more skills and weapons Jacen was able to throw at the jedi

 

Caedus needed more time as a full Sith
if he had come back in DN as a full Sith, yet was hiding it from the Jedi all that time up through Betrayal or something, that would have shown his power being a worthy enemy of the jedi, considering hiding yourself from them that long is next to impossible without great skill

he also needed to have more victories, as many have said already

while his gaining the COS position through legal means was a nice parallel to Palpatine gaining power through legal means, i dont think it worked as well in Jacen's case
mainly because he didnt have the nice victory of destroying the jedi or anything else


he also needed some better Jedi kills than we saw
Nelani was a nice start, as it showed his ruthlessness and how far he was willing to go
There should have been several other minor jedi kills that could have been accounted to Jacen, as well as a master or 2

while i see the point that Kyle shouldnt have been able to be defeated by Jacen, i agree and disagree
I think Jacen, due to his skywalker blood, had the potential to be more powerful than Kyle and defeat him, and with his exotic force learnings, he should have the skills to do so
they didnt execute that scene correctly though, as it could have been done in a way that actually showed Kyle as a badass jedi everyone says he is (i never played the games so i dont know much about him) while also showing Jacen as being incredibly powerful with his new Sith and other skills

there is no reason Kyle should be untouchable if they actually did the scene the right way

same goes with Mara

both fight scenes (Kyle vs Jacen and Mara vs Jacen) seemed to actually downgrade both parties in each case
poorly done all around in my opinion

 

I agree with the fight scenes statement, Jacen vs Mara and Jacen vs Kyle should have both been all out, or not at all. Why shoot Mara with a dart? it demeans the both of them, chop her head off or something, I mean, I don't want to sound crazy brutal, but if he's doing this to become a Sith, do something where people will go "Holy ***%!!, I cant believe he did that!" Same with the Kyle fight, don't throw a car at his back and have him mistakenly fall onto your lightsaber, go toe to toe with him and severely would him, take off a limb or two.

 

I disagree with the sentiment that the Jacen vs. Mara fight demeaned both of them. Mara is a Jedi, sure, but she's never really been the conventional type. She also gave as good as she got. When it came down to it, she was independent enough and ready to act even if others didn't agree with her. I don't think she should have left as she did, but I still don't think her actions were out of character. Jacen, on the other hand, showed off his unconventional weapons. No problem with that.

Some others have mentioned that they would have liked to see Jacen in a military role more often... I actually think that's a good idea, character-wise. Jacen's "good side" seems to be that he wants to be seen in a good light, as a good leader, and I didn't get the impression that it was simply to manipulate others. By the end, when he worried so much about the Jedi specifically and didn't put all that much effort into stopping his image from eroding (I feel his men started obeying more out of fear factor than respect), I felt that he was losing his touch with reality (making him a less potent villain) and actually becoming kind of elitist (making him an even less likable character).

 

Mara definitely gave it as good as she got it, I just think that to really carve Jacen into stone as a Sith, it should have been done with more than a dart, I agree that showing off his unconventional weapons was good, but I just didn't buy it as a fitting end for Mara either, she deserved better, as well as jacen deserved a better way to finish her.

I agree with the military characterization of Jacen, it was interesting. I don't think his rise to power in the military was that badass, but it suited him pretty well i guess.

 

The problem with Caedus is that he just never seemed like a serious threat. It's not even just a matter of strength. Lumiya was obviously nowhere near as powerful as Luke, but she was a credible villain because of her intelligence and skills of manipulation. I don't really recall any instance when the heroes seemed like they were in real danger from Caedus, and it didn't help that Luke kicked his ass whenever they fought. Caedus didn't have any impressive accomplishments at all.

Jacen, on the other hand, was a pretty good bad guy because he was flat-out creepy. The detached, cold view that he took of events made for a genuinely chilling character. Unfortunately, when he became Caedus, he morphed into a mix between Holden Caufield and Snidely Whiplash.

 

I'd agree that it's not just a matter of strength. One uniqueness about Jacen as a Sith seemed to be his justification for everything and determination to feel pain yet be able to sacrifice. Unfortunately, he sort of failed that from the get-go. Even before meeting Lumiya in Betrayal, Jacen already acknowledges that he doesn't feel the same "sense of tragedy" about others' deaths as he did before. That doesn't bode well as a balance for sacrifice. Later on, Jacen not only loses his temper, but he does so in a way worse than other Jedi have been known to (when he kills Tebut). I recall other instances in which Jacen "saw red" or otherwise had implied loss of judgment. There's no such overwhelming emotion even described in Luke after Mara's death.

I suppose I would have allowed for an angry Caedus, given that he's a Sith, but it should have been cold, calculating anger. That would have made him into a more respectable villain.

 

that is true
she held her own nicely in the fight

what i meant mostly is that her going off on her own, basically sneaking away from Luke, was a bit of a stretch, and didnt make her look good
there was no reason for her to do that, and when she finds actual Sith connections, she decides to tell no one?

also, someone else mentioned being killed by a dart isnt a great death for her charactor either
i always prefer the going out in a blaze of glory type of situation, or it could have been Mara not Luke, saving Ben by sacrificing herself to Caedus

and Jacen not being able to kill a master without nearly getting killed himself doesnt make him this uber-threat they seemed to want him to be


again, Jacen didnt need to kill 20 masters or anything
the execution just wasnt what it needed to be to make Jacen a credible threat, and with the timeline being so short, when history looks back on Caedus, he will be merely a blip in time
what is a whole 1 year really mean 20 years later?
it wont seem much of a threat

 

Basically agree.

If rather than seeing him defeated so many times, the series had portrayed him as, well, invincible, then I think he would have come off as far more terrifying, and the decision to assassinate him very much the last and only option the Jedi had left.

When he was so nearly crippled in battle or brought into custody several times throughout the series he was just lacking in threat factor to warrant extreme measures.
Its why I'd always expected the twist to be that he would win in Invincible. He'd suffered so many setbacks throughout the series that his ultimate defeat was already predetermined; so a sudden twist that saw him rise to all out victory would have been the twist, instead of the anti-climax of it all.

What we ultimately got, with the "threat" being the family struggle to come to terms with whether or not to kill him could have made a good story, certainly, as it would have been an emotional threat, rather than an actual physical one. However, that would have required a huge amount of empathising with the characters to really get inside their heads and connect to understand the internal torment they were going through. That doesn't really work in multi author series though. If they wanted an emotional villain, then that really needs a single author to pull off effectively. In a multi author series they need to realise that they're pretty much stuck with clichés if they want to achieve anything at all.

I'm a big time Jedi Knight fan. I love Kyle Katarn. But the guy is getting on. There was no reason not to kill him, it would have been a strong ending for a strong character. Kyle is not a man made for a happy death in his sleep, he's the sort of character who is destined to go out fighting. Better to a Dark Lord than to a random Vong.

Its bad enough that the Skywalkers and Solos have suffered character shields. I don't see why Katarn needs one when the chances of them making a JK3 set this far into the future are zero, if they ever even make one at all.

This is why I always felt Jaina needed something more up her sleeve than "I trained as a Mandalorian". Is it that hard to invent new Force techniques? They gave Caedus that blood trail thing in Invincible, which was cool, but the discovery of new tricks has become increasingly far and few between.

I don't want to see Jedi turning into Space Wizards, but to defeat the Master of all that is dark and sorcerous, they could have had Jaina play Caedus at his own game by learning some flashy Force power to counter his. But she got trained to do... I don't really know what. Fight like a person without the Force?

Its like when Han shot Palpatine. Its not a fitting end to a master of the dark side.

I don't see why that's any reason not to kill Katarn, however. I just see it as a reason for them to do their research on the character before name dropping someone from a video game who they clearly didn't actually know anything about. Katarn may have been the Cin Drallig of the NJO, but that still didn't stop Drallig getting his ass handed to him by Anakin.

The problem, in my opinion, was simply that the Katarn fight was ba

 

i agree completely
every time Katarn is in one of these books, it seems to be nothing more than a name drop to appease the game fans
it would take very little effort to write a paragraph or 2 at the beginning of the book showing some dialogue between Luke and Katarn, that way, we see him as an actual charactor, not just some name so a master can go on the mission

though i am now agreeing that maybe Kyle shouldnt have been killed by Caedus then
he had no build up of charactor at all
he should have been shown in all the books up till then as actually participating, then he could have been killed by Caedus and have it actually mean something to both charactors

i agree
i really enjoyed most of LotF, Invincible especially
it just could have been so much better in many aspects

 

What could have made Darth Caedus better?

Fewer Authors, fewer books and fewer dumb plotlines.
In HIS case, less might've been more.

 

Yeah, that's basically how I feel.

I don't care if Kyle dies. Anyone remember that Tales comic where Jan refuses to marry him because she knows his life is going to cause him to not come home one day? He's a tragic hero. I don't actually want to see him get a happy ending. Honestly, I'm still hoping (dreaming more like I know) for a Jedi Knight 3 where he goes out in a blaze of glory. Its what the man deserves, not being left to fade away in his sleep. He's a Hero, and unfortunately the best heroes never get happy endings.

But yeah, killing him in the actual fight scene we saw would have been a waste, because it was purely a name drop. If they want to kill him, awesome, going down to the Dark Lord of the Sith? That's the kind of death that Kyle warrants. But I fully agree that it'd need to be written into the story better, not just "Killing off random Jedi Master [insert video game name drop]" as that would most certainly not have been what Kyle deserves.

I guess what I'm saying is I want Kyle to go down like Ganner did. The man is destined to go out fighting.

 

Because apparently, somebody at Lucas Books or Del Rey thinks we're all mentally incapable of telling the difference between two characters, even though they have different last names and lived a generation apart from one another. It was a stupid idea then, and considering how the book world turned out since, it's an even stupider idea now.

Which makes one have to wonder: was it a conscious part on the authors to make him so, or did that happen just by accident? I can't believe that Allston or Denning could do that. (I can believe Traviss can, but that's neither important nor relevant.)

 

the series was written so choppy. In Betrayal the Aaron Allston writes about the Galactic-class Battle Carrier which is going to be the new headline ship of the GA navy... but its only seen once again in the series IN AllSTON'S book.

Mandalorians are only seen in Karen Traviss's novels and have no real effect on the series as a whole (but I'm sure that has been discussed enough already) at least Denning fit them in Invincible... and killed lots of them.

Admiral Nek Bwua'tu has only been seen in Denning's novels. Should they have built his character up over the series and make him the Chief of State?

There are many such things that only appear along with a certain writer, but they should have made the series much more fluid. That includes the personality of Caedus which I believe has been mentioned before.

 

or if they were afraid or unwilling to have Caedus get a high kill count of Jedi, then they could have made him at least best some jedi in a fight and just get away

maybe if he is really supposed to be a new kind of Sith, show him as not wanting to kill any jedi unless he absolutely had to
so he could have beaten Katarn, but just left him and not killed him
not so much as showing mercy, more contempt and annoyance for how the jedi dont see that what he is doing is right

that way, it could have been said that only Jaina would have the power to beat him, while still actually showing Caedus as being powerful in that he can actually beat most Jedi


he did dip into insane-ness a little too often considering this was only 1 year or so


if it had to be such a condensed timeline (which i dont see why it had to be, but whatever), making Jacen slip in and out of madness really just makes him seem bi-polar
he should have been fully in control of himself, yet steadfast in his view that the Sith way is what was best for him and the galaxy
he shouldnt have wanted all the jedi dead
he should have just made it next to impossible for any group of jedi to get near him, thus making it have to be only 1 jedi capable of sneaking through
make Jacen, as COS, and somewhat liked when he started, start some smear campaign against the jedi (a la palpatine) which makes the jedi have to flee, so it makes sense that they cant all go after him
the way it was written, we are to think the jedi are all just hanging out together

i mean, this was all done in the PT, and done much better
why LotF had to be Palpatine 2.0, in a much less time frame is beyond me
the reason Palpatine in the PT worked, is because he took his time and set everything up perfectly to take power to bring his peace

Caedus rushing to do this all in an afternoon makes him look like an idiot if he is all of a sudden hating the jedi as well

but if Jacen has this vision of impending chaos, him rushing to stop it makes sense for him
there is no reason he should have turned into such blind hatred of his family or the jedi so quickly though

 

That would actually have been rather original. We never really saw him as being big on the Rule of Two, so it would have been interesting had he not had any actual gripe against the Jedi, and just wanted them to be enlightened.

It'd have made their struggle to come to terms with needing to kill him more understandable too. If Caedus had let Jedi live, for the Jedi to decide not to let him live would have actually meant something. Alas, he just turned into a madman for three books after Sacrifice while he went around choking officers and such, only screwing his head back on in time for the final book.

 

and it would have given the idea that Jacen was actually right in what he was doing a little more weight

some have posted that Jacen was right to choose the sith path
if Jacen was really supposed to be this sympathetic tragic villian, then this might have helped

but yes, his turn into a madman really eliminates any thought of Jacen being right in what he was doing


plus, his turn into a mad man who hates all his friends and family in less than a year was a stretch for his charactor
so many lost opportunities in LotF
ah well

 

That would have kept his character consistent with the kind of justified evil he was pursuing in the first half of the series. It would make the Jedi question themselves as well. "Why are we ready to kill him without a second thought when he isn't willing to kill us?"

 

i cant really tell what kind of Sith Lord Jacen was supposed to be

In Betrayal, it seems like he is just searching for more answers on how to keep the galaxy in order
he is offered new ways which seem like they might work

but he quickly spiraled into the generic Sith model, i cant tell if the authors really wanted him to be anything different



him being a Sith who doesnt have the complete hatred for jedi or others would have really been interesting to read
the dilemma would be for the jedi to figure out how to stop someone who technically doesnt want to be their enemy
and for Jacen, it would be how do control everything it takes to be a real Sith without letting it ultimately corrupt you
in the end, he would have been forced by his own twisted ideals to do things that are in fact evil and would justify the jedi stopping him at all costs (a.k.a. killing him)
but before it got to that point, it could have been an interesting story to see how this new Sith and the jedi interact
ah well

 

If Caedus valued life more (by extension, not just Jedi life), perhaps fewer would have died at his hands. For one thing, the events of Ossus would never have happened. Because of that, the Jedi might not believe that killing Caedus was such an urgent matter...

 

Yes, indeed. I'm increasingly intrigued by this idea. Caedus being challenged, time and again by the Jedi, defeating them and letting them live because: "You need to understand that I'm right" or somesuch.

In a way, it would be the height of arrogance for there to be a Sith Lord who - even though he's opposed by the Jedi at every turn - leaves his foes alive because he considers them to be nothing even approaching a threat.

 

I'd actually like that kind of arrogance in a new Sith villain. It's conventional, maybe, but it would be arrogance that is not entirely unsupported, which would make it interesting.

 

Could anything have ever made Jacen Solo as a Sith Lord work for me? No, I'm sorry, but no. It was a concept too far that simply said DR was out of ideas bar torturing the big 3 some more by having their son/nephew go batcrap crazy for no real reason.

As for the story itself:

What made Darth Vader so scary as a villain in the OT? I'd suggest a combination of two things: Conviction, you can't say Vader lacked this and second, a lack of his viewpoint. We never see Vader justifying the Empire's fight against the Rebellion in his head, we see him commanding a Star Destroyer fleet, choking Captains from far distance, striding into the wreckage of the Hoth base. He was a villain, but damn cool with it.

In comparison, LOTF seems to be afraid of such decisive clarity, it instead seems to want to wallow in ambiguity - never making any definitive statement lest it offend someone but misses that its weakness offends instead.

 

Still... they could have had a villain with conviction without hints of madness...

 

I asked my intial question with the idea of how would you "re write" Caedus if in imaginary land they were writing the LOTF series again with hopes of making it better, making Caedus a better Sith etc. So with many of the changes being proposed here many of the things such as the battle of Ossus would have occured quite differently or not at all. But i like a lot of the ideas you guys have come up with. If he became a truly benevolent Sith maybye the Jedi would still want to kill him just because he's a Sith. I would assume that he would "slip" into evilness so much that at a point the Jedi would try to stop him anyway. I would have preferred if Caedus was a new kind of evil instead of the same maniac power hungry Sith we've seen before. If that was the case then the series probably would have lasted a lot longer like from 40 to 43-44 ABY, which solves the problem of Caedus's reign being too short