Lit Why all the LOTF hate?

More correctly I guess I should ask why you feel she had this amazing journey and growth during the NJO? Personally, I didn't see much difference in her from start to end. Nor did I see much growth in her character from LOTF carried on to FOTJ either.

 

Jaina was a bit different toward the end of Star By Star, and for most of Dark Journey, than she was in Vector Prime.

 

She did things, yes. She got new titles and job descriptions, yes.

To me Jacen Solo got the major character development in the series. Jaina went from being one kind of warrior to another, and another. But then I haven't read Dark Journey in a long time.

 

This is why we can't have nice things.

Edit: Here's what I read

If you really think the teenage girl we're introduced to in the opening chapter of Vector Prime is the same as the young woman in the final chapter of The Unifying Force, I'm really not sure what to say.

 

How about the massive amount of PTSD she was suffering from due to the loss of so many allies and close family members? How about the growth she went through due to her rising amount of responsibilities as a member of the military, Rogue Squadron, and eventually her own squadron? How about the effects her changing relationships with her mother, mentor's, and sibling's caused on her? Hell I don't even like Jaina as a character anymore and I can admit she was not in any way the same character throughout NJO. She probably went through just as much development as Jacen, though unlike Jacen her's didn't stick. (Though if you take LOTF and FOTJ into account neither did Jacen's I suppose)

 

I honestly don't know how you can read the NJO and say that Jaina doesn't go through any character development at all. I mean, it's self-evident. It's like saying Luke didn't change over the course of the OT.

And yeah, the development that both the twins went through was dumped by Dark Nest, though whatever lingering thread of it that existed in Jaina afterward was eliminated in LOTF when she was kicked out of Rogue Squadron by Jacen and when she forgot an entire five year period of her life in Revelations.

 

I don't see Jaina's dismissal from the military as a definitive rejection of her previous story arc from the NJO. Instead, it opens the potential for a new arc of further self-discovery. As I mentioned in my last post, it's in warfare that Jaina finds herself in the NJO, and in the role of a warrior she finds meaning. This is essentially codified by the whole Sword of the Jedi pronouncement speech, and it's generally a strong arc of characterization. However, the Vong war is a very different conflict than what's placed before her in LotF. Then, she faced a foe that was to be defeated; now she's faced with a foe to be saved. So stripping her of her warrior identity, denying her a place of personal comfort, is not an illogical choice to push the character further. What does a sword do in a fight that isn't wanted, when peace is preferable to victory? It can learn to be sheathed, and find more meaning in its existence than as a weapon meant only to kill.

The problem, as I also noted previously, is that it was Denning who was left to resolve the arc. As we've seen of his insights into Vergere, nuance is not his strong suit, so we're left without any meaningful change to Jaina. She merely readopts her warrior identity and gets back to killing bad guys. The good guy/bad guy label is what matters more than who Jaina or Jacen are as people and how they should truly react to such circumstances, and besides, it's not Star Peace right? So we get a fight to the death and the Sword the Jedi is shown to be nothing more than a fancy name for the Jedi's most special Sith killer. He tanks the arc that lookd to be late highlight of the series.

Now this I don't agree with. In what way did she forget herself in Revelation?

 

I have not read the LotF or much of NJO and I don't plan to do it soon (I'm more interested in DotJ, Legacy & all the old Bantam books) but one of the last (timeline speaking) things I read was the YJK-series were Jaina was this wrench wench who tinkered with anything she got her hands on. Is there any aspect of this character left by LotF?

 

Well, in one of the most questionable parts of the series, Jaina was serving as a mechanic on Mandalore, as to pay for her tutoring by Fett&Co. Don't remember much else there.

 

Bingo. She still had the skills of a mechanic and a pilot but it was no longer a focus of her character (The mechanic part) and the pilot part was dropped as the series went on. Her relationship problems with Zekk and Jag are more focused upon.Add to that that she's mostly a satellite character and there you go.

 

To bad. We already have many jedi pilots and warriors and not enough jedi mechanics

 

Probably because mechanics aren't fun to read about. Unless they're Cole Fardreamer

 

i think all of Jaina's growth came after Dark Nest

 

"Spoiled Jedi princess that has never gotten her hands dirty."
And that's hardly the only line.

 

Does she use it for herself? Other people wrongly describing her that way I could understand.

 

Like the author?

 

Possibly- this is an author who's never read another Star Wars book, after all- and so will only know what's happened from synopses.

 

And what did the synopses say about Jaina? Kidnapped 15 times before graduating; trained as a jedi without any special treatment; wrench wench until she found her calling as a fighter pilot; war hero against the vong?

 

They should say that, at least.

Still, just because we know Jaina's career, doesn't mean Fett does.

 

She certainly does nothing in LOTF to make herself stand out while with the Mandalorians. There's a review of it somewhere on here, may have been posted earlier in this thread in fact. The way she acts while with them is ridiculous.

 

I consider myself lucky to have never read a book about a Jedi mechanic.

 

It is all in the presentation

 

You're right, she does know. And she never refutes any of the points against her/the Jedi. Not one. Oh, and Fett is able to sucker punch her because "reasons." The Sword of the Jedi that fought against opponents that literally could not be sensed one bit through the Force toe to toe couldn't tell Boba Fett was gonna throw a punch. He's just that awesome, and a Jedi's perceptions with the Force amount to crap against such awesomely formidable handsome heroic totally not psychopathic mercenaries.

 

That's a completely disingenuous assertion. I recall no like sentiment, a search of Revelation shows no line of the sort, and a Google search turns up only your quote that you've been throwing around since 2009.

No one on Mandalore treats Jaina as though she's a spoiled princess. That's a complete exaggeration born out of a general dislike of the plot line to begin with. While she is initially met with skepticism and a measure of hostility upon arriving on Mandalore due to who she is as both a Jedi and Jacen Solo's sister, after explaining herself and proving herself a good, decent person willing to work earnestly, she's welcomed with truly open arms.

First of all, examine the position Jaina is in. She's there, asking for the help of strangers. Conventional wisdom is that when asking for help, you come hat in hand, not riding in on a high horse. It's noted in text that she makes a conscious decision to hold her tongue for that very reason. She could argue every quip and offhand remark, but where would that get her? Instead, she made a point of earning respect through her actions, which as the novel shows, works better than constant arguments would.

Secondly, the negative commentary that is voiced by the Mandalorians is a result of culture clash and is voiced toward the privileged Jedi Order rather than Jaina specifically. They don't know Jaina, it's nothing personal, and as I said, once they do know her, it significantly abates. Also, when she's met with challenges toward Jedi privilege, she's shown to have enough integrity to shut up and consider what's being said, that maybe there is another valid point of view she hadn't previously considered. Which is, of course, what people with privilege should do in real life, and what I'd hope a Jedi Knight would be capable of doing.

Fett is able to sucker punch Jaina for a single reason, and one that is very important in the context of the lesson being taught. It has nothing to do with her inability to sense Fett in the Force, she's shown to be able to sense him just fine. It's entirely a matter of mindset. Upon agreeing to help her, Jaina mentally tags Fett as an ally, and erroneously believes that to be the end of it. He's going to help her now, teach her and aid her, and cause her no harm. But labels are just labels, and while under the guise of an ally, Fett is able to bypass her defenses and hurt her.

In a battle with Jacen, her brother, who she has known her entire life—lived with, played with, trained with, fought with—and whom she loves immensely and would like nothing more than to have as her beloved brother again, there's ample room for abuse of that established relationship to undermine her. For Jacen to play the role of friend while acting as foe in order to cause her harm. That's the lesson Fett teaches her. Until you have complete control of the situation, you do not assume friendship, regardless of what's said or agreed upon, because it can thoroughly bite you in the ass when you least expect it.

 

It's on page 116.

"She was small, and her smooth hands said that she'd never had to build an entrenchment with them."