Lit Why didnt Luke ever tell Cade Skywalker about his nephew Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus at all?

During Legacy Luke Skywalker never told Cade Skywalker about what happened to his own nephew Jacen Solo who became the ruthless Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Caedus, how he fell to the dark side of the force trying to bring peace to the whole galaxy and nearly killed all of his family and friends that he loved so much, it would have been nice towards the end of Legacy after LOTF was over with if Luke had mentioned what happened to Jacen and how he did not want to see Cade making the same mistakes that Jacen did.

Basically using the story of Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus as a warning for Cade to avoid the dark side and why Cade should stick to the light side of the force, maybe because Cade mentioned what Darth Krayt told him about Darth Caedus and how he was a Sith lightning rod that deflected the attention of the Jedi Order and Galactic Alliance away from the One Sith, Then Luke's force ghost tells him about how Jacen became Darth Caedus and how he and Jaina Solo had to stop him.

So the story of Darth Caedus would be usefull in swaying Cade away from the dark side, seeing as how Cade did not seem to know who Darth Caedus was or that he was of the Skywalker/Solo line at all before Darth Krayt told him about it.

 

One, Jacen's fall was a very big deal and it's probably common knowledge by Cade's time - whatever lesson there was to be learned from it was probably taught to Cade as a child.

Two, how can you be so sure that was actually Luke and not Cade's drug-addled delusions?

 

Because Luke appeared before Cade used death sticks, and would go away when he was on death sticks.

 

Not about to go digging through the issues, but I thought it was the opposite, precisely because John didn't want it to definitely be Luke?

 

I never got the impression that it was Cade imagining Luke when he was high on death sticks or drugs, i think that Luke appeared to Cade because he was trying to help Cade and steer him away from the dark side and the One Sith and Darth Krayt by trying to warn him about his destiny and the jedi path, but unlike when Luke was young and willing to listen but had a few roadblocks to get past, Cade was aggressive and indifferent and did not care about Luke or his destiny at all, and the One Sith were not going to go away and Cade could not hide from them, even if Krayt died from his diseased body being overtaken the rest of them would hunt Cade down and kill him or turn him to the dark side and the jedi would be destroyed.

Notice how when Kol Skywalker appears to Cade in the jedi temple/sith temple on Coruscant that Cade is not doing death sticks and is pretty healthy, just having been tortured by Darth Krayt but still of sound mind and body anyway, it had nothing to do with drugs and everything to do with Luke and Kol trying to help Cade out.

So Luke could have told him about Darth Caedus and his path, and Cade might know the history to a certain extent but Luke knew it all personally, Luke could explain the reasons behind Jacen Solo's fall to the dark side and why he fell, and also about Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader and his reasons for turning to the dark side, which is another thing that influenced Jacen to become a Sith Lord, Darth Caedus and try to force peace upon the whole galaxy, Luke had an insiders perspective and POV and could give Cade all of this secret knowledge that would steer him away from the dark side, giving Cade something to think about before he used the dark side of the force and all that stuff like that, reasons not to turn to the dark side at all.

 

Assuming--for the sake of argument--that it was actually Luke's spirit communing with Cade, the reason Caedus never came up was that it was irrelevant. For one thing, it's probably one of those parts of family/galactic history that was already common knowledge for Cade and other Jedi. (Don't forget, Cade even said at one point (paraphrasing), "I've studied the history. The galaxy always throws it back in our face whenever we try to help them." Presumably the history behind LotF is but one piece behind this claim.)

It was also unnecessary because the main such fall they would focus on would be the much bigger fall, Anakin's fall into Darth Vader, which lasted a far longer time and with much more disastrous results than Caedus's six-month rampage was or could hope to be. And of course, the fall of Anakin (Cade's more direct ancestor than Jacen) is indeed referenced a couple times. So there was no need to include Jacen/Caedus as well.

No, what I'm wondering is, why was Hapes never sought out? Why didn't Cade ever to think to seek help from a distant relative on the Hapan throne (assuming that Jacen's line via Allana didn't die out and was still going in 130-138 ABY)? I would've loved to have seen some sort of check-in with that part of the family.

 

For the majority of Legacy Cade didn't care in the least about saving the galaxy. The story of Jacen's fall would have no lessons to teach him.

Of course I too assume he was familiar with that bit of history.

 

I think that lessons to teach him is never to use the dark side at all, not even to heal people, because Anakin and Jacen did and look where it took them both, Vader destroyed many people and ruined countless lives but was redeemed in the end, Caedus tried to bring peace to the whole galaxy by becoming a Sith Lord but in the end only destroyed much of the galaxy and killed a lot of his own friends and nearly killed his own family too.

So the tragedy of Darth Caedus would be a lesson for Cade too, dont use the dark side even to heal, once you start down the dark path it will only destroy you and everyone around you will suffer, even if your intentions are good and you only want to heal others, Cade flirted with the dark side too much and used it for healing and did not care where it would take him, then eventually he has his vision of himself with Sith tattoos as a Sith Lord and he is upset by that, the lesson is that many people like Anakin and Jacen started down the dark path for good reasons and became Sith Lord's in the process, Anakin by choice because of Palpatine and his manipulations, and Jacen because he chose to embrace the dark side to bring peace to the galaxy after Lumiya convinced him that not all of the Sith were evil monsters and that many were actually good and noble beings that wanted peace and justice also.

Cade might have embraced the dark side to use his healing gift and in the process been easily corrupted by Darth Krayt and the One Sith, never intending to be a Sith at all then finally embracing the dark side anyway, Krayt could even mention how he respected Darth Vader and Darth Caedus as fellow Sith Lord's as well, he did not neglect to mention Darth Caedus which shows that he might have respected him and accepted him as being a Sith Lord, mostly because both Vergere and Lumiya trained him and because he was so ruthless and so good at being a Sith even if he did not last for long before being killed.

Cade being warned about Jacen and his quest for truth and power and eventual fall to the dark side might serve as a warning that Cade should avoid even considering using the dark side at all, because Jacen was good and noble and just at first, caring and honorable, seeking peace and justice, then became a monster, what happened to Darth Caedus is a cautionary tale for Cade, a warning to resist the One Sith and cling to the light side.

 

John would often say, "Well, Cade's a druggie, so who knows, he could just be hallucinating and on drugs," in interviews and posts and stuff when pressed to commit to Luke being dead, but in the actual issues, Luke appears before Cade takes drugs, and Cade specifically takes the drugs to mess up his connection with the Force and keep him from seeing Luke. He flat-out says that Luke goes away when he takes drugs.

I would say that, in terms of the text and the duck test, it's pretty clearly Luke, but for obvious reasons no one in the creative department wants to have to absolutely, positively commit to that without leaving themselves a possible out. But the goal doesn't appear to be to create an ambiguous text, one in which either outcome is equally likely, because they're really not equal. The text is fairly clear, but has just enough of a lack of definitiveness to make hallucination a possibility. It's not as if the explanation is impossible to construct -- Cade was hallucinating because he hadn't taken any death sticks, and was suffering from withdrawal! -- it's just awkward, and not a matter of real ambiguity in the text itself being resolved, but of a retcon being imposed on the text.

 

Because LOTF wasn't finished yet and they didn't know what happened to Jacen yet. seriously OOU anaswers are usually the ONLY real answers.

 

you beat me to it. This is the answer.

 

Cade's outlook, for most of Legacy is two-fold:

1. Screw the galaxy - Cade isn't without a measure of justification for this outlook.

2. The Dark Side can't touch me - this is far more cocky bravado.

It takes a considerable time for Cade to realise just how the dark side can ensnare him and he will become as a result of it. It takes a little longer for him to regain some of his broken idealism to fight the Sith, despite a galaxy that seems to care little for truly opposing them. At least until Wyrrlokk deposed Krayt...

Cade's story in Legacy is really one of recovery from being near-totally broken by what life had thrown at him. I'm not sure how comparable that is to Jacen/Cadeus

 

First: Out of universe reason: DH claims that it didn't touch Solos so as not to "tie" DR's hands.
Problem with this: Darth Krayt mentions a one "Darth Cadeus" to Cade Skywalker and mocks him to have been "a Sith lightning rod". Pretty sure that it's Jacen and not some future Darth with a similar (Darth Revan/Darth Rivan and Darth Ruin/Darth Ruyn -type) name.

Second: In-universe reason: It was mentioned in connection to the issue where Cade saw his hallucination of Mara, that Mara was a big thing to these latter day Skywalkers and that Cade had been told about her life a lot. So, Cade would know without Luke telling him.

Third: Solos are not important, only Skywalkers are nowadays. So Jacen wasn't even fit to be a dangerous example of what could happen to Cade, because Cade's the real deal, a Skywalker, and Jacen was just a Solo. Only Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, in the hallucinations, was a fit to be an example of what might happen to Cade.