#not seen: luke skywalker & allana solo

[onimiman]

Why Hadn't This Been Expanded On Later? (Jacen Solo Post)

"[I]n the same way that the Yuuzhan Vong had left vestiges of themselves and their exotic savagery on Coruscant and a host of other worlds, the war itself had opened wounds that were long in healing, leaving scars that refused to fade. Chewbacca was one of those; Anakin, the Solos' youngest son who had seemed destined to live forever, another.

"Years later Jacen's death had reawakened all the anguish.

"Jacen, who in a real sense had come closest to understanding the Yuuzhan Vong and had looked to the Force for a peaceful resolution to the war. Only to fall . . . to die and merge with the Force rather than disappear into it. Or was he, as Han sometimes liked to believe, merely exiled, as the Yuuzhan Vong had been to the sentient world of Zonama Sekot, and advancing toward redemption?"

-page 336 of the paperback edition of Star Wars: Millennium Falcon by James Luceno.

In the wake of my posting of Jacen Solo's transcendental battle against Onimi at the end of The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force, I was reminded of the small hope provided by Luceno's standalone novel about the most famous YT-1300 wherein Jacen Solo could have been finding a way to somehow atone for his out-of-character atrocities as Darth Caedus during Legacy of the Force from the Netherworld of the Force. Indeed, toward the end of the Millennium Falcon novel, Jacen's spirit helps save Allana from mortal peril.

Then, in Fate of the Jedi: Abyss by Troy Denning, Jacen/Caedus states himself to be toiling away in eternal damnation.

. . .

WTF, Troy Denning?! On top of your bullshit of thoroughly ruining Jacen as a character and making Luke Skywalker into a benevolent dictator who is the only one capable of shepherding the Jedi Order because everyone else there is effectively a child, you just had to put the steaming Hershey's kiss of a cherry on top of all that by having Jacen be in a state of damnation with no hope of redemption out of it? It means no one can learn or grow away from the dogma provided by Luke Skywalker's Jedi Order, because if they do, they're simply no better than a dark sider, and cannot seek penance even in the Netherworld of the Force. From a man as politically liberal as Troy Denning, this is one of the most religiously litigious views that I have ever seen. Too bad, Mr. Luceno! That hope you provided for us?Dashed like a rotten tomato against a brick wall!

Fuck, at times, even after not having read Legacy of the Force or Fate of the Jedi in years, I swear that those books were written as propaganda espousing the views of a clone Luke Skywalker who had taken over the Jedi Order sometime following The Unifying Force and which were made to deliberately make Jacen Solo, the Jedi who had found a deep meaning in the Force, probably moreso than any Force-user to date, look like a bad guy by attributing clone Luke's actions as Jacen's.

[cyberfairyblog]

My favorite trope: hero kids with villain fathers :)

[ginskywalkermcduck]

My favorite Fictional Families #1 The Skywalker Family

I decided to make some collages dedicated to my favorite fictional families, and I wanted to start with the famous and fantastic family who live in a Galaxy far far away... The Skywalker Family! Here, three different collages about the Skywalker Family in three versions (the Sequel Trilogy’s version is excluding, obviously):

in Lucas’s Hexalogy

in the Expanded Universe/Legends

and in Lucas’s sequels (who they have never seen the light, because of Disney 😠)

I just want to clarify that: I have not included Padmé Amidala/Naberrie and Han Solo, because they are related with the Skywalker Family only through marriage, and I wanted included only the blood relatives, and by the way, I have not included other Skywalker members from EU, like Allana, Cade, ecc. because I was interested in including only Luke’s and Leia’s children.

I hope you’ll like it :).

[girlbossk]

a ranking of all them eu jedi from best to worst

with like 500% personal bias plus a helping of acknowledgement that some of the lamer jedi are very very good, actually

also i am definitely forgetting some jedi but hopefully not any of the important ones. i am tired though so who knows

saba sebatyne. she’s a badass. she’s a LIZARD. she trains leia fucking organa. what more do you want. 

jaina solo because like... jaina solo 

TENEL KA DJO aka she is suuuper underutilized later down the line!!! in like everything post-yjk!!!! which is very very sad but she is the best

cilghal!!!!! she’s so nice but also if she’s pissed at u she will use the force to make u feel like u have to pee. which is very passive-aggressive and i love that

...does danni quee count as a jedi? because i LOVE danni quee and i would really have liked to see jedi danni quee but the dumb authors never leaned into her force sensitivity and :(

tesar sebatyne gets the honor of being the first man on this list because he’s so GOOD, saba raised him RIGHT  

tahiri veila oh my GOD i have so many feelings about tahiri veila

tekli!!!!!!!!!!! almost entirely for darkmeld reasons but also shes cool!!! and a chadra-fan!!!! love those lil guys

lowbacca!!!!!! i like that wookiee

wookieepedia says that vestara khai counts as a “jedi trainee” according to their jedi trainees of the new jedi order category page and who am i to argue with wookieepedia. she was in my........... ok, top ten fotj characters, because she’s top ten here and DON’T make me narrow it down more than that 

mara jade i like you 

leia!!!! who is only this low because she’s more politician than jedi even when trying to be a jedi; if i was just doing a list of fave characters she’d be higher on it 

tionne solusar!!!!!!!!! musician jedi heck yeah!

corran horn rip your higher status on this list which died in all your pre-dad years appearances. love u tho 

oh my god i can’t believe i forgot about luke. i stand by putting corran above him so if everyone else is above corran then they are also above luke

octa ramis is pretty cool

BEN SKYWALKER why are you... you 

kam solusar!!! tbh i don’t care for him much but he’s a good dad to all the jedi kids and for that i’m thankful 

bela and krasov hara who NEVER got to be seen as individuals and im so upset about that but they are up here because a) barabels and b) right after bela died when krasov was using the force to animate her body and draw off the voxyn.... cared more about that than ANY anakin solo scene. i SAID what i SAID. 

lusa rip lusa, killed offpage

valin horn! good kid

seha dorvald! like her

anakin solo died a BABY 

does allana solo count as a jedi? she was baby liv’s fave because she was tiny too!!!! and had a pet nexu!!!! anji love u 

ALEMA RAR DESERVED BETTER

bazel warv aka barv whom i remember adoring and also his name is barv and i just thought that was hilarious when i was a kid

jysella horn... i don’t remember her oh no!!!!!! this ranking will almost certainly change once i see her do things but alas

ganner rhysode :((((((((((( who should be higher due to. traitor. but i actively disliked him before traitor, sooo

ULAHA YOU AND THE REST OF THE STRIKE TEAM DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER

yaqeel saav’etu alright this one might be unfair but. she is a bothan. am inclined to like her however due to being bffs with corran’s kids though soooo might change

ugh jacen solo, ok. not even counting all the caedus stuff i never really liked him as much as jaina or even the rest of the yjk team except zekk

zekk. boo 

kyle katarn.... look i don’t really know who this guy is but for the longest time i thought he was kyp and i have not yet had this disproven

kenth hamner... i will NEVER forgive what u did in fate of the jedi

AND THE VERY LAST PLACE IS AWARDED TO KYP DURRON!!!! HATE HIM!!!!!!! SO VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jedihafren]

why do you believe jacen solo turned to the dark side? was it grief combined with ptsd or something else?

Buckle up, anon, cause I have a lot of thoughts about Jacen Solo and his fall, and my take on this is that yes both of these things contribute, but maybe equally important are personality characteristics that get amplified by the grief and the PTSD. Among other things, my personality profile for Jacen includes the following:

Deep seated insecurities. When he’s younger its constant joking, wanting people to laugh, wanting people to like him  In the early days of the Yuuzhan Vong War it’s his place as a Jedi, whether or not he’s following the light side, his constant questioning of how well he’s doing this. Also, his place in his family - in Balance Point I think it is, Jaina flat out tells him he would be a good healer and he would be. It would be using the Force primarily to heal rather than to harm - and Jacen has a natural empathy and ability to connect that would make him really good at it. But Jacen pushes it aside as not the answer for him. Whether he realises or not - he’s a Solo & a Skywalker, a young boy in a family that is larger than life in pretty much everything it does so it makes sense. Later on with Tenel Ka and Allana he can’t be a public part of Allana’s life - which creates pressure on how well he is able to be a father to her. These insecurities coagulate in shame, that he isn’t enough whether it be for the galaxy, or for Tenel Ka, or for Allana, and he keeps trying to prove himself.

Fear of vulnerability. This isn’t as apparent when he was younger, but becomes more apparent as the war happens and the stakes of failure become higher. At the same time it creates distance between him and his family. From his and Anakin’s disagreement over the use of the Force, to the heart-breaking moment in Destiny’s Way when Jacen and Jaina are meditating together, and Jacen reaches out and Jaina pulls back. It’s understandable, because Jaina has lost so many people, she’s pulling into herself to keep from being hurt. But Jacen needed that connection and it doesn’t happen. He wants to know he’s doing the right thing. And he wants to be known and seen. With consistently strong authentic connections the insecurity and the fear of failure would have balanced out, I suspect, but instead we get Isolation.

This isn’t a personality trait, and it isn’t PTSD or grief although it is under-girded in ways by both of those things. Jacen ends up extremely emotionally isolated in nearly every way that he can be, which ends him a place where all of the above including his grief and PTSD from the war can be manipulated far more easily. At the same time it makes it difficult for those who are closest to him (his parents, his Uncle, Jaina, even Tenel Ka) to see what is happening to him.

By the time LotF happens, Jacen’s family has been broken with Chewie’s loss and Anakin’s. He doesn’t have a deeply close relationship with his sister, he’s spent five years on his own gaining a tremendous amount of knowledge, but without any close connections. He tends to view himself as having a lot of knowledge on equal level with Luke, but he doesn’t view Luke as a colleague or confidant, he has a relationship with Tenel Ka, and a child with her, but he can’t share that with anyone, and the safety of Allana dictates that he not spend a lot of time there and that he is careful about what he allows to be shared with anyone else which places walls between him and Tenel Ka. He maybe doesn’t share everything with Tenel Ka in order to protect her, and likely that goes both ways. Jacen lacks a true confidant at that point, the closest, perhaps, is his cousin - but Ben is not an equal, he’s a learner. And this is really a problem. Especially when you look at the fact that empathy and connection were one of his strengths, maybe even one of the things he needs the most in his life to be balanced and healthy.

Where does Traitor fit into all of this? Because the Jacen that comes out at the end of Traitor and walks into Destiny’s Way and continues through the end of the war feels more confident, right? Yeah…. Vergere fans the isolation because she’s taught Jacen things nobody else knows and nobody else trusts her which puts Jacen in a position of having to choose between what he’s learned and believes and what his family believes. She didn’t light the fire, but she fanned the flame, which digs further crevices between Jacen and everyone who cares about him.

So what we end up with by LotF are the first two characteristics, that in a healthier environment might never have become the sort of motivators that they do, amplified by isolation, which is in some ways is a fallout of the grief and PTSD from the war. 

When you combine this with Vergere’s work in Traitor, and you end up with a perfect storm. Jacen wants to do something that matters on a galactic scale and he wants that to be peace for the galaxy. He wants to keep his daughter and her mother safe - in some ways they’re the closest thing he has to an emotional connection - but he can’t tell anyone about this. He’s seen what a galaxy at war looks like and he’s willing to do anything to keep it from happening on that scale. He doesn’t feel comfortable talking to any one about these things, because of the isolation. In this way, he mirrors a lot of what happens with his grandfather - there’s an inability to be authentic about his motives, his fears, his hopes - and it allows everything to fester until it feels like becoming a Sith is the only way to solve the problem. Emotional isolation is a huge part of Anakin Skywalker’s fall. (And to slightly derail this is one of the problems with the notion of ‘no attachment’ in the Jedi Order - you need some healthy attachment as a human being, see… basically all Attachment theory research… and sure you can have unhealthy attachment and it can combine with selfishness to create a fall to the Dark Side, but I would argue that attachment is not only not dangerous to a Jedi, but it is necessary for any sort of healthy emotional well-being, and thus for being able to stay in the Light). 

Give us another universe where Jacen maintained a close tie to someone within his family, or where he had a marriage that was public and recognizable, or where he received counseling after the war instead of spending five years roaming the galaxy, but not building any sort of relationship, and I suspect you would have had a far different outcome. That’s a lot of words, anon, and I don’t know if you’re still with me, but thanks for the question.

[Ask me Star Wars character headcanons]