Legends Screw Ups

 If you read my blog you know I am a fan of the Legends EU and prefer it to what Disney has done. But just like Disney making Rogue One, Rebels and the 1st 2 monthly Darth Vader comics, well, Legends has some bad stories to. Characters needlessly being killed off, cringe worthy stories, bad comic books and villains that you just don't fully understand their motivations. So in no particular order, I'll be listing the times Legends screwed things up.

1. Bringing Palpy back to life. Dark Empire was great when it came out for Dark Horse Comics, put them on the map! But bringing back Palpatine was well, bad. It undercut Anakin's redemption and sacrifice. To make matters worse, Han Solo fatally wounds the final clone Palpy with a blaster and Jedi Empatjoyas Brand sacrifices himself as he contains Palpatine's spirit. Tom Veitch from all accounts is a nice guy, but the Dark Empire writer made a boo-boo which was approved by Lucasfilm Licensing.

2. Death of Chewbacca and Anakin Solo. In Vector Prime, the 1st book of The New Jedi Order, Chewbacca died saving Anakin Solo on Sernpidal. Chewie's death really hit me hard. And it made me quit Legends. To make matters worse, Anakin Solo would be killed off several books later, although the rumor is George Lucas himself wanted this as at the time he was telling the story of Anakin Skywalker and didn't want a similarly named character also turning to the dark side. So Anakin died for Jacen to turn to the dark side. So in the end, Chewie died for nothing. Which is heart breaking. Speaking of Jacen...

3. Jacen Solo becomes Darth Caedus. Now the writers did a great job setting this up, made it stretch out over time, and then the set up paid off with the murder of Mara Jade Skywalker (oh you bet this was a mistake, but keep reading). In my opinion, if any new Jedi Knight would go to the dark side it wouldn't be Jacen, but Raynar Thul. His dad was a Senator who was murdered by an anti human activist plus he was horribly scarred by the Yuuzhan Vong. In the Young Jedi Knights books he was a constant suck up, the kid who the jocks would give swirlies to in the bathroom between classes. While Jacen's turn was handled well, I just felt the wrong young Jedi was made the bad guy. Raynar Thul could have been a great villain and Sith Lord.

4. The Crystal Star. Vonda McIntyre was a great Star Trek writer. Sadly, her attempt at putting elements of ST into Star Wars didn't resonate. The entity villain Waru sucked the life out of people to supposedly get back to his dimension. Hethrir, the main villain wants to rebuild the Empire, but for what, and why? Like I said, not much of an explanation other than he is a Force user and was Vader's "apprentice". Rilao, the female character who was Hethrir's mate were members of an alien race who freaked out if you called them by their names. It isn't the best novel but it's still much better than Episodes 8 & 9.

5. Callista. Look, I'm all for Luke finding a girlfriend. He suffered through the OT only to find out his crush was really his sister. And they kissed but that's another issue. Her being a Jedi who died, put her mind into a computer, then meets and falls in love with Luke and puts her mind into the body of one of Luke's students (Cray Mingla, who had great legs, according to Han Solo). But sadly her character really does nothing for the overall story, except break Luke's heart and delay his getting married to Mara Jade. If she died in Children of the Jedi she would have been fulfilled as a character. But in Darksaber, she really isn't needed to beat Daala, as Daala would have done that to herself eventually. In Planet of Twilight, Leia would have figured out Beldorian the Hutt and Seti Ashgad's plan. But her "farewell" to Luke is a nothing burger. Then after Mara's death Luke could have found and married her but she got killed by Abeloth. So did Akanah Pell a woman Luke had sex with during The Black Fleet Crisis. Hell, who didn't Abeloth kill?!

6. The death of Mara Jade Skywalker. This broke me. Having Darth Caedus/Jacen Solo kill her was tragic but necessary to catapult him to Sith Lord status in Legacy of the Force. Even her creator Timothy Zahn wasn't thrilled about one of his creations killing another one of his creations. But this, damn. Luke deserved happiness! Ben Skywalker needed his mother, especially when Luke got exiled by Chief of State Daala. Imagine a series of stories of the exiled Skywalker family (Luke, Mara and Ben) going around the galaxy learning the mysteries of The Force and hoping to see where Jacen Solo went wrong. Plus Mara was the family ass-kicker and had a way of making Luke more human. Her death was to pave the way for Jacen to be a Sith, but it hurt. And was a low point for many Legends fans.

7. The crazy release schedules. If the timeline had been normal, well, The Truce at Bakura would have been the 1st book released but no. That was Heir to the Empire, set 5 years after Endor. Then Dark Empire came out the next year, set 6 years after Endor. Then Truce at Bakura, Children of the Jedi, Jedi Academy Trilogy, etc. At least with The New Jedi Order you were kept in suspense as to what happened next. It would have been nice if Bantam had done the release order accurate to the timeline but they knew HTTE was a hit, and built back while going forward. And now I'm confusing the readers. Sorry. Back on point.

8. Not continuing Quinlan Vos's post Order 66 story. In the next to last story line of the Republic monthly series Quinlan Vos survives Order 66 and is a father to a son named Korto with Khaleen Hentz while Master Tholme, Master T'ra Saa and Vilmar Grakh look on. But...nothing. Quinlan would show up meeting a young Han Solo in Star Wars Tales post Order 66 but those stories were not all at the time Canon. It was years before Disney would buy Lucasfilm, so there was time. But...no. We don't even know what happened to Korto Vos, or Khaleen. T'ra Saa would live to Legacy where she would sacrifice herself to stop Darth Krayt's One Sith and allow the Jedi survivors to escape, and Tholme died of old age. Quinlan's Legends fate is unknown. Criminal! He was the Wolverine of the Legends era!

9. Sword of the Jedi being unpublished. Now this had more to do with Disney taking over, but this would have been a trilogy starring Jaina Solo Fel and making her the new star of the Star Wars universe. Sadly, we didn't get this. A Jaina Solo Fel trilogy could have been very good as we see her take the step from Knight to Master and possibly start her family as we know Marasiah Fel is her future great great granddaughter. Instead, we got a poorly written sequel trilogy. With Kenneth Flint's novel Heart of the Jedi getting published, I hope that one day this trilogy or even the 1st book of it could possibly get published as Heart of the Jedi did. Legends fans liked well written and rounded out characters. Jaina Solo Fel was certainly one and deserved her own further adventures.


10. Failing to use Lumiya and Brakiss. This one really hurts. Especially with Lumiya. I won't go deeply into her origin, but she and Luke used to be an item. Then he shot her down accidentally on a mission and she became Lumiya. After 1986 it would be about 10 years before she showed up again in a short story published in Star Wars Galaxy Magazine. Then she would show up in the late 2000's to turn Jacen Solo to the dark side. So there are years of stories that were wasted. Imagine Lumiya and Mara fighting, those would be fun stories to read. Or Lumiya messing with Kyp Durron or Luke's other Jedi students.

And then there's Brakiss. Created by Jedi Academy Trilogy author Kevin J Anderson and his wife Rebecca Moesta, the couple created him as the main adversary in the first set of Young Jedi Knights novels. He would be killed in the final book, but would return in 1996 in the novel The New Rebellion serving another under developed villain, Kueller. But Brakiss was more interesting. He was an Imperial Agent and didn't know it due to mental conditioning. But once his training progressed he saw what he was and left the Yavin 4 Jedi Praxeum. It took him years to found the Shadow Academy, but Brakiss would falsely believe Palpatine was resurrected and chose Brakiss to form a new generation of darksiders. This of course would be false as it was a couple of the last surviving Royal Guards of Palpatine who carried out the deception. Brakiss is heavily implied as one of Luke's 1st Jedi students, although sources differ on who the 1st 12 students were. But a split personality individual being trained as a Jedi is interesting to me. Brakiss fighting his dormant personality and the personality he shows to the rest of the galaxy would be a great drama. Plus leaving and starting a competing order of Force users would be a great mirror to what Luke was doing with his Jedi Order. He could still have met his end in the Young Jedi Knights books, but there just wasn't enough stories with him in it. He is and remains an interesting villain, but poorly developed.

So while Disney is far from perfect, neither was Legends. But for the most part the Legends stories are more entertaining and better develop the main characters over the years after Endor. Disney hasn't done that well. They have done characters like Din Djarin and Grogu quite well, so for The Mandalorian there is hope, and I have hopes for The Book of Boba Fett (I have an earlier blog post on why I think it deserves more episodes). Hope you enjoyed reading this. Please share if you liked or hated it!