As the “Legacy of the Force” series begins its resolution phase, there’s still a vague sense of decompression. It’s not always a bad thing to stretch out a story, allowing it to breathe and take shape slowly, but it’s also not always necessary. Considering how much of this series has been a retelling of the Prequel trilogy of Star Wars films, the author could and should have continued with the intention of telling the story in more depth and better than Lucas might have dreamed.
Instead, the authors have fallen back on the same unfortunate set of clichés: characters that act to prolong a conflict through inaction simply to keep the story going and adherents of the Dark Side who act like two-dimensional villains with paper-thin motivation.
I continue to be disappointed with the direction taken with Jacen’s character. The earliest novels, stretching back to Jacen’s experiences with Vergere during the New Jedi Order series, led him down a philosophical path that made a great deal of sense. It was the closest the Star Wars universe has ever come to making sense of the Sith. Like Palpatine before him, however, Jacen has descended into a kind of parody. Could that be the point?
In a way, this feels like a response to our responsibility-averse culture. It’s far easier to depict a man who makes terrible choices for reasons that could, in an idealized form, be laudable as a raving evil lunatic. It makes it easier to deny the possibility that we ourselves could fall into the same trap. To humanize the grand villain, it seems, would make him dangerously sympathetic.
This makes it all the more ironic that Star Wars was so heavily influenced by the Dune sequence. Terrible things were done in the name of Muad’dib, the grand hero and savior of the Empire, and ultimately he came to understand the tragedy of the Jihad he began. He saw the visions of the Golden Path of humanity’s salvation and failed to follow it, sacrificing himself in the end to allow his children to repair the damage of his legacy. Muad’dib never became a caricature; he was instead a deeply tragic figure.
One could have considered the Star Wars Extended Universe similarly. Anakin Skywalker was a kind of Muad’dib, destined to bring “balance to the Force”. He failed, but he sacrificed himself to give his children the chance to make things right. But Luke failed even further (at least thus far). Was it therefore a consequence that Jacen must reset the process? Or did Jacen become, as hinted, the next Muad’dib figure?
Logic (and the hero’s journey) would dictate that Jacen must sacrifice himself to end the cycle, leaving the process of restoration to another. It’s unfortunate that the writers couldn’t figure out a way to make the corruption of power more substantial and less predictable.
Rating: 5/10
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