The Final Act of the Big Three
Man, I bet Matthew Stover is still kicking himself for ever mentioning that he would love to write the final story of Luke, Han and Leia. In fact, I still find it hard to believe that there are Star Wars fans out there who are still hungry for more death in the EU. I’d argue that when you use deaths to string a story along, the end result is a huge disappointment. Look no further than Legacy of the Force. In fact, Fate of the Jedi is proving right now that authors don’t need huge deaths to tell a decent story.
Luke, Leia, and Han
You see, I will never support a “final adventure of the Big Three” story. Never ever. I’m sure the day will come, way down the line, when Lucas or the next person in charge of the Star Wars franchise will want some extra money and publicity – the kind that can only be gained by telling this story. And let’s be honest: it’ll be a huge multimedia event with every kind of tie-in imaginable. But the biggest problem with making a “final” story is that it will, inevitably, be mired in sadness. Our heroes have lived through so much, so what ending could finally do them justice? Some will want them to go out with a bang, putting a stop to a huge threat akin to the Yuuzhan Vong, while others will want them to simply live out their lives in some semblance of peace. When it comes to death, it’s no easy matter to make everyone agree on a perfect ending – as we’ve seen with Anakin Solo, who has nowhere near the level of exposure that Luke, Han and Leia have. These are some of the biggest pop culture icons in history. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t die. It’s just not something I want to see. It will be preachy, sad, wistful and ultimately unneeded. I mean really, who wants to see their childhood heroes die? I don’t.
So there you have it. Take a deep breath, because this very sad trip through the Expanded Universe is finally at an end. But now I want to hear from you. What EU deaths have stuck with you? Which deaths still make you choke up, and which deaths still infuriate you to think about? Leave a comment, or hop on Twitter and the forums and join the discussion! Just remember that death, even fictional, can be a sensitive subject – so let’s at least try to be respectful. I hope you enjoyed this special Fall Annual edition of EU Action/Reaction, and I’ll be back to the regular column format next week!
- Chris
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Chris Carey contributes to EUCantina as a writer and editor. He pens our popular column, EU Action/Reaction, and also contributes to our novel and comic reviews. Chris joined EUCantina in 2010 to help edit articles, but it quickly became obvious that his writing skills needed a more visible platform. He currently resides in Maryland, and has a degree in journalism. 
Excellent as always Chris. A great idea for a topic with so many memorable deaths in the EU. I think I saw an EUC twitter today that mentioned Ganner Rhysode’s death scene. Easily one of the best ever in the EU.
A death I thought that was underrated in its subtlety was that of Vergere. I found myself rereading that one over a few times.
As always a thought provoking read kid. Keep up the good work.
A fantastic article, and amazingly I agreed with you on every single death. However, in the end, the Mara Jade Skywalker death almost made me quit the EU storyline after that point (though she has made two good appearances since then: The lake of apparitions and in Star Wars Legacy as a deathstick dream to Cade). I never fully believed in Jacen as a Sith Lord, and everything after (timeline wise) NJO has been dreadful. Ganner was a badass too….amazing death scene.
Darksaber? I’ve never thought of it as a turning point of any kind.
Ah Thrawn, how can we not love him? All these years later it’s starting to seem like a James Dean/Marlilyn Monroe type thing, he died when he was young and perfect so we’ll always remember him like that.
Nil Spaar, strange. If I was asked who that was I wouldn’t have even guessed. The Black Fleet Crisis is a distant memory to me.
Durge was shockingly under-used. He was like Maul and Boba Fett in that the first time you see him you like him and you don’t really know why. You just assume that he’s awesome and love to see him. (Too bad Asajj and Grievous never did that for me.)
Fey’lya’s death was awesome and a half. It wasn’t totally redeeming or anything, but it was good.
Thracken’s dead? Did I miss that? Hahaha. Just kidding. I was fine with his death, I’m kinda just glad that he’s gone one way or another.
Dark Empire…. sorry my vision just turned red. I hate that we still have to say this is canon. Whenever there’s reference to Paply’s clone or Luke turning evil or Anakin getting possessed I just want to shoot the author for validating this maddening storyline.
Clones of main characters are just frustrating. The handling of Thrawn’s clones in the Hand of Thrawn books made me love Timothy Zahn all the more. He included that clone (so that no one else would), and he destroyed it before it could destroy the memory of the original Thrawn.
I’m totally fine with the cloning shortcuts they use in The Force Unleashed. I trick myself into thinking that The Force Unleashed is just one huge “Infinities” storyline.
Regarding Malak, Traya etc. On paper video game deaths sound terrible, but if you played the game you remember all the effort you put into the game and you remember how epic it was for you.
Lumiya’s return was awesome. Most of my friends hated her, but I just loved her meddling and complete detachment. She came with a purpose and she fulfilled it.
Alema!! Another great perfectly drawn out arc. A complete fool, but so dangerous. Troy Denning deserves a lot of credit for creating such an entertaining bitch. I just ignore her attempt at redemption at the end. Probably if she had miraculously survived she would have turned those last few moments of regret into some kind of con.
Poor Tsavong Lah. Walter Jon Williams was the lowest part of the NJO.
James Luceno, on the other hand, knows how to kill his villains. I’ll bet he spent more time writing that finale fight than he spent on any other part of the book, and it shows. And it was Jacen at his peak. Of course he was already over extending himself and pretty much levitating over the edge of the Dark Side, but it was fun when we didn’t know that.
Nom Anor was an amazing character. It’s insane that eleven authors managed to write this character as consistently as they did. In regards to his death, in the back of my mind I find it hard to believe that he did die. Every once in a while I start to expect him to appear again. It’s happened at least five times in the Legacy comics (I know it’s insane, but that’s why I want it to happen.)
I disagree with your classification of Mon Mothma’s death. She went though a lot of crap, was getting very old and ruled the f-ing galaxy! Plus she was a classy lady. I didn’t want to see her get shot, or have her go on a random diplomatic mission and be killed to start a war. Nah, it’s good she got to have a nice happy death.
Same with Ackbar I guess.
Cal Omas was in Vector Prime? How did I miss that? He had a rough death scene. I’m still a little shocked that that happened.
Niathal’s death was completely uncalled for. I would have liked to see her end first hand. She was a great character, and I was surprised that I liked her too.
Thank god Ikrit died before we had to take him seriously.
Shaak Ti. It was sad that she had to go with so little explanation. I could have read a book from her point of view… wasn’t there a canceled book about her?
Vergere! That death was insanely maddening. That’s mostly why I hate Walter Jon WIlliams, I could have forgiven all the other crap he put us through in Destiny’s Way, but not that. Are we still calling her Sith story a retcon? I was in denial for a while, but the hardliners were right, the potentium isn’t a reasonable belief system.
I was very happy with Chewie’s death. It was necessary and memorable. That scene and most of the depressing scenes in Vector Prime seem to be in that kind of dusky uncomfortable mood that really gets to me. It’s not right to say that it’s dark, it’s very much like that scene in Revenge of the Sith when Padme and Anakin are looking at each other across the Coruscant cityscape.
Star by Star is still my favorite SW book and it’s mostly because of Anakin’s death. It was gloriously written and truly tragic. There was one too many siblings in the story (poor Leia, I had this unreasonable guilt after I read that thinking she would be hurt by that).
Ganner’s death was awesome. When you reread the NJO knowing Ganner’s fate it’s extremely satisfying. He had such a great hero’s journey.
I was devastated by Mara’s death. I put the book down too, it was truly shocking. Even if you guessed it would happen it was still just… wow. But I don’t really see her death from the same perspective as you. When I think of her death I think of the aftermath for Ben not Jacen. Jacen was definitely a failure and Mara proved that in her fight with him. She had him, I honestly believe that she could have beat him. He used subversion and all that, and she was distracted by her attachments and inevitably she died, but I was impressed with her death. But back to Ben. Ben got the most out of her death, for sure. He turned into a man because of it, grew closer to his father, found his strengths and things that he had in common with Mara. It was his turning point not Jacen’s. To be Jacen’s turning point Jacen should have succeeded.
On the other hand, I don’t think it’s fair that she died in Legacy and Luke didn’t, but I’ll come back to that.
Pellaeon was getting pretty old. His time had come. And I’m really enjoying watching Tahiri get some crazy judgement.
Isolder had been annoying me since Tenenial died. It was weird that he was still hanging around looking beautiful.
I was sure Jacen was going to die by the end of Legacy of the Force. I accepted that as soon as I read Betrayal. But I hoped that he would kill Luke first and Jaina would have to step in and take over the Jedi Order and be the new Luke. Instead she tried to be a Mando… It was weird. That last book was an insanely bad book. But I can compartmentalize the series and see the beauty of the other eight books and simply accept the results of the last one. So no matter how rough it was I can move on and still enjoy new books just as much as ever. I think Jacen’s survival in any form would have ruined his arc. He taught me a huge lesson, as sucky as it is the light side is exclusive and there is no middle ground. We were all thrilled by the potentium and the “New Jedi Order” that came out of the New Jedi Order (series). Vergere’s speeches in Traitor were revolutionary. After that the Jedi could finally do cool stuff, and Jacen could do the most out of all of them. I wasn’t alone in saying “finally”. But we were fools. Luke and Corran might be sticks in the mud, but they’re right. There is no middle ground. Jacen was wrong to dabble, he became a delusional Jedi then a delusional Sith and now he’s dead. This was meant to close off the argument, and it worked for me.
The Big Three
I’m not asking for the death of the Big Three I’m asking for the death of Luke. That’s it.
The way I see it someone shot a bullet at Luke in the Legacy of the Force books and it deflected off him and killed Mara. If there’s anyone responsible for Mara’s death it’s Luke. He was untouchable so they had to kill the next best thing.
And you ask, “how can a death story for Luke be satisfying?” I don’t think it can, we missed our big chance. Jacen was the biggest build up for a villain we’ve ever seen. The Lost tribe has nothing on him. No one else is close to going evil anytime soon. Luke’s death will never be as epic as it could have been with Jacen. Try to imagine the end of Legacy of the Force but instead of Luke meditating for the last half of the book imagine him doing for Jaina what Obi-Wan once did for him: letting his former student, his greatest enemy, his biggest failure strike him down so the next generation can finally step up. That’s how Luke should have died. Now what?
Luke has been built up too high for him to fall in combat. The entire situation is totally screwed up. We’re waiting for the okay from people who probably don’t read the books. Luke’s death won’t be okayed until after Fate of the Jedi and then we’ll get a trilogy for his death? Yeah right.
sigh
Han and Leia, on the other hand, can live to be old and grey. They’re still entertaining and they will be until they get unbelievably old.
Awesome post. I didn’t mean to try to rival it in size, this is just a great subject.
Chris, excellent article so far! But I’m going to offer up an idea. I think you should have your annual editions turned into an Audio Short Story. It would make for a good hour and a half listen. Cause I know that’s what I’m wishing for right now, is a version that I could listen to in the car. Cause I can’t finish it right now. It took me almost an hour to read the first two pages! Ha!
Great stuff, though. Can’t wait to read the rest! Keep it up!
~Mara Jade
Oh, another comment concerning the article itself:
This article has gotten me ridiculously interested in all the old stories again! I want to go back to Truce at Bakura and start over! The flood of nostalgia is about to knock me over. Good job, Chris. :)
`Mara Jade