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| Crash Override wrote: |
Would it be acceptable if Luke was turned into a full blown villain in Dark Empire and Leia killed him at the end?
I've asked that quite a few times and no one's given an answer. |
First of all Luke is the hero of the movie series and even now he's still the hero of the Star Wars novels, so killing him is not the same as killing Jacen. Killing Jacen is the same as killing Chewbacca, Ben Kenobi and Yoda.
The biggest difference is that if you killed Luke in Dark Empire then you couldn't have any more Star Wars stories. Now that we've had 20 years of the EU stories that fleshed out other characters, we know people would buy Star Wars books without Luke Skywalker. I don't think they would have in 1992.
I'd argue that the circumstances are different too. Luke turned to the dark side because he felt it was the only way for him to defeat Palpatine. Jacen turned to the dark side for similar altruistic, although less concrete, reasons of saving the galaxy, but he wasn't corrupted in the same way as Luke. Jacen choose to become a Sith because he believed there was no difference between the light and dark sides.
That's the big difference, in terms of character reactions. Luke was a Jedi that turned to the dark side and was redeemed. Kyp was a Jedi that turned to the dark side and was redeemed. Jacen became a Sith, which is tantamount to forsaking the Jedi and in their minds cannot be redeemed. Sith must be exterminated.
Of course that has been thrown out in FOTJ and I totally agree that LOTF ruined the proceeding stories. Based upon Jacen's character in NJO it was consistent to have him turn to the dark side the way that he did at the beginning of LOTF, but then he just became a villain and betrayed his own character and the ret-con of it in FOTJ is a true shame and a waste of that character.
By having Jacen turn to the dark side the only two choices they had were for him to be redeemed or to be killed. At least his death showed a consequence to actions that while ultimately pointless, I feel was less pointless and a cop-out than the alternative.
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