Jacen Solo, Vergere and the Force

In light of Gideon's recent re-banning, I thought it interesting that I ran across another person sad enough to write an extensive essay on Star Wars.

The essay can be found here. But I'm posting it in the thread anyway. I don't have to original authors permission to do this, but I don't really think they'll mind. But check the link for sources if you want. Okay, so I was planning to post the essay in the thread like Gideon did with his, but it is waaaaaaaaaay to ****ing long to do that. Goddamn thing is 20 pages and 13,000 words long! So just read it from the link because Holy Fvcking Shit. Heres teh Preface:

Jacen Solo, Vergere and the Force or Jacen and the Two Vergeres

This is an essay written by me that was begun September 18, 2006 and finished November 9, 2006, after the release of the novels Legacy of Force:Betrayal and Legacy of Force:Bloodlines. It was posted on the Jedi Council Community of TheForce.net around this time as well. The essay is shown verbatim, with no changes (other than spelling and puncuation) than the original version with a preface as to what has happened since then.

Preface

It has been almost two years since I sat down to begin writing ‘Jacen and the Two Vergeres’ and while it’s impact on the continuity debate surrounding her has not been as notable as I would have hoped, it still has had some significance in the debates on the Jedi Council Forums and at times, as Legacy of the Force developed, there still remained to possibility that Jacen (or JINO as he is called now, an acronym for Jacen In Name Only) was wrong about Vergere and that later she would show up and give him a rap on the knuckles.

However, things have changed since then, and while I have not changed my views about Vergere’s textual origins, the new directions she has been taken in regards to Legacy of the Force and the comic series Legacy more or less agreed with the predictions that I made in the concluding paragraph of the essay below: Del Rey have sacrificed quality and continuity for the sake of selling books. The only form of protest I can make is to refuse to read them, which I have: the only time I read a Legacy of the Force was two years ago for the purposes of this essay, but I have kept up with the series through the Wookieepedia and the Jedi Council Forums.

I am one of a growing number of Expanded Universe fans that have grown disillusioned of what Del Rey keeps on giving to us; the numbers grew as the series continued which left a rather hollow victory. But in the end I feel a little like Ashley Wilks when he returns to Tara halfway through Gone with the Wind: I find that the world has no place for someone of my views.

That said, this essay has had some impact on the views of fans, particularly the “two Vergeres” theory which seems to make a lot of sense to some people, even though it was something that is tumbled onto by accident. I also feel that I need to say that Matthew Stover, whose books I praised so highly in the essay, has actually ready this and complimented its coherence and clarity. He of course was unable to tell me of his opinions of my conclusions when I spoke to him (via Private Message on the Jedi Council Forums) as he is still under contract to Del Rey. However, since Vergere was always meant to be a controversial character, this is hardly surprising.

May the Force be with you, always, Katana Geldar 04:29, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

This essay needs more recognition be as much as I rip on Gideon its pretty awesome what he did and its just as awesome what this person did. Its alway good to see nerds who love the fanchise enough to put this much passion into it. So Kudos to Katana Gelder. 👆

Here's the thread in which I found it. Its also very interesting and I reccomend it.

So I just finished reading it and it was very interesting. Very well written and a truly fascinating insight into the philosophy of the New Jedi Order and Star Wars. Also interesting in that it spells out the way Vergeres teachings were misunderstood from a meta-textual viewpoint, which was very telling in regards to the decisions later novels took. Unfortunately it seems that now I have to read Traitor at least because man does that book sound like my cup of tea.

Though this essay only strengthens the contempt I have for the Legacy of the Force authors and the decision to 'dumb down' the setting by making Jacen and Vergere into evil Sith. Because it takes a special kind of missing the point to make the morally ambiguous characters into evil lunatics.

So no-ones going to bother to read it? Uuuuuuuurgh, you guys suck so hard!!!!!!!! >::::[

Lol. Why would read an essay on Star Wars of all topics?

That's a level of nerdiness I can't accept.

Because it's really interesting. And it onl takes like 30 minutes to read.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Because it's really interesting. And it onl takes like [B]30 minutes to read. [/B]

Jeez...13000 words/ 20 pages!!!

Okay, so 45 minutes if you're a slow reader. Jegus, its not like you guys have anything better to do or something! I'm sorry for interrupting you as you near curing cancer, god!

It's not the time; it's the subject. Why would I spend even 15 minutes reading an essay on Star Wars when I could be spending that 15 minutes doing something cool?

Oh what, like wanking off to watermelon and KFC!?

You're a neeeeeeeerd too Blax!

p.s. happy b-day.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Okay, so 45 minutes if you're a slow reader. Jegus, its not like you guys have anything better to do or something! I'm sorry for interrupting you as you near curing cancer, god!

😆

People end up wasting time here and there, but they rather feel like they are doing some productive and while doing so become distracted rather than allotting wasted time to read a 20 page 13,000 word essay on Star Wars on a topic that doesn't seem particularly exciting.

Originally posted by Nephthys
So no-ones going to bother to read it? Uuuuuuuurgh, you guys suck so hard!!!!!!!! >::::[

I'm sure if the essay's title was:

Why Sidious isn't the most powerful Sith of all time

More of us might be taking some time to read it. Hehehe...

wtfawe

I'm still mad. >:C

Originally posted by Korto Vos
I'm sure if the essay's title was:

[B]Why Sidious isn't the most powerful Sith of all time

More of us might be taking some time to read it. Hehehe... [/B]

Noted.

Hmmm, ominous.

Well I read it. (Well, the first half.) (Well, I read roughly the first four pages and then skimmed till the halfway point.) (The point is I tried, okay?)

It has some good points, but the most interesting one (found maybe in the last section?) was about metatextual mistakes. Other authors didn't understand Veregre's position and so misused her, diluting the character entirely. But the basic idea is simple:
We are what we do. For a mythos that deals so much with the ultimate (meaning final) moral standing of a soul (see: Redemption of Darth Vader's Force Ghost) there is an awful lot to be said against the fatalistic deontological position espoused by the films.

(I think I used those philosophical terms correctly?)

Yes, the metatextual part is the part that interested me the most as well. It gets hilarious when the essay points out Luke giving big speechs on why Vergere is 'wrong' and because the writers misunderstood what she was saying, he ends up agreeing with her by mistake! That gave me quite a few chuckles.

I also really like this quote:

“You can do whatever you want, so long as you maintain your Jedi calm? So long as you can tell yourself you’re valuing life? You can kill and kill and kill and kill, so long as you don’t lose your temper? Isn’t that a little sick?”

Really, the whole shindig shows a general discontentment within the EU about how the Force was originally presented. Both Stover and the people trying to disagree with Stover set out to explore a different universe. This culminates, I think, in Avellone's vision of KotOR II, where we have a protagonist praised wherever he rejects the dogma of the Jedi or the psychosis of the Sith.

And then theres the people who want to keep Star Wars and the Force 'simple' and 'mystified' and f*ck up the intelligent explorations of Stover and co in the process. Its sort of like a giant version of the debate we were having in the other Swtor thread with Peach and Kal.

Does the Dark Side exist?

The thread the the top has some neat discussions in it. Though:

But I shouldn't have compared her to Kreia the way I did I think. While Vergere is a mysterious character, we know that Kreia was simply wrong, or at least let's say, she was too pessimist for her own good, and fallen to the Dark Side because she simply didn't want to accept her role as a good teacher.

Made me growl, ever so slightly.

Honestly though, I didn't get the feeling that it was Vergere that had much to do with him going to the darkside. In fact, he moved further away than ever shortly thereafter. It was only after his five year sojourn that he had moved away from her teachings. In fact, when Tenel Ka said in Dark Nest "I thought Vergere said it was our intentions that made an act dark"(very close to an exact quote), he didn't contradict her despite that being patently wrong.

Haha, facepalm!