Post-RotJ Luke as a character - Canon vs Legends
Looking at the characters strictly from his appearances in post-Return of the Jedi works. For Canon, this is from Shattered Empire to The Last Jedi; for Legends, this is from The Shadows of Mindor to Legacy: War. Which iteration of the character did you prefer - the depressed failure or the legendary grandmaster?
After so much time reading throughout the Legends, with truly so many, 3/10, extremely poor works, I have really learned to appreciate the EU Luke. Despite all these inconsistencies, so many books I would rather forget about, all the writers, overall, really managed to capture the spirit of OT Luke well. They developed him towards his sixties really legitimately, never going off the core of his character, never undermining the Original Trilogy, but going into an interesting direction nonetheless. EU Luke remained the good-hearted farmboy trying to find a glimpse of light in everybody. He remained the RotJ Luke fearing the Dark Side into his final days. He remained somebody whose heart is that truly of a real Jedi, and remained somebody who was, let's face it, taking a piss on so many lessons of his predecessors, and so many of their mistakes as well.
He wasn't perfect, at all. He was this guy who just tries to be perfect, to do the wisest stuff possible, the calmest approach doable. But he was still someone who fallen into the damaged Unifying Force-Potentium combo, which gave a nice struggle in the Dark Nest. He killed Lumiya in an act of revenge, and all of that.
What I truly like about Luke in EU is that he really is that shining star, that guy who most people will consider boring and dull iconic Jedi, that still fails, that still gives into fear or grief or rush, that's still human. Somebody that's super-hyper-extremely moral (to the point of being a boring fuggot maybe), but still a human being, without the writers just suddenly giving him a bad day. Nope, he's still on top of that moral mountain and writers just give him challenges great enough that he can have his downs while remaining on the top of this moral mountain nonetheless.
What really makes me appreciate the writing is that there are so many instances where he's just this most powerful Jedi, the absolute badass, the absolute power in the universe, but he's still not overpowered in terms of writing. He shits on nearly everybody, but stories involving him concern events so wide and complicated, he still can't just power his way through the obstacles. He gets involved in galactical conflicts where he can't just power his way through planetary defenses or be at two places at once. In NJO they really learned to make him all-powerful without making a story boring. In essence, they just keep pressuring the point that he's still just a one person. He can have the power of the black hole, but that black hole still can't fight an entire war or repair corrupt government.
I really take all of that over Canon... but how can that be a surprise?
In essence, Legends Luke kept being a main character. In Canon, he gets disposed of to get the story into Rey-Finn-Kylo hands. There's no denying this huge difference in approach. I won't debate how they handled Luke in TFA and TLJ, but the approach is obvious. You can't have a forced-out-of-the-screen Luke match the main-character one.
Originally posted by JKBart
After so much time reading throughout the Legends, with truly so many, 3/10, extremely poor works, I have really learned to appreciate the EU Luke. Despite all these inconsistencies, so many books I would rather forget about, all the writers, overall, really managed to capture the spirit of OT Luke well. They developed him towards his sixties really legitimately, never going off the core of his character, never undermining the Original Trilogy, but going into an interesting direction nonetheless. EU Luke remained the good-hearted farmboy trying to find a glimpse of light in everybody. He remained the RotJ Luke fearing the Dark Side into his final days. He remained somebody whose heart is that truly of a real Jedi, and remained somebody who was, let's face it, taking a piss on so many lessons of his predecessors, and so many of their mistakes as well.He wasn't perfect, at all. He was this guy who just tries to be perfect, to do the wisest stuff possible, the calmest approach doable. But he was still someone who fallen into the damaged Unifying Force-Potentium combo, which gave a nice struggle in the Dark Nest. He killed Lumiya in an act of revenge, and all of that.
What I truly like about Luke in EU is that he really is that shining star, that guy who most people will consider boring and dull iconic Jedi, that still fails, that still gives into fear or grief or rush, that's still human. Somebody that's super-hyper-extremely moral (to the point of being a boring fuggot maybe), but still a human being, without the writers just suddenly giving him a bad day. Nope, he's still on top of that moral mountain and writers just give him challenges great enough that he can have his downs [b]while
remaining on the top of this moral mountain nonetheless.What really makes me appreciate the writing is that there are so many instances where he's just this most powerful Jedi, the absolute badass, the absolute power in the universe, but he's still not overpowered in terms of writing. He shits on nearly everybody, but stories involving him concern events so wide and complicated, he still can't just power his way through the obstacles. He gets involved in galactical conflicts where he can't just power his way through planetary defenses or be at two places at once. In NJO they really learned to make him all-powerful without making a story boring. In essence, they just keep pressuring the point that he's still just a one person. He can have the power of the black hole, but that black hole still can't fight an entire war or repair corrupt government.
I really take all of that over Canon... but how can that be a surprise?
In essence, Legends Luke kept being a main character. In Canon, he gets disposed of to get the story into Rey-Finn-Kylo hands. There's no denying this huge difference in approach. I won't debate how they handled Luke in TFA and TLJ, but the approach is obvious. You can't have a forced-out-of-the-screen Luke match the main-character one. [/B]
Could not agree more. Well done.
Originally posted by Trocity
Well, I'm definitely not picking the Luke that went from refusing to fight/kill Darth Vader(a being who had committed countless atrocities already) in the hopes of turning him back to the Light, to contemplating murdering his nephew because of what he might one day become.
Legends Luke has done a lot worse shit than that such as actually falling to the dark side.
Originally posted by JKBart
After so much time reading throughout the Legends, with truly so many, 3/10, extremely poor works, I have really learned to appreciate the EU Luke. Despite all these inconsistencies, so many books I would rather forget about, all the writers, overall, really managed to capture the spirit of OT Luke well. They developed him towards his sixties really legitimately, never going off the core of his character, never undermining the Original Trilogy, but going into an interesting direction nonetheless. EU Luke remained the good-hearted farmboy trying to find a glimpse of light in everybody. He remained the RotJ Luke fearing the Dark Side into his final days. He remained somebody whose heart is that truly of a real Jedi, and remained somebody who was, let's face it, taking a piss on so many lessons of his predecessors, and so many of their mistakes as well.He wasn't perfect, at all. He was this guy who just tries to be perfect, to do the wisest stuff possible, the calmest approach doable. But he was still someone who fallen into the damaged Unifying Force-Potentium combo, which gave a nice struggle in the Dark Nest. He killed Lumiya in an act of revenge, and all of that.
What I truly like about Luke in EU is that he really is that shining star, that guy who most people will consider boring and dull iconic Jedi, that still fails, that still gives into fear or grief or rush, that's still human. Somebody that's super-hyper-extremely moral (to the point of being a boring fuggot maybe), but still a human being, without the writers just suddenly giving him a bad day. Nope, he's still on top of that moral mountain and writers just give him challenges great enough that he can have his downs [b]while
remaining on the top of this moral mountain nonetheless.What really makes me appreciate the writing is that there are so many instances where he's just this most powerful Jedi, the absolute badass, the absolute power in the universe, but he's still not overpowered in terms of writing. He shits on nearly everybody, but stories involving him concern events so wide and complicated, he still can't just power his way through the obstacles. He gets involved in galactical conflicts where he can't just power his way through planetary defenses or be at two places at once. In NJO they really learned to make him all-powerful without making a story boring. In essence, they just keep pressuring the point that he's still just a one person. He can have the power of the black hole, but that black hole still can't fight an entire war or repair corrupt government.
I really take all of that over Canon... but how can that be a surprise?
In essence, Legends Luke kept being a main character. In Canon, he gets disposed of to get the story into Rey-Finn-Kylo hands. There's no denying this huge difference in approach. I won't debate how they handled Luke in TFA and TLJ, but the approach is obvious. You can't have a forced-out-of-the-screen Luke match the main-character one. [/B]
👆
Originally posted by Trocity
Well, I'm definitely not picking the Luke that went from refusing to fight/kill Darth Vader(a being who had committed countless atrocities already) in the hopes of turning him back to the Light, to contemplating murdering his nephew because of what he might one day become.
Oh and then ran away to hide and die and leave everyone he's ever cared about to try and clean up his mess.
Yeah, Luke sucks.
Originally posted by Azronger
Yes... when mindraped by Palpatine, not of his own free will.
Fair enough. But Luke constantly flirts with the dark side throughout the EU. Personally, I have no problem with the Kylo sequence and felt it made sense. It's really no worse then what he did from time-to-time in the books.
The issue is Luke bitching out afterwards. And worse than all of that is the fact that he likely won't be the one to recreate the Jedi Order.
Legends has a lot of garbage writing (some as bad as TLJ), but overall, it managed to stay true to Luke's character. Rian on the other hand wanted to be "edgy" and ended up gutting the character in the process. You'd need a full three movies to properly do to Luke what Rian tried to do in one. The fall and rise of Luke Jaywalker. Now that could have been a good trilogy. Throw out all the Rey/Finn/Poe crap and make it about Luke's perilous journey to restarting the Jedi Order.