Previously: The Many Future Mrs. Skywalkers.
It is a time of tranquillity for the New Republic. The remnants of the Empire now lie in complete disarray, and the reemergence of the Jedi Knights has brought power and prestige to the fledgling government on Coruscant. Yesterday’s Rebels have become today’s administrators and diplomats, and the factions that fought against Imperial tyranny seem united in savoring the fruits of peace.
But the peace is short-lived.
As several of you undoubtedly know, it was Mon Mothma who suggested the moon Yavin 4 orbiting the nearby gas giant of Yavin as a possible location for Luke Skywalker’s Jedi training center during the early years of the New Republic. There, with no government oversight, no teacher’s assistants, no fixed curriculum, and no established metrics by which to measure student progress, Luke proceeded to run a school with one of the worst graduation rates in history. Here is a partial but by no means complete list of student outcomes from the first graduating class.
Tionne: An unqualified success! She goes on to use her not-particularly-strong abilities to become a Jedi historian, eventually achieving the rank of Master and serving honorably in the Yuuzhan Vong war. Good for Tionne!
Dorsk 81: Oh, Dorsk 81. It’s still hard for me to think about him, even now. He had such a hard life! The first clone of Khomm in a thousand years to be different (“I was a failure”), he finally finds a place among his fellow Jedi trainees on Yavin 4 only to wind up being partially responsible for Daala’s assault on Khomm itself. He dies in part of the greatest Force Push in history, channeling the powers of all of the other cadets through his own body in order to push seventeen Star Destroyers about to attack the Great Temple out of the star system. Dorsk. Dorsk! Truly you were the Rudy of the Jedi.
Kirana Ti: Another success! Goes on to become a Jedi Knight and eventually a Master herself. But it takes a lot more than Luke Skywalker’s generalized incompetence as a teacher to hurt a Dathomiri witch from the Singing Mountain Clan.
Kam Solusar: He makes it too! He even gets to marry Tionne. That’s three people who didn’t die already.
Brakiss: Luke is congenitally incapable of realizing that his one success at turning someone from the Dark Side occurred under fairly unusual, unrepeatable circumstances. It was his dad. It was right before he died. This does not make you an expert at turning people away from the Dark Side of the Force, but try telling Luke that. He knows Brakiss is a double agent and a Dark Jedi sent by the Imperial Remnant to try to destroy the Praxeum, but he takes him on anyway, convinced that his aw-shucks farmboy charm and, I don’t know, deep commitment to niceness will show him the error of his ways. It doesn’t. Brakiss flees Yavin 4 with a broken mind after a failed meditation attempt — so Luke’s taken a regular Dark Jedi and turned him into an insane Dark Jedi — goes on to command an army of Red Terror gladiator drones, kidnaps the Solo-Organa twins, and dies horribly in an explosion.
Streen: Streen…doesn’t die. That’s about all you can say for Streen. Because he’s not a deeply troubled vulnerable boy with pouty lips, he gets roughly four seconds of attention from Luke. Spends a lot of time reading.
Gantoris: “I have dreamed of you. A dark man who offers me incredible secrets, then destroys me. I am lost if I go with you.” First thing Gantoris ever says to Luke. It’s pretty much spot-on. Slowly corrupted by the spirit of Exar Kun, he is eventually incinerated from the inside-out. Sorry, Gantoris.
Mara Jade: “Within a week Jade left, dissatisfied with Skywalker’s instruction.” Good for you, sister.
Cilghal: Just sort of there.
Corran Horn: It is impossible not to have strong feelings about Corran Horn’s description of events in the revisionist I, Jedi. I personally love the man and will hear no arguments to the contrary. He’s endlessly frustrated by Luke’s passivity and “whatever” approach to student learning/Gantoris challenging him to near-fatal duels while clearly possessed by a Force demon. Eventually leaves without completing the course after helping to defeat Exar Kun because Luke is a terrible teacher.
Kyp Durron: KYP DURRON. Turns to the Dark Side, betrays every one of his friends, steals the Sun Crusher, destroys an entire star system, receives literally zero consequences. HE LITERALLY DOES NOT GET IN TROUBLE FOR COMMITTING GENOCIDE ON A GALACTIC SCALE. NONE. He doesn’t even get put in a Magneto-style Jedi prison, which I feel like would have been a really easy punishment that doesn’t involve putting him to death. I can’t…Guys, I still can’t get over this one, and it’s been, like, fifteen years since I finished Champions of the Force. Here is an actual conversation an actual person has with Luke Skywalker about Kyp:
“Let’s talk about Kyp Durron.”
“Master Durron is a fine, responsible Jedi.”
“I’m not talking about the Jedi he is now. I’m talking about the teenager who destroyed most of the life in the Carida system all those years ago.”
“He was under the influence of the dark side of the Force at that time, affected by the mental sendings of a long-dead Sith Lord. And in the years since, he has proven himself to be courageous, a defender of life—”
“Yes, he has. I’m not questioning that.”
THIS MAKES ME MADDER THAN ANYTHING. LUKE YOU NEED TO SORT OUT YOUR PROTEGE/SEXUAL ISSUES ON YOUR OWN TIME. Literally here is what happens:
Kyp Durron gleefully embraces the Dark Side while training at Yavin 4, becomes influenced/possessed by the spirit of Exar Kun (which, okay, but it’s not like that happened by ACCIDENT, he did not trip into Exar Kun’s disembodied energy while out on a birdwatching walk).
Kyp Durron steals the Sun Crusher and blows up Carida.
Mon Mothma – Mon motherfucking Mothma – says that the New Republic’s governing body is “not qualified” to judge him and hands his fate off to Luke. This would be (yes, there’s a Nazi analogy coming, I’m sorry but it has to be made) like if the Nuremberg Trials got interrupted on Day Four and the judges said “You know what? This really can’t be up to us. You know who should determine their fates? Kaiser Wilhelm,” if Kaiser Wilhelm had still been around. AND LUKE JUST FORGIVES HIM. And that’s it. That’s it. That’s all that happens to Kyp. He feels super angsty about it for a long time, but, you know…that’s it.
That’s it.
Kyle Katarn: Also left without graduating, concerned with Luke’s “meh” responses to the Dark Jedi forces clearly starting to possess his students.
Dal Konur: Leaves after two months without telling anyone out of disgust with Luke’s methods.
Dev Sibwarra: Not actually a student at the Praxeum on Yavin 4, but deserves an honorable mention as yet another sexy-sensitive male character whose death comes about as a direct result of being Luke Skywalker’s protege.
[All images via Wookiepedia]
Tags: dropout rates, higher jedi education, luke skywalker, star wars expanded universe
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I think Luke’s obsession with Brakiss is the clear result of some unresolved romantic tension between them and no one shall persuade me otherwise.
That is true of LITERALLY ALL OF LUKE’S SEXY TWISTED MALE HUMAN STUDENTS.
I am now dangerously close to reading Star Wars books again and getting ENRAGED all over again.
Oh bother.
I have a lot of Thoughts about Luke Skywalker and in none of them is he a heterosexual married man with children.
This was a huge problem during the New Jedi Order series, where the authors were frantically insisting that, yeah, Kyp Durron was a badass starfighter pilot and there were dozens of Jedi Knights ready to fight the Yuuzhan Vong.
Whatever, never say anything bad about the New Jedi Order
Ahhh! The Kyp Durron one was the first Star Wars EU I ever read. And the only Star Wars EU I ever read. And that’s why.
I mean, he is LITERALLY WORSE THAN HITLER by I mean AN ACTUAL LOT (I am sorry about the analogy too but it is not my fault, I didn’t write the GENOCIDE ON AN UNIMAGINABLE SCALE) and Luke just goes and … sits by a pond for a while and shakes his head a and goes, “Ah. Life,” and “he has so many issues, it’s so sad” and THAT’S IT?
I also hated what a giant Stu he was from the get-go — he’s the Forciest, specialiset, Jedi-est Jedi EVER, way more than Luke or even Anakin, so it’s okay that he killed an entire freaking solar system.
And that freaky stuff about “touching the nub” too.
No, but he was friends with Han! And he was from Kessel! That makes it okay, right? Right?…. right?
I always thought of the Jedi Temple’s recurring Exar Kun problem as being like the Force energy equivalent of building on a Superfund site. Seriously, who sets up a school there?
LUKE SKYWALKER
CASE CLOSED.
Seriously, possess me once, shame on you. Possess me multiple times, MOVE THAT SHIT ELSEWHERE. Surely there’s more interesting ancient temples to repossess on other, non-Sith-haunted planets.
Mayor Richard Wilkins III?
Also worth mentioning re: Kyp Durron: after being forgiven or whatever, he also led an attack that destroyed an entire “worldship” condemning the-Force-only-knows how many Yuuzhan Vong civilians to death.
I rather enjoyed the story by Chris Cassidy and Tish Pahl that he was featured in … not really for the whole problematic redemption arc thing, but it raises an interesting question: if Hitler survived and was somehow acquitted at Nuremberg or whatever, and later you met him on the street, what would you do?
Legit proud of these courageous Jedi for quitting grad school before becoming corrupted by Luke. Props to Mara Jade for getting out before Drop-Add and Refund Period were even over!
I always thought a praxeum was a grundle. #themoreyouknow
I am reading this to Tall Man while he does the washing up, and I am completely baffled, but it is STILL FUNNY. Mallory, HOW.
I love when going back to the same dramatic well over an over again makes your readers/viewers/players start to question the wisdom of the characters for continuing to engage with the Plot Device at all.
How many times can the holodeck create SENTIENT, ANGRY LIFE before you stop going in there to fantasize about boring, mundane shit? Put some police tape up around that door, man.
Why wasn’t anyone actively trying to move out of Sunnydale? Or Beacon Hills?
Don’t send your kids to a jedi school with a sub 50% success rate!
I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT BEACON HILLS
LIKE, HAVE WE EVER EVEN SEEN THE GROCERY STORE?!
Don’t even get me started on the Young Jedi Knights, which is essentially like Jedi Muppet Babies. (that i love).
Show of hands for people who occasionally yell “blaster bolts!” when they stub their toe.
I can’t legitimately raise my hand, but ask this again in a few months and you can bet i will have started to.
are those the books that involve the word MOFFERENCE?
After twenty years with a large part of my brain devoted to first the original trilogy and then KotOR, I have finally come to the point where I can acknowledge how much I need the EU books in my life. Where should I start? Someone please guide me.
I started with the Jedi Academy trilogy when I was 12. “Jedi Search” is book one, and it’ll hook ya in realllll fast. You could also start with the Zahn trilogy, but I think these are more fun. What got me originally started in the EU, though, was picking up a copy of Tales From Jabba’s Palace. All of the aliens you see in ROTJ have their own backstory. My favorite being the B’omarr monks–the spider walkers are merely mechanisms used for transporting the disembodied brains of the monks.
You should start with the initial Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn. (it starts with Heir to the Empire? I think?) It’s a good way to get into it. I am also partial to the X-Wing Series (by Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston).
Timothy Zahn is generally regarded as the “best” EU author–read his Thrawn trilogy first. It comes closer to the feel of the original movie trilogy than pretty much anything else (of all the dozens of EU books I bought in my youth, those three are the only ones I still have). And also MARA JADE.
Then, idk, the X-Wing series is pretty important; I like Allston’s style better than Stackpole’s (who can be a little plodding), but your mileage may vary (Stackpole wrote the first four, then Allston wrote three, then they each wrote one). It’s kind of like Top Gun In Space; i.e. it’s focused on a few very minor starfighter pilot characters from the movies, and basically tells the story of the rank-and-file Rebel Alliance soldiers, with the big name heroes like Luke, Han and Leia only making cameo appearances.
The Courtship of Princess Leia is ridiculous and campy, but I have a certain nostalgia for it … see Mallory’s “Previously” link for more. It functions pretty well as your standard cartoonish action story In Space.
Zahn wrote a few more novels which were pretty good (I think they declined a bit in quality after the 90s, but that’s just me), but I generally don’t care for the rest of the 90s EU novels–some were absurdly terrible (the Jedi Academy trilogy, natch, and also The Crystal Star deserves a special mention). There was a particular formula–evil Imperial warlords + evil Dark Jedi + Death Star-like superweapon–that drove most of them, and it got old quickly. Most of them also couldn’t figure out what to do with Lando (aka The Only Black Man in the Galaxy), and would give him weird subplots that were barely connected to anything. You might want to read some of the anthologies, though? The Bounty Hunter Tales, for example, has a much more interesting take on Boba Fett than the prequel movies. Zahn and Stackpole also collaborated on a few novellas in them, too (the two are good friends, I guess, because they’d use each others’ characters all the time, which was pretty cool).
After the 90s it went into a Darker and Grittier phase (the New Jedi Order series, and then whatever came after that–this was about the time I lost interest), where they took the verse in wildly different directions, introducing new villains like the Yuuzhan Vong (who are religious Space Zealots who are immune to the Force, hate droids, and use biotechnology for everything). The Stackpole and Allston contributions were of higher quality than the others, but after a while I just got tired of the Dark and Gritty aspect.
Enjoy!
Lando is hilarious in the books. He’s like the Kit Porter of the EU.
START WITH ZAHN START WITH ZAHN JEDI ACADEMY TRILOGY SUUUUCKS
tales from jabba’s palace RULES though
Courtship of Princess Leia is good too, in a Stevie Nicks kind of way.
I read all of these books so long ago that they’re all basically just images/feelings. You know what’s the WORST, though? Those Michael P. Kube McDowell books.
In what world is Courtship of Princess Leia good? *AWESOME*, maybe, but not actually *good*.
You’re right on about Kube McDowell, though
A PLANET FULL OF MISANDRIST WITCHES WHO RIDE RANCORS ARE YOU KIDDING ME
The Force Witches of Dathomir are clearly a phenomenal addition to any universe, and the fact that they ride rancors is freaking amazing. I had hoped that with Tenel Ka we would see more of them out and about in their rancor riding awesomeness, but they are vastly under-utilized in the rest of the EU.
My issue is more with the fact that the main characters are not really… themselves. At all. Han is not Han, Leia is not Leia. Luke is, admittedly, some vaguely recognizable version of himself. If it were Random Scifi Universe with Awesome Matriarchal Magic using Witches Who Ride Huge Malevolent Beasts as though they were Faeries Riding Corgis, then it would be a brilliant book. But it’s Star Wars with Star Wars characters.
Amen … also Shadows of the Empire. Ugh.
Also, there are now dozens of EU books covering the gap between the prequel movies and the original series. I recall there being some buzz over Jedi Twilight and Death Troopers due to their genre-bending nature (hard-boiled and horror in the Star Wars universe). I haven’t read them, though, so I can’t say if they’re any good.
What do y’all think: yay or nay on Old Republic anything? I have tried, but I just couldn’t. No interest.
I did pick up a few years ago the Death Star book. Though the entire time I couldn’t stop thinking about the Eddie Izzard Death Star canteen bit.
Honestly, for me to care about an EU book, there need to be at least a few of the characters from the original movie series involved. Old Republic is tough to get into – Yoda alone doesn’t make me care.
You mean you aren’t interested in rereading about Kuat of Kuat looking out over Kuat Drive Yards, which he inherited from his father, Kuat of Kuat (etc. etc.)…?
wow that is actually a really good description of that book. It’s all haziness and dreams and…yeah I dunno why the analogy works but it does.
Wow, thanks everyone! I will probably start with Zahn because I like his campy sci-fan pre-Star Wars stuff like Triplet. But all of this sounds great and will cover all the remaining free surfaces in my apartment with library books.
Everyone says Zahn and they’re right, but you should also get into the new canon which is only three books right now — Lords of the Sith, Tarkin, and A New Dawn. The EU talked about in this article is the old EU, sprawling, vast, full of incoherent characterization, beautiful in how terrible in genuinely is. The new stuff is actually part of a collaborative effort for for the stories and characterization to make sense.
And anyone who doesn’t recommend the novelization of Revenge of the Sith doesn’t understand how beautiful and perfect Matthew Stover is and therefore their opinion really doesn’t count. He also does a fantastic job with Luke, Leia, and Han in Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor.
I don’t see how you can write this piece, honestly, without addressing the Organa-Solo children. I mean I’m not up to date on the whole EU thing, and as far as I know Jaina turned out largely fine, but didn’t Jacen (a noted graduate of the academy) end up being, like… a Sith Lord? Or at least a Mostly Evil Dude? And how Anakin basically was kind of doing his own thing (Jedi-ally speaking) up until the point where he died?
Also, Lowbacca! Wookiee Jedi Extraordinaire!
Yeah, but they’re just kids during the first graduating class/Jedi Academy series. They don’t do much of anything.
Please tell me you are going to address their books, though. Because I need to read your thoughts re:Jaina Solo and possible queerness.
(I mean I know there’s fic out there shipping her with Anni Capstan. Maybe with Tenel Ka too? I’ve never looked. Ahhh, I should. For ~reasons~)
She did end up killing Jacen (Darth Caedus, whatever). I mean I GUESS it’s worse to actually become a Sith Lord but damn. Poor Jaina. Also various authors made her choose between Jag and Zekk when the answer was obviously a threesome.
LOL I believe at one point during the joiner-bug-cult period they did indeed have a threesome. 🙂 The only good things about that particular series, really (
Kyp Durron sounds like the Jean Grey of the Star Wars EU.
RE: Corran Horn:
I may have an action figure scale toy rancor named Corran. And a D&D character named Mirax….
Shit like this is why I’m glad that we’re totally getting a retcon-purge of post RotJ EU after the new episodes come out.
Let’s also talk about the fact that the EU made Han TOTALLY LAME.
OH MY GOD MALLORY STOP STOP STOP HOW CAN YOU BE THIS AWESOME
NO STOP REALLY
*hyperventilates*
but yes ok right. Luke should not have been in charge of himself and his lightsaber, let alone a damn school for Jedi.
Also remember when Luke’s nephew went crazy and tried to destroy the galaxy and then was killed by his twin sister?
Because…that was neat
That book broke my kriffing heart. The first EU books I ever read where the YJK, in middle school. And I swear to you Jacen Solo was my first crush. You know, before I realize Jaina was really more my type. But I digress. Anyway, basically Jacen’s whole darkside story was a travesty that never should have happened. It wasn’t in his nature to do all that crap. What should have happened is he should have come back and settled down as Tenel Ka’s Jedi consort cause Hapan nobles can go kriff themselves. And they should’ve had a gaggle of kids that he would have taught and the people would have loved him. That’s what should have happened. Kriff the galactic civil war and Lumiya and Vergere and all that poodoo.
This is my first time commenting at the toast, and it is entirely to tell you how deeply disappointed I am that you like Corran. Corran is everything that has ever been wrong with the EU. Overpowered, thematically and philosophically inconsistent, and making no sense in the greater star wars universe, he somehow manages to be simultaneously criminally dull and the biggest, smuggest most odious asshole in the EU, and I’m including Kyp in that, even though your assessment of Kyp is very on point in general. Somehow, Corran is still worse than Kyp and your failure to recognize this both wounds me and fills me with a sad and inappropriately bitter sense of betrayal. I do not know you, but I thought you knew better than that.