YMMV / Star Wars Legends

See also Star Wars Expanded Universe for the current/post-Disney buyout Expanded Universe.

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• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • It's a common game to find proof Luke's on the dark side. Citing Dark Empire is considered to be cheating.
  • Palpatine's running of a brutal dictatorship and commission of numerous atrocities and superweapons: preparing the galaxy for the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, or convenient excuse-mongering from the losing side? Or even more alternately, preparing for the YV invasion less because "someone has to save the galaxy" and more because "they're gonna take my stuff"?
  • Similarly, and one that exists both in and out of universe: The Empire would have easily crushed the Yuuzhan Vong, or the fact that their inability to quell the Rebellion and obsession with Awesome, but Impractical superweapons meant that Empire defenders grossly overestimate how well the Empire would have done.
  • Vergere is made for this, because she deliberately refuses to be pinned down as any one thing. Is she a heroic Trickster Mentor, a scheming evil Chessmaster, a broken individual trying to make up for the mistakes of her past, a loyal but unorthodox Jedi of the Old Republic, a Sith Acolyte, or just crazy? You can find support in the text for all of these, though admittedly some more than others- the reader is left to draw their own conclusions. Later books tried to hammer in the "Vergere was a Sith!" interpretation in order to support the Legacy of the Force storyline, but given that most of this comes from Lumiya, who's rather less than a reliable narrator...
  • Mandalorians, Proud Warrior Race or thugs for hire with pretensions of depth? Karen Traviss' Character Shilling doesn't help with this.
• Angst? What Angst?: Ben. Even after being trained in the dark side, tortured by Caedus, and molested by Tahiri, in addition to his mother's death, the worst thing he's done is snark about (and to) his father.
• Anvilicious:
  • Luke constantly telling Cade that drugs are bad in the Legacy comics.
  • The "save the environment" themes in the Jedi Prince children's books, to the point of having space whales or "Whaladons" that needed to be saved.
• Archive Panic: That's putting it lightly. The Legends continuity ran right alongside the main franchise up until 2014, so getting through a portion of any media in it could take years—to give an idea of the sheer scope of the old Expanded Universe, there were well over 300 books in it. The fact that Disney and Lucasfilm have halted any new additions to the Legends series as of 2014 only slightly mitigates this.
• Arc Fatigue: It took 12 years and more than 30 books for Jaina's romance with Jagged Fel to reach a conclusion.
• Audience-Alienating Era: The period where Troy Denning was head writer for the novels, spanning nearly nine years from July 2005 to April 2014. Denning's work (given its own Fan Nickname, the "Denningverse") was noted for being far Darker and Edgier than most other stories in The 'Verse, with a level of gratuitous sex and violence unusual for the franchise, most infamously a scene in Legacy of the Force where a grown woman sexually tortures a teenage boy for information. Denning and his contemporaries also built up a bad habit of using characters created by other writers for their own books as C-List Fodder. When it was announced in 2014 that the franchise would have a Continuity Reboot, the response from Denning's considerable hatedom was a resounding "Meh."
• Audience Awareness Advantage: Shows up often. The plot of The Thrawn Trilogy partly relies on the fact that Darth Vader being Luke and Leia's father is not common knowledge, and in fact most people aren't even 100% sure that he's dead. With pretty much every book written later, on the other hand, the authors fall victim to this trope and act as though everyone in the galaxy has watched the films and knows everything that happened in them.
• Broken Base:
  • The Vong and giant epic storylines that had character after character getting killed, going crazy, or going crazy and getting killed. Detractors point out that the Vong are too dark for Star Wars, and while the extra-galactic invaders idea does have potential, the Vong just turned out to be Warhammer 40k rejects. Others claim they were a perfect foil to the Jedi in different ways from the Sith. Their aesthetics, culture, and technology were radically different, and the fact that they were so alien compared to anything else in Star Wars was intentional considering they came from a different galaxy altogether.
  • The sequel trilogy inducing a reboot of the EU has largely put both arguments to rest, replacing it with an entirely different can of worms: whether the Legends timeline, including the older movies and EU, or the current Canon timeline, including the sequels and the new EU, is better.
  • Basically everything involving Troy Denning: Was he a great writer who made a couple of unpopular decisions (some of which were handed down by the execs), or a terrible writer who brought down the quality of Legends?
• Common Knowledge: When bringing up reasons why the Legends EU was ridiculous, detractors will often cite Skippy the Jedi Droid, a story that was always a non-canon joke and never actually part of the EU.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Continuity Lockout: It's understandable due to just how big the Legends universe is, but good luck trying to follow and keep track of all the plot lines and stories without using an online guide or the encyclopedias, especially since these stories are all spread out through hundreds of comics, novels and video games, and they often include their own branching story arcs and new sets of characters! Even the fact that Disney has halted production of any new Legends material only slightly mitigates this.
• Crack Pairing: In fanfic, Mara is paired with any male she spends significant time with. This includes Emperor Palpatine (borderline Parental Incest), Karrde, Lando, Kyle, and Corran. But it also includes both of Luke's nephews.
• Creator's Pet:
  • The Mandalorians when Karen Traviss was writing. They used to be popular with fans as a whole, but her portraying them as superior to the Jedi and pretty much everyone else caused them to become hated by some whenever she was involved.
  • While Thrawn is a vastly different character than either Palpatine or Vader, characters often stop in the middle of the action to compare their failings to Thrawn's greatness to the point it just seems the author wants us to know how magnificent he is.
• Designated Villain:
  • Vestara has good intentions and hasn't been shown doing much actual evil. Both in-universe and fan arguments that the Jedi are similar certainly don't help.
    I am Vestara Khai, daughter of a proud heritage. I have what is necessary to command the dark side and bend it to my will. To use it for the good of the Tribe, and the People.
  • Any Jedi espousing the Potentatum philosophy gets retconned as this, or falls to the Dark Side. Hell, any Force user that offers a slightly different take on the Force usually is hit with this; sometimes, they have wildly different philosophies and shifts in characterization from before and after the canon retroactively decides they're evil.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: See here.
• Epileptic Trees: Some fans prefer Multiverse theories that could ease up things rather than simply referring to a main canon and discarded continuities.
• Fan Nickname: Pelly (Pellaeon), Farmboy (Luke), and as a meta example, Fandalorian (Mandalorian fans).
• Franchise Original Sin: See the Legends folder on this page.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Go here.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • Commonly speculated about several of the more popular original villains, such as Thrawn (who would be smart enough to fake his own death), Ysanne Isard (who's been known to clone herself), and Nom Anor (whose body was never seen). Word of God has it they're all stone dead, but the theories get a Fandom Nod on occasion.
  • In-Universe, in Traitor Jacen imagines that Chewbacca survived the destruction of Sernpidal and that it was only a clone or a human replica droid that died on Myrkr instead of his brother Anakin. It's tempting for the fandom to pretend the same thing.
  • Some fans like to hope that Greedo's younger brother and uncles survive the bombardment of their living area in Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Go here.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Jango Fett, in this continuity, is regarded as perhaps the most dangerous Bounty Hunter in the galaxy, a reputation well-earned. Raised by Mandalorians from youth after the deaths of his family, Jango carved a path as a deadly warrior, killing three Jedi with his bare hands at one point and capable of taking down even massive Krayt Dragons with little difficulty. As exceptional a father as he is a hunter, Jango raises his young son Boba in his footsteps, training the boy to have honor as well as pragmatic ruthlessness. Jango outsmarts Count Dooku, provides the template for and trains a massive portion of the Clone army, and takes on the likes of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu with unflinching resolve. Even after his death, Jango makes waves across the universe, as he left resources for his son to become a renowned bounty hunter himself, and the Clone soldiers came to be known as one of the most powerful armies to have ever graced the galaxy.
  • Boba Fett, the son of Jango, rises from an orphaned child to become the finest Bounty Hunter in the galaxy. Proving his worth as a boy by setting up traps for Mace Windu and the monstrous Durge, Boba is known for his brilliant career in which he has faced countless opponents, even surviving battles with Darth Vader through his intelligence. Hired to destroy the Bounty Hunter Guild, Boba infiltrates it, starts the Bounty Hunter Wars and manages to profit for it. Hired to capture the monstrous pirate Bar-Koods, Boba seeks a bounty on a magician named Magwit once held captive by Bar-Kooda and arranges for Magwit to lure Bar-Kooda into a trap. Upon escaping the Sarlaac thanks to clever planning, Boba allows the galaxy to think he's dead while rebuilding his reputation, eventually rising to lead the Mandalorians and connecting with his long-lost granddaughter Mirta Gev, being known throughout the galaxy by one single title: "The Best".
  • Grand Admiral Osvald Teshik distinguished himself as one of the Empire's most brilliant military minds and as perhaps the most legitimately decent and empathetic person in its topmost ranks. As a firm believer that the Empire was a necessary institution to keep people safe, Teshik obeyed orders without question, even when Emperor Palpatine sentenced him to death by suicide mission for a minor mistake. Teshik miraculously managed to survive, and as he hovered between life and death experienced an equally miraculous vision of all Galactic history, including conflicts yet to come. At Endor, he kept the entire Rebel fleet on its toes for three hours with a single ship after the rest of the Imperials retreated before he was captured. Sentenced to death, Teshik spent his last moments mocking the young New Republic with the story of his vision, (correctly) stating the fight was far from over.
  • Bib Fortuna, Jabba the Hutt's majordomo, is intelligent enough to allow his partner Bidlo Kwerve to gain a "greater reward" for bringing Jabba his rancor—becoming its first meal, as it turns out. Bib forms a conspiracy to take Jabba down at one point, saving Jabba from a second attempt while ingratiating himself further to the Hutt. Having saved a Twi'lek boy named Nat Secura to raise him to be a puppet ruler on Ryloth, Bib saves him from Jabba's whims by having his brain removed and stored. Later having his own brain removed by the B'omarr monks, Bib convinces them to give his brain a new home in the body of a rival as he rebuilds his own criminal empire with himself at the top.
  • The Dark Lady Lumiya, born Shira Brie, is the one who kept the Sith alive after the fall of Palpatine. After being rebuilt when shot down by Luke as an imperial spy, Lumiya manipulates her way through the Nagai-Tof war before going underground. Training guardsman Carnor Jax as her apprentice, Lumiya helps to sabotage Palpatine's clone bodies for revival and steadily eliminates rival Sith cults by playing their enemies against them. Later returning to bring peace to the galaxy, Lumiya manipulates a galactic conflict and lures Jacen Solo to the dark Side, finally letting Luke believing that she was the murderer of his wife so Luke will kill her, allowing Jacen to operate with greater ease and fulfill all her goals as she goes on to her rest.
• Memetic Badass: In- and out-of-universe.
  • In-universe, Jaina went so far as to have all transmissions refer to her as "goddess", to help her impersonate the Vong trickster goddess, which infuriates them into stupidity on the field of battle several times.
  • Luke Skywalker, in- and out-of-universe, to the point where he can terrify almost any enemy just by taking the field, and by Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi, the only opponents who give him real trouble in a one-on-one fight are two of the most badass Sith ever and an ancient Eldritch Abomination. Somewhat deconstructed in Shadows of Mindor, where he's so Famed In-Story for being a badass that people see him just as a badass and forget that he's also an All-Loving Hero who often has to rely on an Indy Ploy.
  • Kyle Katarn, who's treated as a Jedi Chuck Norris thanks to his appearance and feats.
  • Jango Fett. While he's always shown to be a badass, this version was shown killing several fully trained Jedi with his bare hands, something that's basically impossible, especially for someone that isn't Force-sensitive.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Believe it or not, Darth Vader. For every incredible feat he did, there was an equally in-depth explanation of just how hilariously miserable his life was, including having his surgery botched due to budgetary constraints of all things, all his cybernetics turning out to be outdated and near-useless, and most glaringly, that he didn't even have shoes that fit his cybernetic feet.
  • It's also worth noting that unlike Vader in current Canon, this incarnation was explicitly stated to have lost basically all his potential after Mustafar, with Palpatine purposefully keeping his Sith training stagnant as punishment, simply keeping him around to enforce his will until a new apprentice reared their head.
• Memetic Molester: Jacen after having turned Sith. Indeed, at points, his attempts to turn Ben to the dark side start to look like pedophilia, albeit without the sex.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Anakin Solo had the hots for his aunt?
  • After the Continuity Reboot for the new Expanded Universe, fans jokingly parodied Palpatine and Anakin's exchange from Revenge of the Sith:
    Palpatine: "The Legends is a pathway to many stories, some would consider to be non-canonical."
    Anakin: "Is it possible to learn these stories?"
    Palpatine: "Not.... from a mouse."
  • Han Solo's "it's true, all of it." line from Star Wars: The Force Awakens is often repeated with him holding a copy of Heir to the Empire. There are several other variants of this line with reference to the EU.
• Memetic Psychopath: Yoda has this reputation in some circles thanks to Star Wars Infinites: A New Hope, where he crashes the Death Star into Coruscant, presumably killing untold billions of people.
• Memetic Troll: Palpatine gets this distinction for making Darth Vader's armor a living hell for no good reason at all other than "budgetary limitations" and making sure he's subservient to him, and adding useless and inconvenient features as if it amused him.
• Mentor Ship: Luke/Corran, Luke/Kyp, Jacen/Ben, Mara/Palpatine, and of course Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan/Anakin, and Anakin/Ahsoka.
• Moral Event Horizon: Go here.
• My Real Daddy:
  • A number of fans believe this now that Lucasfilm has decided to declare it non-canon, feeling that the old EU had a much richer history and characters, or that the new canon was simply less excellent overall.
  • Timothy Zahn is often seen as this for the entirety of the verse. The Thrawn Trilogy was one of the key foundations that kicked off the Legends continuity, introducing key figures and plot points that much of the continuity drew from. Even with the mixed feelings towards other plot developments and other creators, many felt Zahn's stories were more consistently good.
• Narm: Not nearly as much as in the movies. Even so, it's there, though of course Narm Charm applies.
• Nightmare Fuel: See here.
• OT3: Denning likes to imply as much about Jaina, Zekk, and Jag.
• Realism-Induced Horror: The Yuuzhan Vong seem uncomfortably similar to real world terrorist groups in terms of mindset, in particular, their weird religious rules and murderous hatred of unbelievers.
• Rooting for the Empire: Inevitable given its real life popularity. Some fans have extended this to include questioning whether the Sith are all that bad.
• The Scrappy: See here.
• Seasonal Rot: As splintered as the Star Wars fanbase is, you will find very few defenders of Troy Denning's tenure as head writer and the Cosmic Horror Story Myth Arc he constructed, due to copious amounts of Too Bleak, Stopped Caring, many fan-favorite characters being killed off, and various story concepts being retconned or twisted. Even many fans of Legends welcomed the 2014 reboot as a chance to be finally rid of him.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Mara? Callista? Authors fought over this one. Repeated with Luke's niece Jaina, who only takes some 15 years to choose a guy.
• Squick: Ghost sex! Force rape! Pedophile Sith! Huttese pornography! The Brain Bleach is over there if you need it. Apparently, the folks at Disney needed it, too. Take solace in the fact that these things aren't canon anymore, if anything.
• Take That, Scrappy!: "Star Wars #41" (2002) has a cover shot of Vilmarh Grahrk with the heads of three Ewoks (including Wicket) and Jar Jar Binks mounted on his wall.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Despite Thrawn's backstory building up his plans to fight the Yuuzhan Vong, to the point of creating the Empire of the Hand for this purpose, and attempting to use cloning technology to circumvent his own death, no clone of him appears in the NJO series and his empire is barely mentioned.
• Vindicated by History:
  • Though not without its flaws, the EU, or at least some of its ideas, have gotten a better rep in certain circles after it was decanonized due to the Disney buyout essentially reducing the Star Wars lore in size, and many base-breaking story decisions in the sequel movies and some of their tie-in works—particularly regarding the treatment of OT characters, which many fans feel the EU did more respectfully—to the point many of these fans wish for some of the stories to become canon again.
  • The Rise of Skywalker turning out to be a barebones retelling of Jedi Prince and Dark Empire (with elements from Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II and Knights Of The Old Republic)— but in many ways lacking the Narm Charm of the former, and the more unique and redeeming elements of the latter — made a lot of fans question the assumption that the Disney era canon would be better across the board and would distill Legends content to its best aspects. Here, after all, was a cinematic re-imagining of two of the most ridiculed Star Wars works delivered as a film that still managed to disappoint a lot of people.

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