History Literature / TheGloveOfDarthVader

* EvilLaugh: Zorba the Hutt has this as his trademark, a deep, rumbling '' '''HAW HAW HAW''' ''.

* FantasticAesop: The Empire hunts [[CallARabbitASmeerp whales]]-- er, Whaladons, [[AndThatsTerrible which is bad]]. Except it kind of ''really is'' horrible, because Whaladons are whales with human-equivalent intelligence and self-aware sapience who can talk to the humans and ask them to stop, so hunting them really ''is'' more or less equivalent to murder. Which makes the Empire obvious bad guys, but also reduces the applicability of the GreenAesop to real life, where things are less clear-cut and whales less human-like.

* ButtMonkey: Trioculus' career as "Emperor" and a villain is really just one long list of one humiliation after another.

* AndThatsTerrible: "I bid you Dark Greetings", anyone? "I grant you my Dark Blessing"? They really wanted us to know that they knew the Empire was evil. And apparently even the Empire wanted the Empire to know that the Empire was evil. It makes ''some'' sense with the Prophets, who are, after all, a regular ReligionOfEvil, but less so with the secular politicians and military men.

* FantasticAesop: The Empire hunts [[strike:whales]] Whaladons, [[AndThatsTerrible which is bad]]. Except it kind of ''really is'' horrible, because Whaladons are whales with human-equivalent intelligence and self-aware sapience who can talk to the humans and ask them to stop, so hunting them really ''is'' more or less equivalent to murder. Which makes the Empire obvious bad guys, but also reduces the applicability of the GreenAesop to real life, where things are less clear-cut and whales less human-like.

* DiscOneFinalBoss: [[spoiler: Trioculus]]; he's frozen in carbonite at the end of the third book, then thawed out halfway through the fifth only to be assassinated at the end of it, dying in the first chapter of the sixth. While he's out of the picture, the Prophets solidify themselves as the ''real'' antagonists.

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Several incidents (one {{egregious}} example: the starship carrying R2-D2 and C-3PO being discovered by TheEmpire and having to take refuge in an asteroid belt) are merely mentioned in passing.

** While the series ends with Han and Leia walking down the aisle to be wed, Davids himself explained that in his plans for the unwritten sixth book, they are interrupted, and their plans for their marriage fall by the wayside, leaving them to be married in ''Literature/TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia''.

''The Glove of Darth Vader'' is the first installment of a series of Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse novellas for younger readers written by Paul and Hollace Davids and published in the early 1990s. They are most remembered nowadays for their [[SoBadItsGood questionable quality]], but occasional references to them still crop up in the modern EU, and they've been neatly fitted into the official EU timeline (with a little bit of retconning to make them fit better). The title of the first book has been adopted for the (untitled) cycle as a whole, which is also known by the names of ''Jedi Prince'' and ''Son of Palpatine''.

* AndThatsTerrible: "I bid you Dark Greetings", anyone? "I grant you my Dark Blessing"? They really wanted us to know that they knew the Empire was evil. And apparently even the Empire wanted the Empire to know that the Empire was evil.

* AndThatsTerrible: "I bid you Dark Greetings," anyone? "I grant you my Dark Blessing."? They really wanted us to know that they knew the Empire was evil. And apparently even the Empire wanted the Empire to know that the Empire was evil.

* CanonDiscontinuity: Even before being relegated to [[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends]] with the rest of the Expanded Universe, this series suffered from this. It wasn't total, but the events of the books have been made a lot less significant to the overall ''StarWars'' story than the writers probably intended.
** The decision to cancel the series just as other, better received, EU novels (such as [[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy Zahn's trilogy]]) were getting big has been interpreted by some observers as a damage-limitation exercise.
** At one point it was pretty much treated as completely non-canon (some gaming sourcebooks aside), but later Lucasfilm policy seemed to be that nothing was so contradictory to the rest of the EU that it can't be fixed with a big enough {{retcon}}. Some examples:
*** Rather than taking place over the span of five years as stated by Paul Davids, it takes place within a year.
*** While the series ends with Han and Leia walking down the aisle to be wed, Davids himself explained that they are interrupted, and their plans for their marriage fall by the wayside, leaving them to be married in ''Literature/TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia''.
*** The villains of the series (Trioculus, the Central Committee of Grand Moffs, the Prophets of the Dark Side) are revealed by ''The New Essential Chronology'' as being a splinter faction of the Imperial government trying to wrest power from Ysanne Isard, and lacked authority over most of the Empire. ''The Dark Side Sourcebook'' explained that the Prophets of the Dark Side were not the ''real'' Prophets of the Dark Side, who were much more powerful and dangerous servants of Palpatine, but Imperial agents masquerading as them as part of a "Church of the Dark Side", a propaganda tool.
*** ''Aliens of the Empire'' reveals that Triclops is not really Palpatine's son (and thus [[spoiler:Ken is not Palpatine's grandson]]), but an experiment created under Palpatine's orders.
*** The ''Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide'' resolves in the inconsistency with Yavin IV having been terraformed by the Jedi (via the "Lost City of the Jedi") with its depictions of having always been a rainforest world in ''ComicBook/TalesOfTheJedi'' by explaining that the war with Exar Kun, depicted in ''Tales of the Jedi'', severely ravaged the moon, and the terraforming process was implemented to repair it.
*** The ''New Essential Guide to Characters'' also states that Lando Calrissian quickly regained control of Cloud City from Zorba the Hutt, who won it from him in ''Zorba the Hutt's Revenge''.
** According to an article in issue 103 (October 1994) of the ''Polyhedron'' TabletopRPG magazine (albeit unlicensed), the series was actually a youngling-friendly retelling of those events by Leia Organa Solo to her children.

* {{Portmanteau}}: The Moffs hold a Mofference on the Moffship. .

* RedRightHand:
** Trioculus' three eyes.
** Plus, he literally receives a RedRightHand as one of the unintended side-effects of his medical droid's modifications to Vader's glove.

* WrittenSoundEffect: One of the series' major {{Narm}} sources. It's hard to escape the conclusion that the writers might have been better off doing a comic book. Or that they were being paid by the letter - "KRR-RR--AAAAAAANG!" is the sound of two submarines docking.

*** ''Aliens of the Empire'' reveals that Trioculus is not really Palpatine's son (and thus [[spoiler:Ken is not Palpatine's grandson]]), but an experiment created under Palpatine's orders.

* GreenAesop: [[OnceAnEpisode One in each book]], invariably {{Anvilicious}}.

** The decision to cancel the series just as other, better received, EU novels (such as [[TheThrawnTrilogy Zahn's trilogy]]) were getting big has been interpreted by some observers as a damage-limitation exercise.

* CanonDisContinuity: Not quite, but the events of the books have been made a lot less significant to the overall ''StarWars'' story than the writers probably intended. Also, the decision of Lucasfilm to cancel the series just as other, better received, EU novels (such as [[TheThrawnTrilogy Zahn's trilogy]]) were getting big has been interpreted by some observers as a damage-limitation exercise.
** At one point it was pretty much treated as completely non-canon (some gaming sourcebooks aside), but current Lucasfilm policy seems to be that nothing is so contradictory to the rest of the EU that it can't be fixed with a big enough {{retcon}}.
*** In particular, according to an article in issue 103 (October 1994) of the ''Polyhedron'' TabletopRPG magazine (albeit unlicensed), the series was actually a youngling-friendly retelling of those events by Leia Organa Solo to her children.
**** While considered canon, there have been numerous [[{{Retcon}} Retcons]]. Rather than taking place over the span of five years as stated by Paul Davids, it takes place within a year. While the series ends with Han and Leia walking down the aisle to be wed, Davids himself explained that they are interrupted, and their plans for their marriage fall by the wayside, leaving them to be married in ''Literature/TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia''. The villains of the series (Trioculus, the Central Committee of Grand Moffs, the Prophets of the Dark Side) are revealed by ''The New Essential Chronology'' as being a splinter faction of the Imperial government trying to wrest power from Ysanne Isard, and lacked authority over most of the Empire. ''The Dark Side Sourcebook'' explained that the Prophets of the Dark Side were not the ''real'' Prophets of the Dark Side, who were much more powerful and dangerous servants of Palpatine, but Imperial agents masquerading as them as part of a "Church of the Dark Side", a propaganda tool. ''Aliens of the Empire'' reveals that Triclops is not really Palpatine's son (and thus Ken is not Palpatine's grandson), but an experiment created under Palpatine's orders. The ''Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide'' resolves in the inconsistency with Yavin IV having been terraformed by the Jedi (via the "Lost City of the Jedi") with its depictions of having always been a rainforest world in ''ComicBook/TalesOfTheJedi'' by explaining that the war with Exar Kun, depicted in ''Tales of the Jedi'', severely ravaged the moon, and the terraforming process was implemented to repair it. The ''New Essential Guide to Characters'' also states that Lando Calrissian quickly regained control of Cloud City from Zorba the Hutt, who won it from him in ''Zorba the Hutt's Revenge''.
**** CanonDisContinuity due to the Expanded Universe being consigned to Legends continuity.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Books 7-9 of a planned third trilogy, with one book titled ''Shadows of Obiwan''. Book 7 would have started with the Empire attacking and interrupting Han and Leia's wedding from the end of ''Prophets of the Dark Side'', making the wedding scene moot until the official wedding takes place in ''[[Literature/TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia The Courtship of Princess Leia]]''. Without a resolution, readers are left to assume what happens, such as an OffscreenBreakup.

* CallARabbitASmeerp: Whaladons (take a big fat guess as to which endangered Earth animals these stand in for in the book's GreenAesop[[note]] [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Gorillas? It's Gorillas, isn't it?]][[/note]] ) and "braze" (brown haze, i.e. smog), among others.

* IAmYourFather: Ken finds out that he's [[spoiler: Triclops' son - and hence Emperor Palpatine's ''grand''son]].
* InterspeciesRomance: Again implied by the BackStory.

* WrittenSoundEffect: One of the series' major {{Narm}} sources. It's hard to escape the conclusion that the writers might have been better off doing a comic book. Or that they were being paid by the letter - "KRR-RR--AAAAAAANG!" is the sound of two submarines docking.)

**** While considered canon, there have been numerous [[{{Retcon}} Retcons]]. Rather than taking place over the span of five years as stated by Paul Davids, it takes place within a year. While the series ends with Han and Leia walking down the aisle to be wed, Davids himself explained that they are interrupted, and their plans for their marriage fall by the wayside, leaving them to be married in ''TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia''. The villains of the series (Trioculus, the Central Committee of Grand Moffs, the Prophets of the Dark Side) are revealed by ''The New Essential Chronology'' as being a splinter faction of the Imperial government trying to wrest power from Ysanne Isard, and lacked authority over most of the Empire. ''The Dark Side Sourcebook'' explained that the Prophets of the Dark Side were not the ''real'' Prophets of the Dark Side, who were much more powerful and dangerous servants of Palpatine, but Imperial agents masquerading as them as part of a "Church of the Dark Side", a propaganda tool. ''Aliens of the Empire'' reveals that Triclops is not really Palpatine's son (and thus Ken is not Palpatine's grandson), but an experiment created under Palpatine's orders. The ''Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide'' resolves in the inconsistency with Yavin IV having been terraformed by the Jedi (via the "Lost City of the Jedi") with its depictions of having always been a rainforest world in ''ComicBook/TalesOfTheJedi'' by explaining that the war with Exar Kun, depicted in ''Tales of the Jedi'', severely ravaged the moon, and the terraforming process was implemented to repair it. The ''New Essential Guide to Characters'' also states that Lando Calrissian quickly regained control of Cloud City from Zorba the Hutt, who won it from him in ''Zorba the Hutt's Revenge''.