Star Wars Legacy Rant:

Okay, so after looking at it very closely, here's basicly what I've come up with. Legacy is basicly a Deconstructor Fleet for Star Wars. For example the characters mostly some kind of composite of characters seen in the films, with an extra layer of deconstruction added on top:

Cade Skywalker= Luke Skywalker, Han Solo. Basicly he combines the two staple Star Wars protagonists, the outlaw, and the Jedi chosen one. The Deconstruction comes into play in a few key areas. First he has the Han Solo apethetic veiw on life. However unlike Han, this isn't flat earth atheism, it's an aquired bitterness, making it all the more profound. His drug addiction shows just how seedy the life of an outlaw can be. Unlike Luke he didn't jump at the call. He spends his whole life trying to hide from it. Unlike Luke's relationship with force ghost Obi Wan, Cade openly mocks and be-littles his ancestors.

Nyna Calixte= Darth Vader, Tarkin, Prequel era Palpatine. Like Tarkin she's an utterly ruthless high ranking Imperial officer willing to commit terible actions to meet her goals, beleving firmly that she's doing what's best for the galaxy. Like Prequel Palpatine, she's a Chess master, carefully trying to manipulate evens behind the scenes. Like Vader, the fact that she's Cade's Mother is a major plot twist. However, unlike Palpatine, who was allways thirty steps ahead, she is actually out manuavered by the Sith and spends most of the series plotting against them. It could be argued that she's even more of tragic monster then Vader, as she's constantly struggling between her plans, and the safety of her son.

more later.

The roll of Leia is spilt between two characters. Marasiah Fel, and Gunn Yage. In the original trilogy Leia is the princess of Alderan, a world that, in her own words is "peaceful" and "has no weapons". Marasiah on the other hand is the heir to the Fel Empire, the ones who started the war. Gunn is the other half of Leia. The sister the hero never knew he had. She also has elements of the X-wing pilots from the original trilogy. However she is on the Imperial side. This is key for a number of reasons. The original rebel pilots all had unique personalities, and a lot of character devolopment, conversly however, a lot of effort was taken to dehumanize their enemies. The TIE fighters didn't have a hyperdrive, or their own life support systems, leaving the TI Es completly reliant on their Star Destroyer. The pilots themselves didn't have faces, and where established to be clones. While the Rebel pilots all had emotional atachments to their fighters, each of which was unique due to repair and costumization, where as the Imperial pilots probably never used the same ship twice. The Imperial Knights are also an Interesting concept, allowing he exploration of one of the biggest flaw in the Old Republic Era Jedi, the conflict between political loyalities and their duty to the force is something almost every character in the Imperial Knights has to come to terms with. The biggest thing however has to be the introduction of shades of grey to a setting that up until this point has always been about the conflict between the light-side and dark-side.

You make a lot of really good points that I never considered before. Thanks! This makes the comic even more interesting to read than it already was.

Legacy is definitely my favorite Star Wars comic, and one of my favorite comics period. I'll be sad when Legacy- War is over, but I prefer a concrete ending to having the series drag on.

If you REALLY wanted to dive deep into the symbolism, then consider the fact that Gar Stazi is part of the same species that ran the trade federation (a different sub-species, but still)

I think you're overanalyzing and shoving people into roles just to make it fit the movies. The comic is intended to tell a good story in the style of Star Wars, so obviously the character archetypes and events have applicable parallels, but it's by no means intended to mirror them beyond a superficial level. It's got the recognizable elements of Star Wars: Jedi, Sith, scoundrels, bounty hunters, lightsaber duels, princesses, aliens, empires, identity revelations, rebels, hotshot pilots, and cool ships, but they're combined together in different ways to tell a familiar but fundamentally different story.

As for the deconstruction aspect, I see it as less a deconstruction in order to expose flaws in the prior source material, but as the writers trying to explore how morally complex and grey situations work in the universe of Star Wars.

That's my point. They're deconstructing the traditional "light-side vs dark-side" plot of star wars by adding shades of grey.

I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of copy and pasting your analysis to the Star Wars Legacy analysis page.

Unfortunately, I think STAR WARS: LEGACY fails if you try and take it as a deconstruction because the ending of the series is, "Cade Skywalker accepts his Jedi heritage and everything is right in the world."

It also falls apart because of what The Force Awakened noted.

There's no reason for Cade Skywalker to be the Chosen One TM when Marasiah could be.

She's a Skywalker too but isn't apparently special enough because of those XX chromosomes.

The series would have improved 1000% if they'd had Gunn Yage kill Krayt.

Where does this idea of a "light side" come from? I'm pretty sure in the movies they explained that there was this strange force that held everything in the galaxy together, and it had a dark side. Yes, Yoda said we are luminous beings, but that's generic religious talk, a short handed way of saying your life doesn't really end when you body dies so don't become too attached to the world of matter. It's not luminous vs dark, there is the force, and the dark side is a quick but dangerous way of mastering it. Like, less light vs dark and more don't cut corners or you'll mutilate your face.

I mean, if it was supposed to be light vs dark the prequels wouldn't be talking about bringing balance to the force, because light and dark halves would be balance. The dark half is treated more like a something that probably shouldn't be there but no one knows what to do besides aggressively ignore it.

There was supposed to be this chosen one, who was going to fix everything, but they found him too late and only took him in, in what was clearly an unfit state, because they were guilt tripped into doing so. It turned out to be a huge disaster, so the solution to the dark side went back to basically acknowledging it's existence and then doing everything possible not to interact with it. It bugs me, not because this light vs dark is a fan convention, but because as of episode seven it's been referenced, ever so slightly, in an official movie, and I think the people in charge are missing the point. The sith, the dark side users, they're all dead as of Return Of The Jedi. There shouldn't be anymore dark side beyond "don't do it, the last guy who did sucked". Time to close that chapter and move on to what else is up with the galaxy.

Luke says, "How do I know the Good Side from the Bad?"

While it first appeared in Novels, it was originally there from the beginning with the Ashla vs. the Bogan. While Lucas eventually said the Dark Side was a corruption of the Pure Force, they've since gone with the Light and Dark as canonical in the Disney force.

Besides, if "The Force" is the Light Side (energy=light) with the Dark Side not being part of the Force proper (Dark=Absence of Light/Energy) then it's a distinction without meaning anyway.

If force is energy and energy = light, then the opposite dark, would be lack of energy or stasis. The dark side isn't "literal". And energy doesn't just manifest as light, but also chemically and kinetically, that latter of which is what force really is.

I took that as Dark Is Evil and Dark Is Edgy. The distinction between them is that the dark side is faster but has nasty side effects. It could be called the rocky path, in reference to dangerous shortcuts, and the net effect would be the same.

The Black-and-White Morality refers to the fact the first movie outright calls the Empire evil and the only sympathetic characters in it or otherwise on its side are those who are sympathetic because the Empire corrupted them.

Palpatine is the top bad guy of the empire, but the force he uses isn't distinct from the force that everyone else does. There are dark side exclusive powers in the video games, yes, but that's to be expected with games, their competitive balance, roster diversity and such. Narrative wise, the black and white morality shouldn't literally apply to the force any more than it applies to the space vehicles, blaster guns or uniforms. It's just a force and what mattered was how it was used. Some took a slippery slope for high reward at high risk.

I'm not suggesting the Legacy comic or the Disney movie can't be enjoyed because of it, but "The Light" is still something that really shouldn't exist outside of video games. And the nature of the Force is not something that really needs a lot of exploring either. How about seeing more of the galaxy it holds together, for a change. Do people really need to keep mining that plot line The Empire Strikes Back?(oh wait)

edited 11th Dec '16 7:54:02 AM by IndirectActiveTransport

I'd argue the Jedi and Sith both make a clear distinction between the two sides of the Force with the Sith using a different kind. It's not the One Ring of Sauron as Anakin's falls show but Palpatine flat out says, "The Dark Side can be a gateway to many powers the Jedi would say are unnatural."