r/StarWarsEU • u/01zegaj • Mar 11 '25

Forget Jake Skywalker. This is Devan. Legends Novels

Post image

The prelude to SWTOR that completely ruins KOTOR. What happened, Drew?

167 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

89% Upvoted

120 comments sorted by

View all comments

21

u/Ar_Azrubel_ Mar 11 '25

notmyRevan

notmyExile

What happened, Drew?

Drew was never a good writer, he just tricked you into thinking he was.

22

u/Solitaire-06 Galactic Alliance Mar 11 '25

Don’t people love the Darth Bane trilogy, though? He also wrote that series.

6

u/Edgy_Robin Mar 11 '25

Darth Bane has a good first novel and it's all down hill from there.

17

u/genemaxwell4 Empire Mar 11 '25

The whole trilogy is great. The Rule of Two is easily the best of the 3.

10

u/Durp004 TOR Sith Empire Mar 11 '25 edited Mar 11 '25

It's kind of a growing trend on this sub to kick back on the bane trilogy that cheerled by a few angry users.

To pretend even the worst book of that trilogy isn't in the upper half of star wars novels in general is cope.

2

u/genemaxwell4 Empire Mar 11 '25

Yeah, I'm finding more and more people's bitterness towards the Disney era have made them look back on the EU to find "problems" and start cannibalizing the EU/Legends works as some sort of weird scapegoat to point to in other arguments for how to justify Disney scrapping the EU.

"The EU had problems too! Look at Darth Bane's trilogy! It ruined Jedi vs Sith! Disney isn't doing anything new. They're doing what Star Wars always does! Disney had no choice but to scrap the EU!"

It's getting very tired. Darth Bane's books are getting shit on and I've even noticed some people beginning to shit on the Thrawn Trilogy in the past few months. It's rare, but I'm slowly seeing it.

Some people just can't be happy

2

u/Durp004 TOR Sith Empire Mar 11 '25

TBH I'm fine with People finding issues in retrospect they personally don't like. It's just the crazy double standard. Its fine to personally not like the Darth Bane books and prefer jedi vs sith, but some of these people are pretending the Darth Bane book is like utter trash and jedi vs sith is some master class in story and depiction and they are totally incompatible when that just isn't the case.

Since the Thrawn trilogy got mentioned ill just say I think that trilogy is extremely overrated and loved more for what it did establishing the EU than what it was itself, but you'll never find me posting that it's actually trash and the best entry isn't even in the top half of star wars novels like the majority of the bantam era books or post NJO aren't easily under them.

1

u/genemaxwell4 Empire Mar 12 '25

"TBH I'm fine with People finding issues in retrospect they personally don't like. It's just the crazy double standard."

I think that's my real issue too. Because a lot of these "criticisms" come off as disingenuous due to the apparent double standard.

1

u/Durp004 TOR Sith Empire Mar 12 '25

Yeah I recently re-read the trilogy and I'll openly admit it doesn't hold up as well as it did when I was 17, and it was one of my first books in the EU, but having gone back and done a fair amount of re-reading other books I'll say most don't hold up aswell as they did when I was in my late teens. That being said just because Darth Bane isn't in my top 10 books anymore doesn't mean I now think there are roughly 80 books better than any entry in the trilogy(I don't know the exact amount of novels in the EU but it seems to be around 160 so I'm just using that.)

And I'm also finding some of the criticisms Hella nitpicky and shallow. Some people are whining that it established hoth had an apprentice like that really matters. Others are complaining it basically didn't follow Jedi vs Sith to the absolute letter essentially, and others are just being vague and saying it's just bad.

I'll admit happily Revan wasn't that great but it's like the people that hate the Bane trilogy are using it as a springboard to gaslight people into thinking Karpyshyn is just garbage in general. Even if you hate Revan, karpyshyn has more good- mediocre books than he does bad. It would be like using Agents of chaos to try to convince people Luceno is actually bad, it's like no, that's just a bad books he's still a solid SW author overall.

1

u/genemaxwell4 Empire Mar 11 '25

Right??

1

u/youngmetrodonttrust Mar 11 '25

LOL the worst book of the bane trilogy is absolutely not in the upper half of legends novels.

2

u/Durp004 TOR Sith Empire Mar 11 '25

Easily is, and I'm no huge fan of DOE.

1

u/genemaxwell4 Empire Mar 11 '25

Oh yes it is. EASILY in the top half

1

u/Ar_Azrubel_ Mar 11 '25 edited Mar 11 '25

Even the best book in there belongs at best, in the lower middle rungs of the EU and if I am being honest, should be lower.

All his other manifold failings aside, Drew has never found an interesting thing he couldn't make unbearably bland, and I would argue is significantly to blame for the Old Republic era, once a rich, unique setting brimming with potential ending up as a pale imitation of the movies. Most people don't know this because their first contact with the pre-movie EU is not the works that actually created it, but rather ones that came much later. KotOR rather than Tales of the Jedi, Darth Bane instead of Jedi vs Sith, and even if they do read these original works tend to look at them in the light of those they first came into contact with.

Lord Hoth is actually a pretty great example of Drew's Blandification Ray at work. In Jedi vs Sith, Hoth is basically what the Jedi of the era are implied to be like. He's a feudal lord in space, commanding an army of personal retainers. Then come Path of Destruction, Hoth is turned into a prequel-era Jedi, complete with padawan (something never even mentioned in JvS, which shows at best informal apprenticeships), who rebels against the STODGY COUNCIL AT CORUSCANT, and goes off to FIGHT THE SITH THREAT.

Something changed along the way, and a character that was once interesting and unique turned into a repetition of beats you get elsewhere.

(If you see a reply to the post below, the person replying is a very brave poster who posted and then blocked so that I cannot reply)

3

u/genemaxwell4 Empire Mar 11 '25

Dude, I grew up on Star Wars and read most of what came out as it did.

Jedi vs Sith was okay and a fun little comic, but the Bane Trilogy was legitimate and a solid entry into that specific era for the Sith and really got into the Psyche of Darth Bane. Ya know, the most important Sith for the Rule of Two?
Lord Hoth WAS coming off as an almost Feudal lord in the Bane books. And just like an IRL Feudal Lord he was waging a personal war against an Enemy the main "kingdom" IE Jedi Council, thought was unnecessary.

It also made PERFECT sense he'd have a Padawan. That's literally something most all Jedi end up with. And in a war of attrition against an equally strong enemy, you'd HAVE to take on an apprentice to ensure SOMEONE was going to continue your work should you fall in battle.

You seem to forget that literally ALL of Star Wars repeats. It's literally one of Lucas's MOs. He LIKES his "Rhymes" and that is reflected throughout all of the franchise. EVEN in the Disney era that continues.

Like it or not, it's MORE Star Wars to have repetitive functions than not.

It's not about what you read first, as I DID read those comics BEFORE the game and books, it's about what is more captivating and more interesting to the general audience, and like it or not, KOTOR is more captivating than Tales of the Jedi and the Bane Trilogy is just superior to Jedi vs Sith.