Back From the Dead....

've noticed an interesting trend in Star Wars EU (Note, this entry discusses Exile Spoilers). Well, as an unabashed Jimmy-fan - and one who firmly believes that he should be brought back, I have noticed an interesting Star Wars trend.

NOTE: There will be Exile Spoilers Below!!!

Publish


Mainly things to deal with resurrections and folks popping back up from the dead. First to consider is Alema. After being eaten at the end of DN3 - she magically is able to summon the power to kill the beastie chomping on her and get herself free. It's a reasonable escape from death - not that big of a deal.

Now, let's consider Lumiya. This is the woman who died two, what 3 times, during the Marvel run. And then she fought Mara in the comic series- and let's be honest, do you really see Mara leaving her alive at the end of that fight? Yet she still manages to show up in LotF.

Exile Spoilers coming up!!

With each victory against the Corellian rebels, Jacen Solo becomes more admired, more powerful, and more certain of achieving galactic peace. But that peace may come with a price. Despite strained relationships caused by opposing sympathies in the war, Han and Leia Solo and Luke and Mara Skywalker remain united by one frightening suspicion: Someone insidious is manipulating this war, and if he or she isn't stopped, all efforts at reconciliation may be for naught. And as sinister visions lead Luke to believe that the source of the evil is none other than Lumiya, Dark Lady of the Sith, the greatest peril revolves around Jacen himself.

And then even better, after her by explosion during Tempest, she somehow manages to make it back in Exile (at least her name is featured prominently on the back cover text displayed above). Regardless, we have not only the readers, but the characters themselves, expecting Lumiya to come back from the dead.

Then we have all the other little resurrections over the years. Palpatine. Corran Horn. Bror Jace. Wes. Asyr. Isard. Daala. Boba Fett. Raynar Thul. Calista. Even Thrawn FACPOV. And that list is not counting the psuedo-canon tales which feature a resurrected Darth Maul - and AFAIK Resurrection is still a canon story, as it has yet to be discounted out of hand....

What is particularly interesting to note, is that during the NJO there were effectively no resurrections - unless you count Jacen (who had a death that was just as ambiguous as Anakin's in SbS and even more explicit than Anakin's in DJ). But for the most part, the resurrections were the domain of Bantam and the comics. It was something which DelRey did not really do.

At least until recently. I can only guess that with the end of the NJO and the new storylines of DN3 and LotF that whatever powers were keeping the fantasy element of resurrections out of my fantasy story (and Star Wars is fantasy, pure and simple - even if it's set in space) has moved on and DelRey are once more allowing them to occur.

Of course, it's not just Del Rey. Despite this overwhelming evidence that Star Wars has a history of death being avoided or outright undone - there's a thread over at TF.N asking if Anakin should come back filled with posts saying "Nope, still dead."

What I fail to understand is why exactly there is such an outcry against resurrections, and stating that "resurrections aren't Star Wars" whenever the subject of bringing back Jimmy comes up. Why are so many fans outright hostile to the idea of a resurrected Anakin?

With Del Rey beginning to use the concept of the resurrection more and more, does this spell extra hope for the fans that Anakin would return? Can we hope that our favorite fantasy series will actually have fantasy elements in it once again?

Can we hope for the cynicism and lack of hope, which are earmarks of post-Anakin Star Wars EU, can be dispelled and we once more have uplifting stories?

Of course, if Del Rey really does hates the hard-core fans, as I've long wondered, we may as well give up hope now.