There are spoilers up through Edge of Victory II: Rebirth, so if you have not read this far in the New Jedi Order series, do not read. Do not repost anywhere without the permission of the author!
This editorial is a follow-up to the one I wrote after reading Onslaught, entitled Corran and the End of Onslaught. In that editorial, I addressed Corran's having survived that book. At the time, I had known that he would be in Ruin, yet was somewhat disappointed that he had lived, mainly because the "death scene" had been so eloquently written. I was also afraid that Corran had survived only to be killed at the hands of Shedao Shai, and that his death would be anti-climactic.
At the writing of that editorial, Ruin had not yet been released. Aside from the cover blurb, I knew nothing of what would befall Corran in that book. So, needless to say, I was pretty surprised by the ending. Michael Stackpole found a way to not kill Corran off, but yet no have the finale of the battle between him and Shedao Shai be clear-cut. Corran may have survived Onslaught, he may have survived Shedao Shai, but his trials are far from over.
This editorial, however, isn't about Corran's encounter with the Dark Side, although I may write a separate one on this subject at some later date. Here, I wish to return to the question I raised after reading Onslaught: should Corran have died then?
Let's take a look first at the good inherent in his having lived. There are quite a few reasons I can think of. I do not promise to cover all possibilities; these are just some that I thought of. Most important among these, though, is that Corran's being alive is the best way to make Elegos's death really work. Out of all the characters in the GFFA, we have seen Elegos interact with Corran the most. Although quite a few other characters would mourn his passing, they'd be more apt to chalk it up to the tragedies of war and move on. Since none of the other characters have a close, personal bond with Elegos like Corran does, the readers might have more of a tendency either to not care as much about his fate or feel like they'd been cheated by his death because it wasn't as effective as it could have been.
But with Corran around to see what has become of Elegos, his death takes on a whole new meaning. Corran is the one character who would be most affected, and therefore the one with the most potential to be changed by this death. Here is someone who sees Elegos as a role model. He feels he can turn to Elegos in times of need. Elegos is very much a father figure to Corran, therefore Corran takes it extremely hard when Elegos is murdered. Because of all of this, the reader is more inclined to care about Elegos's passing and be moved onto an emotional level
And, of course, Corran's survival allows some interesting things to happen to him in Ruin. Losing Elegos had to have been very much like losing his father all over again. This is one of the few things that can push him into an area he normally wouldn't go. Ordinarily, Corran would not be tempted by the Dark Side, but anytime something truly nasty and cruel happens to a loved one or a very close friend, the temptation is going to be hard to resist. In this case, it proves to be too hard to resist, especially since he manages to hide his true feelings from himself until it is too late.
This leaves Corran in a very interesting position. He has withdrawn from the field of battle so he can go and work things out. He knows he has crossed the line, and he feels he needs time to deal with that. He is out of public view, and therefore out of the New Jedi Order series for a time. This makes, if nothing else, for an excellent opening for fanfiction writers. Although Corran's storyline is set up so he can return at a later date, it was correctly hypothesized that we would not see him for a time. This left those of us inclined to writing Corranfic a perfect writing opportunity. On a personal note, this was a very inspirational event for my own fanfiction writing.
As we have seen, there are many good reasons for keeping Corran alive, the least not being that it made for some excellent plot points and character development in Ruin. This whole editorial would be moot had Ruin not ended the way it did. Corran was left in a very precarious position, however. His character needs to be handled with great care. I am not sure if that amount of care will be taken with him, though.
Corran's continued survival does raise some fears and concerns in my mind, however. I am concerned that Corran will be written completely out of character, maybe begin to act like he did twenty years ago for no apparent reason, by an author who has little to no understanding of the character. But, even more than that, I am afraid that he will be killed, not because it fits the story, not because he has reached the point in his development where it makes sense for him to die, but simply because the author desires an emotional response or thinks that s/he should kill someone.
I realize that, if one chooses to read between the lines, it makes it sound like that I think only Michael Stackpole can and should write for Corran. I can't deny that at least a part of me thinks that. It's not that I think no one else on the planet can write, but I have seen what happens when other authors begin to write for a given character in other shared settings. An author will write a series of books in a shared world and create well-developed, complex characters for whom I come to care deeply. Then other authors come into the setting, begin to write for these characters, and end up ruining both the characters and the setting. When the original author tries to return, at times it has been virtually impossible for the damage to be repaired.
Star Wars itself has seen its share of that, especially when it comes to the characters. During the Bantam run, Luke, Mara, Leia, and many others had abrupt changes of personality. Sometimes they seemed merely to be doing what the given author wanted them to do, regardless of what had gone before and/or what that character would do in that situation. Other authors strived to do right by the characters and the setting, doing their best to maintain continuity as much as possible. These authors had their work cut out for them in deciding which aspects of these characters they wanted to use, especially if they tried to write books later in the series.
So far, Corran, along with pretty much all of the Rogues and Wraiths, has more or less escaped this fate. Although Stackpole is not the only person who has ever written for Corran, we've been lucky in that the few other authors who have written for him have taken the time to take a look at him and try to keep him consistent with what's already been established. It's also helped a great deal that, until recently, Corran was considered a minor, obscure character that had little to do with the mainstream.
Hopefully this fear will be in vain. So far, the New Jedi Order overall seems to be striving to maintain continuity of character, with the characters remaining consistent from one book to the next and more or less doing what you'd kind of expect them to do in that given situation. Maybe this bodes well for Corran as well.
As much as this disturbs me, this does not bother me as much as my fear of his dying for some contrived reason. This fear is also more prevalent for me because I have heard a rumor from someone who has been known to have been right in the past that his number might be up in Star by Star. I feel I need to say this again. I have heard a rumor about this. It is not confirmed, so don't write me emails bemoaning his impending death. And please don't go around telling everyone you know that Corran is going to die and it's written in stone, because it's not true. Again, it is just a rumor.
After hearing this rumor, though, my first thought was, "Oh, wonderful, they're going to have him die so he can redeem himself. How cliché." That thought, in a nutshell, sums up my greatest fear. Not that he will die, but that he will die in a quest for self-redemption. And that, in between his last scene in Ruin and his death, little to no character development will be done with Corran. If this is the only reason Corran has been kept around, then I say, "Better he died in Onslaught."
Why am I afraid of a quest for self-redemption? I'm not afraid of the idea in itself. I have read many excellent trilogies with this theme at its center. It can be a wonderful thing to read about, if done well. I have also read many other books and seen many movies where the main character does something abhorrent, becomes the scum of the earth, realizes that s/he has done wrong, wants to make up for it, and gets himself/herself killed trying to atone for his/her sins. It is implied that this is the only way that character can make up for his/her wrongdoing. From the moment that person realizes that s/he has done wrong and wants to make up for it, it seems that death is imminent for these people.
This is what I don't want to see happen with Corran. In Ruin, we saw him transgress and then confess. Implied in his confession is his desire, if not exactly to atone for what he did, then to make sure that this sort of thing will never happen again, that he won't let it happen again. From my point of view, I don't see Corran as the type who would come to the conclusion that he needs to die to make up for what he did wrong. For some reason, though, I keep thinking that this sort of thing is exactly what will come to pass. It's just a bad feeling that I can't shake.
Hopefully none of this comes true, and this entire essay proves to be groundless. Hopefully any author that uses Corran, whether it is Troy Denning in Star by Star or someone further down the line (providing he survives SbS), does his/her best to keep Corran's character consistent and kills him only if the story demands it, in a way fitting with his character and what is befalling him at that current time. But these fears still remain a part of me, and will remain so at least until I read Star by Star.
So, should Corran have died in Onslaught? The jury is still out on that one. If all future authors can take the time to take a look at the universe in which they are to write and the characters that inhabit this universe, and they do right by him, then maybe, just maybe, yes. But if the same thing is going to happen to him that has happened in the past to characters like Luke and Mara, and/or he was kept around simply to be used as cannon fodder in a future book with no substantial character development in between, then no. Onslaught would have been a good way to write him out, and if the opportunity to develop Corran even further that was presented in Ruin is not seen through, then I have to wonder why they even bothered to keep him around. But, at this time, I choose to remain seated on the fence.
Copyright August 15, 2001 by Kelly M. Grosskreutz.
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