Parallels in Legends and the Sequel Trilogy

Welcome to the first post of Twin Galaxies, a new blog I put together to address my reawakened love of Star Wars in the wake of The Rise of Skywalker. I look forward to the new Expanded Universe content that will undoubtedly emerge to offer speculation on what the Sequel Trilogy laid out. I decided to create a space where I can reminisce about Legends while also offering my own thoughts, theories, and reports on the Disney canon. Like many fans of the old Legends continuity, I saw a variety of parallels between the new canon and the old, which were only further cemented by what was depicted in TROS. There will be spoilers for that film under the jump below, but if you've seen the movie, let's get started!




The most obvious parallel of the new series vs. the old was that of Ben Solo vs. Jacen Solo. In both versions of Star Wars canon, Han and Leia's firstborn son fell to the Dark Side.

Darth Caedus and Kylo Ren - fallen scions of the Solo legacy

In Legends, Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy introduced Jacen and his twin sister Jaina. Jacen and Jaina went on to become mainstays of the Expanded Universe, and readers followed them through the birth of their younger brother Anakin, their training in their uncle Luke's New Jedi Order, and their harrowing experience in the Yuuzhan Vong War, which cost them the lives of both Anakin and their adoptive uncle Chewbacca. Eventually, due to the manipulations of the mysterious Jedi Vergere and Lumiya, Dark Lady of the Sith, Jacen fell to the Dark Side, becoming known as Darth Caedus. He murdered his aunt, Mara Jade Skywalker, and tortured his cousin Ben Skywalker. (In Legends, it was Luke's son and not Leia's who was named after Ben Kenobi.) Unlike Ben Solo, Jacen Solo had a Dark Side apprentice, in the form of Tahihi Veila, a comrade of his at the Jedi Academy. He also had a child--with his friend and lover Tenel Ka Djo, he was the father of a girl named Allana. (Allana's prophesied fate as the apparent "Jedi Queen" was never explored due to the discontinuation of Legends.) Like Ben Solo, his last moments were concerned with love rather than hate. He sent a telepathic warning to Tenel Ka Djo and Allana just as his sister Jaina struck him down. Despite this, he remained unredeemed in death--a marked contrast to Ben Solo.

While Jacen's downfall is a clear parallel to that of his grandfather Anakin Skywalker, Jacen Solo lacked the obsession with Darth Vader that motivated Kylo Ren. While he wore dark clothes he never adopted a helmet in homage to that of his grandfather. Similarly, Darth Caedus was a true Sith, while Kylo Ren viewed the Sith as a thing of the past, like the Jedi. Jacen's path to the Dark Side was cumulative, beginning with his losses in the Yuuzhan Vong and continuing as he lost more and more faith in the safety of the galaxy; Ben Solo was manipulated from birth by Snoke, and in turn, Palpatine. Snoke and Kylo Ren had an abusive relationship that fostered hate of the former by the latter, which resulted in the former's death--Lumiya and Darth Caedus worked together on a basis on mutual ideals.

When I first saw the promo materials for The Force Awakens, back before it was clarified that the new movies would not adapt or continue Legends material, I assumed that Kylo Ren was Jacen Solo and Rey was Jaina Solo. A shadow of this did come to fruition: Jacen and Jaina shared a twin bond in the Force, which is similar to the Force dyad which unites Ben and Rey.

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The events of the Disney film Rogue One were based on the battle mentioned in the opening crawl to A New Hope. In the Disney movie the conflict is the Battle of Scarif; in Legends continuity it was the Battle of Toprawa. The Rogue One team who delivers the Death Star plans to Leia is based on Red Hand Squadron; Red Hand's leader, Commander Bria Tharen, was likely the loose inspiration for Jyn Erso. However, Jyn forms a parallel to another Legends character due to her association with Cassian Andor.

Clockwise from top left: Bria Tharen, Jyn Erso, Jan Ors, Cassian Andor, Kyle Katarn

In the Legends continuity, multiple explanations were offered for the acquisition of the Death Star plans across several stories, including Star Wars: X-Wing, Star Wars: Dark Forces, and the original Star Wars Battlefront II. These were ultimately unified into a singular Rebel mission, Operation Skyhook. Both in terms of his appearance and his role in retrieving the battlestation plans, Rogue One's Cassian Andor resembles Dark Forces' Kyle Katarn. Kyle Katarn was considered by Legends fans to be one of the most devastating losses of erasing Legends from the canon, and so it is nice to have a character who is similar to him, even if his death in the course of Rogue One means he never became a Jedi as Katarn did. (Even if he had, he probably would have been killed by Kylo Ren during the destruction of Luke's Jedi Temple.) By this similarity, one can see Jyn Erso as a parallel to Katarn's friend and lover Jan Ors. The two have similar enough names where it is possible to imagine that Jan influenced the creation of Jyn.

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One of the more exciting reveals in the new Disney canon was that of the Grysk, revealed in the book Thrawn: Alliance by longtime Star Wars storyteller Timothy Zahn, which along with the Rebels show restores Legends' Grand Admiral Thrawn to Star Wars canon. Initially the Grysk seemed to be a new version of the Yuuzhan Vong, as they are dangerous, mysterious skull-faced humanoids who battled the Chiss and a young Thrawn. However, there are notable differences. Whereas the Vong loathed technology and used biotech as a replacement, the Grysk use machinery and "traditional" starships. The Vong come from outside the galaxy, while the Grysk are from the Unknown Regions. The Vong worship pain and are outside of the Force, whereas--well, we actually don't know that much about the Grysk yet. Zahn wants to flesh them out in future works, but their early appearances set up a possible invasion of the galaxy a la the Yuuzhan Vong War. Notably, there were plans to feature the Vong in an episode of Clone Wars, where a minor character would be abducted by them and experimented on in an homage to real-life UFO abduction stories; no one would believe their tale at the episode's end, allowing the Vong to remain unknown and return if desired. This was cut from the series, along with an appearance of Darth Revan, which would have canonized parts of the Knights of the Old Republic games. (The Rise of Skywalker: The Visual Dictionary named one of the Legions of Palpatine's Sith Eternal as the Revan Legion, re-opening the door to KotOR re-canonization. Also implicitly added by the names of the Legions were Darth Tenebrous from Darth Plagueis, and Darths Desolous and Phobos from The Force Unleashed.)

A group of Yuuzhan Vong warriors

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The most complicated comparison is that between the story of The Rise of Skywalker and the comic series Dark Empire. Both stories deal with the resurrection of Emperor Palpatine. Dark Empire reveals that Palpatine's spirit wandered in darkness before being successfully revived in a clone body. Luke Skywalker discovers this in a sinister fortress on the eerie world of Byss, similar to the Exegol laboratory where Kylo Ren meets the resuscitated Emperor. The film version of the revived Palpatine does not reveal the nature of his resurrection but a member of the Resistance suggests cloning. Palpatine's own dialogue implies that he manipulated the midi-chlorians using the teachings of Darth Plagueis. Both incarnations of Palpatine unleash secret weapons: the canon Emperor has the Sith fleet of the Final Order, while Legends Palpatine uses a Death Star-like superweapon known as the Galaxy Gun. (Yes, to those of you who hated Starkiller Base: both versions of Star Wars feature bigger, more destructive versions of the Death Stars created by Imperial remnants, just as you would've gotten a revived Palpatine either way.) Both Palpatines release devastating pulses of Force energy to destroy their enemies, which Dark Empire names as a Force storm. Both versions depend on an individual of Skywalker blood to restore themselves; he draws on the dyad Ben Solo shares with Rey to renew him in The Rise of Skywalker, while Dark Empire's Palpatine tries to possess the infant Anakin Solo when his clone bodies fail him.

Emperor Palpatine: reborn in two universes

The revelation that the Emperor had biological descendants is not new either. The Jedi Prince series of young reader books, which I grew up with, featured Trioculus, a three-eyed Imperial warlord who claimed to be the son of Palpatine. Slowly it was revealed that a prisoner of the Empire, a seeming madman named Triclops, was the true son of Palpatine. Triclops was the father of Ken, the hero of the Jedi Prince books, who previously believed he was a relative of Obi-Wan Kenobi. (Ken's mother, a "Jedi Princess," was given the rather absurd name of Kendalina.) Abel Pena and Greg Mitchell revealed Triclops' mother to be Sly Moore, an aide of the Emperor who first appeared in the Prequels. Presumably a future creator will reveal the names and stories of Palpatine's son and his wife in time, following their introduction in TROS. One also wonders who Rey's grandmother was, if she had one.

Rey and her alternate universe counterpart (?) Ken, plus Ken's father Triclops and grandmother Sly Moore

These commonalities are important because they tie in to what will be one of the main theses of this blog: the Legends continuity and the Canon continuity exist as parallel universes. In a way they influence and develop each other, echo each other, despite their dimensional separations. I'll be dealing with the canonicity of this parallel worlds theory in my next post. I hope everyone has or is having a good holiday, and may the Force be with you!

Image Sources: Wookieepedia, Star Wars Battlefront Forums