Debunking Myths about the Star Wars Expanded Universe

Ever since the great Disney canon nuke of 2012, there have been plenty of misconceptions 
surrounding the Star Wars Expanded Universe, now regarded as Legends. To many, it is a forgotten 
era that is best left that way. But many forget this was a multi-media project that carried Star Wars hype
and kept it alive from 1983 all the way to 2012. It is said that the two great modern legends are 
Superman and Star Wars, so I would disagree with being so dismissive about media that is so 
important to our culture. 

"But Disney made it non-canon!"

Honestly, I really don't care what Disney says about it, I'm still going to enjoy reading these books and 
comics and playing the games, just as Dragonball fans like Super Saiyan 4 despite GT, Heroes, or the
video games being non-canon, or Soul Caliber fans that liked playing as Spawn, Link, and Yoda in those
games despite their appearances being non-canon. I didn't realize that there was a rule that applied 
exclusively to Star Wars fans that they couldn't consume non-canon material. 

Disney's current canon also reintroduces a multitude of characters and plot elements from the EU, 
including but not limited to Darth Bane, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Sith Holocrons, Luke's New Jedi Order
and Leia and Han Solo's son following in his grandaddy's footsteps, Sith Magic, Mortis and The Ones, 
Luke's Force Projection, Darth Maul's return, etc. Disney owes a lot to the EU for their current continuity. 

Now, this was Star Wars as I grew up with it. There was no distinction between "Legends" and
 "Canon", only Star Wars. My friend and I growing up (funnily enough his name was Luke) in the early 
2000s would always play the miniatures Role-playing game pictured above. You were able to use any 
character, from any era, provided you had the figures for them, and were limited only by your 
imagination. You could have Yoda on Luke's back team up with Jar Jar riding on top of a Basilisk War 
Droid, who cares! We sure didn't. 

The books, the comics, the games, the cartoons, the movies-yes even the prequels- it was all Star 
Wars to us and we loved it all the same. 

And what did or didn't happen to it with time wasn't going to change that.

And running the risk of looking like an entitled millennial neckbeard, I'm going to protect my dear child 
like my life depends on it.

Now, onto the mythbusting.

Myth #1

The EU is a convoluted mess

“There's an expressly detailed fan wiki called Wookiepedia that's been around since 2005 that has made a detailed catalog of Star Wars lore. And prior to that, people managed. There's some sort of myth that the Star Wars EU is overly complicated or convoluted, but most of it can be broken up into manageable chunks or time periods, and most of the stories neatly cross-reference each other.”

-Vivec the Poet, the username of a Youtube comment I coincidentally came across while writing this.

This is definitely one I see floating around a lot, no thanks to Buzzfeed articles and a general audience that really has no knowledge on the subject.

Now, there was always SW media outside the movies since their conception in 1977, but what really kicked off the EU was the Shadows of the Empire event in 1996, a multi-media promotional project to bridge the gap between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, as well as launch a series of books and comics that expand previously unexplored stories within the Galaxy Far, Far Away. With this in mind, there are stories in pre-’96 that don’t coincide with that planned out continuity. This continuity included of course, Shadows of the Empire, the Thrawn novel trilogy, Dark Empire, the Legacy of the Force comics and novels, and much more. 

Bear in mind some of these stories were written before the Prequels gave additional context. For example, pre-prequel Legends had Boba Fett’s backstory involve originally being a Stormtrooper that defected from the Empire. This was based on George Lucas’ original idea that Fett would be a Super Stormtrooper. Of course, this was retconned after Attack of the Clones gave him his official backstory. Retcons are not uncommon in fiction. Even today comics like the Hulk keep getting retconned backstories (the One Below All hell energy stuff will no doubt be retconned itself in a few years anyway). Even the current Disney continuity has retconned his backstory again to where Jango Fett was not actually a Mandalorian...which is bullshit, because there is an actual Fett clan on Mandalore and Jango and Boba are descendents of Cassus Fett, perhaps it can be interpreted as Jango not being a “true Mandalorian” because he was a bounty hunter and born on Concord Dawn, being a Mandalorian by blood but not nationality (Just let the Fetts be Mandalorian! Jesus Christ!). But that’s getting off topic.

There’s the argument that Vader had a lot of secret apprentices that popped out of nowhere whenever the plot demanded it. While it does seem convenient that Vader trained both Lumiya and Starkiller in secret (yeah, remember that awesome Force Unleashed game? That was also part of EU canon), recall that Vader always desired to usurp the Emperor with an apprentice of his own, it’s the main reason why he wants Luke in Empire Strikes Back. A lot can happen in about 30 years, so it’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination that Vader would try to defeat Palpatine with a powerful apprentice more than once. And heck, in Rebels there are the Inquisitors, multiple Dark Side acolytes that existed at the same time under the Empire.

There are also Star Wars Visionaries and Star Wars Infinities, which were always meant to be self-contained what-if stories. Any outsider stumbling upon them out of context would assume they were contradictory and confusing. And OF COURSE there are going to be a few bad stories, these don’t detract from the multitude of good ones. Don’t like something? That’s fine, there’s hundreds if not thousands of pieces of material to choose from, that’s the beauty of it. Really, SW canon is no more or less convoluted than any other work of fiction that’s been around for decades with multiple authors.

Myth #2

The Empire did nothing wrong 

There are Reddit memes about how Griffith or Thanos did nothing wrong, and fan theories and hot 
takes about "What if the bad guy was actually the good guy???". This one is both and both notions are 
stupid and wrong.

Anyway, the idea is that the New Republic would not have been blindsided by the Yuuzhan Vong invasion had the Empire been allowed to thrive and militarize the Outer Rim to prevent them from invading in the first place. Furthermore, the Empire would have utilized tactics that would have been highly effective against the organically based Vong army, such as bio-weapons, chemical and psychological warfare, technological modification and torture, and orbital bombardment or even destruction on planets that the Vong had targeted to assimilate, tactics that would be considered far too heinous for the lawful good New Republic and Luke’s New Jedi Order. They also had brilliant tacticians such as Grand Admiral Thrawn, who had been preparing for their attack for many years since even the Clone Wars and was familiar with these enemies and their behavior.

So, congratulations. By simply letting the Empire win, you saved the Galaxy. Or did you?

Now the Emperor has spread his reach across the galaxy, leaving him to his continued militarism of sovereign planets, mass enslavement, and oh yeah, global genocide. Oh, but surely he had good reason to do all that. He only did what was necessary for the sake of safety and security from these barbaric far outlanders, right? 

Boy, I’ve got to hand it to Palpatine, he is a master of scheming and manipulation, so much so that his rhetoric has even reached into a metaphysical level and affected those in the real world. Committing atrocities while labeling the victims as “traitors” and “terrorists”, all for the vague, empty promise of “safety and security” are no different than any other dictatorship. It would be like letting Hitler win to beat Stalin, and considering the Original Trilogy is based on WW2, the comparison is not that far off. The existence of one evil does not justify another.

Furthermore, something tells me that Palpatine wasn’t exactly doing all this out of the goodness of his heart. Especially considering he was a power hungry megalomaniac long before he discovered the Vong from the Outbound Flight project during the Clone Wars, the biggest “justification” for his evil acts.

This is a quote from the Plagueis novel, of which the events occur before and around the Phantom Menace:

“It was Hego Damask as Plagueis who came to Naboo, determined to suck the planet dry of its plasma and set the Trade Federation up and its overseers. It was Hego Damask as Plagueis who set his sights on a seemingly confused young man, and, with meticulous skill, manipulated him to committing patricide, matricide, fratricide… Darth Plagueis, who took him as an apprentice, sharing with him some of his knowledge but withholding his most powerful secrets… instilling in him a sense of murderous rage and turning him to the Dark Side. It was Plagueis who criticized the early efforts of his apprentice, and once choked him in a demonstration of his superiority… Plageuis the Wise, who in his time truly was, except at the end, trusting that the Rule of Two had been superseded, and failed to realise that he would not be excused from it. Plagueis the Wise who forged the most powerful Sith Lord the galaxy had ever known… whose pride never allowed him to question when he would no longer be needed... Teacher? Yes, and for that I am eternally grateful. But master? Never.”

-Palpatine to Plagueis on his deathbed

Palpatine allowed Plagueis to believe that he manipulated him into killing his family and committing war crimes, but in reality he was really a power-hungry sociopath all along and had always desired to usurp the power that he coveted by any means necessary.

Then, there are those that claim the Rebels, including the main characters aren’t exactly saints either because they blew up the Death Star and committed geoncide as well, I’m just gonna leave this scene from Clerks:

 

Say what you will about the Clone Wars era Jedi Order being warlike and dogmatic and straying too far away from their original philosophy, at least they never blew up a planet to prove a point.

Myth #3

Boba Fett sucks as a bounty hunter and he was only made cool after the fact in the EU to appease fans

Not only is this notion cynical and annoying, it's objectively wrong.

It's true that Legends material gave him a second chance by having Boba survive, reclaim his reputation, become the new ruler of Mandalore, train Luke's niece Jaina Solo to defeat Darth Caedus (who are exponentially better characters than the cheap off-brand versions we have in the Sequel Trilogy, I don't care, fight me) and lead the New Republic against the Yuuzhan Vong invasion.

However, while this does make him an awesome character, we don't even need all this to know that Boba Fett is the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy. We are actually told this in his first appearance.

Notice how Darth Vader, who does not tolerate failure especially after the crippling loss of the first Death Star, singles out Boba Fett in a room full of the most feared and successful bounty hunters in the business, including a literal killing machine, and tells him to dial it back a bit and not to completely disintegrate anyone (which is less of a big deal thanks to the Mandalorian, but let's ignore that). This gives us all the context we need about Boba Fett.

Sure, him doing whatever it was to earn this rep is all offscreen, but that doesn't matter if it's clearly established in the mythos, and it's not relevant in the main story of Empire Strikes Back anyway. 

 

In this scene in the same movie, Han evades the Star Destroyers' sensors by magnetizing to their hull and escapes using the garbage dump as cover. We can see the Slave 1 tailing them immediately after, meaning he saw right through this tactic, outsmarting a collective Imperial fleet.

The Prequel Era also did more to add additional context to establish his character.

In Attack of the Clones, we see he is capable and proficient in operating Slave 1 and it's turbo laser cannon. He also has Clone Wars episodes dedicated to him being a serious threat, such as where he nearly assassinates Mace Windu (who is a Jedi Master, just a reminder) and pins down both him and Anakin. And this is all him as a child, and where the Clone Troopers have their capabilities coded into their DNA, Boba had to learn all this naturally practically on his own after his father was killed.

There is also an unfinished scene from Season 7 that was released of him finally donning his iconic armor and facing off against Cad Bane, which probably is what cemented his reputation as the best bounty hunter in the galaxy in the first place. 

And sure, all of this is added retroactively, but again, Empire Strikes Back gives us all we really need to know. The only difference is we actually get to see it on screen here.

I guess it goes to show that no matter how much you succeed, people will only remember you for your greatest blunder.

 

Myth #4

EU Luke is a Mary Sue

*Heavy Sigh*

Do I really have to address this one? I don't know what it is about powerful characters that makes t̶r̶o̶g̶l̶o̶d̶y̶t̶e̶s̶ ̶b̶r̶a̶i̶n̶l̶e̶t̶s̶ people think they can't be good ones. Just because characters have colossal feats doesn't mean they can't have any conflict or development, just look at One Punch Man.

It's evident that people just hear this secondhand that Legends Luke moves black holes around, seemingly change any Force user's alignment at a whim, and can literally fold space around him without any context, and just throw their hands up and can't imagine how a character with that kind of power can be interesting, but to quote Doctor Strange, "You lack imagination!"

Remember, this is the same Luke Skywalker that lost to Tusken Raiders and thugs in a bar. The Original Trilogy is a modern retelling of the classic Hero's Journey archetype. Luke's main character arc is told in those three movies and resolves in Return of the Jedi.

Luke represents what Anakin would have been capable of if he never became Darth Vader. Anakin was born of the Force itself, with a higher Midichlorian concentration than even Yoda, hence why Luke is so strong in post-RotJ material, where he becomes the Grandmaster of the New Jedi Order. His showings in the Force are indicative of how far he has come, and mirrors Revan from the Old Republic era.

Luke also recovers the memory recorded by R2-D2, furthered his training in the Force with Force Ghosts and both Jedi and Sith Holocrons, and achieves balance in both the light and dark sides rather than rejecting half of the Force in what he believed to be its purest form, like Jedi and Sith before him who were restricting themselves from its true potential. 

This misconception just seems to be reactionary to claims that Rey is a Mary Sue. That much is subjective and argue that all you want, and you're free to enjoy the Sequel Trilogy, but don't bring down other characters to make yours look better, that just makes you a hypocrite. 

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Now, I've been prattling on about the Legends Expanded Universe, but that isn't to say the new one doesn't have its high points too. I have to give credit where credit is due. Rogue One is still my favorite Disney Star Wars movie, the better episodes of Rebels were fantastic, and the canon Darth Vader comic is filled to the brim with brilliant visuals and storytelling. Timothy Zahn also does a great job of integrating the Thrawn Trilogy into the new canon, if not making it even better in Thrawn Alliances, which narratively goes back and forth in time from Thrawn's point of view of both Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader.


Welp... that's all I've got to say for now. I am Hero's Shade and thanks for reading. If you're a Star Wars fan, do yourself a favor and check out Legends!