Children of the Jedi

Title:	Star Wars: Children of the Jedi
Creator:	Barbara Hambly
Date(s):	1993
Medium:	novel
Fandom:	Star Wars Expanded Universe
Language:	English
External Links:	Wikipedia entry, Wookiepeedia entry, TV Tropes
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Texts From Last Night meme by the Texts From the Praxeum Tumblr, referencing the novel's most notorious scene

Children of the Jedi is a Star Wars Legends tie-in novel by Barbara Hambly. It is controversial among fans for its plot and character decisions, including the introduction of Callista Masana as Luke Skywalker's love interest.

Fan Reviews

See, when I first read it I knew it was a standalone. I wasn’t expecting galaxy-changing events. I knew it was going to be low-key and feature personal stakes instead of, dunno, whatever the hell the Jedi Academy trilogy tried to portray. I was expecting, basically, a bottle episode and that’s exactly what I got. And I loved it! I loved the suspense, I loved the setting, I loved how badass Luke and Leia were when terribly disadvantaged (Luke crippled and sick, Leia alone in a hostile world) and faced with the worst possible situations. Children of the Jedi became one of my favorite books; and not only mine, also my friends’! Characters, places, and plot points from this book appeared in our roleplaying games for years, and we felt slightly cheated on when we found out that Mara Jade was going to be the chosen one in the game of The Jedi Bachelor. I clearly remember the face of one of my best friends when he found about it, looking at the rest of us taken aback, and saying “but… what about Callista?”. Poor guy. If only he had known what the Internet said about Callista… Things got so bad that, the first time I proudly admitted in the Jedi Council Forums that yes, I unironically loved Children of the Jedi, I immediately got a quiet private message that said something like: “hey, I saw that you said that you liked COTJ, so here’s the link to a private EZBoard where we discuss this book, like I had just been invited to the fucking Illuminati or to some secret society of Satanist perverts that needed secrecy to perform their revolting rituals, probably involving the sacrifice of pittens on a mindrock altar (I never joined that website, but the person that send me that message is still a good friend –one with good taste to match).

My favorite Bantam book, it’s no secret, is Children of the Jedi.

It took this nebulous idea of Force Ghosts, which hadn’t been quantified by the PT or TCW yet, and went, “How far can we take this?” Lady Jedi Ghost stuck in gunnery computers for decades safe guarding a super weapon designed to wipe out Jedi children? Awesome. Our hero falls in love with the ghost? Why not. Like, if anybody was gonna fall in love with a Force Ghost, it’s probably Luke, real talk. Then the whole body exchange theme, which starts with Nichos and plays out with Callista and Cray; if your body is different, if everything about you is different, if everything that made you who you are is preserved but no longer the same, are you still you? Again pushing the metaphysics and raising some really, really disturbing ethical questions as well (not least of which the fact that we’re really dealing with assisted suicide at best here).

Actually, the entire book plays with identity. All these different people from different species, captured, indoctrinated, rewritten to serve someone else’s purpose. Luke is broken down through the course of the book, taken apart, then reassembled with the same pieces in different order. The droids, their programming overridden by Irek. The smugglers, gone insane; all that they are striped from them. There’s so much emotional/mental hijacking going on here. There’s a Wonderland sense of suddenly up is down, down is up. It’s this claustrophobic whirlwind and everybody’s losing their minds in it.

A book like Children of the Jedi would probably never be written for Star Wars now. For a lot of people, I know that’s maybe a good thing, since the book is unpopular to say the least. But I love it. I love that it pushes the boundaries. I love the atmosphere so thick you’re choking on it. AND I MEAN, TALKING MUSHROOMS SWAPPING RECIPES, I JUST. :DDDD

Listen, there are lots of things I love about Children of the Jedi but one of my favorites is that it shows Luke Skywalker as vulnerable.

The EU has a bad habit of presenting Luke as Superman, but CotJ patently does not do that.

Luke is physically vulnerable, mortal, breakable. He suffers a concussion in the first 50 pages and he can’t magic it away immediately with the Force. He acrews injuries as they compound on each other.

This mirrors the breaking down that happens to Luke emotionally.

In the beginning of the book, Luke is remote. Just that little bit removed from everyone. That diamond heart that emits lights but is hard and maybe a little cold to the touch. CotJ takes a hammer to the diamond because closed off is something Luke Skywalker should never be.

As Luke’s physical health breaks down, he does what he always does; stretches out with his feelings.

Like man, I’m never gonna say Luke and Callista are healthy together BUT I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO SAYS THEY DON’T MAKE SENSE TOGETHER.

Like, Callista’s been dead, her consciousness sealed in a gunnery computer, for DECADES. She latches onto Luke because he represents LIFE.

Luke is physically being broken down and he needs someone to help him. And because he’s Luke and he’s wonderful, he cracks open that diamond heart and just gives it to Callista because why wouldn’t he? He falls fast and hard ‘cause he’s wide open and still a farm boy despite the Jedi mystique he’s wrapped himself in (which has been forcibly removed in this book).

And Callista’s not just a Force user when they meet; she is the Force. Of course that’s intoxicating. Of course they get swept up and carried away in the heady rush of it. And of course they wanna hold onto that. Of course they’re willing to do morally questionable things to stay together. They come together in a moment of need and become deeply enmeshed too fast.

Is it healthy? No. Does it 155% make absolute sense? Yes.