Hi, I hope you’re doing great!! I had a fun (oops it’s actually kinda angsty) question. How do you think things would have gone had Luke been the one to die instead of Mara Jade in ‘sacrifice?’ How do you think Mara (and Ben, Leia, Han, Jaima) would’ve reacted? Thanks!
Aaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhmmmmmmm, NOT WELL LOL.
If you thought Luke decapitating Lumiya in what he thought was retaliation for Mara’s death, just imagine Mara on the vengeance warpath for her man.
Side note: neither one of them should have died in this scenario, it’s pure plot contrivance stupidity, both of them are smarter than that - not to mention how soundly Luke kicked Jacen’s ass later on while barely lifting a finger. BUT, for the hypothesis’ sake...
I mean, I don’t think there’s a lot to say beyond it would have been absolutely devastating and possibly destroyed the Skywalker-Solo family, or come close to it, once everybody figured out it was Jacen who killed his own uncle. I don’t want to make it sound like killing Mara was secondary or less awful in any way, but it’s pretty damn heinous when family members kill their own blood. I could easily see Han and Leia disowning Jacen over it.
Ben Skywalker was skewed to have a closer relationship with his mother than his father, but it would have still been a traumatizing loss, especially if he had unreconciled feelings toward Luke that he’d never get a chance to talk out.
I think it would have left Mara a wreck. She’s resilient as hell and I’m not saying she couldn’t pull out of the tailspin eventually, but she and Luke anchored each other, and it would have not only been an intense struggle for her not to give in to hate and bloodlust in seeking revenge, but to also likely fall back into the abyss of guilt and self-recrimination that she had to grapple with in the wake of the Emperor’s death. If it was a true flip-flop scenario where Luke went off and got his ass killed alone, while Mara would surely resent him for doing that, she’d also be blaming herself in a million ways for not having gone with him, not being there to fight alongside him and possibly prevent his death, etc. I think it’d be a steep, dark drop for her, and she’d need a lot of support to climb back out - which could be difficult to come by because all the other members of the SkySolo clan would be grieving and hurting at the same time.
It would also be a huge blow to the Jedi Order, because even though Luke should have stepped away by the end of the NJO series, they were still leaning heavily on him (or he kept interfering, I don’t really remember the distinction after all these years of not rereading this drivel). This would either potentially splinter them or serve as a silver lining by forcing them to finally suck it up and organize themselves without him.