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Yes, I did just say that.

I've noticed with alarming frequency the amount of people who believe, or are open to the idea, of Jaina Solo - once she has married Jag - splitting from the Order and setting up the Imperial Knights.

And not only do I think that this would be an unflattering story choice for Jaina, it will limit her options severely as a character, as a protagonist, and as the truly awesome sauce Sword of the Jedi.

Don't get me wrong, I will never advocate that Jaina will dump Jag faster than anyone can say, "But Troy Denning did in Dark Nest" and nor am I suggesting Imperial Knights suck, Because they are, quite frankly, hardcore badasses.

And I also want to see Jaina and Jag marry, pop out at least three kids (I'm banking on twin girls just to fool everyone and so the authors can LOL at us, and THEN Jaina has baby boy Emperor Fel 2, but anyway... digression)

But I do think that having Jaina marry Jag, kick the Order to the curb and then jetset off to Bastion and found the Imperial Knights is boring... for Jaina. I'm sure the authors could make a wicked-ass storyline out of it, and Jaina would be awesome, and her Knights would be awesome and we'd LOL at Jaina being awesome on Bastion with Jag and training her Knights.

But it would also be an obvious story move, and limiting for Jaina as a character, and she would not be able to grow. So obvious would it be, that fans were guesstimating it would happen ever since we got Legacy 0, and so obvious that the hilarious Mr Allston totally has Jaina and Jag refer to it, like sixty billion times in Outcast, as a knowing nod and wink to the fan theories.

But there is something about this that *I* feel would severely dampen the Jaina *I* have come to love since... well, since the YJK honestly. There is this trait Jaina seems to have - actually two - that I feel she would be robbed of, or have herself give up, were she to live solely (or mostly) in the Remnant and train her Knights to protect the Imperial throne.

1. Jaina, despite her diminutive physical height, is unchalleneged in spirit. I love the fact that this somewhat smallish woman runs headlong into battle with absolutely bugger all to protect her but her sexy female Jedi jumpsuit and her awesome lightsaber. The fact that she is always all about the mission and not leaving anyone behind, is pure, unadulterated Jaina. And what was true then in YJK is just as true now in Fate of the Jedi. Even Invincible, despie its general suckiness, reminded me of this trait of Jaina's. She's a soldier. And even though she no longer serves in the armed forces, that's just as true of her in her role as a Jedi. She's all about the people (and I know people rag on her role in Dark Nest, but she's virtually the only Jedi in that trilogy acting LIKE a Jedi - and that's the entire point of her awesome sauce character arc in that trilogy - Jaina Solo acts like a quintissential Jedi when no one else does: when they are arguing over morals and the Force, or getting tangled in spider-webbed politics, or just not seeing the point, Jaina comes in with no fuss and is all, "I'm a Jedi; it's what I do.")

I feel that if Jaina were to become an Imperial Knight, this would be lost, and she would be a weaker character for it. And that would make so very many people unhappy. I also feel - and I don't know if I am completely misreading this situation - that Jaina wold be, more or less, a functionary and "housebound" wife to Jag. Jaina is far better than that, hell, JAG is far better than to let his wife be that.

And who says the Imperial Knights were actually founded by a Jedi Knight (or has that actually BEEN said somewhere)? How do we know some hardcore person like... Jag's brother or sister doesn't show up and found them? We know certain non-Force sensitives CAN go toe to toe with Force-sensitives and live to tell the tale. Some people are just that hardcore.

2. That other trait I was referring to is that one Jaina has of NOT being a teacher. In fact, she herself admits she's rather bad at being a teacher. Which is why when she becomes a Jedi Master (yes, when) the only person she would ever have any hope of ever teaching is either Allana or her own kids. They're the only people hardcore enough to be students of Jaina's.

Let me explain.

Not everyone can be a teacher. And I'm not saying that to demean people or anything. Some people just can't. And that's cool. Jaina's never seen herself as a teacher and neither have I. Heck, even as recently as Outcast (or was it Omen?) she dreaded the thought of blowing her Darkmeld cover and having the Council send her out to Shedu Maad to teach the padawans.

Being the founder of the order of the Imperial Knights would - I would have assumed - necessitate that Jaina teaches people. Teaches them loyalty to the Empire. To the Emperors. To serve the Force by serving the Empire.

And hey, that leads me to another point. Since when in the hell did Jaina Solo believe that serving the Force equates to serving the Imperial dynasty?

Um... how about.... never!

Even with Jag on the throne, I do not honestly think - nor can anyone convince me of thinking - that Jaina Solo will ever believe the Force to be so "small" as to feel that by serving it best, she serves the Empire at the exclusion of the Jedi Order. Jaina may occassionally - or not so occassionally - disagree with the Council, or act like a female Han Solo with the Force, or be a general badass and in some instances even an unorthodox Jedi, but one of the things I am most sure of is that she will never ever swap being a Jedi Knight with being an Imperial Knight.

As I discussed earlier, Jaina is a quintissential Jedi. She's the frelling Obi-Wan Kenobi of the New Jedi Order. The person you look at and without a doubt never in a million years, always will you equate them with BEING a Jedi. It's a part of all that they are, and they do it well. In the entirety of Star Wars, which is all about the Jedi, there are only a few individuals *I* think you can look at and proclaim them to be quintissential Jedi: Nomi Sunrider. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yoda. Luke Skywalker. Anakin Solo. And there may be a few others I have sorely neglect to mention. Apologies.

On another tangent, I do not see Jaina doing this to Han and Leia. Forgive me, but the assumption I am making is that were Jaina to become founder of the Imperial Knights, its means she's going to pretty much stay in or around Bastion/Imperial territory and pretty much forsake all other loyalties other than to the Imperial throne.

Jaina has been right beside Han and Leia through the loss of both her brothers. She's seen what this has done to her parents. Obviously, she knows what its done to her inside. So... were she to become the first Imperial Knight, she's basically doing to her parents what Jacen and Anakin's deaths did to them, albeit perhaps not on as large a scale.

Would Jaina do this? No. Not even for Jag.

I guess I do not see this theory every one else seems to in how "OMG When Jaina and Jag get married, Jaina is totally going to live by his side on Bastion and she will be founder of the Imperial Knights and they can live happily ever after with all their stormtroopers and spend all their days foiling evil Moff schemes and have fun gatecrashing Mofferences and then have Emperor Fel 2 and it will be awesome."

No. It won't.

Consider the first time when Jag asked Jaina to totally move in with him on Csilla.

Hello, that's why she broke up with him the first time.

Because Jag was, in essence, asking her to give up everything she was and everyone she knew, to make babies with him in the snow fields of Csilla.

And since Jag is a smart cookiee and since it took then like ten gazillion years to find their way back to each other, I highly doubt he of all people will ask her to do the EXACT SAME THING AGAIN, except this time swapping Csilla for Bastion and Chiss Ascendancy for Imperial Remnant.

No.

I also highly doubt that, after seeing what happened in Han and Leia not meeting Allana for four years, that Jaina would dare think of doing that to her parents when she has kids. No, sir.

I honestly think it would be more exciting for Jaina as a character if, when she marries Jag, she remains a Jedi, and remains in/around Coruscant/Jedi shindigs, and he remains on Bastion and dealing with evil little Moffs and their plots, and they make it work the hard way. Imagine what Jaina, as a Jedi Knight (and hopefully before FOTJ is out, MASTER) will have to do to make her marriage to a galactic head of state work. Oh, the politics! Oh, the skullduggery! Oh, the extremely heated-to-boiling-point-sexual-tension that explodes when they meet secretly in corridors and behind that pillar in the Jedi Temple, and that garrison moon over Muunilist!

Seriously: A galactic emperor with a bevy of old school hardcore imperialist moffs contending also with the firecrotched Admiral Daala and the Jedi Knight Master who isn't on the Council because she's too awesome and so she's all running around on awesome missions with her father's bluster and mother's hotness. Imagine when they have kids. IMAGINE THE PLOTS THE MOFFS WILL HAVE.

And you people think she needs to be Jag's ball and chain and Imperial Knight founders. Tsk. Get out of my sight!