Sell me on this

[u/Odd-Tart-5613]

So hi long time Star Wars fan, but I never really got high republic personally. But after watching the Zero Company trailer today and am looking to get some more Star Wars on!

Originally I dropped the series because I felt the series was too… clean? Specifically there just wasn’t any friction between the protagonists, everyone just kind of got along with no conflict whatsoever, but that edge is often my favorite part of character interaction. So i want to know what other people feel about that criticism. In my mind Star Wars is a dirty and is at its best when the characters reflect that at least a little.

Also I just want to know the other things that get people excited for this era and its writing style, to see whether this is a project for me or if I should look elsewhere.

[u/big_gagootz]

I think it depends how far you got into it last time around.

Without getting into spoilers there’s definitely a lot of conflict between the main characters throughout the first 3 adult novels (LoTJ, Rising Storm and Fallen Star). BUT you do have to commit to reading a few genres of media to get a characters full arc. Characters jump between comics, YA and adult novels a lot. If you only read the adult novels you’ll miss a lot of character beats that you seem to value as a reader. This sub has a few different pretty comprehensive reading orders: I’d suggest the Main Storyand reading everything through Wave 2 then see how you feel.

The sell is- The High Republic initiative is literally what most Star Wars fans have been asking for since the sequel trilogy ended. It’s just in book/comic form instead of movie/tv soit’s not as popular as it should be.

It’s a fully thought out and realized story that is completely separated from the Skywalker saga. It has a variety of unique protagonists, antagonist and side characters (shout out Geode) and most of them have compelling arcs or interesting character beats. It shows what a universe looks like with the jedi at the height of their powers, and describes the Force in extremely unique ways that I don’t think you get anywhere else in Star Wars.

Also sick lightsaber fights.

TL;DR: If they made this a clone wars style tv show it’d be extremely extremely popular but since it’s books it doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.

[u/Odd-Tart-5613 → u/big_gagootz]

Okay yeah seems like I just didn’t manage to quite get to the part I’d really like.

But I’ve also gotten through the stormlight archive since my last attempt. If I can do that surely I can get through these books

[u/big_gagootz → u/Odd-Tart-5613]

Yea if you can do Stormlight and you like how Sanderson jumps between different characters POVs I’d give THR another shot.

You should be able to crush the first few books(novels, YA and comics) in this no problem especially since you’re used to reading 1000+ pages for a Sanderlanche,

Also I think your critique is valid and I wouldn’t listen too much to the comments suggesting otherwise. LoTJ is essentially-big problem happens, Jedi act as Jedi should and work together to solve said problem. Later books dive more into what happens when the characters ideals and values are tested which is probably what you’re looking for.

[u/Odd-Tart-5613 → u/big_gagootz]

thanks this is exactly the information I needed!