5 Star Wars Legends Characters That Are Better Than Anything in Disney’s Canon

Star Wars has changed a lot since Disney took ownership of the franchise. The old Expanded Universe was de-canonized and is now known as Star Wars Legends. This move angered a lot of Star Wars fans, as “Legends” was a beloved part of the Star Wars experience for several decades. Many fans loved the characters they were introduced to in the books, comics, video games, and TTRPGs that told the story of the Expanded Universe.

There are many Star Wars characters that fans want to see in live-action, and some of them come from Legends. However, many fans don’t want their Legends favorites to be brought into canon. There are a variety of reasons (legality), but one of the biggest is the simplest – these characters are just too good for the current canon. Legends introduced some amazing characters, and some of them are better than anything that Disney’s canon has introduced.

Mara Jade-Skywalker

Mara Jade was introduced in the novel Star Wars: Heir to the Empire. This book kicked off author Timothy Zahn’s trilogy of bestselling books that introduced Grand Admiral Thrawn to Star Wars fans. Jade was the other major character introduced, and she quickly became a favorite. The former Emperor Hand – a Force-sensitive assassin trained by Palpatine – had quite an arc, making peace with her Imperial past and her hatred Luke Skywalker, training as a Jedi, and eventually marrying Luke. The two had a son, and she became his second-in-command before she was killed by Jacen Solo, Leia and Han’s son who was on the path of the Sith.

Many fans wanted Mara Jade in canon, but at this point, there’s no way Disney would be able to do her justice. Mara’s growth as a character, which is why many fans love her so much, came from her relationship with Luke, Leia, and Han. While there is a lot about the post-Battle of Endor continuity that fans don’t know, Mara doesn’t really fit into this world. There would be no way to make her character arc work, which would just make any adaptation of her into a pale imitation. That’s been a big problem with adapting Zahn’s character – Thrawn in canon is nowhere near as great as the original unless he’s being written by Zahn. Disney hasn’t shown that it can handle a character as complex as Mara, so she can stay in Legends.

Talon Karrde

Talon Karrde is another character introduced in Heir to the Empire. The best way to describe Karrde is that he is what Han Solo could have been if Solo was actually successful and more self-centered. Karrde was a brilliant smuggler and betrayed his mentor Jorj Car’das, in order to steal Car’das’s smuggling empire. Karrde also did his best to stay neutral like Han did, working both sides of the war between the New Republic and the Empire. He soon threw in with the heroes, realizing the Empire wasn’t going to allow him any freedom, helping the New Republic in their wars in the decades to come.

Star Wars is full of scoundrels, but the Disney canon hasn’t really done a good job of making them work, with the only one actually working being Jod Na Nawood in Skeleton Crew. Karrde is a character that needs a certain balance; he’s a criminal at heart, even when he’s legit. This is hard to do and Disney hasn’t been able to pull it off yet. Karrde is also a very shrewd character, and Disney really hasn’t done smart characters very well at all. This is the biggest problem with another smart Zahn character that was brought into canon, Thrawn. Karrde and Thrawn are characters who are constantly outsmarting the people around them, and a dumbed-down Karrde wouldn’t really work, so it’s best that he never joins this new canon.

Jacen Solo

Jacen Solo was introduced in Star Wars: The Last Command, the last part of Timothy Zahn’s trilogy of books. Fans got to watch Jacen grow up, and he co-starred in the Young Jedi Knights series of books, written by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta, with his twin sister Jaina. Jacen would come into his own as a character in the 19-book series The New Jedi Order, The Dark Nest trilogy, and the nine-book series Legacy of the Force. Jacen was set up as the next great hero, but his study of the Force and high power level led him to the dark side. Jacen was able to take over the galaxy as a Sith Lord for a short time before Jaina stopped his reign.

Related: Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’s Jod May Be A Game-Changing Character for the Franchise

Jacen is one of the most fully realized characters in Legends. Disney did try to do their own version of Jacen – Kylo Ren – and failed miserably. Jacen’s rise and fall was a delicate balancing act. His fall to darkness was born of his life of conflict and his pacifistic ways being challenged by the bloody realities of life. It’s done with subtlety, and Disney has shown that it’s as subtle as a shotgun blast. Kylo Ren is something of a failure as a character and is much, much simpler than Jacen. If Disney couldn’t get him right, then there is no way they could have gotten Jacen right.

Darth Bane

Darth Bane first appeared in the short story “Bane of the Sith” from the magazine Star Wars Gamer, which focused on the Star Wars TTRPG. Bane’s story would be fleshed out in the comic series Jedi vs. Sith and he would later star in his own trilogy of novels by Drew Karpshyn, who was one of the architects of the game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Bane was trained by the Sith Brotherhood but concluded that the dark side shouldn’t be shared among so many. He began to study the ancient Sith and used powerful Sith sorcery to destroy both the Sith Brotherhood and the Jedi Army of Light on the planet Ruusan. Bane would go on to create the Rule of Two, changing the Sith forever and leading to the Empire a millennium later.

Technically, Bane is canon, but the canon version has no history so far other than being the founder of the Rule of Two. Bane’s story in Legends is one of the best and Disney simply hasn’t shown that they can pull that kind of quality off. Much of that comes from author Drew Karpshyn. Karpshyn has proven himself as one of the best Star Wars creators out there. His Bane trilogy went into detail on the character, creating the best parts. While Lucasfilm has employed some great writers, so far they haven’t really shown that they’d be able to make Bane work as well as Legends did.

Kyp Durron

Kyp Durron first appeared in Jedi Search, the beginning of the Jedi Academy trilogy from author Kevin J. Anderson. Kyp was a prisoner on Kessel who helped Han and Chewbacca escape. Luke discovered that he was a powerful Force-sensitive, and brought him to his Jedi praxeum on Yavin IV, where he ran afoul of the ancient Sith spirit Exar Kun. Kyp fell to the dark side, stole a sun-destroying superweapon, committed genocide, and was eventually redeemed. He became a Jedi Master and agitated against Luke during the Yuuzhan Vong War from The New Jedi Order series. However, Kyp would grow up during the war and join the Jedi Council, becoming one of Luke’s most trusted Jedi.

Kyp’s arc took years to come to fruition. He grew from a broken kid to a powerful Jedi Master who had come to terms with the pain that drove him to evil for a short time. He was also superlatively powerful, with Force potential that even outpaced that of Luke himself. Disney has introduced many powerful Star Wars characters, so Kyp’s power level isn’t a problem. However, good story arcs are actually pretty few and far between. A character arc like Kyp’s is beyond the current canon.