Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012. Then, with a single stroke of a pen, they wiped away decades of stories. Decades of history. They called it "Legends," but for a huge portion of the fanbase, these Star Wars EU characters aren't just legends—they are the definitive versions of the galaxy far, far away.
Think about it.
You’ve got a farm boy who becomes a Jedi, sure. But in the Expanded Universe (EU), that farm boy actually has to figure out how to rebuild an entire Order from scratch without a manual. He fails. He falls to the Dark Side. He gets married. He grows old in a way that feels earned, not just reactionary. The characters in the old EU had room to breathe across hundreds of novels and comics. They weren't constrained by a two-hour movie runtime or a six-episode streaming arc. They were messy.
The Grand Admiral Problem
Let’s talk about Thrawn. Mitth'raw'nuruodo.
Honestly, he’s the gold standard for why Star Wars EU characters refuse to stay buried. Timothy Zahn introduced him in Heir to the Empire back in 1991, and the guy basically saved the franchise from fading into obscurity. He wasn't a Sith. He didn't have a red lightsaber. He was just a blue guy who liked art and was smarter than everyone else in the room.
In the current canon, Thrawn is great, but he’s a bit... neutered? In the EU, Thrawn was terrifying because he represented the Imperial machine actually working efficiently. He didn't execute his officers for minor mistakes; he encouraged them to think. That made him a much bigger threat to the New Republic than a dozen Death Stars. He was a tactician who studied a species' philosophy and aesthetics to find their psychological breaking point. It was brilliant. It was different. It’s why fans screamed when they heard his name in Rebels and Ahsoka. You can't keep a character that well-written down for long.
Mara Jade and the Complexity of the New Jedi Order
If you ask an EU fan who the most important character missing from the Disney era is, nine out of ten will say Mara Jade. She started as the Emperor's Hand. A literal assassin. Her one job? Kill Luke Skywalker.
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She didn't just join the good guys because she realized "the Empire is bad." It was a grueling, multi-decade redemption arc. She had to unlearn everything Palpatine whispered into her ear. She was cynical, prickly, and highly capable. When she and Luke finally got together, it wasn't some fairy-tale romance. It was two veterans of a galactic war finding common ground in the Force.
Mara Jade represents a level of maturity that the newer films often struggle to hit. She wasn't just a "strong female character" trope. She was a flawed woman trying to find her place in a universe that didn't want her anymore. Her eventual death at the hands of her nephew, Jacen Solo, was one of the most polarizing moments in Star Wars history. People are still mad about it on forums today. That’s the kind of emotional investment Star Wars EU characters generated. You don't get that from a character who exists solely to sell toys.
The Tragedy of the Solo Children
Speaking of Jacen Solo.
The sequel trilogy gave us Kylo Ren. He’s fine. Ben Solo has his moments. But he’s basically a Diet Coke version of Jacen Solo. In the EU, Han and Leia had three kids: Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin. They grew up. We saw them as toddlers in the Jedi Academy trilogy, then as teenagers in Young Jedi Knights, and finally as soldiers in the New Jedi Order.
When Jacen Solo fell to the Dark Side and became Darth Caedus, it hurt. It hurt because we’d spent twenty years reading about him. We saw him struggle with his pacifist ideals during the Yuuzhan Vong war. We saw him travel the galaxy to learn different Force traditions. His fall wasn't a temper tantrum; it was a slow, calculated descent born from the belief that he was the only one who could save the galaxy from a dark future. It was a tragedy in the classical sense.
And then you have Jaina Solo, the "Sword of the Jedi." She had to be the one to kill her own twin brother. Can you imagine the emotional weight of that? That’s 19 novels of buildup culminating in a duel that felt like it actually meant something for the fate of the galaxy.
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Why the Yuuzhan Vong Changed Everything
The Yuuzhan Vong are weird. People either love them or hate them. They were an extra-galactic species that used purely organic technology. No droids. No metal ships. Just living, breathing bio-tech. And they were invisible in the Force.
This forced Star Wars EU characters to adapt in ways we hadn't seen before. It wasn't just Jedi vs. Sith anymore. It was a survival horror story on a galactic scale. Chewbacca died. Sernpidal’s moon fell on him. That was the moment everyone realized the EU wasn't playing around. No one was safe.
Critics say the Vong were "too 90s edgelord," and maybe they're right. But they provided a conflict that didn't feel like a retread of the Rebellion. They forced the New Republic to crumble and the Imperial Remnant to team up with their old enemies. It was complex geo-politics (well, galacto-politics) that the movies rarely touch.
The Old Republic Heavy Hitters
We can't talk about these characters without mentioning Revan. Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) changed the game for how people viewed the Force. Revan wasn't just a hero or a villain; he was a master of both sides.
Revan represents the player’s agency, sure, but in the expanded lore, he became a symbol of the Jedi Order’s failures. The Jedi were too slow to act during the Mandalorian Wars, so Revan and Malak took matters into their own hands. It’s a recurring theme in the EU: the institution is often the problem.
Then you have Kreia (Darth Traya) from KOTOR II. She is arguably the most philosophical character in the entire franchise. She hated the Force. She saw it as a sentient parasite that used living beings as pawns in its eternal "balance." To her, the light and dark were just two sides of the same manipulative coin. That kind of meta-commentary on the Star Wars mythos is something you only get in the deep dives of the EU. It challenges the viewer to think beyond "bad guy has red sword."
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How to Actually Experience the EU Today
If you’re tired of the current trajectory of the franchise, the EU is still there. It hasn't vanished. It’s just waiting on bookshelves. Most people think they have to read everything to understand what’s going on. You don't.
- Start with the Thrawn Trilogy. Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command. This is the "true" Sequel Trilogy for many. It introduces Thrawn, Mara Jade, and the Solo twins.
- Move to the X-Wing series. Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston wrote some of the best military sci-fi out there. These books follow Wedge Antilles and Rogue Squadron. Very little Force stuff, just pilots being awesome and the gritty reality of cleaning up the Empire’s mess.
- The Darth Bane Trilogy. If you want to know why the Sith have the "Rule of Two," read these. Drew Karpyshyn (who also worked on KOTOR) makes you root for the villain in a way that’s honestly a little uncomfortable.
The Bottom Line on Legends
The term "Legends" implies these stories are just myths. But for the writers like James Luceno, Matthew Stover, and Claudia Gray (who bridges both worlds), these characters were real. They had internal lives. They suffered from PTSD. They had complicated marriages.
The Star Wars EU characters were built on the idea that the galaxy is a huge, messy place where the heroes don't always win and the villains aren't always monsters. It was a playground for writers to push the boundaries of what Star Wars could be.
If you want to dive deeper into this world, stop looking for "canon" stamps. Pick up a used copy of Traitor by Matthew Stover. Read it. You’ll see a version of the Force that is far more terrifying and beautiful than anything currently on Disney+.
Next Steps for the Aspiring EU Reader
Go to a local used bookstore. Look for the "Star Wars" section. Specifically look for the paperbacks with the gold "Legends" banner—or better yet, the original pressings without them.
Buy Heir to the Empire. Don't look at a wiki first. Don't worry about where it fits in the timeline. Just read it as a direct sequel to Return of the Jedi. You’ll find that the transition from the films to the page is seamless. Once you finish that, look into the X-Wing novels to see the "ground level" of the galactic civil war. The beauty of the EU is its interconnectedness; a minor character in one book might be the protagonist of a trilogy five years later. It’s a cohesive universe that rewards your time in a way that modern cinematic universes often fail to do.