Jacen is the oldest son of Han and Leia and younger Solo twin. He and Jaina share a very close bond, but their personalities are quite different. He was a jokester with a talent for animal empahty.
Jacen Solo like his sister has brown eyes and hair though his tends to be tousled from crawling through brush after various creatures he wants to study. He has a strong affinity for living things and loves to tell jokes. With his sister, he suffered through several kidnapping attempts which he helped foil. Jacen hung out with Jaina and their friends Tenel Ka and Lowbacca most often when training at the Jedi Academy, and the street kid Zekk on Coruscant when home.
Jacen struggled with morality of using the Force more than once. At times, he flat refused to use it. At varying periods he was a Jedi and a leader of the Galactic Alliance Guard. It perhaps made him more wary of careless use when a tragic lightsaber accident occurred when training with Tenel Ka, leading to his lightsaber cutting off her arm when hers malfunctioned.
Jacen Solo Relationships
He was very close to his twin sister Jaina. He didn’t understand his little brother Anakin, although Anakin did look up to him. While his younger brother seemed the oddest, Jacen was least like his other relatives though perhaps the one with the most empathy. At one point he was very close to his younger cousin Ben. He was very close to Tenel Ka Djo, the half Dathomiri heir to the Hapan system and had a relationship with her. He struggled some with his relationship with his father, half believing the young woman Anja Gallandro when she accused Han of murdering him. Jacen Solo has a daughter, Allana, with Tenel Ka.
Jacen Solo is Featured In:
- The Thrawn trilogy (The Last Command, birth) by Timothy Zahn (birth)
- The Crystal Star by Vonda McIntyre
- Jedi Academy Trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson
- The Corellian Trilogy (Ambush at Corellia, Assault on Selonia, Showdown at Centerpoint) by Roger Allen McBride
- Young Jedi Knights (focused primarily on Jaina Solo, her brother Jacen and friends) by Rebecca Moesta and Kevin J. Anderson
- The Crystal (short story) by Elaine Cunningham
- New Jedi Order (series, several books. Dark Journey by Elaine Cunningham is especially about her)
- Dark Nest Trilogy by Troy Denning
- Legacy of the Force (series)
- Fate of the Jedi (series)
- The Essential Guide to Characters
- The New Essential Guide to Characters
- The Essential Chronology
- The New Essential Chronology
- Jedi VS Sith the Essential Guide to the Force
Spoilers for Young Jedi Knights
Jacen Solo was involved in the take down of the attempted resurrection of Black Sun, the Second Imperium’s Shadow Academy and Nolaa Tarkona’s Diversity Alliance, which threatened to unleash deadly bio weapons on the universe.
Spoiler for New Jedi Order
Jacen Solo, like many others, suffered great loss to family and friends during the Yuuzhan Vong War. He was also captured and tortured, even being stripped of the Force for a time. He was instrumental in several critical battles including dealing with the Jedi hunting monster the Voxyn Queen and the Yuuzhan Vong leader Onimi.
Spoiler for Dark Nest
Due in part to the trauma he’d suffered in the Yuuzhan Vong War, Jacen started to insist there was no true difference between the dark side and light. While he’d formally been very careful and thoughtful about whether he should use them at all, now he pragmatically used whatever technique worked.
Spoiler for Legacy of the Force
Jacen Solo’s path now took on a tragic turn, as a ghost from his uncle and grandfather’s past returned: a living woman cyborg who had been trained by Vader. Curiousity led him to her and he dabbled in what she taught him, believing her when she said that unless he did he would surely come into conflict with Luke Skywalker, a fact confirmed by his visions he thought.He offially took the title Dark Lord of the Sith and declared himself Darth Caedus.
He began committing war crimes while serving in the Galactic alliance guard, and attempted to seduce others including Tahiri and Ben Skywalker to join him as well. He was involved in assassinations and even murdered a family member and friends. He kidnapped his own daughter, Allana, when Tenel Ka resisted his new persona, but she was rescued. Ultimately his own sister Jaina was forced to confront and kill him. His last thoughts and act though was to protect Tenel Ka and Allana from another threat.
Spoiler for Fate of the Jedi
Luke Skywalker and Ben Skywalker set out to find out why Jacen fell in this series. At a Lake of Apparitions, an unrepentant Jacen Solo claims he did what he did to save his daughter from a vision where she was at the side of a Sith Lord (Darth Krayt).
Jacen Solo Continuity and Lore:
Jacen’s character until Legacy of the Force, with a strong empathy for animals and joking around, stays true up to New Jedi Order.
There was no evidence of Jacen’s altering course and dismissing the Jedi view of light/dark sides in NJO. His later actions post NJO have a devastating effect on the future. That said there are contradictory reasons given for them in Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi.
