The Star Wars Legends timeline – no longer canon since the Disney acquisition – focuses largely on the three children of Han and Leia, their escapades, and eventually, their deaths. Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin Solo all play a major role in the old Expanded Universe, particularly during the age of the New Jedi Order and the war against the Yuuzhan Vong. While their stories weren’t directly adapted into the Disney sequel trilogy, the original Solos’ stories are in some ways even more tragic than Kylo Ren’s.
In Star Wars Legends, Han and Leia get married after the end of the first Galactic Civil War. They have three children together – twins Jacen and Jaina, and son Anakin born a year and a half later. All three were immensely gifted in the Force (expected given their Skywalker heritage), and all three trained as Jedi under their uncle, Luke Skywalker. The Solos became central figures in Luke’s New Jedi Order and the numerous galactic conflicts that followed its creation.
In their adulthood, the Solos became increasingly central to the core stories of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. They all fought in the war against the Yuuzhan Vong, an invading race of extragalactic conquerors, and played major roles in the shaping of the Star Wars universe in the wake of the Empire’s fall. Being Skywalkers and strong Force users, however, they also fell victim to tragedies, betrayals, heavy burdens, and the ever-present allure of the Dark Side. And eventually, all three of them died. These are the stories of how.
How Anakin Solo Dies
Despite being the youngest of Han and Leia’s children, Anakin Solo was arguably the fiercest fighter and greatest leader of the three during the Yuuzhan Vong War. He fought bravely in some of the war’s biggest campaigns, and his contributions in strategy, as well as combat, helped turn the tide in several instances. Then the Vong started targeting Jedi specifically.
Later in the war, the Yuuzhan Vong employed the use of creatures called Voxyn, which could track down Jedi through the Force. The Voxyn began assassinating Jedi across the galaxy, prompting Anakin to propose a dangerous strike mission to kill the Voxyn queen on the planet Myrkr. The team, which was ultimately successful in its mission, also included Anakin’s brother and sister. During the raid, after already being badly wounded, Anakin fought off a hoard of Yuuzhan Vong while the rest of the team escaped. He took down numerous attackers in an impressive display of raw Force power, but in the end, he was overwhelmed and killed.
According to some writers of the New Jedi Order series, Anakin was intended to be the main protagonist of the ensuing era of Star Wars fiction. Those plans were apparently cut short, however, by the prequel films’ own focus on a main character named Anakin, which partially led to Solo’s death in the novel Star by Star. He remains one of the most beloved characters from the greater Legends lore, and his impact is felt through the following stories even after his death.
How Jacen Solo Dies
Of all the Legends Solo children, Jacen is the one who most closely resembles Kylo Ren. His arc through the Expanded Universe is long, complicated, and ultimately tragic. His story is complex, but here are the major beats. Growing up, Jacen was innately gifted in the Force, eventually being apprenticed to Master Luke Skywalker. He was a thoughtful and considerate youth, preferring the spiritual ways of the Jedi to their role as occasionally violent peacekeepers.
This perspective began to evolve during the conflict with the Yuuzhan Vong, and especially after the death of Jacen’s brother, Anakin. In the wake of the war, Jacen became inactive in the Jedi, traveling the galaxy in search of other Force-related sects and philosophies. This wandering led Jacen to learn a method of seeing the future, an ability that would partially lead to his demise. Increasingly obsessed with his visions, Jacen began to embrace a different perspective on galactic peace. Sacrifices, and occasionally violence, were necessary to ensure greater peace and order on a galactic scale, according to him. Through a series of deceptions, coups, and secret plots, Jacen grew more and more powerful in the dark side and in galactic politics, eventually becoming the Sith Lord Darth Caedus and killing Luke Skywalker’s wife, Mara Jade.
In the end, Jacen’s descent led to a duel with his own sister, Jaina. The two fought a fierce battle across his own Star Destroyer (named for his brother, the Anakin Solo), but Darth Caedus was doomed from the start. He was still recovering from severe wounds incurred in previous battles with Jaina, Luke Skywalker, and Luke’s son, Ben, and therefore couldn’t compete with his sister’s power. Presented with the option to kill her in his final moments, Caedus opted not to, briefly escaping the dark side's influence before dying at Jaina’s hand.
How Jaina Solo Dies
Unlike her brothers, Jaina Solo has a relatively happy ending to her story. Despite flirtations with the dark side in the wake of her brother Anakin’s tragic death, Jaina never turned to the ways of the Sith. She was an exceptional pilot like her father and an excellent swordsman, dubbed the “Sword of the Jedi” by her uncle Luke. Like her brothers, Jaina fought valiantly in the Yuuzhan Vong Wars, and the ensuing galactic conflicts as well. And though her killing of her brother Jacen was tragic in its twisted irony, it also helped restore peace to the galaxy.
At the end of her Legends arc, Jaina is alive and well. She marries her longtime lover Jagged Fel, becomes a Jedi Master, and even ascends to the ranks of the Jedi High Council. While Jaina’s own death is not detailed “on screen,” the continuation of the Fel line into the era of Darth Krayt nearly a century later is evidence of her extended life post-marriage. Hopefully, Jaina was able to live peacefully in her later years until reaching a natural death. At least somebody in Star Wars Legends deserves to meet a painless end.