When I have thumbed through LOTF and FOTJ in the, I have cringed at the way that Luke has been written. I'm not so much against his dying. The way that he is written now would not really draw a person in sympathy to his death as a heroic "last stand" would. And face it, would a "self-centered, pretentious, control-freak" sacrifice his own life for the "greater good". Let's see the logic in that. What I see is either two ways:
1) Luke continues to descend in this "I don't care anymore about anyone, I'll use the Force the way I want to...to hell with anyone else's ideas...and I'll make sure that I use whoever I need to to get what I want" character-death-spiral...and make sure that he plants face-first self-destructively...in context...OR...
2) Luke has a "defining moment" where he realizes what he has become...recoils in horror...makes a shift in his thinking...and then BLAMMO! Gets wiped out in a heroic last-stand. That may make his character more sympathetic to fans who have seen him spiral into a "self-centered control-freak POS" character since the LOTF&FOTJ series after Mara's death.
Which sounds better to you?
I also agree that since Mara's death, there has been a void for a strong female character in the Star Wars universe. Jaina so far has been written completely wrong in terms of her vascillating between strong and weak n'unsure. They need to figure out the fact that fans are hankering for a strong female character. Mara was one that stood on equal footing with Luke for most of the New Republic series, tough, unwielding and able to trade taunts with Luke. Certainly she mellowed out in the NJO series, but that I believe was mostly due to certain authors getting roses in their eyes with the Luke/Mara matchup and wedding hangover. I still think that Mara would not have gone out the way that she did with Jacen "getting the drop" on her. She was too much of a bad-@$$ bitch to go down the way she did. There's just too much spitfire in her for her to go soft enough to lose her "assassin" skills.
As far as I'm concerned, the NJO and subsequent series is pretty much a BAD hangover and hallucination, not to mention anything not written by Michael Stackpole or Tim Zahn.
If I was still writing fan-fiction (which I probably will never go back to) I'd even go so far as to quote one of my favorite Mythbusters and all around tech and sci-fi geek: Adam Savage when he says: "I reject your reality and substitute my own". That's exactly how I feel about Mara Jade's death and Luke's downward spiral.
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