Lit A question on Karen Traviss and her work(s)

beccatoria -- Traviss's take on Altis's sect is not abysmal, but they're a bunch of Jedi who allow family and are all about hanging out with the common people and serving them and self-righteously bitching about how the Jedi are Traviss's heartless elitist strawmen. What's objectionable is not so much their beliefs as the way they're used as a soapboxing bludgeon.

 

That's what I meant in my comment - Altis and co are merely there as sledgehammers against the Jedi Traviss don't like - wouldn't it be far more satisfied to be like the Corellian Jedi - they are different, acknowledge the difference, but there is a mutual respect for each other?

And what, Kina Ha was just upset at what mean old Yoda had done to the Jedi? Was she pining for the days of the Jedi Lords? For the decisions of the Old Sith Wars? Well, we don't know, because what Kina Ha seems to be saying is that Jedi shouldn't follow the will of the Force above all...even though that's been their whole reason for existence from day 1.

 

As far as Scout - again, the alternative - having her killed by Anakin at the Temple - isn't exactly a happy ending. And it could've also been Yoda - who saw that Scout deserved to be somewhere far away from battlefields and killings - that sent her off there. Scout may have thought it was a punishment or a dead end, although that's a disservice to those who did join the Service Corps... and as the Jedi Path indicated, she wouldn't have been stripped of her Padawan status. If the Jedi Order hadn't been destroyed, she could've gone on to be a Knight or Master.

If someone like Obi-Wan or Mace had been lectured by the Mandos, yeah, that would've annoyed me. But all the "Jedi" showing up in the series were so atypical of the Jedi in general, that their take on the Order didn't matter.

 

I still think it would have been a neater retcon to simply include Altis as a(n offshoot of the) Corellian Jedi. But I'm glad to hear that it's not the fundamental idea behind Altis' group that's the problem. Though I am now back to being in the weird position of sort of wishing IC2 had happened so that Scout's position with him was confirmed - as is, I believe she's still with the Mandos? I doubt anyone else will pick up her story, though I do hope they will.

As regards the alternative of her getting killed at the Temple? I don't actually think that is the alternative. I mean, she escapes Order 66 anyway. Maybe she has an edge in doing so because of wherever it is she is, but...it's fiction, she could have been offplanet anyway and the one strong Force talent she does have is flashes of precognition in combat situations. It would be perfectly in keeping with that for her to have managed to survive the initial assault because of that and survive long enough to get picked up by the Mandos again in similar circumstances.

Anyway, at least there are possible retcons available.

 

Main problem with "offshoot of the Corellian Jedi" is that we find out in Jedi Trial that Halcyon, the present-day representative of them- is very much a member of the mainstream Order- which is why he has to keep his marriage a secret.

 

Authorial intentions has nothing regarding talent. Write right you love is a nice maxim for the beginning writer, but passion for a topic does not correlate to writing competence.

 

That can be argued. I do not believe that an authors love for their work directly correlates to the quality of the work they produce. That said, many things that do directly correlate to quality writing in a shared universe- consistent and compelling characterization, an understanding of the universe- often come from, if not a love, than an appreciation of the universe.

One can easily do a good job of something they do not enjoy. This is less common, however, when it comes to really any kind of art. Sure, you get some musicians who say that they grow to hate their own instruments, but you will very rarely meet a musician who does not love music. With literature, it can be argued that many writers do prefer to take a cold, dispassionate approach to the craft. "Characters are to be approached as tools, not children". Even so, I would again argue that no sane author carries no affection for their own creations. Indeed, "passion" does not make good books, as passion has a way of often falling on its face. However, knowledge does, and knowledge, particularly of a fictional world, so often comes from passion. When you get an author who truly carries no respect for the genre in which they write... you get Terry Goodkind. And even he likes his own stuff.

Even for Karen Traviss, I would say it's inaccurate to claim that she hates the universe that she writes in. She obviously really enjoys writing clones, and especially Mandalorians. In her case, she found a piece of the universe she really enjoyed, even if she did not care for the rest. Just think if Traviss had hated the Mandalorians as much as the Jedi. Her books might have been quite unpleasant.

 

The problem is not that she dislikes Jedi. The problem is she can't even understand them as characters, and showed no ability to get inside their head. So even as antagonists they come across as shallow in her books.

Compare to Michael Reaves in Shadow Hunter - the Jedi Order was an antagonist to Lorn Pavan, yet you know that despite Pavan's opinion, Reaves understands Jedi and their motivations. They're not cardboard villains only suitable for going "Booooo!" at.

 

Well, she doesn't really like Mandalorians, though. Over her Star Wars corpus, she completely retconned, ignored or just plain overrode almost every bit pre-established Mandalorian lore. Abel's History of the Mandalorians article? Essentially invalidated. Non-human Mandalorians? Never even referenced. Her Klingalorian language? Doesn't incorporate any of the few pre-existing bits of the Mandalorian language. Slave I being destroyed? No explanation given for how Fett got it back. The Mandalorians working for the Vong? Gets changed into a big bait-and-switch, because of course the Mandalorians can't be villains. Mandalore as depicted in Marvel? She changes the spelling of a few places, and turns the City of Bone into an amusement park, all so her precious Mandalorians can laugh at the silly Empire that thought they could dare occupy Mandalore.

Traviss doesn't like Mandalorians, she likes the culture she created and appropriated the name Mandalorian to. And as soon as a higher-up changed her precious Mandalorians the way she had done to the earlier Mandalorians, she was out, on to Halo and Gears of War where she could do the same sort of pet mythologizing to yet more stereotypical uber-warrior characters/clone-trooper analogs.

 

Aside from the issues with Spar, nothing from the History of the Mandalorians article was invalidated.

Non-human Mandalorians are referenced numerous times across the Republic Commando series and her Legacy of the Force entries, with one of the more forward examples coming from Sacrifice, where a Togorian Mando and Mandallian Mando are among the clan leaders assembled for the meeting with Boba Fett near the beginning of the novel.

Which bits would those be? The confused ramblings of Sasha ot Sulem from Knights of the Old Republic? Even Revan, who was familiar with the Mandalorian language, can state that he doesn't understand what she's saying. Therefore, it seems rather obvious that it isn't Mandalorian.

During Bloodlines, Boba specifically mentions that the pilot seat is the only remaining part of Slave I that's original. How did he get it back? He rebuilt it, because of the sentimental attachment he had to his father's ship.

The Mandalorians still do work for the Vong, the circumstances are merely elaborated upon. No different than the alternative points of view offered by other novels such as Darth Plagueis.

Keldabe is the only spelling change from the Marvel comics, and while the change to the City of Bone admittedly came out of left field, it changes nothing in regards to the events that later take place there.

 

When was Slave I destroyed? IIRC, the last time it showed up before LOTF was in DE2 when it was damaged by the Millennium Falcon's lightning gun. Afterward Fett just switched to Slave III and IV. It's still lame, though. Hey remember when Boba Fett was his own character for over 20 years and wasn't constantly obsessing over his decades-dead father?

Not sure this should count because that story was Infinities.

Ailyn Vel was essentially invalidated by being immediately killed off and replaced by the author's own daughter figure for Boba Fett.

The Cestus Deception had previously established that the Mandalorian word for brother is tat, hence the ARC trooper in that book taking the name Jangotat. The RC books used the word vod instead. They also completely ignored the GAR culture and customs established in TCD in favor of just turning all the clone troopers to pseudo-Mandalorians, which is infinitely less interesting to me than what Steven Barnes had already done with them.

 

It was canon

 

Having originally read The Cestus Deception before getting into the Republic Commando series, I can honestly say that nothing in there was contradicted when it comes to the clones because they were so very wooden the majority of the time, that there was simply nothing to contradict. The only stand out was Nate, or Jangotat, and he was, himself, a contradiction in regard to what an ARC trooper was and their own lore when viewed alongside the Republic comics where they debuted. The Cestus Deception went off in an odd direction with how the clones were supposedly trained and apparently overlooked the fact that ARCs weren't even deployed into the war until the Battle of Kamino.

As far as the tat issue, you're right, and I did overlook that. The retcon establishing that it's part of the Concordian dialect of Mando'a—thus allowing both The Cestus Deception and the Republic Commando novels to be correct—just seemed like such a natural idea, I forgot about that entirely.

That's your opinion. I can't argue with that, because you're entitled to that. However, there was no factual discrepancy between Ailyn's entry in The History of the Mandalorians and when she appears in Legacy of the Force.

 

I don't think Star Wars Tales had switched to in-continuity stories yet when it came out. It doesn't fit anyway because Han never met Fett between "The Last One Standing" and The Unifying Force.

 

Reverents was referenced elsewhere as canon in the factfile and Essential guide to weapons

 

The Republic Commando Video Game introduced the Vode An, Brothers All. I suspect this is where the vod came from and while I know Karen did some work with the game I don't know that we can definitively point fingers here.

As for pseudo Mandalorians the books were pretty clear that only groups of Clone Troopers trained by Mandalorian instructors were culturally indoctrinated. It even shows clone troopers that dislike the Mandalorian trained troopers. In fact in IC we even meet Commando's trained by Corellian instructors that have no Mandalorian background at all.

 

Jesse Harlin, the composer for Republic Commando, created the foundation for the language Karen Traviss created, Mando'a, when he created Vode An and the other Mandalorian songs from the game.

 

I would call that a pretty big contradiction in and of itself.

Mostly though, the one thing that pretty much all the otherwise contradictory sources of Mandolorian history agreed upon was that Mandolorian warrior culture was pretty much defunct and it was a fairly normal, backwater human planet by the time of the original series. Travis basically says they are there and could kick lots of ass, but they just don't feel like it.

Like fricken' elves man. Elves!

Honestly it makes me wonder why so many people are trying to preserve said clans from the TCW version when the TCW pretty much just returned it to its status quo. Though, I suppose Travis' version being the odd one out matters less when it is the only version most people are familiar with.

In all fairness, most languages have multiple words with the same meaning. Given Mandolorian culture, having many words for "brother" feels very appropriate.

To be honest I never understood this complaint. Even within the books themselves I always got the impression that the Mando cultured clones were the odd ones out, distrusted and disliked by their peers.

 

Well, Lucas threw out the entire Abel article - and no, he doesn't get a "pass", especially since he was made aware all the previously established Mando material.

In any case, Wallace & Fry have made an excellent job making it all work in the Atlas and Guide to Warfare.

I got the same impression. IIRC, there was a scene in one of the books where some regular troopers were talking about how they thought it was ridiculous.

 

Lucas has always seen the Mandalorians as a long dead warrior culture, and he is doing everything possible to ensure that is all they will ever be.

I respect Wallace and Fry, I really do, but the way I see it, what they are trying to do is a lost cause, because TCW is clearly meant to take center stage, so everything that came before it will lose its original meaning.

 

Sure does echo in here doesn't it?

 

No, he didn't.

 

Do you have anything to back that assertion?

 

Assuming the writer of the ESB novelization was getting his info from Lucas- the original concept was "evil warriors defeated by Jedi during clone wars"

So- not exactly long-dead.

 

"Creating Mandalore".

That's also present in TESB sketchbook.