Lit (certain type of villain) of the week

The only thing that SW Legacy could ostensibly do to inhibit Fate of the Jedi or stories beyond it are prevent another war on the scale of the Yuuzhan Vong War, as it would not make sense for SW Legacy to show the repercussions of that conflict but not the later one.

That said, given that Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi ignore the Yuuzhan Vong War, if they were to write an equally massive war that SW Legacy didn't acknowledge, it would be par for the course! So really it changes nothing.

 

FOTJ suffers from a lot more than just having Legacy to deal with. A new group of Sith, Daala, no resolution to the 2nd Galactic Civil War, A spiritual being or whatever Abeloth was and Sith taking over the GA again etc.

 

Fate of the Jedi suffers from the fact that it had no plot. Its primary antagonist exists just to be an antagonist. Her backstory is irrelevant to the plot.

Wouldn't the series have been more interesting if the stuff we're told in infodump at the end, sending Jedi Knights to search for Mortis, was the actual content of the books? And the antagonist is dealt with in a conclusive way after finding the dagger? Nope, who Abeloth is and her motivations are irrelevant, she's a force of nature that Luke just beats up until she disappears. All that other stuff is irrelevant infodump that's there so people don't realize they've been reading Allston, Golden, and Denning spin their wheels for the past two years.

 

That too. The Mortis stuff should have been introduced a couple books earlier and Abeloth should not have even gotten to Coruscant. Abeloth was just there. Luke and her just fought and fought. Retread that every book with Sith interference sprinkled throughout. LOTF was way better though I did love the Slave arc and the scenes with Raynar.

 

Yeah, Legacy being further down the timeline than FotJ doesn't excuse FotJ's quality, or rather lack of quality. Yes, Legacy confirms the galaxy doesn't end during FotJ, of course they won't destroy the galaxy. Maybe Legacy limits the novels in terms of how many planets they can blow up, but that's no excuse for horribly written series like LotF and FotJ.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think there was an interview where they said they added the Mortis link halfway through the series... so either they didn't have a conclusion planned when they started writing the series, or just changed it halfway through, and either way, that's not how a story should be written. And not like Mortis affected the final battle that much anyway since it came down to Luke and Krayt punching Abeloth until she ran away (again).

I know people got tired of Imp warlord of the week but I liked it in terms of showing the Empire falling apart after Palpatine's death(s). The Vong were essentially a giant alien warlord of the week stretched out for 20 books.

You know what I really do not want to see again? The galactic government being corrupt/evil again. Half the time during the NJO series the heroes were busy trying to convince the New Republic to do something. In LotF and FotJ the GA got taken over by Sith twice, and before that, for most of FotJ Daala was in charge which was... a farce, at best. I don't want to see that again. Though not sure what they could do next, short of zombies or vampires (those are still popular, right?). They'll probably follow the sequels' trend once the ST gets started.

 

1. In the Bantam days, people were more tired of superweapons than anything else.
2. How were the Vong a warlord of the week in any way?

 

Well, you get the progression of Da'Gara to Shedao Shai to Tsavong Lah. It's not a perfect example but you can see the idea. The trend gets bucked a bit because of Nom Anor. But, for a while anyway, the heroes faced a progression of increasingly dreaded warmasters.

 

A number of NJO novels, particularly many of the paperbacks in the middle, boil down to 'confront Yuuzhan Vong/Yuuzhan Vong Ally threat X even though it has no real relevance to galactic conquest as a whole' likewise portions of the hardcovers, such as the entire Mission to Myrkr, fall under this category. Essentially there is a not inconsiderable quantity of padding within the NJO that has only a modest relevance to the overall storyline of the invasion

 

More like Republic general of the week, going from Lando to Kre'fay to Sovv to Antilles to Ackbar etc.

 

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But.... but... but... Trandoshans are not evil

Most of it is not what I would consider padding, the NJO in general always seemed to make a point of seeing how different people deal with the War, sure it pads out the story, but not really in a bad way, as it just helped to show that the war was really happening on a larger scale.

 

I think you've accidentally attributed Force Smuggler's quote to me:

 

It was just an idea.

 

Sorry, was just getting ready to go to the cinema.

 

TOR copies the OT so much that I wouldn't have been surprised if Alderaan got destroyed during the events of TOR and Alderaan from the movies was retconned into being New Alderaan.

 

TOR pastiches the film saga into a giant blend in which any appealing feature from every film is available in the same setting.

 

And yet, I enjoy the setting considerably. Tangential to the topic, I know but setting aside, there's actually good writing to be found. Alexander Freed's one of the best additions to the EU in years, for instance.

TOR definitely has the issue of playing into the Sith of the Week format rather strongly but I think the Old Sith Empire works better than, say, the Lost Tribe (outside of JJM's work with it). If only because there's a modicum of diversity to the Sith in terms of personality, philosophy, etc. There's a marked difference between someone like Darth Jadus and Thanaton, as example. Jadus probably being one of the most compelling of recent Sith besides Daiman.

That's a shame too. If anything was going to continue to give us a "Sith of the Week" format that worked, it was Knight Errant. And TOR's sort of stuck with the Dread Masters for a while so it can't quite give us a much diversity in Sith at the moment.

Also, if I had a quarter for every time you've managed the word pastiche lately, LivingJediDream, I'd be able to buy at least two or three games from the Steam Summer Sale by now.

 

Well, if it works...

 

What happened to Knight Errant, anyway?

 

By this time last year we knew it was ending once Escape concluded. Why? Sales, perhaps, but that's not the biggest thing, I'd say. I don't know the timeframe of when JJM got the go ahead on Kenobi but that probably was the singular factor that affected Knight Errant.

The better question is less what happened to Knight Errant and more "What happened to Daiman/Arkadia/etc..?" So much left untold that out imaginations can only come up with wild adventures. Either that or massive infighting screwed them over. But that's so boring an answer.

 

In TOR the overarching villain is the Old Sith Empire as a single entity, all the various Sith in the game are effectively agents of it, and qualify as minions rather than villains. The exception being the lead antagonists of the individual class stories (Baras, Jadus, Thanaton, and so forth) and Darth Malgus, who is the lead antagonist of the Flashpoint meta-story.

So while any given TOR protagonist (including the Imperial ones) will defeat any number of 'Sith' on their road to glory, it is all in the service of a single larger goal. That's different than a 'villain of the week' where a new enemy that is generally disconnected from the previous one keeps showing up.

 

I've never been one for the type of pedantry you enjoy.

Sith Emperor to Malgus to Dread Masters. Connected? In the vaguest of origins but not really in allegiance once you get down to it. Tossed in sequence from one to the next? Check. Act III Knight occurs and, like everyone, it becomes "This week, Malgus the Betrayer!" and then the Dread Masters line kicks in from Karagga onwards and hasn't stopped. Denova, Asation, Darvannis. All have been chess plays by the Masters. Oricon's upcoming too and it's the same deal.

Once their done with, we're unlikely to get another Hutt distraction. It'll be some other, new unifying threat most likely. Likely a Sith. One which threatens both factions again. And remember this is "Sith of the week", not quite the same, strictly speaking as "Villain of the week". The general perquisite here is "Is there a Sith threat currently? Yes. Is the next threat a Sith? Yes." Tiny in terms of the meta narrative of the whole EU, in which we concern ourselves with individual Sith orders? Sure. But applicable on the small scale? Certainly.

Otherwise, Knight Errant'd be out of luck too because the Sith there are all related the Vilia. But that's still very much: "This week, Odion!" or "This issue, Daiman!". Insert old timey voice for greatest effect. Black and white or sepia filter optional.

 

Insert Tom Kane narration.

 

Which makes it "Sith Empire minion of the week".

 

The initial assertion was that 'villain of the week' as a mode of storytelling across separate works is a negative phenomenon because it produces undue repetition, making all storylines seem the same.

Thus Isard in X-wing, Zsinj in Courtship of Princess Leia, Thrawn in TTT, Daala in JAT, Daala again in Darksaber, and Hethrir in Crystal Star would all be Imperials fitting that pattern. Likewise, post-NJO Lomi Plo in DNT, Alema Rar/Lumiya/Jacen in LotF, and the Lost Tribe in FotJ are repeating the same pattern only with Sith.

Do the various Sith of Knight Errant or TOR fit this pattern? It depends on how you view the story. If Knight Errant is a single story - the tale of Kerra Holt, then no, they really don't, instead their interconnection is a strength. Similarly in TOR, the various Sith who occur on the different planets during the main storyline are all part of a much greater entity, so the fact that say Darth Lachris and Darth Serevin serve the same Empire enhances rather than distracts from the story.

The post-game elements, when the story switches to what is effectively a new series of narratives, do hold 'villain of the week' elements in the there's a switch from Malgus to the Dread Masters and whatever will follow them (though the Hutt business arguably occurs in between, the timeline being somewhat confusing), though if you include the Rahkghoul outbreak and Directive 7 then there's plenty of non-Sith related events also happening in that phase.

 

Is anyone here familiar with Harry Hill's TV Burp? Because the phrase "Imperial Warlord of the Week" becomes extremely funny if you are.