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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit Apropos of Nothing - ACKBAR IN CAPITALS - The Lit Forum Social Thread, v2.0.15

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Master_Keralys, Jan 1, 2009.

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  1. tjace

    tjace Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 11, 2008
    Another great thing I noticed is that Han is not just General Solo, not just stay-at-home dad/husband, but both. When he puts on the uniform, he reminds me of his appearance in Solo Command, which is my favorite portrayal of him.

    Also, it's been a while since I last read Tyrant's Test, but it is impossible to say it drops the ball when it has the Wookiee rescue mission.
     
  2. The2ndQuest

    The2ndQuest Tri-Mod With a Mouth star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    Here lies good ol' Fred-a great big rock fell on his head.
     
  3. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

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    Nov 28, 2000
    I hated BFC as a kid, so odds are I'll probably like it now. :p I read the beginning of BtS earlier -- bought the series for my kindle -- and enjoyed it well enough. Heck, I'll probably like the Han and Lando books too b/c I also hated those as a kid.
     
  4. Arrian

    Arrian Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 15, 2011
    Leia's political struggles are nuanced and believable, which is a breath of fresh air. In a universal democracy,things aren't going to go the way the President wants all the time, are they? I like how many new senators, bureaucrats and military personnel appear in that trilogy. It really gives the New Republic life and character, and is a good move away from having the Big Three (Four?) do everything. I like how Leia gets impeached. Also: K-Wings and the Security Council.

    Edit: and, for the first time in a very long time, I am going in spoiler-free to a Star Wars novel. I normally don't go out of my way to see spoilers, and the same in reverse. However, the praise Kenobi has received has convinced me to pre-order it, and to avoid any spoilers. My copy is on its way -- I can't wait.
     
  5. jSarek

    jSarek VIP star 4 VIP

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2005
    Obi-wan is in it. He's on Tatooine.

    SPOILED YOU!
     
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  6. Bib Fartuna

    Bib Fartuna Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 4, 2012
    It's too bad Nil Spar and Ziro the Hutt didn't survive into the Yuuzhan Vong war.

    "None shall pass Nil, except Ziro!"

    Ganner sure did carry the one (Jacen Solo) in the above equation.
     
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  7. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    Obi-Wan is dead.



    ...from a certain point of view.
     
  8. Lugija

    Lugija Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2009
    Why can't we just invent teleportation so I can get the book now?
    Tell me there's a whole chapter where Obi-Wan does something and in the end goes "No, I lied. I never did any of that".
     
  9. Bib Fartuna

    Bib Fartuna Jedi Knight star 4

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    Nov 4, 2012
    Obi-Wan was always dead. The Force Ghost is the real Obi-Wan, the 'alive' version is just a cover. Similar to how Bruce Wayne is just a cover, for the real personality, Batman.
     
  10. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    There is.


    Of course, I could be channeling Kenobi and lying through my teeth. You never know.
     
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  11. Lugija

    Lugija Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2009
    Are you drunk enough to channel Kenobi?
     
  12. Bib Fartuna

    Bib Fartuna Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 4, 2012
    Did his character defect increase when he was a force-ghost? Lying through his teeth would have been a lot easier...
     
  13. krtmd

    krtmd Jedi Master star 4

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    Sep 5, 2012
    Ok, this is hilarious. Could be spoiler-y if you haven't read through A Feast for Crows.
     
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  14. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    Thrawn and Zsinj are better. No one else is. Spaar is incredible. He's cunning, vicious, he plays politics with the NR, he's got a whole badass/crazy culture standing behind him -- he's a real villain. There's no way Tavira can compare to that.

    And that's the thing with the beating -- he's a great politician, adept at playing the NR -- until the NR reveals that it is refusing to be played, and it's going to go to war with him anyway, and he gets so furious that his innate brutality and viciousness takes over and he tries the direct tack, the Yevethan way -- a hard, cold message of "Don't mess with me." It's a logically precipitated change that reinforces the fact that, as the NR gears up for war with him, he won't be just a cunning political enemy -- he will be a vicious, brutal martial enemy as well, if that's the mode the NR is in.

    Besides, it's just one of the greatest villain scenes ever.


    For once, there was no craft or subtlety in a transmission from Nil Spaar -- and for once, there was absolute silence in the conference room.

    Leia watched it with her arms wrapped tight against her body, one hand covering her mouth. When it was over, she left the room, her face white, her eyes dead.

    Ackbar was little better off, despite having looked away through the worst of it. Alole was weeping silently, fat tears painting her round cheeks. Behn-Kihl-Nahm wore a scowl of ultimate contempt.

    Alone in his office, Drayson wore a mask of cold rage.

    They had seen Nil Spaar savagely beating a bound Han for nearly twenty minutes -- not just beating him, but kicking and hurling him about an empty compartment in an animal rage. The beating went on until Han was bleeding freely from his mouth, his nose, from gashes on his face and arms, his chest, his calf. The beating went on until Han's blood was smeared on the bulkheads, the deck, and halfway up Nil Spaar's powerful forearms. The beating went on until Han could no longer stand when the viceroy dragged him to his feet, not even with a wall to support him.

    For long seconds, Nil Spaar had stood in a half crouch over Han's crumpled form. The viceroy was partly turned away from the lens, and they could not see his face. But they could see his thorax plates rise and fall, and one hand flexing menacingly as a great claw appeared, vanished, appeared, and vanished again.

    Then Nil Spaar had straightened and turned to face them. They saw that he was bleeding as well -- tiny rivulets running from the two enlarged scarlet crests at his temples. Staring into the holocam, he had wiped at the blood with the back of one hand, then sucked his hand clean.

    Finally, he had made his message explicit, though with unusual economy of words -- the only words spoken throughout the entire horror, delivered in a dark, angry growl: "Leave Koornacht now."

    THAT is a villain you haven't seen before.
     
  15. Barriss_Coffee

    Barriss_Coffee Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2003
    ^The first time I read all the Bantam books was in 2004, over a period of about two months. After all the Callista/Waru stuff, I will never forget that particular Nil Spaar scene. It's in a league of its own.
     
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  16. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    I hate to use the word, but they really are little more then space nazis and for me Spar just gets dragged down with them do to this, if they would have been just a little less insane and so detestable I would give them and him more slack and the benefit of the doubt, but I just really can't as they came across in the books.

    Tavira is an epic space pirate, no further argument needed. ;)


    Well not until the Vong or Shatterpoint at least, though there is comic book Tavira ;)
     
  17. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    Genocide isn't limited to Nazis. The culture of dominance/submission, blood sacrifice, xenophobia, and honor killing has nothing to do with fascism. If they're analogous to anything, the Yevetha are analogous to fantastic pre-modern tales of "Oriental despotism" and bloody, honor-focused "barbaric" cultures. It's highlighted by their background -- as a species subjugated by colonial masters that rises up in an anti-colonial massacre to seize control.
     
  18. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    And that is why I did not really want to use the word Space Nazis [face_sigh]... lets try it differently what I was trying to get at - they are simply not very compelling as enemies, they are presented to be so ridiculously evil and barbaric there really never was any other way the story could turn out then them getting beaten into pulp and this is what drags down Spaar with them. Same would have happened to Nom Anor and the Vong if it was not so very clear they also had redeemable qualities that came with the package.
     
  19. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    And Palpatine isn't so evil that the story could end only with his defeat? Was there ever any doubt that Isard would be defeated, or Zsinj, or Tavira, or Thrawn? The Yevetha are barbaric, yes, but that's part of what makes them such compelling enemies -- how genuine their threat is -- and it's part of what makes Spaar great -- he's a brutal, ruthless barbarian who is also incredibly clever, manipulative, and sophisticated, a vicious, murderous xenophobe who is able to cloak himself in the aura of freedom-fighting nobility and run political circles around the New Republic because he understands how to push a liberal democracy's buttons even as he has utter contempt for it.

    In many ways, he's the most realistic, modern villain in the entire EU.
     
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  20. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
    Nep, but not each and every member of the Empire is presented as an evil fanatic, which makes a big difference because one can at least feel some of these people are just somewhat misguided and in there for a cause that one can sort of understand. Whilst every Yevetha scene in Black Fleet is just there to add to how fanatical, racist and evil they all are.

    I fully agree that Spaar is a very good villain for what he is, but the Yevetha are not and it is what hurts him as well.
     
  21. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

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    Nov 28, 2000
    What struck me about the Yevetha was that they were so backwards and barbaric that even the Loyalists would have nothing to do with their mad quest to fight the New Tepublic. This was before the HoT books -- such a thing was unheard of at the time.


    AdmiralNick22 -- I am standing on Beacon Hill, former beating heart of Federalism and proving ground of the last of the old breed. It's humbling and inspiring. Hopefully I'll get to go inside tje State House tomorrow. Also looking forward to seeing Old Ironsides again, it's been over a decade and a half...
     
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  22. MercenaryAce

    MercenaryAce Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2005
    Sometimes I wonder - if I were to tell a story about the Taliban or the Lord's Resistance Army or the Khemer Rouge and someone who didn't know about those groups read the story, what would they think about them. Probably that they are ridiculously cartoonishly evil and utterly unrealistic and it is especially silly that they would have a lot of supporters in their liberal democracy adversaries.

    ....For that matter, let's remember that the Nazis were not some mythological demons, or just a metaphor for evil: they were a group of actual human beings who enjoyed the popular support of their people and a lot of foreign admirers
     
  23. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    Rambo III? ;)
     
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  24. Bib Fartuna

    Bib Fartuna Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 4, 2012
    The title card at the end of the film, which stated that the film was dedicated to the "brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan" recieved great controversy after 9/11 because some Mujahideen groups assisted Al Qaeda, so it was changed to "dedicated to the gallant people of Afghanistan".

    http://rambo.wikia.com/wiki/Rambo_III

    WHOOPS!
     
  25. MercenaryAce

    MercenaryAce Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2005
    But...most of the Mujahideen joined the Northern Alliance and spent 20 years fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Why does no one ever remember that.
     
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