Books From a Certain Point of View, [A New Hope] 40th anniversary anthology novel (#OperationBlueMilk)

I tend to think TFA made explicit what was only implicit in ANH.

 

It doesn't just contradict Duty Roster, it contradicts A New Hope, which shows dozens of pilots on Yavin after the battle.

 

Here it is!

 

So good that A'Yark made an appearance in JJM's short story in this book.

It gives me faith that Lucasfilm (or whatever aspect was involved in this) respect the fans enough to know they can enjoy such a reference without having to ask asinine canon-related questions (eg. "does this mean Kenobi is canon now derp")

 

And let me say something that has also been on my mind, while I'm always open to the idea of equal representation in any genre, as two of my favourite anime series, sailor moon and Read Or Die, include same sex relationships/pining, I think the idea of taking a previously established character and putting them into that bracket simply for funsies is in pretty bad taste, and really comes off as bad fan fiction.

Spoiler

The book also makes reference to the cantina bartender from the Star Wars Holiday special is in a same sex marriage. It's mentioned at the end of Wuhers story.

And I equally face palm at that simply because it comes down to a matter of "WHY?" Why does this matter? You could explore any limitless number of ideas, and somewhere in there, the idea that a minor side character from a historical curiousity in the franchise could be portrayed as a lesbian or bisexual makes the idea spreadsheet?

What I'm saying is that the minute writers take side characters and use them to POINTLESSLY express their very own personal views on real world issues, they've stopped respecting the brand as it is and turned it into a personal soap box. The reason

Spoiler

Aphra's

sexuality works is that it NEVER dominates the story, and is just treated as a fact. I feel that the two stories mentioned in this book fail to toe that line, and it comes across as a giggling school child writing bad fan fiction, or a socially motivated writer caring more about a social commentary or message than on their craft as a writer. Neither works in the realm of fiction as it compromises a stories and/or characters portrayal.

If a writer wants to portray an original character in that light, I say go for it, just write it well. But I DO feel that characters who previously exist in current canon should be off limits. Simply because when we viewed the movies, I seriously doubt wattoo's or bib fortuna's or anyone elses's sexuality mattered to anyone.

And yeah, to reiterate... MAN was that mouse droid story AWFUL. I mean... did this writer learn about writing romance on Deviantart or something? Wow.

 

Ackmena having a wife doesn't dominate the story. It's one line. If it was mentioned that Ackmena had a husband, would you be angry about that too? I'm assuming not.

If I said that characters not previously identified in canon as having heterosexual relationships should be off limits from having them in the future, would you think that was unreasonable and ridiculous? I'm assuming so.

Your homophobia is showing, and liking some anime doesn't give you carte blanche to express bigoted views.


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You look like you could use some Diversity Thread (tm)

 

I'm honestly more surprised it took so long for this to become "an issue."

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I think I made it clear sexuality is NOT the issue, as I praised how other writers handled it in other books.

I personally feel though, and I went on at length about it, that if you are going to take a previously established character, and comment on or write a story based on their sexuality, there should be a strong story behind it. Otherwise, at best, the writer is using Star Wars as a soap box, or at worst, we end up with a deviantart spawned travesty as we were subjected too in the Mouse Droid story.

ill simplify my point. A sentence (Ackmena) or story (TK-421) whose focus is dedicated to a character being gay is as stupid as a sentence or story whose focus is dedicated to a character being straight. Its just as silly and juvenile as Xizor's internal monologue's about his making Guri service him naked in the bath or his Sexual prowess and 100% hit it record back in Shadows Of The Empire.

But I will say that if people are not able to thoroughly read through a post, a post I feel I took great care so as not to offend anyone, then I'll delete it if an honest discussion on this is too provocative.

 

A jack sparrow quote for a jack sparrow quote.

I mean seriously, I've made it very clear the presentation and how it compromises the story is the issue.

But for redundancy's sake, read back say... on Bacta War, where Gavin's bothans girlfriend makes a reference as to having already seen him naked. It was not presented in a way as to say "OMG they're totally doing it." But as to communicate, in a single sentence how close they'd gotten. This is how sexuality can be used to tell a story in an effective way.

Savvy?

 

Just finished the book today. I hope to provide a more detailed response in the future, and I am very much looking forward to going back and reading your responses. Let me just get a few thoughts off my chest...

Spoiler

* Jot the Jawa survived the massacre of his sandcrawler by retreating into his broken little compartment and hiding there. He and R5-D4 went on adventures of their own later and no one can tell me otherwise.

* I was equally surprised by how much I LOVED "The Sith of Datawork" as I was by how good of an author Wil Wheaton is.

* John Jackson Miller and jasonfry are wonderful in all the ways I expected them to be wonderful.

* This book made me a Claudia Grey fan

* On a more serious note, I was really disappointed by the lack of tight editing, particularly later in the book. I get that these are all tales (and, really, Tales) told from limited points of view, but some stories simply don't jibe at all. "Sparks" repeatedly describes Imperial laserfire as red, which anyone who had watched the movie with any attention to detail would have caught. "Grounded" directly contradicts the R1 Ultimate Guide and "Duty Roster" about the number of pilots and ships Yavin had available. "Grounded" also gave two completely different stat lines for Dex Tiree in regards to flight hours and kills within two pages.

All in all, this book made me feel young again. Stories like these where what made me love the EU so much, and did most of the actual expanding of the universe. Somewhere in canon heaven, Tales of the Mos Eisely Cantina is looking down from its eternal home in the firmament and smiling at its child.

 

Honestly, yeah, for all that the book is "loose canon", some stuff felt less like intentionally playing fast and loose with facts than it did just plain thoughtlessness.

 

In

the only reason that Ackmana being simply mentioned as being in a gay marriage offends me, is it's pointlessness. Taking an old school character and applying sexual orientation JUST for the sake of it, is really just missing the point of going back and revisiting these old characters by a massive degree. Now, as for the question of whether it would bother me if the writer only pointed out she had a husband instead, it would have bothered me to a lesser degree. Not because of any homophobia, but because it would be less grandstanding with social issues. But it still would have been pointless. Now, if she had showed up with her wife and given us another musical number while Wuher ruminated if she had a sister, because who wouldn't... THAT I would have been cool with. Because it would have mattered to the story.

Honestly, my issue with the stories mentioned, is the same with this new literary universe as a whole. The storytelling and overall direction is very weak. The EU after this amount of time had dark empire and tales of the jedi wrapping up, new boba fett stories being halfway through, Jedi academy had wrapped up, basically it got a lot more done and gained a lot more ground. I'm not sure what the Editorial focus is on the new literary universe, but it seems to lack the drive and ambition that was present in the older series. And now we have writers trying to be hip by injecting homosexuality in characters from the 70's. It's not hip, its pandering and grandstanding. And I wouldn't be bothered if the storytelling was tightened up.

And let me say that even the recent thrawn novel, a Timothy Zahn novel dedicated to THRAWN, felt like 200 pages of solid material blown up to be 400 so that it could be full size while justifying not really going anywhere. Whoever the editor is for this new literary universe needs to be fired for this ALONE!

 

Sorry for the double post.

 

The mere existence of homosexual people is not "grandstanding with social issues."

 

The thing is, your idea of what "respecting the brand" means is just yours and yours alone. No two fans have the same ideas on what Star Wars should be or the types of stories told; we all get what LFL decides to give us, whether we personally like it or not. LFL gets to decide what "respecting the brand" means and if they didn't want that to include the stories in FACPOV, they wouldn't have been included.

That's what authors do: they express their opinions. Again, if these opinions weren't wanted in SW they would have been edited or cut.

Except it does matter, and that's why I pointed you at the Diversity Thread. There's a bunch of good discussion in there on why representation matters and the positive impact it can have on fans. There have historically been very few non-straight characters in SW, so having more than one here is pretty dang uncommon.

 

Edit: Actually, I'm not going to waste my time. We all know what's really up with this guy and I'd rather just ignore them than have this "conversation" again.

 

Its kind of sad to see the thread devolve into this.

But I'm also happy that people are coming out of the woodwork to call DaRonin on this.

 

I'm an old school EU alumni. I'm very aware that among the topics of loss, politics, family, grief, and bigotry; homosexuality has been severely under represented in the old EU. The only example I can think of offhand is Sarn Shild from the Han Solo trilogy who was noted for his sexual tastes not including humans or females.

I applaud characters like Aphra and senjir from aftermath since they represent that group without having to wave a flag whenever they are depicted. I think they are an example on how sexuality, hetero or otherwise, should be presented.

It also bears mentioning that in the new literary canon, after three years, there exists more homosexual characters now than there ever was under the old EU. Yay progress. And. I say that sincerely.

But, taking historical characters and writing them to be homosexual when it was not the initial intention rubs me the same way the Bucky and Captain America shippers do. Yes, a story CAN be written out of that idea, and I'm positive marvel has received more than a few scripts or book/comic outlines from established writers wanting to campion that cause. But if that was not what the creators intitial intention, which we all know it wasn't, than to try to depict a character in that way can be considered disrespectful to the fans, the characters, and the original creators.

ill say it again, if Ackmana had showed up to the bar for her shift with her wife, and interacted with Wuher, I'd feel better about it and feel it would have been actual storytelling instead of an attempt to force this kind of diversity in a contrived way, but would still not quite agree due to the retconning aspect.

 

Guys, I think you're being a bit unfair. When George Lucas went through all the effort to put "(he likes to have sex women and women only)" in every character introduction in the script, the least we can do is honor that intent.

 

What has been retconned?

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Finished this a little while ago. Very good! I'd love to see similar books for each of the other films..