Charlemagne19 posted:

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I never assumed that everyone on Mandalore was trained in wearing the armor and so on as Karen Traviss has retconned.

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Charlemagne19 posted:

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It's more the case of all those wars pretty much slaughtering them all to an extremely small amount.

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Charlemagne19 posted:

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Traviss' articles would seem to apply to the entire race too when it seems much more clear by other sources that the Mandalorians like those under Spar were sort of the Society of Creative Anachronism as Mandalorians go.

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JEDI-KILLER_17 posted:

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Might as well say it...

Traviss + Ben = Crizzap

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Lord_Riven posted:

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Mara post NJO. (barring Betrayal which I haven't read). Either that or motherhood has made her into a whiny, insecure woman who doesn't even trust her husband.

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dizfactor posted:

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There is no story of Anakin's fall. Anakin was never "up" to begin with. The Jedi are the ones who fall, because they are increasingly blind to the degree to which they are willing to cut corners and use unethical means towards what they (increasingly falsely) believe to be just ends.

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SuperSaiyaMan12 posted:

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R. A. Salvadore and NJO Authors: The Young Jedi Knights, Luke, Leia, Mara, and Han.

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Charlemagne19 posted:

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Spar builds his new Mandalore out of Former Deathwatch, Security guards, and policemen.

Gee, that implies that Mandalore is just crawling with guys in armor...

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Quiet_Mandalorian posted:

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for recruits with some amount of combat experience, not any old Joe Mando with a set of plates.

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Quiet_Mandalorian posted:

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No, the problem was whole sense of Jedi ethics in the first place and way it had been structured since the Ruusan Reformations. They’d constructed for themselves a fatally flawed utopianist understanding of the galaxy and how they could make it the way they wanted it to be, and it finally fell apart as it was doomed to when they were presented with the twin challenges of training a boy who had had a life outside of their heavily cloistered world and having to fight an actual war in which things got broken and people died.

The problem was not cutting corners, but rather that those corners existed in the first place.

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dizfactor posted:

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Charlemagne19 posted:

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Jude Watson: Anakin Skywalker is not a puppy torturing psychopath before Episode III.

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Perhaps in AOTC, you missed his crazed and irrational outbursts, his thoroughly creepy (*cough* stalker *cough*) obsession with Padme, and that little incident where he happens to massacre an entire village. You know, the one time he's left entirely alone, with no supervision and no real chance of repercussions. If character, as they say, is who you are when no one's watching, than Anakin's an unhinged, bloodthirsty maniac.

I'm sorry, I can't blame any EU authors who came after AOTC for portraying Anakin as a deranged psychopath with few redeeming values, if any, because the Anakin Lucas gave us was a deranged psychopath with few redeeming values, if any.

The ones who worked between the releases of Episodes I and II have no real excuse for portraying him that way, but since their portrayals ended up coinciding with the way he was portrayed later, it all worked out.

Kwenn posted:

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Unfortunately, pretty much every Anakin story, possibly bar that Episode I Adventures comic, has him doing something that's a little on the dark side.

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Which is entirely consistent with the only real time Lucas showed us his vision of an adult, supposedly "light side" Anakin.

Kwenn posted:

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Where's the heroic friend Obi-Wan remembered,

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Obi-Wan's looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, and I would argue that it's because he's avoiding dealing with his own culpability and that of the Jedi Council in creating Vader.

The Jedi Council is like a coach who pushes steroids on their star athlete and pretend not to notice the health problems they're causing him. Anakin's like Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights - used until he falls apart by an organization that only really cares about him because he's so well-endowed.

They all knew Anakin was a nutcase. They had to. None of them really liked him, none of them trusted him. They had deep reservations about his commitment to the Jedi Code, to his suitability for training. Obi-Wan kind of liked him, kind of felt responsible/sorry for him, and so he made excuses for him, and the others just turned up their noses a little but let things slide.

Why? Because of the midichlorians in his blood, because the Sith had returned, because of the prophecy, and ultimately because of the war.

They were using him. He was a dangerous loose cannon, and they tolerated it because they wanted him to be their weapon against the Sith. They just did the cold, hard math and concluded that they needed him on their side.

And, you know, once the war started, he was just so damn good at killing things they needed killed. As I've said before, the only problem is that once the war was over, he didn't stop killing, and the tool that the Jedi created was used against them.

I mean, look at the account of the Jedi Council meeting from the Clone Wars cartoon when they decide what to do with him. A few members of the Council worry that he hasn't been adequately tested, and specifically, that he hasn't faced the Dark Side within himself, but ultimately their concerns are hand-waved away.

You know why? Because they knew in their hearts that he would fail the test, but they didn't want to admit it to themselves, because if they admitted it to themselves, they'd have to stop using him in battle.

And we know that the whole Council meeting was a sham anyway, a rubber stamp on a decision that had already been made privately by Yoda and Mace Windu. And what prompted them to make that decision? Anakin's performance in the Battle of Praesitlyn - because of his prowess in battle.

There is no story of Anakin's fall. Anakin was never "up" to begin with. The Jedi are the ones who fall, because they are increasingly blind to the degree to which they are willing to cut corners and use unethical means towards what they (increasingly falsely) believe to be just ends.

If the OT is a story about the triumph of humanism and compassion over the military industrial complex, the prequels are the story of the road to Hell being paved with good intentions, specifically of the tendency to tolerate the atrocities and moral shortcomings of one's own side in the name of some nebulous higher purpose. They're so focused on fighting for the Republic that they barely notice that it's already the Empire in all but name. They're so focused on fighting against the Sith that they don't notice that they're actually fighting for them ("To fight the empire is to be infected by its derangement" and all that). And they're so willing to ignore the cancer eating through Anakin Skywalker because he's so damn useful to them that it ultimately consumes them too.

You could say they use Anakin despite the obvious dangers because it seems like the easy way to accomplish what they want. He seems like a powerful tool but really, the solution he presents is only quicker, easier, more seductive...

Kwenn posted:

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or the striking, grand figure who took in life with a wink that Anakin himself recalls at the end of his life?

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I'm sure that's how he thought of himself. Idi Amin thought he was a pretty suave guy, too.

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Charlemagne19 posted:

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Yes. Given the extreme rarity of Mandalorian Armor as given by most sources....

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Charlemagne19 posted:

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One tends to think that there's a tiny minute amount of Mandalorians with combat training (probably about normal for a world) and far far far far far far far far far less so with Mandalorian battle armor let alone Mandalorian battle armor training.

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Corporate_Jedi posted:

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That "flawed" understanding kept the Republic largely at peace for almost a thousand years, which given the size and scope of the Old Republic was an incredible feat.

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Quiet_Mandalorian posted:

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Corporate_Jedi posted:

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That "flawed" understanding kept the Republic largely at peace for almost a thousand years, which given the size and scope of the Old Republic was an incredible feat.

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But in the end, no more than a long slide towards decay and destruction. A slow and peaceful death, until the seizure right at the very last that finally made the corruption plain to all.

It was inevitable, really.

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Quiet_Mandalorian posted:

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JEDI-KILLER_17 posted:

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Might as well say it...

Traviss + Ben = Crizzap

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Can't say I agree. She's probably done Ben the best out of all the authors so far.

Lord_Riven posted:

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Mara post NJO. (barring Betrayal which I haven't read). Either that or motherhood has made her into a whiny, insecure woman who doesn't even trust her husband.

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Oh? And when has she not been like that?

The portrayal of Mara in Bloodlines made perfect sense from a logical standpoint, which might be why some people find it jarring because in general it seems as though no one else's personality ever changes in the GFFA over the years at all.

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Quiet_Mandalorian posted:

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Corporate_Jedi posted:

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That "flawed" understanding kept the Republic largely at peace for almost a thousand years, which given the size and scope of the Old Republic was an incredible feat.

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But in the end, no more than a long slide towards decay and destruction. A slow and peaceful death, until the seizure right at the very last that finally made the corruption plain to all.

It was inevitable, really.

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MistrX posted:

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Funny, that sounds remarkably like how Kreia describes the Mandalorians.

And just like the Mandos, the Jedi never quite reached their death and became stronger for it.

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BobaMatt posted:

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I agree on both counts, here, and would have to say your final point about personality change is what makes it so hard for most people to accept any arc in these characters. It makes sense that Vader would be depressed to begin with. It makes sense that Luke would become less rash and more willing to "think precisely" as he gets older. It makes sense that Mara, Jedi training aside, would deny the evidence staring her in the face. It makes sense - and given Ben's earlier characterizations in the DNT, not inconsistent - that Ben's clinging to Jacen. Psychological complexities and nuances should not necessarily be left out of SW.

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BobaMatt posted:

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Perhaps inevitable, but not the Jedi's fault. I would say, given their beliefs, standing by the Republic and seeking to fix it and restore it is a more legitimate decision than abandoning it.

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Charlemagne19 posted:

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I think it's more a case that George Lucas has a very good idea about where he wants the story to go but has a problem realizing it on screen unlike with the original trilogy. What Lucas WANTED with Anakin was that he's a very troubled young man, controlling, and emotional but fundamentally a good person. What he got was Hayden's performance. Let's spread around the blame a bit.

I still think of Matt Stover's Revenge of the Sith as exactly what Lucas wanted from the movies.

Speaking of which, what exactly was Dooku supposed to be if not the elitist snob that Stover wrote him as?

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Quiet_Mandalorian posted:

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...Outside of Mandalorian possession.

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Quiet Mandalorian posted:

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One would have to disagree.

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