Author Topic: Characters that certain authors don't get.
Quiet_Mandalorian  8380 posts
Registered: Apr '05
40335_Boba Fett
Date Posted: 2/8/07 11:58am Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get.
Charlemagne19 posted:
Because they've been crushed by the Jedi Knights and are almost extinct. Yeah.
Every now and then. What of it?

Charlemagne19 posted:
Cause, if everyone has combat training there's no point in choosing cops.
Rubbish.

 

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BobaMatt  14519 posts
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered: Aug '02
47935_Luke Skywalker - Dark Side
Date Posted: 2/8/07 12:07pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get.
If everyone has combat training you need cops more than ever.

It's also not stated that everyone embraces the warrior lifestyle and lives it to the fullest extent. In fact, most Mandalorians don't. Combat skills are learned by all, as they're valued, but if all you do with then after you turn 13 is...nothing, and then go tend to your fields, you're not necessarily ready to wage war alongside supercommandos.

 

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Jedi Merkurian  11588 posts
Registered: May '00
6372_Mace Windu
Date Posted: 2/8/07 12:35pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get.
Strange as it may sound, I agree with the assessment that Zahn has gotten Mara wrong, and that Lucas has gotten Anakin wrong.

As I've said before, the "IMAX cut" of the love story made for a much more coherent tale. Add in a couple of the DVD deleted scenes, and Anakin's not such a stalker after all. And personally, I would've preferred the "Tusken Massacre" to go like this:

Trying to make his way out of the camp with Shmi's body, Anakin is discovered. He initially holds his own, but sheer numbers threaten to overwhelm him. He succumbs to the fear of being cut down, along with the anger of losing his mother, and then goes psycho and wipes out the village. It would lend credence to the theory of dark side being like a drug that causes you to go out of control.

The rest of the trilogy could continue as published from that point, and I'd be largely OK with it.

 

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BobaMatt  14519 posts
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered: Aug '02
47935_Luke Skywalker - Dark Side
Date Posted: 2/8/07 12:53pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get.
Jedi Merkurian posted:
As I've said before, the "IMAX cut" of the love story made for a much more coherent tale. Add in a couple of the DVD deleted scenes, and Anakin's not such a stalker after all. And personally, I would've preferred the "Tusken Massacre" to go like this:

Trying to make his way out of the camp with Shmi's body, Anakin is discovered. He initially holds his own, but sheer numbers threaten to overwhelm him. He succumbs to the fear of being cut down, along with the anger of losing his mother, and then goes psycho and wipes out the village. It would lend credence to the theory of dark side being like a drug that causes you to go out of control.

The rest of the trilogy could continue as published from that point, and I'd be largely OK with it.

As much as I'm not a fan of posting "what-ifs" on threads, I have to say I at least agree with the assessments that A) the deleted scenes from the films would have made them all much, much, much better movies and B) there are ways to get at what Lucas was apparently going for more successfully.

 

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Corran_Fett  3100 posts
Registered: Jan '05
45734_Boba Fett Silhouette
Date Posted: 2/8/07 1:06pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get. - Date Edited: 2/8/07 1:09pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Corran_Fett
BobaMatt posted:
If everyone has combat training you need cops more than ever.

It's also not stated that everyone embraces the warrior lifestyle and lives it to the fullest extent. In fact, most Mandalorians don't. Combat skills are learned by all, as they're valued, but if all you do with then after you turn 13 is...nothing, and then go tend to your fields, you're not necessarily ready to wage war alongside supercommandos.

Absolutely, for both points. As for the latter one about supercommandos, some people here seem to be under the impression that every Mando is a supercommando, with fancy armor suits and jetpacks and all, and a fighting 'machine' like Jango Fett. They're not... supercommandos are the elite, like Delta Force, SAS or Marines, although they seem to work like a volunteer fire deparment, meaning that when they aren't needed, they are at home going after whatever job they have. Unlike the non-supercommandos, tho, you'd have to suppose they do a fair amount of training in the 'downtime' - but also note that those Mandos, supercommandos, are rather prone to have jobs like mercs, bounty hunters, cops or anything involving the need for their training as fighters. Another point that'd make Spar's actions more plausible to you, Charles.

 

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xoubara  114 posts
Registered: Mar '03
7727_Luke Skywalker
Date Posted: 2/8/07 2:21pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get.
Corusca_One posted:
I quite like Denning's books but i have to agree about Kyp and Corran, although i think only Stackpole and Allston have ever really 'got' Corran, maybe Zahn too.


I found Greg Keyes' Corran to be a good one, too. Wasn't he?

 

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Froggy22651  321 posts
Registered: Jul '05
44324_Kyle Katarn
Date Posted: 2/8/07 2:40pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get.
To Jedi Merkurian: I don't really have a problem with Anakin losing control and wiping out the Tusken camp. Makes perfect sense to me. In the same situation, with his kind of power, I'd probably do the exact same thing. Oh sure, I'd regret it very much later, but in that moment...pure, raw rage. Just mindless lashing out. Is it wrong and nasty and evil? Certainly. But it's also understandable.

No, my problem with Anakin is that, once he's newly annointed as Darth Vader, he immediately goes to town slaughtering a room full of defenseless children. Yeah, he's technically a Sith now, and yeah, he's slipping down the Dark Side. But there's also supposed to be a shred of a good man in there still. He's supposed to be trying to do the right thing. Personally, I'd rather he walked into the council chambers, get asked what to do, and then sneak the children out of the Jedi Temple. Afterwards, he'd proceed to lie his leather-clad butt off to Sidious.

At the end of the movie, Padme says there's still good in him. I'd like to have seen some evidence of this.

On the topic of Mara Jade, I agree that it's annoying how Zahn has whitewashed her character. She was the personal spy and assassin of Emperor Palpatine, ruthless dictator and Dark Lord of the Sith. She did some bad things and probably did the hanky-panky with other men before Luke. She touched the Dark Side. And there's nothing wrong with that. She got better. So why try to make her look like a perfect angel?

 

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BobaMatt  14519 posts
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered: Aug '02
47935_Luke Skywalker - Dark Side
Date Posted: 2/8/07 2:44pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get.
Froggy22651 posted:
No, my problem with Anakin is that, once he's newly annointed as Darth Vader, he immediately goes to town slaughtering a room full of defenseless children. Yeah, he's technically a Sith now, and yeah, he's slipping down the Dark Side. But there's also supposed to be a shred of a good man in there still. He's supposed to be trying to do the right thing. Personally, I'd rather he walked into the council chambers, get asked what to do, and then sneak the children out of the Jedi Temple. Afterwards, he'd proceed to lie his leather-clad butt off to Sidious.

Doesn't make sense, character wise. Not only is he following the orders of the only person he trusts, Sidious, but setting Jedi children free is like setting free hundreds of half-trained one-man armies.

 

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xoubara  114 posts
Registered: Mar '03
7727_Luke Skywalker
Date Posted: 2/8/07 2:47pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get. - Date Edited: 2/8/07 2:48pm (2 edits total) Edited By: xoubara
About all this Mara Jade thing...

I am yet to finish Alegiance, though not really much. Couldn't it be that Mara will use dark side powers sometime after Allegiance and ROTJ? After all, in that book it is stated she has been the emperor's hand for not much time, so she could still mature and develop more force powers -dark and light-

Or so I think.

 

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Ashandarei  1280 posts
Registered: Oct '04
44428_Arkoh Adasca
Date Posted: 2/8/07 2:50pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get.
She's already used at least one Dark-sided power that I can think of. She has touched the Dark side. Granted, that was years after the Emperor's death, but ...

Zahn's argument, I think, is that while having touched the Dark side, she was never twisted more than a small amount by it. Ergo, she was never truly "dark". She was kept nearly pure by the fact that she used it sparingly and only in the service of a "greater good". She was also tightly reined by Palpatine, probably for the express purpose of NOT letting her use it too often ("neither Dark nor Light. She is ... an experiment."), so that she couldn't grow to like it too much.

I dislike that the attitude seems to be that she's NEVER had a brush with the Dark side, but I agree that she was never truly "dark".

 

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xoubara  114 posts
Registered: Mar '03
7727_Luke Skywalker
Date Posted: 2/8/07 2:55pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get. - Date Edited: 2/8/07 2:55pm (1 edits total) Edited By: xoubara
Using the dark side for a greater good? Vergere would be proud of her.


Only kidding blush

 

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BobaMatt  14519 posts
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered: Aug '02
47935_Luke Skywalker - Dark Side
Date Posted: 2/8/07 2:59pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get.
Well the "neither dark nor light" thing seems to really fascinate people that are right about to fall to the dark side. Dooku liked the idea, and Palpatine using her as an experiment makes sense to me.

Mara wouldn't know any better, of course.

 

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Froggy22651  321 posts
Registered: Jul '05
44324_Kyle Katarn
Date Posted: 2/8/07 3:00pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get.
To BobaMatt: You're making the assumption that Anakin trusts Palpatine completely.

Palpatine just revealed that he had been lying to Anakin for the last decade, and Anakin outright says to his face that he wants to kill the man. He also says this to his wife and later to his son. Doesn't strike me as a particularly trust-filled relationship. They allow each other to live as long as the other is useful to them. It's the Sith way.

And as for the younglings, they're just children. Sure, they know some Force tricks and can swing a saber, but I don't think they will be putting up an organised resistance anytime soon. Years and years later, once they've grown up, that may be a different story, but by then a suited Vader will be perfectly willing to eliminate them.

Point is, Anakin didn't have a real solid reason to carry out that order to the letter, nor do I think he should have been inclined to. At least, not yet.

 

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Lord_Hydronium  6273 posts
Title: Literature Gardener
Registered: Jun '02
15597_Vergere
Date Posted: 2/8/07 3:12pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get. - Date Edited: 2/8/07 3:13pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Lord_Hydronium
browwiw posted:
Lord_Hydronium posted:
It's almost as if she didn't read Betrayal...oh wait.


I defend all Star Wars authors when I say this: you can't read a book that hasn't been written yet. Lucas Books makes their series authors write concurrently so they can get the books to the publisher faster. This is how LotF will end around 2012 instead of 2020. When you write for Lucas Books the editorial staff gives you a two sheet summary of the book you're supposed to write and your job is to pad it out. You don't even get to pick your title or cover art (but that's pretty much true with any publishing house, nowadays).

I find it a little Faustian, personally


What, they don't share drafts? Betrayal had about three months to get to the publisher before Bloodlines. You'll pardon me for thinking it's not as completely disjointed as you suggest, but if that were the case, we'd barely see any consistency in a multi-author series (or even less than we do, depending on your position). And this wasn't exactly a minor scene or aspect of the character.

BobaMatt posted:
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.

That isn't the problem. He's like that in Betrayal too. The problem is that Ben's relationship to his parents as established in Betrayal was entirely missing from Bloodlines; not just that, but the Ben we got in Bloodlines was practically the complete opposite in that respect. Betrayal Ben, when he was in a bad situation, sought out his parent's advice and took it to heart. Bloodlines Ben thought to himself that he'd never talk to his father when he had a problem. Betrayal Ben has a close relationship, Bloodlines a distant and resentful one. And what's more, it's not even that Bloodlines treated it as if it was a personality change that had happened in the last couple days; Luke and Ben's thoughts tell us that it's always been like this.

It's not an issue of character development; rather important aspects of the Betrayal character were completely overwritten.

 

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Ashandarei  1280 posts
Registered: Oct '04
44428_Arkoh Adasca
Date Posted: 2/8/07 3:16pm Subject: RE: Characters that certain authors don't get. - Date Edited: 2/8/07 3:17pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Ashandarei
Froggy22651 posted:
To BobaMatt: You're making the assumption that Anakin trusts Palpatine completely.

Palpatine just revealed that he had been lying to Anakin for the last decade, and Anakin outright says to his face that he wants to kill the man. He also says this to his wife and later to his son. Doesn't strike me as a particularly trust-filled relationship. They allow each other to live as long as the other is useful to them. It's the Sith way.

And as for the younglings, they're just children. Sure, they know some Force tricks and can swing a saber, but I don't think they will be putting up an organised resistance anytime soon. Years and years later, once they've grown up, that may be a different story, but by then a suited Vader will be perfectly willing to eliminate them.

Point is, Anakin didn't have a real solid reason to carry out that order to the letter, nor do I think he should have been inclined to. At least, not yet.
Of course he had a reason. Any Jedi who escapes will tell the entire galaxy about his betrayal. Any Jedi who escapes will be one more person who might try to take him away from Padme. Any Jedi who escapes will threaten the New Order, which he's already planning to rule himself.

He's really not thinking clearly at ALL at this point. He's just betrayed the Order, saved a Sith Lord who's been his father figure for over a decade, and pledged himself to the Dark Side. He probably thinks that there is no going back; he doesn't care about the Younglings being only children, he only cares that if he gets strong enough in the Dark Side he can save Padme.

I personally saw it as totally in character. Remember, when he goes berserk, it doesn't matter whether the people he's mad at are armed, unarmed, or helpless babies. He kills them all, as the Tusken camp proves.

 

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