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Topic:
The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
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TalonCard
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered:
Jan '01
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Date Posted:
7/20 12:52am
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
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Lord_Hydronium posted:
It sure doesn't help. You allow your Karpyshyns and Travisses to write over other people's work as they please, it sets a precedent. And who's to say whether the next aspect someone feels like changing or ignoring is an inessential detail or part of the essential story?
It's been strict in theory. There aren't multiple universes or multiple interpretations with no real truth. People do make mistakes, but unless they come from sheer laziness and not doing the research, they're forgivable because they're trying. The problem that's come to the surface recently is the deliberate ignoring of canon in stuff like Podrot or Revelation. It goes from "We try, but don't always get there in practice" with "We're not even bothering."
I hate to get out my fedora, cane, and eyepatch, but...
I've heard that arguement before--even given it myself--and I've seen it applied to everyone from Zahn to Stackpole to Strandley, all of whom have cheerfully written over (or in Strandley's case, allowed the writing over of) previously established material in order to tell their own stories. The precedent has been there for a long, long time--singling out Karpyshyn and Traviss in particular is neither accurate nor fair.
And yet for all the times I've seen this attitude stressed over (and yes, even stressed over it myself) the continuity of today is more inclusive than it's ever been, and just as consistant as it ever was.
Finally, while it may be grating to hear continuity dismissed so often, when you get right down to it, does it really matter whether an author writes yet another story about Han Solo and the bounty hunter of Ord Mantell out of ignorance that there were already several stories about that event, or if an author knows about the preexisting stories and still chooses to tell it his or her own way? Either way, you've got a continuity problem.
Sometimes you even end up with something like "Death Star"'s attempt to reconcile all the other Death Star plan stories. Instead of actually fixing everything, it contradicted all of the stories it referenced and every previous attempt made to reconcile them. Even though the authors were aware of the other stories and made an attempt to integrate them, the continuity would have been better off if they'd just stuck with their own story.
Lord_Hydronium posted:
The devil, as they say, is in the details. I think that's the reason Traviss is so poor at existing-character characterization. The "little details" are exactly what make up the character; ignore them in favor of some ill-defined "core characterization" and you don't get that character - you get a caricature using their name. Which is why the argument that one should care more about characterization than the "bus timetables" of continuity is nonsense. Characterization is continuity.
Traviss can be pretty spotty with this, I'll admit. I thought she did a great job of creating a Boba Fett who was actually the sum of all his experiences in Bloodlines, but the Jaina of Revelation is so off that even the next book in the same series didn't pick up on the attitudes and...er, values...she learned in Revelation.
Robimus posted:
I think Karen Traviss is likley just worn out with an internet community which has been very unkind to her over the past few years.
She likely works very hard on her books and has grown very tired of the "fandom" nitpicking every little detail. Yes, her comments come across as sharp and pointed and a little unrealistic.
I think there's a lot of truth in that. An important thing to remember too is that in spite of "bus timetable" comments, Traviss does pay careful attention to a lot of established continuity. I find it hard to believe that Traviss is actively anti-continuity when Whaladons, Fenn Shysa, Nallastia, Daala, the Cularin system, the Kamino mission from Battlefront, the Renatasia system, and Sintas Vel have all been mentioned or featured in her books. That's a pretty impressive bunch of characters and locations from a wide variety of EU sources.
Yes, her characterizations are sometimes off-putting, but a lot of her continuity is not only sound but pretty awesome. She may not be too fond of us avid bus timetable readers, but she's not above using those timetables when she needs to get somewhere. What other novelist has even attempted to keep track of the days since the Battle of Geonosis? If that's not a bus timetable level of detail, I don't know what one is.
TC
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Death Star Guide: http://deathstar.njoe.com/Contents.htm GODV Guide: www.myuselessknowledge.com/swfa/main.html Hyperspace Blog: http://blogs.starwars.com/taloncard jawajames...I'll let you know...
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QuentinGeorge
Registered:
Dec '03
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Date Posted:
7/20 1:52am
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
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I understand now. Wanting a consistent characterisation and a continuity in character arcs where the characters don't...say...die twice. (Looking at you Pernicar) makes me some sort of obsessive aspergers case?
Taloncard - much as I'd like to take your "she'll be right" attitude about this all, its the motives behind this I find suspect. Just as Hydro said, continuity stuff-ups happen. Sure. I accept that. No one's perfect. Sometimes its hard.
But there's a difference between "we did our best" and "I just didn't give a crap, why don't you stop obsessing, you worthless nerd?"
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TalonCard
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered:
Jan '01
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Date Posted:
7/20 2:31am
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
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QuentinGeorge posted:
Taloncard - much as I'd like to take your "she'll be right" attitude about this all, its the motives behind this I find suspect. Just as Hydro said, continuity stuff-ups happen. Sure. I accept that. No one's perfect. Sometimes its hard.
But there's a difference between "we did our best" and "I just didn't give a crap, why don't you stop obsessing, you worthless nerd?"
I'm just saying that when you add everything up, someone might be saying the latter...but it takes one to know one. 
TC
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Death Star Guide: http://deathstar.njoe.com/Contents.htm GODV Guide: www.myuselessknowledge.com/swfa/main.html Hyperspace Blog: http://blogs.starwars.com/taloncard jawajames...I'll let you know...
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Charlii
Registered:
May '05
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Date Posted:
7/20 7:08am
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
- Date Edited:
7/20 7:08am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Charlii
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TalonCard posted:
QuentinGeorge posted:
Taloncard - much as I'd like to take your "she'll be right" attitude about this all, its the motives behind this I find suspect. Just as Hydro said, continuity stuff-ups happen. Sure. I accept that. No one's perfect. Sometimes its hard.
But there's a difference between "we did our best" and "I just didn't give a crap, why don't you stop obsessing, you worthless nerd?"
I'm just saying that when you add everything up, someone might be saying the latter...but it takes one to know one.
TC
That's a good way to put it, and I think that's how it is with Traviss. With Karpyshyn I'm not really sure, but with this Clone Wars project as a whole it's definitely not. I still wait from an official statement from LFL about the older material, but regardless if they throw works out the canon window or just go for some time-shifting and retcons, it doesn't change the fact that they don't care about canon when making the movie/show.
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Rogue_Follower
Title: Manager: Literature
Registered:
Nov '03
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Date Posted:
7/20 7:27am
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
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Again, everyone, keep continuity discussion in the Clone Wars Continuity thread. This thread is for the book only.
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Bly
Registered:
Mar '05
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Date Posted:
7/21 5:45am
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
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Wow. Five days to release, and we still don't know anything about this book. No spoilers, no nothing. Wow.
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Master_Keralys
Title: Lit Mod of Ferociously Furious Fury
Registered:
Oct '03
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Date Posted:
7/21 7:49am
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
- Date Edited:
7/21 7:49am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Master_Keralys
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That's not true. We know that it's going to
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HedecGa
Registered:
Apr '06
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Date Posted:
7/21 8:00am
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
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Hey, hey, hey. You're supposed to black-out your spoilers, remember? 
You should know that being a mod yourself 
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"The Coming Evil, Book One: The Strange Man" available NOW at http://www.thecomingevil.com Author of the Dusty Duck databank entry - The 71st "Greatest Thing About Star Wars...Ever!" - SW Insider 100 Co-author of the Silya Shessaun databank entry
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Bly
Registered:
Mar '05
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Date Posted:
7/21 8:14am
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
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Master_Keralys posted:
That's not true. We know that it's going to
<blink><s><font size=6>DESTROY STAR WARS ONCE AND FOR ALL!</font size></s></blink>
Ah, of course. How could I have forgotten?
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Arawn_Fenn
Registered:
Jul '04
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Date Posted:
7/21 9:54am
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
- Date Edited:
7/21 9:54am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Arawn_Fenn
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(no message)
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Jeff_Ferguson
Registered:
May '06
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Date Posted:
7/23 1:35pm
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
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Going back to the link that James posted a few pages ago to his livejournal, I want to bluntly state this: I don't like Karen Traviss's attitude.
For several reasons. Some of them are continuity-related, and I'll post them in the appropriate thread, but here, I'll share my beef with her attitude re: clones, and how she writes them.
Karen Traviss posted:
And everyone, but everyone, knows how I write clones and how I've been writing them ever since I kicked over the traces of received SW wisdom in 2004 and made them real men, real soldiers who anyone in uniform would recognise as a kindred spirit, not obedient flesh droids or Jedi key-ring accessories.
Honestly, this statement comes off as incredibly arrogant. She seems to be elevating herself to the position of some kind of clone-messiah, who is smarter than anyone else who has ever been involved in anything clone-related in SW. The phrase "I kicked over the traces of received SW wisdom" says, to me, "Everyone else was wrong, and only my way of doing it is right."
Right... because absolutely no other author had ever considered that clones might be real people. Stephen Barnes didn't do that at all in The Cestus Deception with Jangotat. Michael Reaves and Steve Perry didn't have their characters in Medstar consider that clones might be real people, at all. And John Ostrander certainly didn't give Bly any characterization at all. He was definitely just a droid.
It's that kind of smug attitude that makes me not want to ever read any of the Republic Commando books, nor any of the upcoming Clone Wars ones.
I have a lot of gripes with her views on continuity, as well, but I'll go post them in the appropriate thread.
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Arawn_Fenn
Registered:
Jul '04
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Date Posted:
7/23 2:03pm
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
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It's talking loud and saying nothing.
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patchworkz7
Registered:
Mar '04
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Date Posted:
7/23 4:22pm
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
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Jeff_Ferguson posted:
Honestly, this statement comes off as incredibly arrogant. She seems to be elevating herself to the position of some kind of clone-messiah, who is smarter than anyone else who has ever been involved in anything clone-related in SW. The phrase "I kicked over the traces of received SW wisdom" says, to me, "Everyone else was wrong, and only my way of doing it is right."
The whole "meat droid" argument and the question of how much programming had to do with their actions is still being debated up until now.
At the time, treating them as individualistic as she did was considered going against the grain, and some people have liked it and some still don't like it and feel the clones should be portrayed more singularly depending on how they see the clones in terms of greater SW lore.
The recieved wisdom at the time was that they were pod-people who, with few exceptions, were essentially meat droids, and even Randy Stradly put this view forward in his opinions on Triple Zero, including feeling that a clone having feelings for a Jedi was wrong.
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sabarte
Registered:
Sep '05
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Date Posted:
7/23 7:04pm
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
- Date Edited:
7/23 7:07pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
sabarte
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I'm pretty sure enlisted boffing their own generals would be scandalous in any real-world army.
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Lord_Hydronium
Registered:
Jun '02
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Date Posted:
7/23 7:32pm
Subject:
RE: The Official Clone Wars: Book 1 Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)
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patchworkz7 posted:
At the time, treating them as individualistic as she did was considered going against the grain
As Jeff's list of examples shows, it really wasn't; large chunks of Republic and over half the existing Clone Wars novels had covered that angle.
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