Author Analysis: R. A. Salvatore

Which would have been a good thing. Shock value is not always good, especially killing such a popular character/

Don't you think the movie characters have earned the dying of old age right? They've done way too much, and for one of them to die like that...just ruins what they've earned. YJK set up the next generation to be the main focus, and Salvadore and the other authors didn't even do that write. Instead, they took a bunch of Original Characters and stamped the names of the Young Jedi Knights and the Movie Characters on them, Salvadore's characterization of Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin proved that, and he didn't even show Raynar, Lusa, Tenel Ka, Zekk, or Tahiri. He didn't do his research, and paid for it, AS well as killing Chewie.

You don't see Star Trek books killing the popular characters for shock and awe value, do you? It's because they don't need to do that.

And lose more sales? You don't get it man, killing off the movie characters was a bad thing for Del Rey, they lost a lot of fans. Hence why they are being careful now, with both the EU and Movie introduced characters, since they fear a bad fan backlash. But now...they've completely lost what Star Wars was about, and the characterizations are even worse than they were in NJO.

 

So my sig. Reality doesn't care what you've earned. You can't earn a good death and expect fate to pay up.

 

Salvadore's characterization of Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin proved that.

I haven't read the Young Jedi Knights series, so I'm really curious as to how Salvatore didn't do his research. Did he ignore a lot of the characterization from YJK? Jaina was a great pilot in Vector Prime, and I'm sure he mentioned Jacen and animals somewhere... even if not, Young Jedi Knights was referenced many times later in the series, particularly by Troy Denning and Matt Stover.

 

Del Rey assured him that wasn't necessary. They wanted a fresh start.

Anyway, it's utterly brainless to say they should have had the same characterisation from "two timeline years" ago and from another miniseries of books. Apart from not everyone reading those teen books, what do they have to do with a new series? Do sentient people not grow older and change?

Those children are surrounded by what we would call advance technology but is commonplace for them. Their intellect is by rights quite different to us Earthians, who most fantasy writers think we should underclass women in books because the medieval europeans did. The hell they're going to act the way they did in past books. And this was the Anderson's prose, where everything must be teen aimed and all.

It would have been nice to know their saber colours, the book never said it; and since Jaina didn't light her until that horrifying Balance Point, a third of an entire series, you only found out then it was purple red, since just purple.

 

Jacen, just 6 months after YJK was an entirely different person, and was very unlikeable compared to his previous incarnation(he wasn't the type to sit around and almost let his mother get killed, he didn't like fighting but he knew when it had to be done), Jaina seemed to have a lobotomy in VP(she's always been a great pilot, but she just didn't seem that great through NJO from YJK), and Anakin went from being the smart philisophical guy to the action guy, which isn't what he was in the previous series. Salvadore went on the record that he didn't get to research the characters because Del Rey didn't provide him with anything from the previous series. So he had to make up his own characterizations, which were horribly inaccurate and they carried throughout NJO-LOTF.

Striker's fic illustrates the differences of the characterizations best:This is I?

 

Dude, Jaina totally shattered all records for the asteroid belt run while everyone else crashed. "The kid can fly,", Han said in VP. And Salvatore snuck in a few comments for Jacen's new behavior as well, such as Jacen's then-frequent jokes a shield for his inner insecurity and pessimism. And I liked Anakin as an action guy. When Salvatore stranded him in the asteroid belt that was one of the most stressful moments in my experience with the EU.

Not only that, but Stackpole expanded upon Anakin as an 'action guy' and made it even better.

As for Kyp Durron's character 'regression', I think that it was Wurth Skidder who was supposed to be over-confident Luke-enemy, but DR decided that if more Bantam-era characters weren't featured the EU fans would get really ticked off.

So would you rather have no Kyp or the Kyp you got? Would you rather the EU stop adruptly or let it continue? Things change, my friend. If you don't adapt, you die. That is the way of life.

 

Rebel_Cheese, I would have liked the EU keeping a formula that didn't plagurize other series to create an enemy, Authors that actually did their homework to get characterizations absolutely write(Jaina became a **** over NJO, for instance, and lost her technosavvy), and keeping the bubble in. The movie characters deserved to live to a good old age, and the next generation needed to be treated as such, in an natural character progression. Instead, NJO killed Chewie, made up their own characterizations of both the YJK and OT characters, plagurized the Klingon language to give the Vong a language and gave the Republic a lobotomy to make the Vong remotely a challenge, etc.

You didn't read the link to Striker's fic, did you?

 

Rebel_cheese, I would have liked the EU keeping a formula that didn't plagurize other series to create an enemy, Authors that actually did their homework to get characterizations absolutely write(Jaina became a **** over NJO, for instance, and lost her technosavvy), and keeping the bubble in. The movie characters deserved to live to a good old age, and the next generation needed to be treated as such, in an natural character progression. Instead, NJO killed Chewie, made up their own characterizations of both the YJK and OT characters, plagurized the Klingon language to give the Vong a language and gave the Republic a lobotomy to make the Vong remotely a challenge, etc.

The Yuuzhan Vong seemed to have more in common with current events. Guess who also calls their enemies 'infidels'? And the NJO hired several Bantam authors, like Tyers, Stackpole, and Allston who actually had experience in the old Bantam era and had an idea of the characters. Not only that, but new authors like Walter Jon Williams, Greg Keyes, Sean Williams/Shane Dix, and Troy Denning (with some exceptions in his case) all more or less pulled the characters off.

Not to mention that Bantam was planning their own 'invasion'. Crimson Empire was prepping the way for that . . . and it's likely that several characters would have gotten killed. You'd be raging against Bantam right now if they had gone through with their invasion . . . again, there's the double standard you critics give Bantam. The characters would have lost people close to them and likely one of the Big Four+Mara would not have survived that invasion and the bubble would still be shattered.

And I absolutely disagree with Jaina losing her technosavvy. She joined Rogue Squadron as a teenager. Good testament to her abilities right there.

The NJO was showing natural characterization but it was comments from critics like yourself that's responsible for DR's current pillaging behavior. Now DR is cannibalizing their old arc and trying so hard to please you guys and you brush them off, while leaving us NJO-fans furious.

Oh, and I don't care about Star Trek or the Klingons so if the Vong have any similarities, fine. No big deal. Every language has similarities to others. Yiddish to German, for instance. Spanish to French. Korean to Japanese. Big fat hairy deal.

You didn't read the link to Striker's fic, did you?

I read it, it's okay but I disagree with the heavy anti-NJO undertones.

 

The movie characters deserved to live to a good old age, and the next generation needed to be treated as such, in an natural character progression.

I personally felt that the NJO was marvellous for the natural character progression to the next generation --- the entire series was a healthy mix of old and new characters sharing the spotlight, paving the way for the new generation to one day take over fully.

 

I didn't. One became a hyper pacifist that would let his own mother die, then a psycho, finally a Sith Lord(Jacen), three were killed(Anakin, Lusa, and Lyric), one became an snotty , self-obsessed, boy crazy brat(Jaina) who pushed everyone she loved or who loved her away, many characters were pushed into the background(Tenel Ka, Zekk, Lowie, and Raynar), one became a bug(Raynar), and important things that said characters had were neglected, as well as relationships. Basically, if you look at how they were in YJK, and then through how Bantam treated them, they don't look like they'll ever take over for Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie.

YJK left off with that possibility, NJO-LOTF didn't.

 

LOTF ain't over yet. There's six books left. It can still happen. They are promising Jaina and Jacen will come onto their own . . .

 

Frankly, I'm not holding my breath for that.

 

Jaina is already starting to recover from her character assassination in Dark Nest. Tempest has brought my loyalty until Inferno partially because of that.

Also, remember that Shapiro said that 'redemption' is one of the arcs. Jacen, or Ben, maybe, will be receiving redemption before the end of the arc. You might get your hopeful ending after all.

Edit: I went a little too far . . .

 

SSM12, it's called character progression. Not everyone stays the same way they were when they're teenagers. Some do (see Zekk, he's pretty much been the same since the end of Shadow Academy) but many don't, either due to outside influences or self re-evaluation. And when such craziness, such as the Yuuzhan Vong war is occuring, I'd be shocked if characters didn't change somehow.

 

One of the main themes of the NJO was how much it had changed everyone. It was mentioned all the time.

 

And in the end they were back where they began.

 

Except for the fact that Del-Rey put that in the original outline and if he didn't do it, they would have found someone who would? And it's a fictional character. He should have NEVER been treated the way he was over a fictional character. It was so embarrassing to be a part of this fandom at that time and be in literary circles.

 

Out of curiosity, what exactly was the fallout following the wook's death? Everyone always alludes to it, but I've never heard the actual story.

 

What was the big deal anyway? His nature of death is not so easily surpassed. Saving children at his expense, as a whole whopping moon drops on you. It's a visual feast.

But on the other dwarf, these fellas aren't real. Hurling books into walls and tear bursting is funny to me. I don't know why they call him Bob, but the Robert man was hurling the hints all book long, like Chewing gum and Solo unaware they were shieldless in the asteroid field, narrowly avoiding death. Salvatore wasn't subtle about it, when he said how long could the keep that up.

The closest I came to sorrow was the end of Deadhouse Gates. The shocking deaths of major "untouchable" names in the following Malazan book, Memories of Ice, was heartfelt too. But in classic Erikson deceit, the following changes all that to a new level.

I think the best time in Litter Land here was pre-Final Prophecy. Everyone was busting moms and mums that he'd come back, just like that wascally rabbit alien might've hinted.

Bah, I didn't believe it for a moment.

I sometimes wonder what BlasTech is cocked at Del Rey's heads, that they'd flat out tell you an Anakin is in Legacy (Betrayal) and the Lumie cyborg . . . Grilled dwarfs! Can you imagine the surprise and even shock for some had they seen those names without warning? They ruined the experience for heaps. They say gossip and chatting are a woman's husbands. I sometimes wonder. I'm all for promo and marketing, but c'mon . . .

 

I realise that they would have just found some other 'poor (not as in crap) author' to do the dirty deed for them.

Everyone knows that he should have never received the death threats that were given. But that I think highlights the problem with 'offing' movie characters. No one would really have gone as far, in my opinion, say if one of the non-movie characters had died instead.

But the movie characters especially the ones who were intimately involved with the DS2 mission, have that special mystique about them which was shattered by VP. For a lot of fans (I hesitate to call them 'hardcore' - probably they were more the Movie purists) it was too controversial, and it destroyed the 'happily ever after' that had been set by the tone of the end of Episode 6 and for them ruined the Star Wars saga.

On a side note, that's why I'm enjoying Legacy (Dark Horse comics) so much more...it's a whole new galaxy without any 'untouchables' except Cade of course (b/c he has the main character plot shield). And plus going this way the OT guys get their happily ever after for the rest of their lives - then things can go down the drain. It makes the OTers special.

 

For a lot of fans (I hesitate to call them 'hardcore' - probably they were more the Movie purists) it was too controversial, and it destroyed the 'happily ever after' that had been set by the tone of the end of Episode 6 and for them ruined the Star Wars saga.

No offense, but those people are dopes.

 

How and why?

It is the clear impression that Episode 6 intended to assert that the heroes would live happily ever after.

 

Salvatore received a lot of death threats over killing Chewie, and DR caught a ton of flak unprecedented since the Raynar/Lusa romance.

 

I never heard anything bad about Raynar/Lusa. Seriously! I still cannot comprehend why it was so bad. They were friends, in the books. Any romantic feelings between them were never fully stated.

I loved them together. So cute!

And I agree about the death threats being beyond stupid. I did not like it, but I would never actualluy threaten him like that.

 

That's what the Wook says, anyway. I don't fully trust it but it doesn't surprise me. I personally thought Raynar and Lusa were a little too close, although you're right, the romantic feelings weren't fully stated.

Sending deat hthreats to somebody because of something that happened in a fiction novel is stupid. The characters are fake. They're fiction. They're not alive. People should realize that.

Could you post in your story now? I can't wait to read your next post! I can't be on much longer . . .