Lit Beating a Dead Eopie: The Diversity Thread (various spoilers)

When I think Hapen men, I think Keith Hammelton Cobb.

not what they usually depict as Zoolander male models.

 

Okay, did not need to see that.

 

brain fart, apologies.

 

Poor Coop!

I absolutely acknowledge that this scene could be interpreted in many different ways but it still simply doesn't make sense.

And during this unspecified amount of time she is crying on her bed asking him to please go away and it's clear she felt violated. ("You?re reading them, even though I practically begged you not to." "It's too late [you've made me uncomfrotable]") Not once does she think in this sequence, "I am Ben's Jedi-detective subject and therefore he is justified in his beating and snooping, how sexy of him." How does she go from feeling violated to wanting to make out with the guy?

If Ben wanted to be professional he had a number of options, he even voices one of the options aloud: "I can comm Dad to watch you." (Luke probably would have handled this situation better, even young Luke.) As Likewater points out, she's allowed to carry a lightsaber and travel with them. It's not like Luke said, "And now Vestara, no keeping secret diaries while on this trip because you are our prisoner!" If Ben thought she was being sneaky he could have looked at cameras or intercepted the terminal. She was crying, wanted to be left alone, and he couldn't respect that.

If you're right, and Ben views Vestara simultaneously as a "prisoner" with no personal boundaries or rights, beginning an intimate relationship with that prisoner is hardly ethical, professional, or Jedi-like. It's just creepy of him.

Which one is it: Is she a prisoner and is he the cop, or is this supposed to be a romantic scene?

If he's law enforcement, he's barging in on a suspect, knocking the suspect around, ransacking her stuff (even after he realizes it is not a threat) and then spooning the suspect he just beat and making out with her and deciding he will walk with her EVERY STEP OF THE WAY into purity and light. Most law enforcement people do not do all of this as a point of practice. You don't make out with prisoners unless you're really corrupt.

If he's a romantic interest for Vestara, he's barging in on her privacy despite her repeated cries for him to stop, smacking her around, snooping on her most intimate thoughts, violating her personal boundaries, and then smugly deciding he's going to show her the light and fill her with love. That's dysfunctional and creepy romance.

Those are several bad things.

Ben has just assumed the worst about her to the point where he got into a physical altercation with her and violated her privacy in order to prove it. And she's okay with this, magically--even sexually attracted to it. And we, as readers, are supposed to find all of this charming and more importantly, believable? And after all of that, still think Vestara is a strong female character?

I agree, it's clearly not the intention of the sequence. I don't think the writers or editors had a malicious agenda or that they want to promote this kind of stuff as ideal or dreamy. If anything, I'm assuming the

 

I wonder if Tahiri gave ben pointers on seduction.

Tahiri: "Ben, find her in an emotionally vulnerable moment. then you rough her up, drag out whatever is causing her pain. The move in for the kill! Gigiddy- Gigiddy, gigiddy-go."

 

This incident clearly happened because Jacen did not teach Ben any of his super-effective icebreaker-seduction jokes.

"Hey Vestara! How many Sith does it take to change a glowpanel?"

Mystery would be proud.

 

It's both because, something your excerpt obscures but is very clear in the actual text, which contains a line break, this is two scenes. The first is told from Vestara's perspective, and the second from Ben's. The first scene is an interrogation, and it certainly seems to me at least that Vestara admits, to herself, that she would have done the exact same thing if she were in Ben's place, and that she in fact has to let Ben in order to even be trusted.

The second scene is Ben reading the letters and does indeed turn into a romantic sequence. Very critically, once he gains even the barest understanding of what Vestara has been doing, he offers to drop it, and she won't let him.

In the context of what happens immediately prior to this scene, which is basically Vestara losing, well, anything she had left, she's not attracted to Ben's prying, but that someone, anyone, would care enough to pry and offer to protect her. She's reaching out to grasp the shelter that's been offered from the storm. Critically, Ben agrees that Vestara could become a Jedi, something that the only to other people around (Luke and Jaina) would most certainly not agreed with, and that offers her a way forward. Is this somewhat patronizing and vaguely stockholm-syndrome-ish, yes, but guess what, it is believable, and the power dynamic would be (or at least could be) the same if the genders were reversed.

Admittedly, this sequence is predicated on the idea that true trust, and love, requires breaking through personal boundaries on a very deep and surely discomforting level. Perhaps you dislike this idea, but, when it comes to Force-users and Star Wars, it is not without precedent. Or without some reason, seeing as there's a degree of mind-melding going on in such relationships. This sequence is actually similar to the Mara-Luke sequences at the end of Vision of the Future, where a bitter pill has to be swallowed along the way to achieving the breakthrough.

There is a sort of action-movie 'we just went through this gritty and harrowing ordeal so we're going to have a fight and then make it all better by making out' vibe to the scene. Your mileage may vary, though I think it's more reasonable for two teenagers who clearly find each other attractive and haven't been around more or less anyone else for weeks than most, but whatever. Is it charming, perhaps not, but I don't think it's meant to be, it's meant to be cathartic, and that is indeed believable given the circumstances.

Edit: With spoilers...grr the first thing that happens to Vestara subsequent to her little tryst with Ben is that she begs Luke to help her become a Jedi, and the first thing he does is...wait for it...probe her mind, with her agreement. So clearly Golden, at the least, has some interesting views about Force users and trust, but given that is what Luke demands, it makes Ben's previous actions make considerably more sense.

 

the YJK Tenel Ka/Jacen relationship.

Jacen flirted through bad jokes, accidently cut of Tenel Ka's arm. Bonded through repeated attampted assassinations, and of course romantic trip to Ryoth, where one spends time in bondage, and then escape to a frozen wasteland bonding over near death experinces. Then Making her jelous by falling from a dark haired older woman...with a drug addiction and nearly dying from falling off Cloud City.

Wow...Jacen really went through hell for thoes rare hugs and kissed from Tenel ka.

Ben only has to smack a shutta.

 

You're spot on. Can I add a number 4?

4) This sequence (Ben's anger and his impulsive strike) is never again dealt with in the course of the book. Neither of the characters acknowledge it happened other than they became happy boyfriend/girlfriend.

This is not the first time Golden has written females as victims. In fact, pretty much every female character was victimized in Allies as I summarized in my review of the book. In her original fic she paints quite a sympathetic portrayal of a half-brother who seduces the book's protagonist. The young woman has no idea they are related; he does.

 

I don't see why you're suprised. Luke Skywalker's son gets to do everything from Assassination, to making suggestion for orbital bombardments on Kasshyyk, and gets the Skywalker no-darkside-seal or approval. And promotion to Jedi Knight!

 

Sadly, Likewater, I wasn't really surprised by what happened in this book. What makes the whole scene worse is that Luke's internal monologue tells the reader what a great Jedi Ben is and how he'll resist the dark side.

I did note while I was reading that one of the Moffs, who is only mentioned briefly, had caf-colored skin.

 

Imagine the option in Star Wars: The old Republic

Beat your love intrest

Yes!<-
No?

1) darkside point (Dosen't count if you're the spawn of the orders leader)

 

I'm going to play Sith's Advocate for a moment, despite how much the scene in question also disgusts and disturbs me: for the past several books, Vestera has betrayed, schemed, and plotted behind Ben and Luke's backs, so expecting her to betray them and investigating any suspicious action on her part is reasonable, even if it needs to be done by force, because she is a Sith and very dangerous. Don't forget, the last time we had seen them all together in Conviction, Vestera had just murdered an innocent being. They aren't likely to forgive or forget that anytime soon.

And now, I'll stop being Sith's Advocate: if the scene in which Ben abuses Vestera- and I refuse to it as anything but that- had to be included in the novel, it was in the wrong place. Warning, Major Spoiler: It should have occurred before Vestera killed her father. Any suspicion that Vestera would still betray them to the Sith after having to do that strikes me as stupid. Who would she even be able to betray them to? Plus, I find it odd that nobody mentions at any time that murder of an innocent in the previous book. Had Luke mentioned or thought about that at all, his extremely hostile attitude toward Vestera would have been a lot more justified. Plus Golden's treatment of women in general seems a bit... unequal. And I think that is all I'm going to say about that.

Now, I believe this thread is about diversity?

Markre Medjev showed up! Yay Golden, using that continuity! Now, I seem to remember him having dark skin, but his picture on the Wook makes it hard to tell. Does anybody else recall if he is supposed to have dark skin or not?

 

A situation is which one person grabs another person, a fight ensues, with both participating equally, and then the victor reads the others diary is unkind, but I don't think 'abuse,' certainly not in the sexual sense, is the right term. It's a major violation of privacy, which is not right, though whatever Vestara's status is it is clearly different from the expectation of privacy of an ordinary citizen. Critically, though Ben does comfort Vestara in a romantic way, he does not sleep with her or press his advantage (though regrettably this does not become clear until much later in the novel).

More importantly, Vestara betrays Ben subsequently. She chooses to murder Natua Wan in order to save him, cutting her down in cold blood and feeding her to a Sith monstrosity. The events, as they ultimately unfold, indicate that Vestara tries to give Ben her full trust, when he pushes her to it by demanding to see the secrets she's hidden, but she's unable to take it the next step and honor his beliefs and wishes when lives are on the line.

 

Oh, I hope I didn't imply that it was sexual abuse, but I do think it was physical and meant to humiliating by Ben after he clearly won the fight (which was against a very deeply upset and vulnerable person), and I think he was acting very out-of-character and un-Jedi like. I just don't see how he could possibly justify thinking she had betrayed him after being forced to kill her own father. IMO, he spoke very nastily to her, and she was begging for him not to read her private diary and crying a good amount of the scene. It just felt very disturbing to me, and I could shake the sense of how wrong the whole scene seemed to me.

As for Vestara murdering Natua, I agree with everything you say. She wants to be good and become a Jedi, but her upbringing makes that all but impossible without a lot of Jedi training, which she didn't have when she was thrust into that situation. She made her decision, regretted it, but knows she would do it again and realizes that makes her completely unsuitable to be a Jedi. That part I thought Golden handled very well. It's just that that one scene with Ves and Ben struck me as very, very, wrong, and not something a protagonist like Ben should be doing. I understand what Golden was trying to do, but I think she did a bad job at it.

 

I guess that's an improvement, but at the same time it really disturbs me when people of color are compared to food. Usually when a character is white (eg: Mara Jade) they just go for light or pale skin as the descriptor. Granted, Golden's writing seems very food-focused in general.

 

I think the problem is if u just say "dark" some other writer will come and make them white since its default. U have to really specify for minorities so somebody does not screw it up. Comics and Cartoons have it easier.

 

CoughGannerRyshodeCough

 

Even "caf" is pretty vague - they have to specify how many creamers.

 

My first thought was that caf was a synonym for the real world skin tone referred to as mocha.

I've never heard of anyone comparing any human skin tone to coffee.

 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StarbucksSkinScale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WfQN_M1pQc

Black coffee no shugar no cream, thats the kind of girl want down with my team!

 

It's not that uncommon. I've seen it used in descriptions more than a few times before (not in Star Wars, of course).

 

true but it gets u brown enough that people are not thinking white.

 

If you want equal footing make sure to also describe white characters' skin as milky. Avoid operating with the presumption that light skin is the default.

 

Milky? Maybe for caucaians like the Irish, and Russians, but what about Humans whith ancestery akin to Sicily, Turkey, Spain, or caucasian characters from south american like ethnic background. Unless you want to use words like Octaroon.