Discussion Callista hatred Never understood it.

I remember when I first got into fanfiction was when I was in junior high.

what I've always noticed though was the amount of VIRITROL Directed towards Callista by luke/Mara shippers, which Ive never felt Callista deserved...

any idea WHY so many hate Callista so much?

 

Because some can't bear the thought of anyone being meant for Luke except Mara. Also somewhat supposed 'majority rules' mentality. I never understood it either. I liked Callista myself and I don't like Mara at all.

 

Callista's story and character were kind of...weird...and plagued with "designed by committee" issues (her appearances span several quite different authors). By contrast, Mara Jade's character and roles (those of any substance, at any rate) were clearly-defined by good authors. As far as relationships go, Callista really was to Luke what Qwi Xux was to Wedge Antilles; i.e., she was a "simulator run" (to use Qwi's own words) that formed a baseline experience for forming future relationships.

As for why "shippers" dislike her...well, fan ficcers are a notoriously petty lot, especially the younger ones...

 

In other words it's down to perception. That much is true while I disagree with the above stated ones.

 

If Callista came into Luke's life in any other way, maybe I would have been able to tolerate her (that's a big maybe). I really didn't like the fact that she took over the body of one of Luke's heartbroken suicidal students. It is just too weird. She's a bodysnatcher.

Also many readers did expect Mara Jade to be Luke's love interest. Zahn set it up fairly convincingly in the Thrawn Trilogy. So when future books came about I was expecting to see that relationship continue. When you expect something to happen and it doesn't occur, it is a bit disappointing. For example, I am a huge X-File fan. I would have been very upset if Scully started dating Skinner or the Smoking Man. I wanted to see Scully and Mulder doing the deed...and any other person in their lives romantically I would have seen as an interloper.

 

Before I get into my spiel, I know this can be a very heated topic, so let's continue to keep this civil.

First off, I am a LM writer. However, I came to the fandom back in like 2008/09 - so Callista was long gone, Luke and Mara had been married and Mara had been killed off. I don't hate Callista. Yeah, I like to poke at her from time to time but the two times I've written her, I think I was fairly nice to her. I recognize her as a necessary being in Luke's life. IMO, he needed one serious relationship that breaks his heart, resigns himself to a life of loneliness before Mara gives him a second chance at happiness.

I think that the "Callista hate" started WAYYY back when in the mid 90s. Apparently there were some pretty nasty shipping wars between Callista factions and Mara factions. We all know Luke ended up being with Mara, so the Mara faction kinda won. Since then the Luke/Callista shippers have gone into obscurity and, seeing that there's much more LM canon material, the LMers have only grown.

As for the character herself, even non LMers will admit that Callista's storyline was strange. Callista only had 4 major appearances and none of them were remotely normal. Her first appearance was in COTF. That book was badly written (confusing, disjointed and had some fairly off characterizations). In the book, Callista was a long dead Jedi in a computer that eventually took over the body of one of Luke's suicidal students. Luke then proceeded to have a relationship with her. Many people found it crossed a line from Sci-Fi, to just being plain wrong. In Darksaber, she was Luke's girlfriend who was obsessed with finding the force again, where at the end, she left Luke without saying goodbye. Planet of Twilight was odd, but the ending gave definite closure to the LC relationship. It was over and it was clear that Callista wouldn't be a huge character any more. She then shows up over 20 years later as the body of Abeloth.

All that being said, I don't think there are many true haters (I mean veterans of the LM vs LC wars) left. Sure many LMers like to poke at Luke's ex-girlfriends and Callista is a scapegoat of sorts given her strange storyline. I think many LMers will always dislike her because whenever she shows up in LM fics she's often an antagonistic force (but so is Lumiya). But I don't see much vitriol hatred towards Callista, at least here anymore.

 

As someone who was there, in the fandom, during the 'shipping war' period... Callista was boring. I never got why people hated her so much, particularly after Planet of Twilight. She was just so bland and manufactured 'perfect,' it didn't seem worth the energy to develop strong feelings against her. Personally, I was just glad when she was gone. And I'm sure it kept up in fanfic because she's the only non-Mara love interest who didn't die in the same story she met him in, the only one whose story was left open-ended for so long. (Well, Akanah, I guess, but that was never really sold as a 'love story,' plus that trilogy was just so blatantly ridiculous.

Was it really that vicious? In fanfic, yes, but in the fandom? Honestly, it was so long ago that I don't remember any specifics, but it clearly didn't make an impression on me. "Zahn vs. KJA" was a much, much bigger deal as I recall, and I'm sure I was plenty nasty. Man, did I hate KJA back then. I certainly mocked his writing of Callista, but Callie herself? Shrug.

 

I was around to see both and for me both were needlessly vicious. Tastes vary it isn't cause to attack others. Just because Luke ended up with Mara doesn't mean she 'won' anything it was simply a creative choice made. A poorly handled one. Calista's story may have been odd but it doesn't mean it didn't work for some. Nor did I find Zahn's handing of L/M in TTT anything but forced and shallow. Regardless, I'm glad it works for some and I'm perfectly content ignoring Mara completely.

 

For me, this explains it exactly.

I didn't hate Callista, but to me she was always a bit... creepy. I remember feeling at the time that I was glad Luke was having a relationship, but she made me very, very uncomfortable.

 

It was also still creepy when Cray's body began to change to look more like Callista. It was like the author was trying to decrease the creep factor so that both Luke and the audience wouldn't be reminded of Cray's presence, but I think it just made it even weirder.

Like numerous other fans have stated, it'd have been a lot less problematic if she'd simply been an Old Republic Jedi frozen in carbonite or trapped in some form of stasis.

 

There are always going to be problems with anyone Luke is romantically involved with because George Lucas never wrote the storyline himself. If he had, there wouldn't be a problem. I always liked Gaeriel myself. I've always thought that Mara would have been better off remaining single because her character was stronger that way and had more definition. After she marries Luke, she looses her edge as a character for me and becomes a Mary-Sue, but that is not the fault of Mara herself, just the way people wrote her.

 

If Lucas wrote Luke's romantic interest storyline the Jedi Master would have probably ended up married to an obnoxious female Gungan who later dies of a broken heart after giving birth to the ugliest baby in the freaking universe.

Just because Lucas wrote it doesn't mean fans wouldn't have a problem with it. There are a lot of fans who dislike most of Lucas' later works.