Lit Star Wars may be more important than you think

In 1996 Michael P. Kube-McDowell wrote a Star Wars novel called Before the Storm. It was the first in the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy. The series featured a new and radically xenophobic race called the Yevetha who unleashed a genocidal purge on their little corner of the galaxy. Much of the plot was focused on a divided and sectarian New Republic rallying behind Chief of State Leia Organa Solo as she championed the cause of military intervention against the Yevetha. This story closely mirrored the troubling real-world events that had unfolded in both Rwanda and the former Yugoslav republics only 2 years before, and in many ways, we're continuing to unfold deep into the next decade. Terrible acts of genocide were carried out on prime time news, yet much of the world, despite calls for action in the United Nations, just sat back and did nothing. Then, in 1999, a new series of Star Wars books was released. In the New Jedi Order (written by a who's who collection of veteran Star Wars authors) we were once again introduced to a new and fearsome enemy, the Yuuzhan Vong. They were a fanatical and nihilistic race from another galaxy that embraced pain as a purifying and cleansing force and sought to subjugate and annihilate the "infidels". In the first book of the series, the only Star Wars novel ever written by famed fantasy author R.A. Salvatore, we were shocked by the death of Chewbacca. For the next four years, we read on with excitement and terror as the galaxy was nearly brought to its knees by the Yuuzhan Vong invasion and the splintering New Republic was reformed into the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. And once again, a stark parallel can be drawn to events occurring in the real world. On September 11, 2001, the tides of radical Islamism boiled over when terrorists flew airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The next 8 years were a whirlwind of war and fear mongering that almost destroyed the democracy we hold so dear. At the same time, the prequel trilogy was in theaters, and very obvious parallels can be drawn between the fall of the Republic under Palpatine and the shadow wars of George W Bush and Dick Cheney. In 19 BBY, during his State of the Republic Address, Palpatine even referred to the separatist planets of Felucia, Mygeeto, and Saleucami as a "Triad of Evil". This is a clear reference to Bushes labeling of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an "Axis of Evil" in his 2002 State of the Union Address. I am only just realizing it, but Star Wars may be the most historically/socially reflective and impacting literature of our time. And now I present a challenge to you all: can you find any more EU/Legends stories with parallels to concurrent world events? I am willing to bet there are quite a few of them.
I would like to add that I first posted this on the Star Wars subreddit and moderators gave me **** for making a "political post". Hopefully, this forum is not quite as stifling.

 

I remember right after 9/11, reading someone arguing that Osama bin Laden was inspired to make al-Qaeda from reading Asimov's Foundation.

 

yah I'm fairly certain that triad of evil reference is in the Revenge of the Sith novelization, which puts the total of Bush/Cheney references to 2 in ROTS as Anakin says "If you're not with me then you're my enemy" which is, true, a fairly standard statement but there was a lot of controversy about Bush saying "If you're not with us then you're against us" and seemed to be cribbed/reference directly to Bush's statement. And also when ROTS came out, people were dropping references to democracies turning into a dictatorship which seemed to be pointed at the Bush administration, although Lucas pointed out that it was always there in the backstory from the 70s and was based on the rise of Nazi germany.

If we're talking more modern Star Wars analogies, it's entirely possible Abrams backslid into it by accident (but that doesn't really matter if it was intended or not, it's still there) but the First Order is a pretty decent metaphor of Alt-Right/Neo-Nazis.

 

Abrams explicitly compared the First Order to the actual Nazis who went to South America - if anything, the Centrists in Bloodline are more like neo-Nazis, the young privileged kids who grew up after the war in the new liberal state but drool over the fancy uniforms, have fantasies about fighting with the generals they read about in history books, and make excuses about how the earlier regime were actually just fighting for logical, rational ideals.

In any case, the First Order as depicted in TFA couldn't be based on the alt-right, because the alt-right didn't exist in its current cohesive (as such) form until after the movie came out. They were still just Gamergaters in 2014. Admittedly a Star Wars book where the villains were HoloNet trolls would be an interesting approach.

 

You meant next 17 years I think. Always fascinating to see how art creeps into/influences life and life creeps into/influences art.

 

What frustrates me about this is that, in the subsequent "Lucas Thinks Bush is Vader" furor, what got lost was that they were both quoting a mutual source: The Gospel. Vader's line in Revenge of the Sith is meant to further cement the inverted Christ figure he represents, but that never gets talked about.

 

Traviss had some references to Blair in a few of her books iirc.

But on the whole, I think you're reading way too much into things. Every storyteller is influenced by the world they live in- there's no deep secret meaning to some of these things; just the same experience of the human condition that has existed for thousands of years. Lots of real-world wars have general parallels to some SW ones- that doesn't make them allegories.

 

I think Star Wars tends to rack up points for the sheer number of contemporary parallels because it's a story that's been continuously told in one form or anything for more than four decades now.

 

Yah, I'm not saying Abrams intended the First Order to be alt. right Neo Nazis but it certainly works like that now. Retroactive metaphor!

 

Mind you, that helped make the trilogy far more uncomfortable.

The Black Fleet Crisis basically depicts the Empire as the lesser evil to a bunch of fanatical, misogynist, murderous evil caricatures of Muslims who will never make peace with Western civilization because any attempt to make peace will be just a disguise for their evil.

Mind you, when the book was written it was about Palestine and Israel but prefigures the War on Terror.

 

Star Wars has had political context since 1977.

Lucas made Palpatine at least in the original conception like Nixon.

And I recall LOTF there were tony Blair and George bush war on terror references.

 

I tried to read one of K-Mac's original sci-fi novels once. It was... well... terribly sexist and racist.

I started wondering if I liked the Black Fleet Crisis as much as I remembered, or if a re-read would find it as uncomfortably anti-Islam as Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow series.

 

There was at least one moment where she had Caedus (almost?) quote Blair verbatim ("I feel the hand of history on my shoulder, I really do", IIRC). It was horrible.

 

Erm, I'm like... 99.9 percent certain that the OP is right in that if the Black Fleet Crisis is drawing upon any specific real-world inspiration*, it'd be the Balkan wars. I have no idea where someone would get Israel and Palestine.

*(I don't know any BTS stuff here so I could easily be wrong, but I'd personally tend to assume it was more inspired by the general American geopolitical zeitgeist than any sort of one particular "Conflict X in Space" thing.)

 

Bunch of religious fanatics enslaved by imperials (British instead of Space Nazis) who blame imperialism as the reason for all of their actions as well as the loss of their holy worlds to foreign colonists, justifying their revanchism via terrorism.

Mind you, that's my familiarity with reactionary sci-fi (ala Card and Miller) influencing my read.

Kube could have just been an innocent, "Bad aliens vs. Good Aliens" here.

 

I always thought the Yevetha seemed more of an anti colonial thing.

The empire oppressed and colonized their world and then became oppressive and xenophobic themselves(though I think it's states they were always like this).

 

Yes, reactionary sci-fi tends to take the view the colonized are not radicalized but simply inherently alien/barbaric. It's one of the criticisms of the genre. Mind you, I teach literature so I've had a lot of discussions about the dark side of sci-fi and the subtext with it.

People should check out STAR WARS ON TRIAL for a semi-humorous criticism of the movies by David Brin.

 

I wouldn't say Star Wars is reactionary and reactionary itself is an extremely charged political word.

Though maybe Legacy is I dunno. It works in context.

As for politics in Star Wars-the eu did paint the failings of democracy and showed implicitly why the empire or Felpire might have been a better system. I guess you could say that's reactionary.

At the same time the prequels and other eu material show what untrammeled corporate dominance and power looks like-mass extinctions, enslavement, private armies, extraordinary exploitation, etc... Bad corporate behavior is very much shown in the EU as is what untrammeled private sector rule looks like.

Though I suppose on further reflection the eu if it has any unifying political message is that-war is eternal, democracy is a dead end, corporate power is a bad thing, and dictatorships work except when they go bad though the pius dea and empire are portrayed negatively, Jedi dictatorships in the new Sith era shown as borne of necessity, etc...

So Star Wars is more politically conservative on the whole then some might think.

And as I've stated before IU their seems to be next to no socialist or communist analogues.

As it is this doesn't bother me too much.

Star Wars is political that much isn't in doubt but it's not open about it like Star Trek or the culture it's more implicit and shown then preached or spoken.

 

The first book of the New Jedi Order came out in 1999, two years before 9/11. As such ,any similarities with real world events is pure coincidence.

The Triad of Evil thing though, is a clear reference to Bush though and is not surprising given GL made some comments about Palpatine's rise reflecting Bush's...at the time there was real fear amongst the left that Bush would declare himself dictator for life and take over. Coruscant Homeworld security is another Bush reference. (homeland security)

Except that...Bush never became dictator for life. And when Obama became president the right said he would become dictator for life. Now the left fears Trump will be dictator. Before Bush, the right feared Clinton would be a dictator. In two or six years, another president will be accused of being the next dictator and cause the opposing political party to go into paroxysms. And on and on it goes. At 35, you become jaded and no longer care what each side is claiming is going to be the new downfall of the Republic.

Frankly, all specific references like Homeworld Security and Triad of Evil do is date a franchise. It allows you to chuckle at what people feared during the time the franchise was created.

As such, those kind of dating references should be avoided. AT ALL COSTS.

GL can claim Palpatine was based on Nixon all he wants but at the end of the day, you could not tell that from the original trilogy. Instead, it relies more heavily on timeless themes than anything else, themes that cannot be confined to a given era. A few of those themes would be the battle between collectivism vs individualism, redemption, and the reconciliation of fate vs free will. Those are the things that make the original trilogy resonate despite one's political affiliations.

Indeed, the clearest reference in the original trilogy to modern times is what later became known as the Tarkin Doctrine..."Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station." To me that's a clear reference to MAD. Yet, it is handled very subtly. No ham-handed attempts to reference the modern day with him using a phrase like totally assured annihilation (imagine Tarkin saying "TAA will keep the systems in line.")

Subtlety is lost in the modern day.

Part of the reason I liked the idea of reboot was because of the removal of some of the stuff that dated the early 2000s EU. However, I will not be totally surprised if Palpatine supporters in the new canon start wearing MTEGA caps (Make the Empire Great Again) and Palpatine starts ranting about building a wall between the Empire and the Unknown Regions. Disappointed but not surprised. Sadly, I fear that resisting such urges may be futile.

 

Star Wars may be less important than you think.

 

For all the association of the Empire with the 'Evil Empire', Lucas actually was an admirer of the Soviet film industry.

 

I admit, speaking as a fan of Literary Criticism, I will say that I disliked Legacy strongly because of the fact that it did seem to undermine Star Wars' promotion of science, religion, freedom, and democracy for essentially the idea of a whitewashed autocracy and divine right.

The funny thing about Luke as a "special bloodline" is the fact that Luke and Anakin both came from nowhere.

And the former certainly doesn't want power or rulership.

So Marasiah Fel/Jaina on the throne of the Empire is a subversion of what their ancestors stood for.

 

I don't deny the othering and orientalism in BFC in the portrayal of the Yevetha. But wasn't that based more on the Yugoslav Wars? I mean the BFC was released right after the Bosnian War.

Yes but to Lucas, America and its experience in Vietnam was the model for the Empire (since that was the principal war of his generation). Palpatine was based on Nixon and the early iterations of the Empire was very much America in the future after "Nixonian Gangsters" had taken over and messed up everything. In many in both the OT/PT, the Empire has always been a critique of America.

As for sources: From the Making of ROTJ

From the notes from the original treatment of Star Wars

 

It could well be and I'm just reading a possible interpretation into it.

That's the nature of literary criticism and why Tolkien really-really HATED it.

 

*puts on Literature Teacher Hat*

Fiction is inherently political because life is inherently political. Stephen King, notably, disagrees with me here but I'm willing to take on him with the statement that much of my education growing up was influenced by STAR WARS. Star Wars educated me with a strong bias against fascism, authoritarianism, empires, and atheist totalitarianism.

This was all done with the simple fact that the bad guys who argued ORDER IN THE GALAXY was worth sacrificing the lives of individual pacifists. It took a very "clear" stand against what people judged to be childish ideals and yet those ideals have been a permanent part of political discourse today as we live in societies where security vs. freedom are still ongoing debates.

American science fiction has often been accused of having a fascist underpinning with one of the most famous tongue-in-cheek critiques being THE IRON DREAM by Norman Spinrad. Which was the idea that if Adolf Hitler had immigrated to the United States post-WW1, he might have had a successful career writing Pulp fantasy.

TV TROPES: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheIronDream

There's a certain sense of him being right with many science-fiction dramas being about the plucky (usually white) leads being against EVILLLLLL foreigners who are nothing more than forces of chaos and destruction to secular civilization. ANGEL IN THE WHIRLWIND by Christopher Nutall, for example, is about the secular Western civilization of the protagonists under the irrational woman hating society of the Theocracy. Halo had its critics because it is a somewhat Americanized take on the War on Terror IN SPACE with the Covenant vs. the Master Chief for the fate of the universe. This isn't to say the game or its world was bad, far from it, but it wore its inspirations on its sleeve.

Star Wars is notable for the fact that it is a reversal of many of those common ideals and the inherent xenophobia sci-fi is often accused of promoting. The Galactic Empire is (until the existence of Finn) white, male, and human while the Rebellion is diverse (by RotJ), is led by women, and is also aliens oppressed by humans.

It's part of the reason why I've always been somewhat uncomfortable with the NJO because it presented a theocratic monstrous xenophobic horde of Chaotic Evil Aliens as the bad guys. Mind you, it was stunted by the fact the only solution to them was peace too. Also, the accursed, "Democracy doesn't work" context of the subsequent stories.

The Last Jedi was accused of ignoring the mythology of Star Wars in order to make a more populist "anyone can be a hero" statement but it's the same in reverse in STAR WARS: LEGACY as it's made clear no one but Cade Skywalker can save the galaxy.