The Dawn of a Mary Sue.. The Bria Tharen HATERS club.

Up!

 

dude... Bria was in like two books....there's not much about her to hate OR love. she was there and gone in like seconds....

 

Well, Bria was in all three Han Solo Trilogy books, didn't play a *minor* part, but the part she did play, we don't much like

 

Three....my apologies....

she arranged some sculptures, got high, fell in love with Han Solo, met Boba Fett, and stole some Death Star. She didn't do much....

but that's just an opinion....one of many

 

Well, Bria was in all three Han Solo Trilogy books, didn't play a *minor* part, but the part she did play, we don't much like

Elori, I couldn't have said it better myself I don't think there was a single scene she was in where she didn't annoy me. Even if she wasn't the main character (although in Rebel Dawn, she gets more screen time than Han does, despite the trilogy supposedly being about Han), she was forced into playing a major role in waaaay too many aspects of the SW universe to be believable.

A good point was brought up a few posts back. There didn't seem to be any reason for the endless fawning and worshipping of Bria. She wasn't that interesting a person to begin with, she used and manipulated people (particularly men), she was weak and easily fell to temptation, and ran away whenever she couldn't handle her problems. I can see some guys feeling sympathy for her or whatever, but I can't see everyone she ever meets bowing down to how great and beautiful and brave she is. For one thing, I think men like Fett, Lando, and probably most of the Imperials Bria manipulated are older, more experienced men who won't be naively bowled over because a girl is beautiful. I'm also sure there were much more heroic people in the Rebellion (like LEIA for instance!)

 

There was a comic noone liked too, which was worse for basically everyone involved

 

Friend of Skylark, thank you for paraphrasing her role in the books. If one of your many opinions includes something about Bria that would be appropriate for this thread, by all means, please post! But if you feel we are wrong in our choice of opinion, there's a Bria fan thread right around the corner.

I was just thinking, and I remembered one scene I thought was cute from the books. Anyone remember where Han saw Leia when he was landing on Alderaan?

 

I liked that scene, but couldnt work out how old Leia would have been.

 

We can never be sure, because we don't know how old the message was. It was incredibly cute though.

 

haha yes, still cute

 

At most, she's 8 if the message was recent, as Han was 19 at the time.

I love this thread; it's such a luxury to find other people who hate bria, as well.

EDIT: I found this post you guys might want to read. It's part of a bria debate I had with Glitterbug and it nicely sums up why I hate bria and how she's a Mary Sue:

First off, Crispin as a Mary Sue is
incredibly relevant to the first few points. Most Star Wars books tell a a sci-fi, adventure story; that's what Star Wars first and foremost is. However, Crispin decided to go do her own thing. She wrote a fanfic. The other books don't show much H/L interaction because they weren't supposed to show excessive romance. It has nothing to do with them as a couple but rather authors do what they were assigned. In the HST, Crispin wrote a romance series which was totally uncalled for. She glossed over things already established (Xaverri, Salla) to focus on her pet character. She gave them hundreds of more personal scenes then a Star Wars books should have! This was to be a series about HAN and his ADVENTURES before ANH, not some sappy, out-of-character romance novels.

And don't say Jenny doesn't exist. She's more canon than bria. Jenny was cut, but that doesn't destroy her existence; she's in both the novelization of ANH and the radio drama. And as LFL has said, that makes her more canon than bria. So therefore, Han's already interested in someone else just a few minutes after bria's dead! Doesn't sound to heart-broken to me...

And one cannot say Han hated Leia from the begining. "Either I'm going to kill her, or I'm beginning to like her..." "She's got a lot of spirit. Do you think a princess and a guy like me?" In the comic book adaption (more canon than the HST) after that line it says Han doesn't quite know if he said that to annoy Luke or because he really felt that. Besides he hugs her in the trash compactor and then winks at her in the medal ceremony. Not only does he not hate Leia, he's already falling for her! bria's totally forgotten.

They take three years to get together because of Leia's fears of a relationship and also they take the time to get to know one another A relationship like Han and bria's is based on physical intimacy only not emotional intimacy like H/L.

And don't even get me started about ESB lines being references to the HST! That's ludicrious! Crispin tailored it that way to fit her Mary Sue views. ESB was released over 15 years before the HST. In another thread, Ginger posted a nice excerpt from a book about the making of the carbonite scene. In it one sees how Harrison Ford and Irvin Kershner developed the carbonite scene and how Harrison came up with whole "I love you; I know" idea. He specifically says in that that Han is concerned about Leia's safety and that he feels incredibly deeply for her. I don't know but I think Harrison and Irvin's thoughts on Han are more accurate than those on one biased author trying desperatly to work her books into the established universe. These statements on your part, Glit, I can understand, even if they are flawed, because you read the books first. If only you hadn't...

Moving on, let's not say anything about the reunion until we see it all. Recovery, which will be out shortly, will further embelish that. Plus Tyers chose not to include more scenes, but did say that there were lots of "mushy" things happening off-screen (page?) between them. One can simply not say their reunion was unromantic when only a fraction of it was presented!

As for who he was closer to, let's not forget Leia was intensely grieving when the Chewie comic took place as was Han. Their relationship wasn't at it's strongest right then understandably. Besides, who would he be closer to than his soul mate, as both Luke and Mara have said they are? Certainly not a mere infatuation. And sure Leia didn't get the full details of Han's past for a while, but can you blame him? She's a princess, he's a smuggler. He's always been concerned about what she thinks of him and telling her that story would have scar

 

I love you Adi

 

Yaaay!

 

I've found some other great posts of mine and others. I'll post them sometime soon.

And of course you do, Tara

 

right on

 

That reminds me Adi, here's another great post from Toryn's boards :




On the other hand, the EU authors are privileged to be able to play in his universe. Some of them exploit this privilege and twist around Lucas' idea for his characters and storylines to fit their own little fantasies and ideas and undermine events in the OT. That is what Crispin did with the HST and Bria in particular. It is much more offensive when an EU author twists around Lucas' universe to fit their own warped desires than it is when Lucas created his own universe.

Glitterbug, let's use an analogy you'll understand - Titanic, since you yourself like to bring it up. Let's say Jack was Cameron's Gary Stu. Since you loved Titanic, that should be acceptable to you that Cameron created Jack to be this really cool, good-looking guy who gets the beautiful girl, and is the love of her life even after 70 years, yadda, yadda. A few years down the line, Cameron decides to cash out and commercialize Titanic by letting some authors write some backstores about his movie, just like Lucas did.

Along comes some author (let's just call her Carol) who can't get an original novel published and has to turn to writing for series (KJA refers to writing to SW "burger-flipping in the literature world). She's been in love with Leo ever since Romeo + Juliet, and in love with Jack ever since she saw him in Titanic. Her libido has a lot to do with her love for him, as well. She's offered a deal - to write about Jack's backstory! Since she's so in love with Jack, she jumps at the deal. Had she gotten a deal to write about Jack and Rose, she probably would have simply inserted herself as Rose. However, since it's Jack's backstory, that's impossible, so she'll just have to come up with new character to insert herself into. Let's call this character "Violet".

"Violet" is a rich beautiful girl Jack meets while he's in Paris. Violet is tall, slender, with looks to die for with dark hair and *violet* eyes. She's just like Rose, but better in every way. Not only is she more beautiful, but she's smarter, nicer, funnier, sweeter, yadda, yadda. "Violet" is rich but forgoes it all for Jack. Jack falls for her on sight, and the torrid passion love story begins. And get this - "Violet" teaches Jack how to dance. That's how he did all those cool moves in the beginning of Titanic! Didn't you know that? Well now you do. AND one day Violet, in a sudden burst of freedom, yelled "I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD!" Jack thought that expression was SO FUNNY he decided to memorize it and use it whenever possible.

ALSO guess what. Violet also built the Titanic. What - you thought that Thomas guy did? Pfft. Whatever, that's just the MOVIES. Everyone know THIS backstory is the real thing.

Back to the love story. Jack has never been in love before, and now he's finally found "the one". (The whole time the reader is reading this they think this whole story is silly and unnecessary since we all know they won't end up together.) But then - tragedy strikes! She's stricken with TB. Oh no! Jack holds on for her and she dies in his arms. He's bitter and angry and swears off love forever. But he's always reminded of her. He goes around quoting her and every piece of dialogue he says in Titanic is actually related to her. Then when he meets "Rose" she reminds him of Violet so of course that's why he falls "in love" with her. I use "in love" in quotation marks, because we always know while he might "love" her she'll never compare to the great Violet in his eyes, of course.

So OBVIOUSLY "Violet" is the love of Jack's life, not Rose. Why? Because I said so.

Look! I can pull a "Crispin" too! (Actually, I think Crispin did more offense to the SW trilogy with all the crap about Bria startin the Rebellion than I did with Violet, but anyway)

Now which one is more offensive? "Carol" for completely twisting around the meaning and story of Titanic and the Jack/Rose love story or Cameron because he created the Titanic universe and possibly wrote himself as Jack (we don't even know if he did)?

 

Oh, the part where Han sees a young Leia-that was my favorite. And where he's walking around Alderra, and thinks about "the child princess" and pictures her living somewhere, warm and comfortable.

If anyone was a Gary Stu, it was Jack.
(Much as I liked Titanic-his character got on my nerves).

I did read the "I know, I know" part in TPS, but it never occurred to me to connect it with the line in TESB, and it still doesn't, just because. Unless Crispin said something.

You know, sometimes Mary Sues and the like can work. All characters have something of a Mary Sue in them, if you get right down to it. And it's even okay to like them-I mean, I think a lot of people here really cannot stand Mara Jade. I love Mara, but if you don't like her, that's okay.

On to Bria. It would have been better if perhaps she was maybe someone who MAY have become a girlfriend-but died before that. Or nothing was able to happen.

What disappointed me most was we NEVER found out what happened to Han's parents. WHY???

 

Was that yours, Tara? Nice job.

And we don't find out about Han's parents because they're irrelevant to bria. Notice we learn about her parents. Wouldn't it make sense to meet Han's parents in the Han Solo Trilogy? You would think so, but not when Crispin's the writer and only cares about bria.

 

Darth_Holliday wrote the "Violet" post.

Very funny guy. He's written many parodies of the EU.

 

It is very odd that in the (supposed) Han Solo Trilogy, Bria gets as much development as Han, if not more.

I agree with the people who say Bria wasn't worth all the worship she got. Basically, she was pretty, and that's all there was to her.

 

I wish I had, but I can't take credit for it, Adi, Darth Holliday wrote it

I think sometimes Gary Stu/Mary Sues can work. For one thing, it's obvious Luke is a Gary Stu, and so is Corran. I like both their characters. Even if they are Gary Stus, they have flaws, and people don't treat them like they're the greatest thing in the world. Unfortunately, that isn't the case with Bria...Everyone thinks she's the greatest thing since sliced bread (if there is such a thing in the GFFA )

 

Adi, wow. *applauds* Fantastic post. I especially agree with you on how Crispin botched her assignment and wrote a romance novel about Han and Bria instead of adventures about Han Solo! Also agree that she messed up Han's character in the movies, who was always intended to be a SOLO mercenary who's tough exterior cracks when he befriends Luke and Leia.

Love the "Violet" post too. I'm not a big fan of Titanic, but what Crispin did to ESB would be equivalent to someone trying to explain why Rhett says "My dear, I don't give a damn" in GWTW. Sacriledge!

 

Yep, I've read many of Adi_Gallia's anti-Bria posts and they're all great.

 

I just had an awful thought...

LFL said after the NJO is finished, they will be going back in the timeline and writing books that took place between the Bantam books already published.

Wouldn't it be horrible if they did a book between ANH and ESB, and it kept mentioning how much Bria had hurt Han, and because of that, Han couldn't imagine having feelings for Leia or anyone else? I remember Crispin said she wanted to write an ANH/ESB book with the trio...I can only imagine what it would be like...

 

They said post ROTJ