Lit Third Essential Guide to Characters (formerly "Who would you want to see . . . ?")

Maybe you could expand this. What about Fenn, outside of the puppet Mandalore deal, was changed?

 

No, my solution is to try to make it all work, but favor the narrative of the original and supported-by-far-more-sources story over the implied narrative of the story that tried to overwrite it when they conflict.

What's your solution? Wag your finger about caring too much about canon back when it's not the story you like being overwritten, then wag your finger about ignoring canon when the story you like is threatened with overwriting? That's not a solution, it's hypocrisy.

 

Well I guess there is a little hypocrisy in all of us considering some of us gave excellent reviews to book we now apparently hate.

I'll ask again, what about Shysa changed so much that his every appearance in the RC/IC series now needs to be changed? It seems to me that very little of that needs to actually be tweaked.

Anyway your the one finger wagging about issues that we as fans have no control over. I'm willing to go with the flow and have been for a long time. Are you?

 

Perhaps the fact that now....his entire appearance in the Marvel series makes no sense if we take the Commando version as "true"?

The fact that Spar as Mandalore was written out of existence, despite doing so rendering other stories nonsensical?

 

I suppose it's hypocrisy that I don't like the Power Rangers anymore, too? Or that I don't still have a crush on the girl I liked in seventh grade? Tastes change, Rob. People change their minds. How many times do I have to explain this to you?

Has your mind changed? Has your experience with getting your favorite story stomped on turned you on to the idea of protecting continuity? Or are you still telling off everyone who thinks the changes you like are a big deal while crying "Continuity! Continuity!" when whining about changes you don't like? If it's the first, welcome to the club. We're glad to have you. If it's the second, that's called hypocrisy.

If you would like a list of the changes, the old story (not the Marvel story, but the pre-Traviss-retcon story that made the Marvels fit with the rest of canon, and involved much more than just the Marvels) was that Shysa was an honest, simple young man who followed Spar during the Clone Wars as Spar, an insane clone, claimed the title of Mandalore and led the 212 Mandalorian Protectors he had rebuilt for the Separatists. In the new story, the Mandalorians did not really fight in the Clone Wars as a unit, there were no 212, Mandalore was neutral, everyone scoffed at the idea of getting involved, and Spar was just some clone who deserted and hung out on Mandalore the whole war. Shysa, a cynical manipulator, talked once about recruiting Spar to pose as Mandalore in order to unify Mandalore as a neutral power, but Spar rebuffed him and there was no Mandalore during the Clone Wars. In the old story, Spar's insanity overcame him after the war and he ran off, and Shysa became his successor as Mandalore. In the new story, Shysa claims the title of Mandalore, vacant since Jango's death, after the war in order to unify Mandalore after he can't find a Fett-clone front man.

I do not think it requires a great deal of explaining as to how these stories are fundamentally incompatible on a number of points.

 

...you don't like the Power Rangers anymore?

 

Havac you forgot to mention that, thanks to Imp Commando, Fenn Shysa's actions in Marvel no longer make even a lick of sense.

1) He tells Leia he served under Boba.
2) He hates Boba.
3) He knows Leia hates Boba.
4) He wants Leia to trust him.
5) He knows that the "Boba" he served under in the Clone Wars was really a guy called "Spar" and not Boba.
6) Furthermore, it's not even clear if any of this happened at all now. He could be making it all up.

So, let me get this straight. Fenn tries to win Leia's trust by spinning a story about a battle that didn't happen under a commander both he and Leia hates to get her to trust him.

I know, I know, more mature for adults like me and the rest.

 

If he knows it isn't true, why would he mention serving under Boba Fett at all? It doesn't help his case, at all. It made sense before, because he actually believed it to be true. Now....not so much.

There was no Mandalore for the True Mandalorians.

The True Mandalorians died at Galidraan. Spar et al are the Mandalorian Protectors.

To the New Mandalorians and the Separatists and the Republic and Jedi, there was a Mandalore...

Yes there is. The Atlas says that the New Mandalorians supported Spar in his claims. Little hard for them to do that if he isn't Mandalore.

 

Dude, Power Rangers rocks.

 

And the accent. Don't forget about the accent!

 

Even under the old Marvel continuity, it doesn't make sense for the Boba to be mentioned by Fenn considering what he has done personally to the heroes.


Uh, yes it does, Fenn is recounting a series of factual events from his past and contrasting the Boba he used to know to the scumbag bounty hunter Leia knows and doesn't like, in an attempt trying to teach her that "Mandalorians aren't bounty hunters".

Now he's keeping up his own lie for....what reason precisely?

 

Lets just see if we can't retcon out Lucas's Boba changes in Episode 2 then. That would be true to the original story then right?

In short I can't wrap my head around why fans of one story need to be the victims. The story did change, just like it had already changed before that. Finding a middle ground would seem to me to be the answer, something that includes as much of everything as possible.

Yes, I realize I'm a horrible, hypocrtical, lowlife fan for wanting stories I enjoyed to continue to be included in canon. Instead I should pick a side and look to stick it to everyone on the other side of the dilemma, because thats the grown up, mature way to do things.

Look I hate the cube cities and the changing face of Mandalore because of them. But just becasue I don't like them doesn't mean I'm going to run around lobbying to remove them from canon. They are canon now and how everything else is retconned around them is all that matters.

This, "lets erase everything I don't like", attitude seems counter productive to me.

Edit: I missed that I was "telling off" in addition to being a hypocrit. Thats great.

 

No, I don't object to your wanting the stories you enjoy to continue to be included in canon. That's what you're missing.

I object to your doing that, then turning around to the people who like the story that's in conflict with your story, and want the story they enjoy to continue to be included in canon, and saying, "Things change, get over it." That's picking a side and looking to stick it to everyone else on the other side.

I don't object to the fact that you like a story I don't like. Plenty of people do that. I object to the fact that in your argument for the story, you're trying to have it both ways. You can't have it both ways.

You care about how the cube cities are retconned. Are you going to tell me you don't want a retcon that emphasizes Kal's narrative more than Satine's? Or are you going to be happy with a retcon where Kal was really a pacifist Mandalorian who had his clones defect because he couldn't stand the GAR's violence?

The retcon for Episode II did preserve the original story, Rob. Episode II happened -- then The Last One Standing happened. It's just that Jaster Mereel was an alias. That's all the change there was. That's what I want.

Not knowing what will happen with the rest of TCW, my ideal retcon at the moment would be this: the Death Watch is defeated early in the war, which looks like it's going to happen. Spar assembles the Mandalorian Protectors as the heir of Fett, and is Mandalore, with Satine out of power however. This is the stuff that's still dependent on TCW. Then Norval II happens in the last year of the war, and Spar-as-Fett disappears, heading back to Mandalore to lay low in the podunk area Kal was hiding out in, with his clone madness ebbing for a period. Shysa's attempts to recruit Spar or other clones to pose as Fett's heir are actually a desperate attempt to impersonate Spar-as-Fett, and he doesn't know he's talking to Spar-as-Fett himself. Then, after a few months of a leaderless Mandalore, Shysa reluctantly claims the title of Mandalore himself and starts rebuilding the Mandalorian Protectors.

This throws out most of the Spar/Shysa backstory in the Traviss story in order to fit the old story in, but keeps the Traviss story mostly intact, with some details and motivations changed, as a blip inserted into the old story. This is the maximum-preservation route, because I actually do care about canon.



Sinre: The old narrative and the Traviss narrative happen to share a lot of the same names, but they agree on precisely two details: there was a clone deserter named Spar, and after the Clone Wars Fenn Shysa became Mandalore. You've provided a retcon, but that does not somehow make the stories compatible. It is a third story that overwrites bits of both stories (mostly by saying the one story is actually a lie that was told, which is not the same thing at all as preserving the story). The fact of the matter is that these are not stories that agree, or that can be made to agree by simply tweaking this one minor detail here. They do not agree as to who or what Spar is. They do not agree as to whether or not there was a Mandalore. They do not agree as to whether or not there was a 212. They do not agree as to what Shysa's background or character is. They are not compatible stories, except in the points that there was a deserter named Spar and Shysa became Mandalore after the Clone Wars. On everything else, they disagree, and can only be forced into compatibility by actively altering what the stories actually say -- that is, by retcon, by dropping certain details of each story and replacing them with new details in order to form a third story that incorporates the majority of the two previous stories.

That is not even close to the same thing as the two stories existing in harmony as-is, with the second story not having appreciably changed the first, which is apparently what Rob would have us believe.

 

See how much better that is than just deleting the old Spar/Shysa stories wholesale, Havac?. I don't know why your after me for wanting something, if not identicle, maybe similar.

Instead of spending massive amounts of time complaining about what has already happened you suggested something reasonable. I'm impressed.

I still can't believe that you think Fett changing from a grown man to a little boy maintains the original Marvel story, but anyway, that is what it is at this point.

 

The original Marvel story isn't about Boba Fett, it's about Fenn Shysa and Tobbi Dala.

 

No, but it is about how much Fenn knew about Fett - or more to the fact that he felt he was serving under Boba Fett, which is what I find implausible about the retcon.

Something that provides a better explanation besides that of Fenn Shysa believing he was following Boba himself, especially given his presentation in the RC/IC series. There is no reason to think he'd be so out of touch, so out of the loop, that he actually believed he was serving Jango's heir.

Your desire to reset canon erases all of that presentation, when I think it's possible to find a middle ground on the issue. Of course such a move doesn't erase all of Karen Traviss's writing about Fenn and Spar from canon where reseting canon would so I understand where you are coming from.

 

You'll have to point out where I said I wanted to erase anything Karen Traviss had written from canon, because I can't find it in anything I wrote.

 

This would erase basically everything from the RC/IC novels in regards to those two characters. If I'm reading more into your statement than you intended then I apologize.

I just don't see how you can revert both characters to their original stories and keep elements of their presentations in Karen's books alive what so-ever.

 

Actually, it does flat out say there hasn't been a Mandalore since Jango:

"The man walked on, apparently happy that the three-year interregnum without a Mand'alor since Fett's death was now over."