Kal Skirata - Uberman, Psycho, or Fool?

This is a thread devoted to Karen Traviss' immortal creation and really whether you think he's been lead around the nose or whether you think he's a man in charge of his own destiny. This thread can discuss the events of Order 66 and how they call into question his probable future under the Emperor.

 

First you must clarify this mysterious "ubberman" of which you speak.

 

You could make an argument that Kal Skirata is the embodiment of the Superman principle by Nietzsche. He's a figure who doesn't concern himself with ideals of good vs. evil (strange in a universe dominated by them) but solely focuses on the principles of family and his immediate loved ones. The idea of a higher concept of Good and Evil would be, in fact, anathema to him.

Instead, he acts within the limits to accomplish his goals, which is the protection of his surrogate family.

 

The obvious thing to say is to vote for all three.

More specifically, I think that the most interesting (I won't say "objective", there's no such thing especially in fiction) view of Skirata emphasizes how misled and blinkered his view of things is, and that his "Ubermensch" characteristics are directly linked to his ignorance. Skirata can only maintain his incredibly narrow-minded focus because he's totally unaware of how the wider world works and the implications of what he's doing -- he'd feel differently if he were aware of Palpatine's plot, certainly, but he'd probably even feel differently if he really sat down with a Jedi who's been observing galactic politics for the past several decades and really tried to understand why the Clone War happened.

One of the disappointing things about the story is how the story itself has begun to make excuses for him -- i.e. the story seems to have subtly changed so that many of Skirata's paranoid ideas about the war have been confirmed as fact. I always dislike it when a story does this.

 

Well, the irony is that I think Kal Skirata's viewpoint is utter paranoid fantasy but its also accurate. Kal just completely misread the cause of it.

Kal Skirata believes that the Jedi Knights have created the clones to be their expendable army of murderers in the coming war. It's unlikely that it would have ever occurred to him that the Jedi Knights weren't the ones who commissioned the army. If he assumed Jango Fett had a plan for the Jedi to turn on them, he would have assumed it was Jango Fett's plan. It seems to have never occurred to him that the Jedi were utterly unaware of the army's existence until Geonosis.

Then there's the Republic murdering deserters. This actually is entirely alright with me, because the Republic is becoming the Empire. Again, Kal Skirata keeps assuming the Jedi are in the loop on this because he thinks of them as the Galaxy's Big brothers and the secret lords of the Republic (or at least Insiders).

It's clear he doesn't believe them when they're genuinely shocked and appalled by it. Of course, we aren't, because we know that Grand Moff Tarkin and Armand Isard are already in place with the rest of his "Gang of Five" style soldiers. Kal assumes the Republic is corrupt AND HE'S RIGHT.

Sadly, I haven't read Order 66 because of what I've heard. Yet, I think it would be interesting for him to eventually realize the Jedi really WERE innocent of all the many atrocities against the clones he assumes they are. Of course, he'd also have to realize he had a part in making the Empire.

 

Psycho, fanatic fool who corrupts others. A kind of Hitler figure for small audiences, really.

 

A poor bastard who was brainwashed by a semi-psychotic, amoral Mandalorian in his youth. None of the details Kal thinks about would be out of place in Brainswashing 101. That's what the new Mandos pretty much are: a brainwashing cult dedicated to subverting as many high-ranking individuals as possible. Remember, this is the guy presented as the series' hero and he repeatedly commits treason, murder, fraud, and threatens to murder his "son" 's soon to be wife when she doesn't play along with the Mando party line.

 

Really? Kal doesn't come across as a hero to me at all. The series central character is Etain where I'm concerned. Kal's moral values come across as very clear throughout the series. He's not a hero but has adopted the ideal of helping his adopted sons escape the war while being of very low moral character in every other way.

Republic Commando isn't a series about hero's in the traditional sense. Just like the Darth Bane books aren't either, for different reasons. Both series look at Star Wars from a different perspective.

 

Personally I think that Kal is a good man..
he sticks to his principles and looks after his own
i'd rather have him as a friend than an enemy!
but i like the character a lot, i dont think he's a fool.... he's maybe a little bit of a psycho in that he doesn't follow other people's rules
but i think he's a good man, and a hell of a good character... Well done ms Traviss

 

Considering how much of the books are devoted to praising him, making him look superior to the Jedi and misc chars, and how he's a main character who is never really called out on his misdeeds, I have to respectfully disagree with both of your assertions.

 

Your reference to Nietzsche was a very good one. He is a superman in the fact that he is unconstrained by everything. Nothing can control him. He creates his own values and he doesn't hand over the responsibility of right and wrong to any authority. Skirata's instincts and his feelings guide him and that is the core of Nietzsche.

 

I have to agree with DarthUr on this one. Somewhat. Yes, his superman characteristics are to a certain degree due to his ignorance, but IMO even if he was fully aware of Darth Palpy's involvement in events, he just wouldn't care. He is also a complete and utter psycho. Valuing the lives of those close to you more than others is one thing, but when you don't value the lives of others at all, you're in psycho territory. And his assumption that the entire galaxy revolves around/is out to get Mandos is rather foolish.

 

Near the end of the book, he does hear that Palpatine is a Sith, and says something about how he set the whole thing up to kill the Jedi. Doesn't stop him from hating the Jedi though.
I want to know how Kad was raised, what he thinks of Jedi, and if his dad ever made it back to him.

 

In a (probable) subversion of KT's idea, here's how I see the Mandos:

they're a "secular cult" as
1)They have a strict set of rules that must be followed, and dissidents can and will be hunted down. (Etain and Kal, unless KT turns him into some sort of aberration. Unlikely, but not impossible. Either way, the fact that the Mandalorians tolerate his little habit speaks volumes)

2)They are obsessive about taking sentients at young ages (Just what KT accused the Jedi or doing).

"Mandalorians were complsive adopters." -Triple Zero, omniscient commentary

This is less innocent than it sounds. Kal himself was shown to have been taken as a child, put through abuse that would have made the SS blush, then told to forget his past, even down to his name. The only thing he had left was a certain three pointed knife. (His obsession with the knife may be due to unconscious regret and desire not to be a Mandalorian) He seems to have absorbed the values well, even taking it to the extreme of virtual kidnapping through the amoral usage of his influence with a mother's husband and death threats.

Not so nice, are they? These are the people KT described in an interview as (to paraphrase) what the gaalaxy needs, there to help when needed. Hm...Crusading saviors or brainwashing cult?

 

Kind of like... Jedi?

 

Is it wrong my view of the Mandalorians is that Kal Skirata is far and beyond removed from normal members of their society?

I keep thinking back to the fact that Mandalore has huge numbers of farmers, ranchers, cops, and even cities like Concord Dawn.

Which presumably do not wear their armor anywhere.

In other words, Kal is that crazy Survivalist who lives in the middle of Iowa in his compound to the rest of Mandalore with his 'unique' interpretation of the Mando religion.

 

Charles posted:
Is it wrong my view of the Mandalorians is that Kal Skirata is far and beyond removed from normal members of their society?

I keep thinking back to the fact that Mandalore has huge numbers of farmers, ranchers, cops, and even cities like Concord Dawn.

Which presumably do not wear their armor anywhere.

In other words, Kal is that crazy Survivalist who lives in the middle of Iowa in his compound to the rest of Mandalore with his 'unique' interpretation of the Mando religion.


I can agree with that. He has no interest in the politics presented at the end of Order 66, just taking his family up north and hiding out.


Loclown: Some of what your looking for takes place in Sacrifice and Revelation, though I'm sure Imperial COmmando will fill in the blanks a little more.

SgtDante: I've always thought KT's portrayal of the Mando's was meant to be in comparrison to the Jedi. The two groups are actually very similar in that reguard. It's a part of Kal's hypocrisy that he can't see it, but I do wish Etain would have pointed it out to him when he threatened to take Kad...........

 

I think the Jedi would be equally insulted.

Of course, Mandalorians aren't "One big giant family" either.

Vizlas wasn't a rogue or a Dark Mandalorian, he was the same kind of warlords we get on our own world. Likewise, Jaster Mereel had very specific ideas for what Mandalorians would do and so on. The same with Fenn, who barring retcon, wanted the Mandalorians to be heroes who helped the rest of the galaxy. Utterly at odds with their current isolationist policy.

The Mandalorians have no real "creed", they're a people, not a organization.

 

...Of course, like I've said, the thing about this interpretation is it makes the Mandalorians less of a "warrior race" than the Rodians.

 

I actually don't think the Rodians are as big a warrior race as people say they are anyway. Not just because we're moving past the "One Race does X" stereotype, but the fact that the Rodians were never warriors to begin with. Rodians are hunters and that's a significant difference. The same with the Tradoshans. Rodians love guns, hunting, tracking, and killing. We've never seen vast armies of Rodians throughout the galaxy and we probably never will. Instead; we've seen large numbers of Rodian bounty hunters, animal trackers, and hired killers.

Rodians are the planet of National Rifle Association and Big Game Enthusiasts.

 

Even in the KT canon, I still see Jedi as having done a damn sight more in the way of self-sacrifice to help other people than the Mandos.

What have the Mandos actually done to make life better for anybody who isn't a Mando? I mean, really?

 

Jango provided his genetic material to make clones to kill the Jedi, thus helping Palpatine.

But seriously, Canderous Ordo did a great many things to "help" the galaxy. Fenn Shysa and his forces fought the Empire on Mandalore, then joined the Rebel Alliance to defend the galaxy against the Nagai invasion. Boba Fett, Baltan Carid and company opposed the Yuuzhan Vong in the Unifying Force.

For the most part Mando's are not saints, but they have done good things here and there. Are they as benevolent as the Jedi, no. But then no one is, from a certain point of veiw.

 

fair enough. i'm just going to have to agree to disagree...
i like him... i can understand that you don't... but i think he's a character that works really well

 

I agree and disagree. Kal is, in pyschology and character role, incredibly similar to the main protagonist and "hero" of Traviss's Wess'har Wars series, Shan Frankland. They're both smug, callous bastards whose feelings for anyone not in their in-group range from apathy to outright hatred. However, they're fiercely, fiercely devoted to anyone inside their in-group, anyone they've judged worthy, and to their principles, such as they are, though those principles are frequently suspended for those in their in-group. This makes them appear to be colossal hypocrites. However, since all or nearly all the POV characters in the series are part of the in-group, and the in-group returns Kal/Shan's fanatic loyalty a thousand times over, seeing them as infallible paragons of morality and focusing exclusively on their upsides. Nearly everyone in the Wess'har Wars series, or at least everyone we're supposed to like, is a colossal Shan fanboy. Nearly everyone in the Republic Commando series whom we're supposed to like is a colossal Kal fanboy. This results in the books feeling like one-sided hagiographies of these characters. One can look at their deeds and come to a very different conclusion, but it feels like reading against the text because the POVs are so relentlessly fanboyistic of these characters. Now, there are hints that Traviss is aware of the fact that these characters aren't that great -- she's condemned Kal's morals and hints that he's a bit of a nut, and Rayat in Judge calls Shan out on all this stuff, but those hints are very small compared to the vast hero-worship of these characters. So Traviss has these characters like Kal who really do come across as heroes if you read the book straight-up and are huge heroes IU to all the characters in the books, and it's fair to question if Traviss really realizes that these people don't resemble heroes in our minds at all. You can read against the grain and see them as immoral and unheroic, but there's no really strong counterpoint presented in the text. On a narrative level, yes he is a hero and comes across as one. On an individual moral level, no he's not.

 

I think one problem I have with this is the perception a lot of people seem to have that it's better to be outright bad and intentionally bad than to aspire to goodness and fail.

In other words, Kal Skirata says straight-up he doesn't give a crap about anyone who isn't one of his boys, he's *committed* to only caring about his boys, and he shows no compunction whatsoever about totally screwing over other innocents for the sake of his boys.

The wess'har seem to be an entire race based around this concept -- total and absolute loyalty to friends and total and absolute callousness toward enemies. And from what I've seen of the wess'har books they strut a lot about this and they find the much more fluid boundaries of human loyalty to be a reason we're a slippery untrustworthy irrational species, and the book seems to sympathize with this POV.

So the main reason the Jedi come off as jerks in the RC books is that they *try* to be absolute moralists -- they *claim* to care equally about all life, to sacrifice everything of themselves to help anyone who needs help with no boundaries of attachment or favoritism -- and, being imperfect beings, they fail.

The thing is that on a personal level, I disagree utterly that this makes the Jedi worse than anybody. On some level a hypocrite is still a better person than an outright evil person, assuming they actually *try* to do good. Aspiring to be fair-minded and compassionate to everyone and doing the right thing regardless of personal perspective, and failing, is *better* than aspiring to be a jerk who screws everyone else over and plays favorites and succeeding.

Simply deciding you're not going to be a moral person is taking the easy way out, and I have no respect for someone who makes that decision and therefore has an easier time being "consistent" than someone who truly tries to revere all life, no matter how badly the latter person fails at it.