Lit The Evil Empire, or, rather, a commentary on what Legends did to the Empire

Indeed, many comments that arent received well manage to, through some mysterious process, become jokes retroactively. The internet is a strange place like that.

Especially when its a point you keep returning to in every following response, including that very comment.

The only logical conclusion here is that this entire conversation was a joke on your end, which is certainly an astounding commitment to a rather unfunny bit.

I would genuinely have more respect for you if you said "I voted for Trump", rather than jumping from "you may call me a trump supporter all you want"(when noone did that) to "Star Wars doesn't affect IRL politics" to "I would vote for trump to get better sw stories" to "you are forcing me to support Trump with your star wars opinions". All while claiming it all as some rather unfunny joke.

In fact, you were the first to reference Trump in this thread when you were anticipating and seemingly hoping to get called a nazi and a trump supporter. Noone has done that.

Supporting Trump isn't some underground counter-cultural movement where you are standing up to The Man(users in a forum), oppressed and stifled on all sides, and your inalienable right to enjoy books and comics from a decade ago are being intruded upon. I dont care if you supported Trump or not. if you were, congrats, you are part of the 30% or so that did. Statistically there are probably plenty of others in this forum that did. You are a complete stranger to me and I will likely not meet you in real life.

The need to insist upon being some helpless victim of Some Opinions People Are Sharing Online is quite simply weird. As far as i can see you are the only one calling yourself a trump supporter. Not even that actually, you are eagerly anticipating and hoping that someone does while constantly going "I am not saying I voted for him, but I am saying i would vote for him getting a third term and you are forcing me into this opinion"

But hey, maybe this is all a big joke, as you said. Not a funny one, a pretty pointless one, and one that is deeply embedded in seemingly serious comments about how nuance is being destroyed by the lack of good stormtroopers. Perhaps those too are jokes.

 

Wasn't LOTF Jacen supposed to be a shot at War on Terror era policies and prejudices? He even revoices Tony Blair's "tough on crime and the causes of crime" line as "tough on chaos and the causes of chaos".

 

I brought up Trump because I'm saying what you are refusing to directly say, the statement was said in the first page. The Empire can't be portrayed as good guys because it sends a wrong message. A wrong message of what, and to whom? That's for you to say, and basically confirm.

And no, I don't feel a victim, I feel that many adapt to whatever is the main undercurrent, so Empire fans tend to switch to hating the Empire because it seems 'icky' to them, now. It doesn't, to me, that's my point. I never once said that I'm getting oppressed by those guys, or by you. All I said is that my opinion isn't gonna change, and your's also isn't, so what's the point in arguing? We're just gonna walk around in circles. I like military sci-fi, and I like that era of storytelling in Star Wars, which includes portraying the Empire in a more nuanced light (which again, we're getting IMO with Andor). You don't (even if you probably like Andor, you probably see something else in it, and that's also completely okay, more goes to show how good the show was).

It is. The thing about that period is that you could basically approach both sides of the argument. That's what nuance is.

 

You spent multiple comments actively anticipating to get called a nazi and a trump supporter so that you can spin a narrative about being forced to become a trump supporter by everyone elses opinions on a scifi franchise. I would say that is very much painting yourself as a victim.

If you don't feel like a victim, then stop engaging with these dishonest tactics and say what you really mean, because you are coming across as someone who was praying for a flame war and when called out on it starts to backpedal.

But yes, back to the star wars opinions, we have both made our opinions and points quite clear and no progress is going to be made on that front. That much we agree upon.

 

I think you might've misunderstood me. The way I usually operate is I say things that remain unsaid. No, I wasn't hoping for a flame war, I was saying what I assume was left unsaid. And its entirely possible that I was wrong on that matter.

But the question remains open, what message is the Empire moderating and redeeming itself sending that is wrong, and to whom?

 

That one was likely from Karen 'A Sledgehammer Is Too Subtle' Traviss.

 

It was.

When it comes to "far right resurgent populist politicians" villains in Star Wars, Thracken Sal-Solo was a pretty good example.

So basically LotF began as "far right vs far right".

 

Being a fan of the Empire because they look cool is entirely different, to me, than literally cheering for the Empire because you think their ideology is cool and makes sense. Like, stormtroopers look cool as hell and TIE Fighters are rad. But the Empire is bad, it's ideology is bad, and it fully embraces genocide as a policy from root to fruit.

So, what do we mean by "Empire fan?"

 

TBH I 'like'd the OP, but I've stayed out of this thread until now (and only really clicked on it because of a perverse curiosity as to how it had reached four pages) mainly because I reject the premise of this question - I already looked upon them negatively for many, many past years and I don't exactly think I was alone. (Indeed FWIW the primary person pushing back against that here is somebody I've had on ignore for years.) It's become a more mainstream opinion, sure, but glorifying the Empire and military authoritarianism more generally has been one of the biggest criticisms of Legends on here since literally before "Legends" was even a thing.

 

Just deleted the bulk of my post on the LOTF thread, (I forgot it wasn't this one), but to summarize-I think Legends is much more skeptical about democracy, from really...well the entire EU(but definitely vision of the future, the NJO, and Denningverse onto Legacy)-than it is pro authoritarian per se.

Repeatedly the EU shows democratic institutions as hollow, lacking any popular appeal or limited appeal, politicians as easily corrupted or intimidated, and a situation where democracy just up and fails again and again-finally with the Empire winning not only the military campaign but also the campaign for public legitimacy in Legends-with the Victory without war program leading to the Ossus debacle.

I wouldn't say this means the EU is "pro Empire" or "pro authoritarianism" but it definitely is very skeptical of the viability of democratic institutions and repeatedly puts them under pressure(both in the plot itself and just narrative scrutiny). It shows how easily they can be subverted, fail to gain widespread purchase, the risks of charismatic leadership, the constant danger of the military overriding or ignoring civil authority, and just general indifference and failure to respond appropriately to public demand.

Jacen is a kind of imperialist bonapartist figure vs revanchist ultranationalists(Thrackan, Gejjen, etc...). So while your description is a bit general, its not far off tbh.

 

I'm gonna be honest, I don't think Legends was pushing any particular message. It was about what suited the story. Both the Rebellion/New Republic/Galactic Alliance and the Empire suffered at various times because it was what the plot needed of them, and both kinda looked weak at different times. There's no message being told when they had the GA taken over by Sith, or when they had the Fel Empire taken over by Sith.

Now I'm not complaining, because I actually enjoyed those stories, but I can still critique them. Both when the Alliance and the Empire were taken over. You kinda need to set-up threatening villains that overthrow the government. But if I'm also being honest, out of the three, I think Fate of the Jedi turned out the best because you did end up with a galaxy-threatening villain that was near taking over both the Empire and the Alliance, but it didn't end with yet another upending of the galactic governments as we knew them. Abeloth caused a stir, but Wynn Dorvan and Jagged Fel endured. It was a middle-ground, you both had the governments threatened and not made to look overly weak.

Disney did it worse, and of course I'm gonna point it out, it made the Empire look like a joke with it falling in under a year after Endor, yet it also did the same to the New Republic thirty or so years later. There's having them taken over by Sith, and then this being brushed aside, and then there's them entirely collapsing. It was very bad, but I'm glad they've realized retcons are available, and I hope both of these scenarios get retconned.

As to Caedus vs Dur Gejjen, its influenced by the politics of its time. I don't think it needs to particularly send any kind of message. Its entirely normal that when an author needs 'government example' they just read up some headlines and find some quotes they can reuse. And what it is is Neoconservatism (Caedus) vs. Libertarianism (Confederation). Neither of those two are something you'd find among modern headlines, so it might look kinda weird if you're looking to fit them into the modern populist vs establishment paradigm.

 

I wouldn’t say any message was ever “pushed” as in willfully inserted for dissemination. I do think one can presume some sort of unconscious or at least habitual message being sent even if it wasn’t intended or at least not planned?

My point is that the Old EU goes out of its way to basically show democratic institutions failing-often in dramatic fashion. From this we can derive a pattern, that being the EU…as a whole is deeply suspicious of the viability of democracy.

That is…as a whole. Not a given author or editor. You might respond by saying “well it’s that just drama, upping the stakes?” Sure-but to another poster’s point, it…is notable that EU writers always chose to show how easily the Ga could be subverted, overtaken or shown as ineffectual. They could have done stories with high stakes but have a message of “democracy always holds firm” or “the government is never seriously compromised”. Yet almost always-we see the NR and GA in a state of near dissolution, civil war, collapse or total inability to respond to the given crisis. That is a real pattern.

Which is why I think the EU is not necessarily pro empire, it is very much skeptical of democratic governance. At least under extremely high stress conditions. Which should be noted is not the same thing as the former.

 

But the same can be said of the current continuity, to an even worse degree. At least we saw moments where the New Republic/Galactic Alliance did okay, the canon New Republic (so far) has no such moments. I think its just going to a common trope of "the government is inept, so we need our heroes to sweep in and save the Galaxy" (irrelevant on whether the government in question is dictatorship or democracy)

 

The difference is canon just has the government get blown up or functionally not exist post ROTJ. Legends on the other hand engaged a lot with political intrigues and considerations-heck the main SkySolos spend A LOT of time interacting with, opposing or outright being political leaders. This really isn’t the case in canon.

So we can say it’s more than just a requirement for the heroes to be involved. The heroes get involved because the government is has usually failed. Or is about to fail. In legends the actual success or effectiveness of the government is something the heroes concern themselves with-as does the narrative as a whole. Which shows legends writers’ aren’t just ignoring governments because it’s seen as boring or reminding audiences of the prequels(which is the case in canon). (At least until recently), but rather directly if not intentionally depicting states in crisis and showing us an IU century of democracy on the brink, falling or failing or failed.

In the case of legacy, the heroes’ action precipitates the government’s collapse.

In canon-the EU material paints the NR as not even really trying to be a government-it exists but somehow is finished in one strike in the first ST film. Which yeah, that’s a problem for the writers. So they had to justify it by basically saying the NR totally disarmed itself and uh-I’m not sure?

The ST’s handling of galactic politics is just bad. But that’s not the point of this thread-the main point of this post being, the old EU has characters regularly engaging with the highest echelons of political leadership. Not just sweeping in like a marvel movie because the government can’t handle the problem. The heroes coordinate with or outright lead the government. To varying degrees. From The Thrawn Trilogy to Legacy. So legends shows us democratic systems and their failures under pressure far more often than canon were for plot reasons-the government basically vanishes so the ST could re do the OT’s plot beats.

Which to reiterate my point-the old EU isn’t pro empire, it’s just very skeptical of the effectiveness and resilience of democracy.

 

I think that's getting it backwards, TBH. Both Legends and canon feature an ineffective New Republic, but only Legends (or more precisely Del Rey - I think Golbolco is correct on the first page that this isn't something that you see with Bantam) seems to go out of its way to actually show the Empire/military dictatorship as preferable. The distinction between Pellaeon and the Remnant getting whitewashed versus the First Order doubling down on all of the most unsympathetic portrayals of the Empire is very obvious - like somebody said on the first page, I think it's rather telling that one of the first actually 'political' canon works, Bloodline, is a VERY unsubtle thesis on the idea that the Empire minus Palpatine would work is total nonsense.

FWIW I do agree that very few authors were trying to intentionally portray military authoritarianism as a good thing so much as they were just transplanting a trope from military sci-fi/military fiction in general. (One of the many previous discussions about this had an interesting comment that despite its origins in the "clean Wehrmacht" myth, it's also super common in Cold War stuff dealing with the Soviets - Red Army types are often 'worthy opponents' and it's the KGB and party apparatchiks who are truly nasty.) But I think that trope's implications are pernicious enough that it's worth pushing back on, which is why, again, I think saying Legends is more skeptical about democracy than pro-Empire is getting it backwards: both Legends and canon resort to having a weak democratic government out of narrative convenience/laziness, but only canon seems to be going out of its way to hammer in that this does not make the Empire good.

 

I’d have to firmly but politely disagree here. Why?

Because the old EU actually shows how and why the New Republic is ineffectual. In a way canon does not.

We actually see the dysfunction in the NJO and afterwards, we know why the victory without war program worked. Even prior-with vision of the future showing us how the NR was on the verge of collapse due to the Caamasi document crisis. This shows along with things like Iblis’ split from the rest of the rebel leadership-how the government was always fragile and seriously at risk of disintegration.

Legends engages with the NR as a government and why and how it fails. If it were just “the government is weak, (military) heroes save the day” you’d be right. But like I said, the old EU is manifestly interested in showing us why this happens. So I’d push it back that it’s narrative laziness. There are no real canon equivalents to Luke and Lando rigging an election, or Jacen finding out he really enjoys the political horse race, or Borsk Fey’la matching every trope of the self interested and damaging politician that can only think in terms of his career.

Canon on the other hand barely shows us the NR at all, it’s not pro NR as much as it is vociferously “anti Empire”.

 

To be fair to canon, the best we've seen of the NR was in Bloodline and by that time the Senate had been split pretty much by First Order infiltration and sympathizers causing fairly extreme partisanship.

So far we've mostly seen Senator Xiono act obstructionist in Ahsoka, and a sketchy Imperial style torture device used by NR intelligence in Mando. The idea that the NR had completely disarmed is basically undermined by the existence of a military force post Jakku, into the comics and the TV series and Resistance.

 

Seems to me that so far NU Canon leans more towards anti-bureaucracy, with small, united and self-contained communities (like Nevarro, Colossus and Pabu) being a positive alternative to the cold brutality of the Empire's bureaucracy and to ineffectiveness of the NR's one. Even though for the protection of this communities outside mercenaries are required.

 

I have mixed feelings on this topic because I engage with Star Wars in two separate ways: as a mythology and as fictional history. As mythology, I want Star Wars to have thematic consistency like Tolkien's legendarium. I want there to be good guys and bad guys and I want it all to mesh thematically and make sense from beginning to end. Before Disney, this was mostly represented by the six core movies and The Clone Wars because all were overseen by a single creative vision. In the mythological sense, the Empire is the epitome of evil and that is clearly what Lucas intended it to be. And, yes, I do think several EU authors diverted from Lucas's thematic core, just like some of the Disney stuff has.

Whereas I viewed the EU, with its disparate authorial voices more as fictional history that didn't necessarily need the same kind of consistency. While the movies were a morality play, the EU played in the shades of grey, and I personally was okay with that. There were numerous sects of Jedi, different philosophies of the Sith, and different visions of what to do with the Empire after the death of the Emperor, and a lot of times there wasn't a clear answer. As a teenager I found it all very engrossing, especially because it coincided with my growing interest in real world history and philosophy. It was a playground to explore ideas, and I didn't need to agree with the views of every author to enjoy their works. So I sympathize with @Darth Invictus in not liking the didactic attitude that the present age approaches art with. I too find it stifling.

I do think there is some revisionist history going on when certain EU works are thought of as being pro-"space Nazi". The one-to-one equivalence between Nazism/fascism and the Galactic Empire is a recent phenomenon. The influence was always there - their foot soldiers are called stormtroopers, the Imperial uniforms look like SS uniforms - but there were also numerous other influences cited by Lucas - Rome, Napoleonic France, America during the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union, feudal Japan - and those have been de-emphasized in recent times.

It makes a big difference if you view a character like Pellaeon as a "space Roman centurion" or a "space Nazi officer" - or as an officer in a fictional government that has an existence of its own independent of its influences.

And actually, I'll add a third way I engage: just having fun. Sometimes I want to think about themes and ideas and other times I want to just enjoy the cool spaceships, lightsaber battles etc. And let's face it, the Empire has a lot of cool toys. Stormtroopers are cooler than Rebel soldiers and Star Destroyers are cooler than Mon Calamari cruisers imo. If I choose the Imperial side in a video game, it's not because I agree with the Empire, it's because I want to fly a TIE fighter. And, sure, while I'm playing I headcanon a more sympathetic Empire because I don't want to be the bad guys... but I do want their aesthetic.

I was thinking about this the other day when I saw a Sauron t-shirt at the mall. I considered buying it for all of two seconds before quickly thinking "Eww I don't want a Sauron shirt." And yet I own t-shirts with Darth Vader and stormtroopers. Tolkien made good enticing and evil unlikeable. Lucas made evil cool.

 

Legacy and the Ossus project is the biggest evidence of the old EU being skeptical of democracy.

What we have-an attempted reconciliation gone bad via sith sabotage
the problem is-the GA backs the Jedi, in clear defiance of popular anger and dissatisfaction-this would not have happened if the GA were actually a loved government.
The Felpire isn't glorified, or treated as a better alternative-so much as a silver plate basically is tossed in its lap, which allows decades of soft power projection and propaganda to pay off.
The GA collapses after a brief war in which the Empire wasn't even trying that hard.

This isn't just a case of military sci fi where democratic governments are viewed as incompetent buffoons getting in the way of the real heroes-the government here is treated as this glass door that takes one punch to shatter, a government so out of step with popular opinion and unreceptive to people's pain that Roan Fel who didn't even want the war and didn't fully commit was winning by its second year.

Similar things-like the NR being on the verge of complete collapse in destiny's way, or the ease in which Jacen overthrows Omas, (indeed Omas plotting to have Jacen killed for political expedience)-is more than just "democracy is excused via writer laziness"-this is a very engaged critique of the strength of democracy as a system.

You say this, but am I the only one who found Morgoth's dialogue with Hurin deeply cool? Or heck, the fact that sauron is the titular character of LOTR-yet we never see him. He's only really defeated by divine intervention at the last moment, yet is built up as basically invincible otherwise despite being unable to lead in person.

I also tend to see the EU as a fictional history, or its own cohesive setting, rather than a didactic morality play. I'm glad I am not alone here. Like you, I am not interested in being preached too-if I wanted a sermon, there are plenty of local churches.

I agree absolutely, both in what has been and what is not emphasized.

 

More accurately, you want to fly a TIE and still be in one piece afterwards.

 

Not when he "trembled upon his deep throne" like a coward during the Nirnaeth Arnoediad when Húrin was captured. And I was also more impressed by Húrin's resilience than Morgoth's melodrama personally.

That's... fair.

 

I've made this argument in the past myself and it's one reason why I've been intentionally using the term "military authoritarianism" rather than, say, 'fascism'. Lucas intended the Empire to be a mish-mash of various historical and contemporary empires, not a 1:1 with Nazis.

The thing is, though, I think it's kind of a moot point to debate whether or not the Empire is specifically fascist/primary Naziesque because empires in general are bad - and especially the parts of them reflected in the Galactic Empire. The Nazis hardly had a monopoly on tyranny and bigotry.

(FWIW, as Carib Diss has been saying Pellaeon is in fact closer to a Nazi officer than a Roman centurion insofar as the state he serves and later represents is a recent takeover of a historically democratic multispecies Republic rather than a long-established nation with its own traditions. The objectionable aspects of the Empire do have some deep historical roots, but the government he's so determined to preserve in the HOT duology is literally only a few years older than me IRL.)

Edit: Also, something that occurred to me as I was writing that last part in particular is that it's sort of ironic the more whitewashed Empire really took off during the Del Rey era because they actually knew the Empire's origins - the pre-PT writers do seem to have assumed it was a bit more established than it turned out to be, although even ANH alone makes it clear it's no more than a generation or two old.