In light of Gideon's recent re-banning, I thought it interesting that I ran across another person sad enough to write an extensive essay on Star Wars.
The essay can be found here. But I'm posting it in the thread anyway. I don't have to original authors permission to do this, but I don't really think they'll mind. But check the link for sources if you want. Okay, so I was planning to post the essay in the thread like Gideon did with his, but it is waaaaaaaaaay to ****ing long to do that. Goddamn thing is 20 pages and 13,000 words long! So just read it from the link because Holy Fvcking Shit. Heres teh Preface:
This essay needs more recognition be as much as I rip on Gideon its pretty awesome what he did and its just as awesome what this person did. Its alway good to see nerds who love the fanchise enough to put this much passion into it. So Kudos to Katana Gelder.
So I just finished reading it and it was very interesting. Very well written and a truly fascinating insight into the philosophy of the New Jedi Order and Star Wars. Also interesting in that it spells out the way Vergeres teachings were misunderstood from a meta-textual viewpoint, which was very telling in regards to the decisions later novels took. Unfortunately it seems that now I have to read Traitor at least because man does that book sound like my cup of tea.
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Last edited by Nephthys on Oct 30th, 2011 at 04:12 AM
Though this essay only strengthens the contempt I have for the Legacy of the Force authors and the decision to 'dumb down' the setting by making Jacen and Vergere into evil Sith. Because it takes a special kind of missing the point to make the morally ambiguous characters into evil lunatics.
Lol. Why would read an essay on Star Wars of all topics?
That's a level of nerdiness I can't accept.
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"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
Okay, so 45 minutes if you're a slow reader. Jegus, its not like you guys have anything better to do or something! I'm sorry for interrupting you as you near curing cancer, god!
It's not the time; it's the subject. Why would I spend even 15 minutes reading an essay on Star Wars when I could be spending that 15 minutes doing something cool?
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"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
People end up wasting time here and there, but they rather feel like they are doing some productive and while doing so become distracted rather than allotting wasted time to read a 20 page 13,000 word essay on Star Wars on a topic that doesn't seem particularly exciting.
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BlackZero30x created this a-'Maize'-ing signature! =)
Well I read it. (Well, the first half.) (Well, I read roughly the first four pages and then skimmed till the halfway point.) (The point is I tried, okay?)
It has some good points, but the most interesting one (found maybe in the last section?) was about metatextual mistakes. Other authors didn't understand Veregre's position and so misused her, diluting the character entirely. But the basic idea is simple: We are what we do. For a mythos that deals so much with the ultimate (meaning final) moral standing of a soul (see: Redemption of Darth Vader's Force Ghost) there is an awful lot to be said against the fatalistic deontological position espoused by the films.
(I think I used those philosophical terms correctly?)
Yes, the metatextual part is the part that interested me the most as well. It gets hilarious when the essay points out Luke giving big speechs on why Vergere is 'wrong' and because the writers misunderstood what she was saying, he ends up agreeing with her by mistake! That gave me quite a few chuckles.
I also really like this quote:
You can do whatever you want, so long as you maintain your Jedi calm? So long as you can tell yourself youre valuing life? You can kill and kill and kill and kill, so long as you dont lose your temper? Isnt that a little sick?
Really, the whole shindig shows a general discontentment within the EU about how the Force was originally presented. Both Stover and the people trying to disagree with Stover set out to explore a different universe. This culminates, I think, in Avellone's vision of KotOR II, where we have a protagonist praised wherever he rejects the dogma of the Jedi or the psychosis of the Sith.
And then theres the people who want to keep Star Wars and the Force 'simple' and 'mystified' and f*ck up the intelligent explorations of Stover and co in the process. Its sort of like a giant version of the debate we were having in the other Swtor thread with Peach and Kal.