Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Gabriel's (of Penny Arcade) rant on Star Wars novel
Okay, before you start mocking me be assured that I do in fact think Star Wars tie-in novels are bad. In fact, even by the terrible standards of licensed fiction, they're pretty darn bad.
That said, I think Gabe misses the point when he complains about villains who show how evil they are.
Star Wars isn't the real world. It's a world of stark black and white. The villains announced their evilness because all they are is evil. Subtlety is not the aim.
Also, a villain whose convinced he's in the right might be more realistic but isn't automatically better. Look at classic villains like Moriarty, The Joker, and Freddy Kreuger. They're all characters that are compelling because of how unapologetically evil they are.
Comments
Well there was Kreia, but then Lucasarts fucked her over with some bullshit about her being driven insane by a Sith Artifact.
Unsurprisingly, most Star Wars fans ignore this because she was an awesome villain.
Honestly, Gabe's insistence on nuanced villains reminds me of the people who thought the X-wing books were awesome because of how much they added to the universe in the way of politics.
^^Agreed, I mean how many force users actually tried to KILL the force?
It hardly matters when you have such concepts as the light and dark side of the force. Although with that said, there were some morally questionable good guys at first, such as Han, who was, you know, a space pirate/cowboy/smuggler. but the people who they were facing were bad enough for you to pretty much not care, really.
Han's most morally questionable action was shooting a guy who shot him first had a gun pointed at him.
While you're probably right about black-and-white morality being a core part of Star Wars, his point about names:
Was a pretty good one.
Oh, I don't disagree that it's a dumb name, but again this is a film series with a fat character named 'Porkins' and a villain whose big twist is spoiled by his name being translated from Dutch.
Darth Scourge is probably the worst.
Fucking Drew Karpyshryn or however the fuck you spell it. Go fuck yourself.
I have to say, Gabe's writing style is really almost painful to read next to Tycho's...
I have no idea who he is, but I'm now picturing someone glaring at a typewriter and saying "if I can't have a good name, no one can."
Bioware's lead writer. He wrote the "Revan" novel that completely shat all over everything in KotOR II and fucked over Revan.
Ah, that guy. How does he have a job?
Because he works in extremes: when he's good, he's /really/ good.
When he's bad, he makes babies cry.
admittedly, most of the morally questionable aspects of Han are not actions, but you know...who he is. He's a criminal who works for a mob boss. Were it not because he's a criminal in a fascist regime, his actions wouldn't be seen in a good light, i'm sure.
^But that's the thing about Star Wars. We're not supposed to be disgusted by the rebel alliance allying itself with a drug dealer and thief. We're supposed to be charmed by his rougishness. In Star Wars, the lines are simple. If you oppose the empire you're good. If you support it you're bad. It's why Luke could blow up a space station that probably had the population of a small country without any pangs of guilt.
...and that's the exact point i was trying to make.
^^But I like my light-side Sith :<
I know there's supposed to be distinction between Sith and Dark Jedi but still fuck you. >=(
^^I supposed I sounded like I was disagreeing you when I didn't mean to. =|
Where is this rant anyway?
http://penny-arcade.com/
Scroll down.
Tales from series, your argument is invalid.
the word but helped a lot
^^You mean those novels that gave that one character with two seconds of screen time an obscenely detailed backstory?
Yeah, fuck that masturbatory bullshit.
Hey, this is the series that later retconned the droid that breaks down at the start of A New Hope into being a Force Sensitive Droid that had a vision of what would happen if R2 wasn't bought instead of himself and broke down to save the Galaxy.
^You're not helping your case here.
Well it was non-canon.
Wait, what case?
The case that EU stuff is any good whatsoever. =P
Darth Revan, Kyle Katarn.
I rest the case you say I had.
Fuck, you the Wee-Quay are awesome.
As is Labria.
Kyle Katarn is a boring ass self-insert and anything from Old Republic is so far removed it doesn't count.