The Status Quo Has Been Restored

[Rayla_Felana]

Nah, it was because he didn't want the empire hounding him for killing sidious' pet.

 

He in no way outright defeated Vader, Vader turned his back to him trying to save the box, he was distracted.

 

Regardless, he could shoot Vader, It ain't going to do much, he took a lightsaber through his life support system and his chest, a blaster shot won't do much.

[Alric_Annondu]

He in no way outright defeated Vader, Vader turned his back to him trying to save the box, he was distracted.

 

Regardless, he could shoot Vader, It ain't going to do much, he took a lightsaber through his life support system and his chest, a blaster shot won't do much.

 

Defeated through cunning.

 

yeah, one blaster shot isn't going to kill him.

 

Multiple shots and him falling into lava (again) would.

[OddballEasyEight]

Wow, this was easily one of the most amusing and enthralling threads ive read in a very long time.

 

Personally, i consider myself a mandalorian lover but i dont like what she did to them... when she made them allmighty and turned them into some sort of free-spirited-loners-but-in-a-group-and-better-than-anything-alive-ever it took away my love of the mandalorians that had, up until then, been a bunch of mercenaries that were the elite of the non-force users in the galaxy.

They had a sense of honour and even respected the jedi a bit because they repeatedly won against the mandalorians, but at the same time they resented them for their peaceful way of life (something that clashes with the mandalorian way of life).

 

Mandalorians could beat jedi before... in a group against one or two jedi.

And the reason they were almost of equal strenght in battles was simply because there were more mandalorians than jedi.

Anything else the mandalorians could more or less just wipe off the battlefield with little or no trouble, but the jedi were always a challenge.

[Aximand]

Defeated through cunning.

 

yeah, one blaster shot isn't going to kill him.

 

Multiple shots and him falling into lava (again) would.

 

You're assuming that Boba can shoot him enough to actually get through his armor, disable enough of his cybernetics and get him into the Lava before Vader just went "F**k this noise" and simply crushed him with the Force. I highly doubt it.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Aximand

[Invictos]

Like I said, I'm not terribly familiar with Traviss. My accusation remains the same, whether it is concentrated in Traviss or diffused over a number of authors (Lucas included, perhaps?). The solution to overpowered characters should not be to overpower other characters. This can be an OK occasional solution--Arguably Revan and Dooku should be overpowered, right?

 

The issue is when "grunts" get over powered. Grunts can be regular Mandalorians or regular Jedi. We end up with an arms race of imaginary and excessive powers. That's a silly and narratively weak way to proceed.

 

I don't even think it's a matter of the grunts being overpowered, per se. It's the way Traviss went about redefining the Star Wars universe, while at the same time nearly bragging that she didn't read the source material. Hell, IIRC, she even proudly admitted that she'd never seen all six movies (IIRC, she said she'd seen only two of the prequels).

 

For what it's worth, I think that Traviss' transgressions were as much a result of laziness* as they were a result of anything else. She didn't RTFM. Instead, she jumped to a few (contrarian) conclusions and ran with them, and then became hilariously unhinged when she was criticized for it.

 

All of that said, opinions of her first couple of books seem to be pretty positive. If she'd been allowed to play in her own self-contained corner of the sandbox, everything might have worked out just fine.

 

(* - By all accounts the woman isn't lazy; in fact she works like a dog, at least by her own account, purposely exhausting herself because she believes she's a better, less inhibited writer when she's at her physical limits. But she's not thorough. The fact that she places so much importance on her own state of mind, and so little importance on the fundamental underpinnings of her stories, is itself an indictment of sorts.)

[Wolfninjajedi]

You're assuming that Boba can shoot him enough to actually get through his armor, disable enough of his cybernetics and get him into the Lava before Vader just went "F**k this noise" and simply crushed him with the Force. I highly doubt it.

 

If only Boba had actually did that, then we wouldn't have the whole BS of him surviving out of sarlacc's 3 times....or somehow cheating death via a needle. Lol I could imagine a humorous scene.

 

*Boba fires blaster while Vader grabs the box*

 

Vader thinking: "What the hell? Is he still trying to kill me?"

 

*Vader then force grabs Boba and pulls him over*

 

Vader: "Hey, hey....no do you know who I am? I am Darth Vader, I killed hundreds of jedi, taken over worlds and I have a ****** voice...you do not wanna **** with me!"

 

*Boba struggles and starts trying to kick Vader*

 

Vader: "Ok since your not gonna take this seriously, im just gonna kill you....say hi to dad for me, and guess what! I laughed when Mace Windu chopped off his head!"

 

*Vader then force crushes Boba, and throws him into the lava watching him melt before picking up the box he was after, walking away.*

Edited March 27, 2012 by Wolfninjajedi

[Aximand]

If only Boba had actually did that, then we wouldn't have the whole BS of him surviving out of sarlacc's 3 times....or somehow cheating death via a needle.

 

Like I said in another thread "Fall into the Sarlacc once, my bad, fall into it twice, your bad, fall into it a third time, just stay down, man".

[ObiWanBaikonur]

I don't even think it's a matter of the grunts being overpowered, per se. It's the way Traviss went about redefining the Star Wars universe, while at the same time nearly bragging that she didn't read the source material. Hell, IIRC, she even proudly admitted that she'd never seen all six movies (IIRC, she said she'd seen only two of the prequels).

 

For what it's worth, I think that Traviss' transgressions were as much a result of laziness* as they were a result of anything else. She didn't RTFM. Instead, she jumped to a few (contrarian) conclusions and ran with them, and then became hilariously unhinged when she was criticized for it.

 

All of that said, opinions of her first couple of books seem to be pretty positive. If she'd been allowed to play in her own self-contained corner of the sandbox, everything might have worked out just fine.

 

(* - By all accounts the woman isn't lazy; in fact she works like a dog, at least by her own account, purposely exhausting herself because she believes she's a better, less inhibited writer when she's at her physical limits. But she's not thorough. The fact that she places so much importance on her own state of mind, and so little importance on the fundamental underpinnings of her stories, is itself an indictment of sorts.)

 

While this all may be true, what irks me more is the narrative laziness of creating new abilities whole cloth in order to overpower an opposing faction in an effort to "balance" or "ground" a particular group. In this case, the Mandalorians have been built up in an unreasonable way at the expense of the Jedi. Doubtlessly other authors have done this to other factions. It doesn't sit well with me no matter who does it.

 

She does sound like a rather unpleasant person, though.

[Wolfninjajedi]

Like I said in another thread "Fall into the Sarlacc once, my bad, fall into it twice, your bad, fall into it a third time, just stay down, man".

 

Aww, you didn't get my humorous edit.

[Mirdthestrill]

It also obviously escapes most of you that Karen Traviss is a better writer than many of the contract Star Wars authors. And I don't seem to see you people whining when other sources of canon are "stomped". Apparently your wonderful love of preserving good canon only comes into play when you don't like the replacement canon.

[Aximand]

Aww, you didn't get my humorous edit.

 

I did now. Lulz.

 

It also obviously escapes most of you that Karen Traviss is a better writer than many of the contract Star Wars authors. And I don't seem to see you people whining when other sources of canon are "stomped". Apparently your wonderful love of preserving good canon only comes into play when you don't like the replacement canon.

There's a difference between "liking replacement Canon" and "Completely and utterly ignoring almost everything that came before her and making blatant, sweeping changes to the entire Star Wars universe". Guess which one of those Traviss did. Only one guess!

Edited March 27, 2012 by Aximand

[Guildrum]

It also obviously escapes most of you that Karen Traviss is a better writer than many of the contract Star Wars authors. And I don't seem to see you people whining when other sources of canon are "stomped". Apparently your wonderful love of preserving good canon only comes into play when you don't like the replacement canon.

 

Eh? People have posted many references and cases where it is revealed that she overpowers Mandalorians, downgrades Jedi and Sith (who are, by the way, the MAIN CHARACTERS of Star Wars) and overall seems like a downright nasty person. If she were such a good writer, why would she need to make lightsaber-impervious armor to equalize the Jedi with the Mandalorians?

[Aximand]

Eh? People have posted many references and cases where it is revealed that she overpowers Mandalorians, downgrades Jedi and Sith (who are, by the way, the MAIN CHARACTERS of Star Wars) and overall seems like a downright nasty person. If she were such a good writer, why would she need to make lightsaber-impervious armor to equalize the Jedi with the Mandalorians?

 

Extreme Plot Armor. Because everything is more awesome when its Extreme!

[Invictos]

While this all may be true, what irks me more is the narrative laziness of creating new abilities whole cloth in order to overpower an opposing faction in an effort to "balance" or "ground" a particular group. In this case, the Mandalorians have been built up in an unreasonable way at the expense of the Jedi. Doubtlessly other authors have done this to other factions. It doesn't sit well with me no matter who does it.

 

She does sound like a rather unpleasant person, though.

 

Oh, yes. There's plenty of narrative laziness to go around. Personally, I think the EU portrayal of Jedi/Sith could have benefited from a little powering down. Personally, I think a lot of the writing in the EU is pretty bad.

 

But Traviss jumped the shark in numerous ways. The ham-fisted way she straw-manned the Jedi while simultaneously presenting Mandalorians as unassailable (both physically and rhetorically) is simply bad writing. That it was also obviously contrarian writing doesn't help her case. That her writing was also based on a tenuous-at-best understanding of the source material really doesn't help her case.

 

Like it or not, her public persona does matter, and it ain't pretty. It seems clear from her statements and from her body of work that she has a fetish for manly soldier types -- which is fine, even good in the right context -- but she really ought to try a little harder to understand the settings in which her stories are to take place, before she proceeds to knee-jerk into yet another warrior-poet-paradise narrative.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Invictos

[Wolfninjajedi]

Extreme Plot Armor. Because everything is more awesome when its Extreme!

 

EXTREME!

[Aximand]

EXTREME!

 

Glad I'm not the only one that got the reference.

[Angryfan]

I think people forget that the Mandalorians almost defeated the entire Republic along with a large percentage of the Jedi order in the Mandalorian wars. That alone made me a big fan of the Mandalorians also considering the fact it took Revan using clever tactics and strategies to fight them along with the sacrifice of both Republic and Mandalorians forces at Malachor V. Bioware really added to the SW universe with this instead of Revan just sucking their entire fleet into some random force wormhole. People haven't realized the fact that at this time the Jedi could actually lose quite easily due to the numerical advantage of the Mandalorians if the Republic wasn't supporting them although the Republic would have screwed with out the Jedi as well.

 

Must admit though I don't think anybody should match pound for pound with the Jedi in single combat other then a Sith or an unnaturally skilled/resourceful individual like Boba Fett since there is so few of them in a galaxy filled with trillions of people.

 

Not a big fan of Karen's work since Jacen Solo's betrayal was kind of anti climatic and didn't really add anything to the Star Wars universe for me personally(along with killing off Chewie).

[Aximand]

I think people forget that the Mandalorians almost defeated the entire Republic along with a large percentage of the Jedi order in the Mandalorian wars. That alone made me a big fan of the Mandalorians also considering the fact it took Revan using clever tactics and strategies to fight them along with the sacrifice of both Republic and Mandalorians forces at Malachor V. Bioware really added to the SW universe with this instead of Revan just sucking their entire fleet into some random force wormhole. People haven't realized the fact that at this time the Jedi could actually lose quite easily due to the numerical advantage of the Mandalorians if the Republic wasn't supporting them although the Republic would have screwed with out the Jedi as well.

 

Must admit though I don't think anybody should match pound for pound with the Jedi in single combat other then a Sith or an unnaturally skilled/resourceful individual like Boba Fett since there is so few of them in a galaxy filled with trillions of people.

 

Not a big fan of Karen's work since Jacen Solo's betrayal was kind of anti climatic and didn't really add anything to the Star Wars universe for me personally(along with killing off Chewie).

 

During the Mandalorian Wars the Mandalorians were only fighting the Republic when they were winning, as soon as the Jedi joined the fight the Mandos lost. Badly.

[TheBentOne]

Just thought id chime in to correct a misconception about the ending of Boba Fetts duel with Darth Vader.

 

Boba was NOT aiming his blaster at Vader, he had lost that while Vader was force choking him, he was aiming his wrist mounted concussion rocket launcher, witch lets be honest has a much, much better chance of knocking vader forward six inches into a flaming pool of lava then a blaster.

 

Any way, regardless of wheither you think vader was toying with him or not, Boba still managed to get a headshot in on one of the most powerful force users of all time. If he was a jedi (as in not armored to the point of being nigh indestructable) he would have been dead.

 

Vader was stronger but Boba was smarter. thats just how it happened. Underestimating your opponent can be fatal. (a lesson that Vader and his imperial cronies appear to never actually have learned considering thier consistant underestimating of the rebels and how they allowed a hostile primative species to live within walking distance of an important millitary instalation)

[Invictos]

I think people forget that the Mandalorians almost defeated the entire Republic along with a large percentage of the Jedi order in the Mandalorian wars. That alone made me a big fan of the Mandalorians also considering the fact it took Revan using clever tactics and strategies to fight them along with the sacrifice of both Republic and Mandalorians forces at Malachor V. Bioware really added to the SW universe with this instead of Revan just sucking their entire fleet into some random force wormhole. People haven't realized the fact that at this time the Jedi could actually lose quite easily due to the numerical advantage of the Mandalorians if the Republic wasn't supporting them although the Republic would have screwed with out the Jedi as well.

 

That's the thing. KoTOR's portrayal of Mandalorians managed to elevate both parties (at least in terms of capability) without cheapening either. It also managed to portray the Mandalorians as fiercely honorable in their own Darwinistic way, without going against Lucas' vision that they were essentially bad guys.

 

I, for one, really liked Canderous Ordo. The KoTOR-era Mandalorians were epic, in part, precisely because they weren't innately competitive, pound-for-pound, with Jedi. They were the Batman to the Jedi's Superman.

 

The problems with Traviss' portrayal (among others) are that it's both too simplistic and too transparently author-dependent. Readers are almost forced, when reading Traviss, to remove themselves from the immersion of the story because what she writes is, at times, so opposed to previously established tenets and characterizations within the Star Wars universe. The Mandalorians' uberness in her books becomes a fourth-wall-piercing gimmick, rather than a trait in the characters that the reader can admire. You're left to wonder whether you should take the scene seriously or wait until the next author comes along and undoes it.

 

It's X versus Y fanfic, by a professional writer. Traviss cheapens both the Jedi and the Mandalorians, turning what should be an interesting and tense interaction between fictional characters into a pissing contest among various real-life agents (authors, fans, even Lucas himself).

Edited March 27, 2012 by Invictos

[Mirdthestrill]

The underlying assumption in all of these arguments is that the Jedi are the ultimate standard of power in the universe. I say they aren't.

[Captain_Zone]

The next step is to bring Mara back and explain it all away as a dream sequence....

 

 

 

I know. I know. But hey, it worked on Dallas.

 

Luke wakes up one morning and notices the shower running. He goes into the fresher and pulls the door open quickly. There's Mara standing there taking a shower. She looks at him, smiles, and says "Care to join me, Mr. Jedi Master?" Fade to black, run starting credits.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Captain_Zone

[Invictos]

The underlying assumption in all of these arguments is that the Jedi are the ultimate standard of power in the universe. I say they aren't.

 

Neither you nor Traviss has the authority to declare the established canon null and void when it suits you (her). You're entitled to read fiction any way you like, but then again you're not a professional writer tasked as caretaker for an established IP.

 

If Traviss had actually read the rest of the EU novels and watched the six damn movies, and then attempted to make cogent arguments (preferably within her novels, and preferably without beating the reader over the head) in favor of her alternate vision, then that would have been fine. If she'd come up with plausible situations to make her desired adjustments to established characters, that would have been fine too. If she'd come up with plausible reasons to tone down the Jedi (which could be a very good thing, in an EU context), that also would have been fine.

 

She didn't do any of those things. Instead, she apparently decided, rather early on, that she was going to write the universe around her pet faction, which she had determined to be superior based on ... pre-existing biases and almost zero research? Again, that in itself wouldn't be a terrible thing, if she'd confined herself to books just about Mandalorians, but that isn't how the whole thing shook out.

 

Seems she writes decent sci-fi-soldier fiction. She should read more, though.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Invictos

[Mirdthestrill]

Neither you nor Traviss has the authority to declare the established canon null and void when it suits you (her). You're entitled to read fiction any way you like, but then again you're not a professional writer tasked as caretaker for an established IP.

 

If Traviss had actually read the rest of the EU novels and watched the six damn movies, and then attempted to make cogent arguments (preferably within her novels, and preferably without beating the reader over the head) in favor of her alternate vision, then that would have been fine. If she'd come up with plausible situations to make her desired adjustments to established characters, that would have been fine too. If she'd come up with plausible reasons to tone down the Jedi (which could be a very good thing, in an EU context), that also would have been fine.

 

She didn't do any of those things. Instead, she apparently decided, rather early on, that she was going to write the universe around her pet faction, which she had determined to be superior based on ... pre-existing biases and almost zero research? Again, that in itself wouldn't be a terrible thing, if she'd confined herself to books just about Mandalorians, but that isn't how the whole thing shook out.

 

Seems she writes decent sci-fi-soldier fiction. She should read more, though.

 

Sigh. You all seem to be overlooking a very important point. This is what HER CHARACTERS THINK OF THEMSELVES. This book is from the PERSPECTIVE of the Mandalorians. Of course they think they can easily take Jedi down at any point, and some of them probably can. But why are you assuming this means they all can? Just because they say they can? What would the world be like if everyone believed everything the average six-year old said?

[Guildrum]

Sigh. You all seem to be overlooking a very important point. This is what HER CHARACTERS THINK OF THEMSELVES. This book is from the PERSPECTIVE of the Mandalorians. Of course they think they can easily take Jedi down at any point, and some of them probably can. But why are you assuming this means they all can? Just because they say they can? What would the world be like if everyone believed everything the average six-year old said?

 

Are these books first or third person? If they are first person, then I'd be inclined to agree, but if they are written more like a history book, then things happen as described in the book.

 

Your argument is weakening mate.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Guildrum