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Nov 12, 2022 03:01
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Casimir Radon posted:It’s not in the book but according to Wookiepedia there’s some RPG supplement that implies rape and incest. I shouldn't have, but I tracked it down. It's from a defunct thing on starwars.com (found it on archive.org) that used to have where they'd explore what is known about some in-universe topic and then make up some more stuff to add to it. That one is part of a series of articles on Imperial warlords, and it was written by Abel Peña and Daniel Wallace, both of whom are primarily background reference and rpg book collaborating writers that Lucasfilm used to hire occasionally before the Disney buyout, and a little after. Why they thought that was a good idea to put in Star Wars I have no clue, other than stupid edgy "look how eeeeevil this guy is!" grossness.
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Nov 12, 2022 04:02
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I've read the first few chapters of the first Darth Bane book and it hasn't grabbed me like Kenobi did. Hopefully things pick up once he gets off this mining world and more interesting characters show up. Bane himself isn't really interesting character wise to me at this point and I get the sense he's going to stay the same type of person.
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Nov 25, 2022 17:06
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Once he gets off the mining world the book turns into a parade of Knights of the Old Republic and Dark Forces 2 references.
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Nov 25, 2022 18:43
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I've only very faint memories of both, but the comic series Jedi vs Sith that the book was partially adapted from is quite good. It starts out as a silly fantasy romp and very quickly slides into dark territory, both sides recruiting child soldiers and all that.
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Nov 25, 2022 19:37
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OhFunny posted:I've read the first few chapters of the first Darth Bane book and it hasn't grabbed me like Kenobi did.
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Nov 25, 2022 20:16
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While you can point to Kotor 2 as the first place where Revan started becoming a hype machine, it's with the Darth Bane books where the Revan "greatest most powerful super Uber Jedi Sith hybrid" meme really takes off. Revan doesn't need to be the originator of the Rule of Two, come on now.
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Nov 25, 2022 20:32
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I re-read it recently with some friends, and there were a few things that stuck out to us about it: Bane never struggles in the book. I think he loses maybe one duel at the academy, but at no point does he ever suffer any real setbacks. It makes sense that Drew Karpyshyn was also a video game writer, because it feels a lot like a video game where you don't want the player to beat a gameplay section and then lose in a cutscene, so rather than seeing all the times the player lost, it's just Bane's near-perfect speedrun to becoming a Sith Lord. This also kind of makes the book feel like the in-universe equivalent to those Marine Todd stories, where a tough-guy patriot humiliates his SJW college professor and then everyone stands up and claps. For as much as the book makes sure the reader knows how cool and strong Bane is, that's nothing compared to how brown its nose gets for Revan. Bane spends most of his time at the Sith Academy in the basement playing KOTOR on his Xbox, and this is treated like he's accessing some insane hidden knowledge. They even retconned it so that Revan came up with the Rule of Two instead of Bane. Once the book intersects with the Jedi vs Sith comic, Bane becomes a completely different character. Because it's a story where the protagonist is a Sith Lord, it has to spend a lot of time with him rationalizing the evil that he's doing and keeping him fairly sympathetic to the reader. Then once it gets to the stuff on Ruusan, he immediately becomes this weird monster-man who arbitrarily kills children just because that's what happened in the comic. Despite being bound by the comic, Karpyshyn almost seems embarrassed by it. None of the fanciful ships from the comic are described in a way that suggests any particular details, and even characters who it would make sense to mention are non-human are left really vaguely defined because Karpyshyn apparently thought having a Jedi Satyr was just a little bit too outlandish. Githany, while not an amazing character in the comic, was treated really creepily by the book. Pretty much every scene she was in had someone thinking about how hot she was, and when the thought bomb went off and started to dessicate her, her primary concern was that she was no longer beautiful.
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Nov 25, 2022 21:05
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Arc Hammer posted:While you can point to Kotor 2 as the first place where Revan started becoming a hype machine, it's with the Darth Bane books where the Revan "greatest most powerful super Uber Jedi Sith hybrid" meme really takes off. Revan doesn't need to be the originator of the Rule of Two, come on now. i liked revan when there was actual mystery to him, he is some decently powerful but ultra charismatic jedi who sees wrongs being done and the Jedi and republic with their thumbs up their asses and leads a war effort and wins after tons of traumatic poo poo, he meets mandalor and kills him and learns that the sith or something were controlling the Mandalorian to a degree. he and malak go off and confront monster mash but SOMETHING HAPPENS and they come back sith. I have always preferred the "we have to fight fire with fire" turn to the dark side rather then mind control or whatever stupid poo poo was poo poo out by the MMO. revan showed that he was willing to do terrible loving poo poo to beat the mandolorians and i could see him and malak doing the same thing with the sith. "we can't beat them as jedi, the jedi barely go off their asses with the mandos and won't believe us about the sith, so we have to do what's needed and if we have to burn the republic to save it, so be it" and so revan becomes darth revan and everything unravels from there.
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Nov 25, 2022 21:15
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quote:That night, in the privacy of his room, Bane struggled to make sense of what had happened. He sought the deeper wisdom behind the Master's words. Qordis had said that his emotions, his anger, had let him summon up the strength to defeat Fohargh. He said passion fueled the dark side. Bane had felt this enough times to know it was true. But he couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to it than that. He didn't consider himself a cruel person. He didn't believe he was ruthless or sadistic. Yet how else to explain what he had done to the helpless Makurth? It had been murder, or execution… and Bane was having trouble accepting it. I've always thought this was the best and most definitive statement on what the Dark Side is and what it does.
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Nov 25, 2022 21:28
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Dark side works like posting
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Nov 25, 2022 22:16
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Only the strongest Sith Lord's can post through it.
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Nov 25, 2022 22:45
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Karpyshyn being embarrassed by the Jedi vs. Sith comic is exactly right. I think he even said as much when the book came out. Also I think it’s really funny that Karpyshyn took the comic dialogue of Bane telling Githany “The poison was on your lips” and instead of the comic usage of it as a metaphor for her lying to him, made it so that she kissed him with poison lipstick.
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Nov 25, 2022 22:50
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Karpyshin's writing has always struck me as very "what" oriented as opposed to "how", so poisoned lipstick fits his MO when presenting the statement "Githany poisoned Bane".
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Nov 25, 2022 23:19
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That comic is such a weird thing to treat as literal when it's very clearly intended to be a nod to how our own picture of "the past" is often a little wonky and includes stuff that we have today that we just take for granted.
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Nov 26, 2022 01:12
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Finished "Outbound Flight", was an interesting book. I liked that Thrawn's victories in them were more fleshed out and explained than in previous books, rather than just "genius" card. Felt like the book could've used a Jorus C'baoth chapter or two to get into his head, and by the end, everything felt kind of rushed, the death of everyone on Outbound Flight was just so... quick. Also, Jorus' "fall to the Dark Side" was almost laughable. Seemed to me like at that point he was already pretty "Dark Side", if the Dark Side is defined as exerting ones' will over others unjustly, and the force choke was just one more example of that, rather than a moment where his former padawan could feel the "switch" or "fall". Doesn't feel like Zahn's strongest novel, more of "you know the basic strokes of what happened, here are the unnecessary details" that makes the novel feel like a more play-by-play. Oh well, onto Allegiance, finally a book by Zahn without Thrawn as an element.
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Nov 28, 2022 19:56
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Outbound Flight is one of his weaker SW books. Thrawn: Alliances is probably worse in my opinion. Both seem to have elements that Lucasfilm insisted on jamming in there. OF has Completely unnecessary Obi-Wan and Anakin cameos, and TA has a big Galaxy’s Edge tie-in. They’re both still alright books though.
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Nov 28, 2022 20:10
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I liked Outbound Flight, I'd personally place it mid-tier for Zahn (definitely far above anything post-Disney or Allegiance/Choices of One. But I really think in terms of prose and writing quality, it's Zahn's highest. I wish we had gotten to see more of Jorus in prequel-era EU to help build him up, but that probably would have been asking too much for the EU authors at the time. It's also kind of funny that Jorus (as described by the original Thrawn books) was kind of like what Dooku ended up being. Though I still think having him be a corrupted version of Obi-Wan would have had more resonance.
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Nov 28, 2022 20:41
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Chairman Capone posted:I liked Outbound Flight, I'd personally place it mid-tier for Zahn (definitely far above anything post-Disney or Allegiance/Choices of One. I agree with this. I liked Outbound Flight quite a bit when it came out, and given the Thrawn prequel books we've gotten since then, it's basically classic literature, in comparison. That's a bit harsh, but I don't like the continuing prequels we're getting (we've joked about it in the past in this thread, but at this rate, we'll be getting grade school Thrawn in no time), and I think Zahn has lost a step in recent years. Maybe I just don't like reading about inner Chiss politics, and miss him interacting with the Empire (or in Outbound Flight's case, the Republic and Trade Federation). Though, as was agreed in the last thread before making the OP, and I agree with, the initial Thrawn prequel book was good. thrawn527 fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Nov 28, 2022 |
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Nov 28, 2022 21:28
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NGL, I do want the plotthread with the grysk to be followed up on
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Nov 28, 2022 21:39
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The Thrawn prequels weren’t the best, but actually liked the Ascendancy books a lot. Lots of fun Chiss and Unknown Regions stuff to see there.
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Nov 28, 2022 21:42
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Casimir Radon posted:OF has Completely unnecessary Obi-Wan and Anakin cameos e: Also on the subject, I want to gripe about everybody misunderstanding the Yuuzhan Vong twist in that book. Palpatine didn't actually make the Empire to stop them, that's a lie he uses to manipulate Thrawn into working for him. Lord Hydronium fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Nov 28, 2022 |
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Nov 28, 2022 21:43
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Lord Hydronium posted:See, this is what I thought when this detail came out pre-release, but I really like how Zahn uses it to make OF a semi-sequel to Rogue Planet, plus the great moment when Palpatine is all "Wait, Anakin's onboard? Uh, we suddenly need him back on Coruscant." I loved Outbound Flight, by the way.
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Nov 28, 2022 21:48
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Casimir Radon posted:I never read Rogue Planet so I don’t know how well it ties in. I remember it coming out, and finding out about the NJO connections, but I never read it myself. It’s kind of a forgotten book, and was long before the buyout. I did think Sheev freaking out and getting Anakin off the ship was an interesting move. But it all kind of felt like Lucasfilm told Zahn to include movie characters. As for Rogue Planet, it's...fine. I wish I liked it more than I do; it's got a lot of neat ideas, Zonama Sekot is one of my favorite concepts in the EU, and it's got this slow burn going that should be more interesting, but it's never really grabbed me even on reread. The main tie-in to OF is that it sets up the story of Vergere being taken by the Vong, which is why the Jedi are onboard OF to look for her.
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Nov 28, 2022 21:57
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Lord Hydronium posted:e: Also on the subject, I want to gripe about everybody misunderstanding the Yuuzhan Vong twist in that book. Palpatine didn't actually make the Empire to stop them, that's a lie he uses to manipulate Thrawn into working for him. Yeah, at most, it's a lie he tells to manipulate people into thinking he's working on the side of good, like with Thrawn. But Sheev is always looking out for #1. Like, I'm sure he's concerned about the Vong, but only as a threat to his totally cool, super awesome Empire he's making.
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Nov 28, 2022 23:06
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Lord Hydronium posted:e: Also on the subject, I want to gripe about everybody misunderstanding the Yuuzhan Vong twist in that book. Palpatine didn't actually make the Empire to stop them, that's a lie he uses to manipulate Thrawn into working for him.
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Nov 28, 2022 23:31
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Arquinsiel posted:Star Wars fans are incapable of understanding the concept of "lies". Everything that is stated by a character is 100% true. Which is crazy, because all of Star Wars is founded on Sheev's lies. It's fundamental to the story.
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Nov 28, 2022 23:52
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Lord Hydronium posted:
Yeah, I found it annoying that Palpatine even knew about Yuuzhan Vong, I feel it gives too many people an excuse to support or well, excuse the Empire as "The best case scenario to fight against the Vong". Making Palpatine into anything but murderous sociopath is just dumb.
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Nov 29, 2022 00:32
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"A fascist government is our best chance to resist communism" was a real world political take, it also demonstrated how well that kind of thinking works out.
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Nov 29, 2022 00:57
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Whose idea was it to name two characters in Andor Cinta and Vel and why did it take me until the last episode of the season to notice the potential reference.
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Nov 29, 2022 01:59
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Han Solo dropping hard truths posted:What the Empire would have done was build a super-colossal Yuuzhan Vong–killing battle machine. They would have called it the Nova Colossus or the Galaxy Destructor or the Nostril of Palpatine or something equally grandiose. They would have spent billions of credits, employed thousands of contractors and subcontractors, and equipped it with the latest in death-dealing technology. And you know what would have happened? It wouldn't have worked. They'd forget to bolt down a metal plate over an access hatch leading to the main reactors, or some other mistake, and a hotshot enemy pilot would drop a bomb down there and blow the whole thing up. Now that's what the Empire would have done.
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Nov 29, 2022 02:18
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I dunno, Sun Crusher worked pretty good.
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Nov 29, 2022 02:32
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Arc Hammer posted:Whose idea was it to name two characters in Andor Cinta and Vel and why did it take me until the last episode of the season to notice the potential reference. NikkolasKing posted:I dunno, Sun Crusher worked pretty good.
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Nov 29, 2022 04:27
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Arquinsiel posted:This reference has completely passed me by. Sintas Vel, Boba Fett's ex wife in the old EU.
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Nov 29, 2022 05:46
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Ah, I largely ignored the Fett family drama as I only read so much of Traviss' work. Maybe someday I'll get back to buying old EU novels.
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Nov 29, 2022 06:24
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Going back to the Bane Trilogy, I do recall one annoying thing was in the third book's ending. All book, Bane's suffered the aftereffects of wearing his weird armor last book which a twitch in his hand or something. Nerve damage, I guess. Bane learns a technique to possess bodies in the third book. He and Zannah have their fight and his final action is to attempt the bodysnatching technique on Zannah. Zannah, after the fight, has the weird hand twitch problem. So...Bane did in fact possess her? Who knows! Intentionally left ambiguous, I thought. only not. Apparently this was all a mistake on Drew's part and he never intended us to think Bane had possessed her. He clarified this in a blog post and thus made the end of the trilogy a lot less interesting while making himself seem more incompetent. Always baffled me.
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Nov 29, 2022 14:36
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Casimir Radon posted:The Thrawn prequels weren’t the best, but actually liked the Ascendancy books a lot. Lots of fun Chiss and Unknown Regions stuff to see there. Of all the Disney Era books these have come the closest to capturing that pre-canon Brian Daley vibe with all the Ascendancy lore and politics, the other races in the Chaos and etc. Really hoping that the Ahsoka show doesn't run roughshod over that stuff canonically
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Nov 29, 2022 15:47
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I know it's a different continuity and the books are still there and all that, but the idea that we might be getting a general live-action adaptation of the Thrawn Trilogy, but with Dave Filoni's characters replacing the OT characters, is just kind of... not enjoyable to me.
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Nov 29, 2022 16:31
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Zahn's continued insistence that all of his books, regardless of which continuity they were released into, all all canonical to each other bemuses me. You go, bud
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Nov 30, 2022 00:00
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jivjov posted:Zahn's continued insistence that all of his books, regardless of which continuity they were released into, all all canonical to each other bemuses me. You go, bud
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Nov 30, 2022 00:03
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