Star Wars EU

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**Tannhauser42**

If the Star Wars comics are your thing, Dark Horse is offering their entire SW catalog for digital download for $300. Until January 1st, when the comic book rights go back to Marvel/Disney.

**streamdragon**

AlexHolker wrote:
streamdragon wrote:
Also avoid anything Karen Travis. She wrote a few good ones, but the bad ones pretty much obliterate anything good she may have written. See: walking on Force Bubbles to avoid land mines, because apparently the Force sounds too much like Force Field.

That's not why Traviss is terrible. Traviss is terrible because when she is guilty of bad writing it is to serve a purpose, and that purpose is genocide advocacy. I forgive Zahn for minimalism because having 200 middling capital ships be enough to change the course of the galaxy is merely a symptom of galactic-scale conflicts being difficult to convey. When Traviss claims the Separatists couldn't possibly have that many droids (spoiler warning: they could, she's just mathematically illiterate) it's an excuse to declare the Jedi are up to no good.

Well yeah, it was just an example. Her hate boner for the jedi is pretty legendary, while her constant fellatio of the Mandalorians made for such delicious tears when Clone Wars lucas'd the gak outta them.

**DarkLink**

Some sci fi authors have no sense of scale.

**insaniak**

streamdragon wrote:

Well yeah, it was just an example. Her hate boner for the jedi is pretty legendary, while her constant fellatio of the Mandalorians made for such delicious tears when Clone Wars lucas'd the gak outta them.

This seems like am opportune time to remind everyone that this is a family-friendly forum. If we could maybe try to keep the metaphors to a PG level, that would be appreciated.

**LordofHats**

streamdragon wrote:
AlexHolker wrote:
streamdragon wrote:
Also avoid anything Karen Travis. She wrote a few good ones, but the bad ones pretty much obliterate anything good she may have written. See: walking on Force Bubbles to avoid land mines, because apparently the Force sounds too much like Force Field.

That's not why Traviss is terrible. Traviss is terrible because when she is guilty of bad writing it is to serve a purpose, and that purpose is genocide advocacy. I forgive Zahn for minimalism because having 200 middling capital ships be enough to change the course of the galaxy is merely a symptom of galactic-scale conflicts being difficult to convey. When Traviss claims the Separatists couldn't possibly have that many droids (spoiler warning: they could, she's just mathematically illiterate) it's an excuse to declare the Jedi are up to no good.

Well yeah, it was just an example. Her hate boner for the jedi is pretty legendary, while her constant fellatio of the Mandalorians made for such delicious tears when Clone Wars lucas'd the gak outta them.

Yes yes! Let the hate flow through you!

My quest for eternal vengence against Travis aside, I do actually thing she's a great prose author. Her problem is that she has this very bizarre obsession with "omg you're a warrior that makes you perfect and flawless! omg you're a scientists? You are the root of all evil! (no seriously, every time a scientists appears in her work they are evil or at best morally distasteful). Of you're neither a warrior or a scientist? Well you're just ignorant." Read one Travis novel and you've read every Travis novel cause they all follow the same basic progression.

That's not even getting into the irony of how she quit Star Wars cause "Lucas is ruining my canon" and then went to Halo and sent Eric Nylund to the corner to cry.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

If the Star Wars comics are your thing, Dark Horse is offering their entire SW catalog for digital download for $300. Until January 1st, when the comic book rights go back to Marvel/Disney.

...

*goes to check finances*

I'll pay for that gak XD. All things aside, Dark Horse has always done right by their Star Wars license in my book.

**Ketara**

AlexHolker wrote:
streamdragon wrote:
Also avoid anything Karen Travis. She wrote a few good ones, but the bad ones pretty much obliterate anything good she may have written. See: walking on Force Bubbles to avoid land mines, because apparently the Force sounds too much like Force Field.

That's not why Traviss is terrible. Traviss is terrible because when she is guilty of bad writing it is to serve a purpose, and that purpose is genocide advocacy. I forgive Zahn for minimalism because having 200 middling capital ships be enough to change the course of the galaxy is merely a symptom of galactic-scale conflicts being difficult to convey. When Traviss claims the Separatists couldn't possibly have that many droids (spoiler warning: they could, she's just mathematically illiterate) it's an excuse to declare the Jedi are up to no good.

See, I really very much enjoyed the Imperial Commandos series by Traviss. I found the characters good, the writing easy, and the plotlines reasonably immersive. It's the only set I still have on my shelf (I gave my Zahn away years ago, and have regretted it ever since).

I also very much liked her perspective on the whole Jedi usage of clones/morality thing.

**LordofHats**

It wasn't really her perspective. The morality of the Jedi in the Clone Wars had become a major theme of the the period with Star Wars: Republic about half way through that series. Years before she began writing. It's just that her books are more widely read than the Dark Horse comics.

**Ketara**

LordofHats wrote:
It wasn't really her perspective. The morality of the Jedi in the Clone Wars had become a major theme of the the period with Star Wars: Republic about half way through that series. Years before she began writing. It's just that her books are more widely read than the Dark Horse comics.

http://www.karentraviss.com/page22/files/Is_it_true_you_hate_Jedi_.html

Is it true you hate Jedi?
I get asked this a fair bit. Well, you asked, so you'd better be ready for the answer. Because it's not funny, on-message Karen talking now. This is about serious stuff - psychological underpinnings of attitudes.

And "you" here means - if the cap fits, honey, then wear it.

No sane human can hate someone who doesn't actually exist. From a writer's perspective, the more super-powers characters acquire, the harder it is to develop logical story arcs and true human drama...but I don't have any real feelings about fictional characters that stay with me once I step out of character-point-of-view-writing mode and get on with my life. The characters don't exist. I recognise, though, when they press a button in me and I see they're a conduit or a cypher for stuff I don't like in the real world. I'm very self aware. When a character pisses me off - not as a writer, but as a person - I ask: "Okay, what does this tell me about myself?"

I can do that, however uncomfortable it is. It's the reason I can change my mind if I'm presented with new facts. I recognise I don't have a permanent right answer in my head, and that my own subconscious needs to be dragged out into the light of day on a regular basis.

My real problem, then, is not with fictional Jedi, but with the people who refuse to believe they can do no wrong. And by that I mean the people who believe it, not the harmless majority who just enjoy Jedi-centric stories as entertainment. I know just how deeply held that conviction is by some folks, and when those people try to argue a certain specific point with me, I can see that their line between fiction and reality is way too blurred. I can see their real views on life surfacing. I know where my real views impinge on the unreal, so I can see it in others.

The fiction you regularly choose, and the passion with which you defend it, tells me an awful lot about what goes on in your head. Very few people deliberately choose to read material - fiction or otherwise - that doesn't reinforce their real-life worldview. Most people don't set out to be alienated or offended by their reading material. They tend to settle with what they like - what fits their comfort zone. So if you get pretty het up about anyone suggesting the Jedi might have made a few immoral decisions - or anything else, come to that - chances are it relates to something you actually believe in for real. It wouldn't upset you otherwise. Would it?

I start to back away from Jedi-worshippers at that point. I'm troubled by deferential forelock-tugging to supposed genetic superiors at the best of times, which is why I personally find the genetic Jedi concept sinister, but there's an especially disturbing kind of arse-kissing that makes me recoil. It's the kind that says the Jedi are always justified when they do seriously bad gak, because - well, they're the good guys, and what good guys do is never bad, right?

Well, I worry that it's even less naively benign than that in adult readers. Like the big guy in black said: look into your heart. You know it to be true. Okay, you've been told they're the good guys. If you're a child, I'll cut you some slack. But if you're not - and the majority of Jedi-nutters are old enough to have the vote - I have to ask if you believe everything you're told as obediently and unquestioningly as that in real life. Because if you do, you scare me.

Now, if you like Jedi because Luke is basically an ordinary guy who finds the hero in himself, great. If you like lightsabers and impossible martial arts moves, bully for you. If it's just fun for you, and you don't feel mortally wounded when someone suggests that the Jedi might not actually be completely perfect, fine. You pass the harmless test.

But once you're past the age of puberty and you start arguing passionately with me that the Jedi were right to accept a slave army of cloned human beings and use them in war, and cloned humans aren't proper humans like us, and it was too bad the clones died, and the Jedi had no choice - well, sweetheart, I want to run a mile from you. Not the Jedi, who - just to remind you - are a figment of various writers' imaginations, just like the clones. You. If I see that you really mean it, and you're making excuses in your own mind for the Jedi just following orders on that delicate point, then you scare the living crap out of me. For real.

Because it's clear to me that you believe deep down in real life that some human lives are worth less than others, and so it's okay to end them. Whether you realise that or not. Because if you don't believe it at that fundamental level, then why do you get so damned angry with me when I rock the boat of your fictional beliefs? It's just a kids' fantasy story. You could shrug and move on. But the fact that you rage about it means it's hit a real nerve in you, in the core of your real beliefs.

So, either you're nuts, and you genuinely believe that an evil wizard who shoots lightning out of his fingers is threatening your well-being, or you might just have some ugly supremacist attitudes to your fellow man that you can't acknowledge even to yourself.

Am I making you feel uncomfortable? I hope so.

I'm sure you think you're a nice decent person who's kind to animals, recycles faithfully, and fills in tax returns honestly. Maybe you believe in God, too. But to me, you're someone who harbours a vile and degrading belief in the concept of Untermensch - the idea that some humans aren't human at all, and we can do as we like with them, for whatever arbitrary value we put on the words "real human." You're looking for ways to sift your kind of human from the humans who don't matter, and who can be consigned to the fate of animals. In fact, if you use the phrase "real humans" at all, my case is proven.

That belief in a league table of humans - and the casual acceptance of it by nice people who were kind to animals and filled in their tax forms on time - led to the enslavement and murder of millions.

It's slave-owner-think: it's Nazi-think. And yes, I bloody well hate it, and all those who think it.

It's not about Jedi - who don't even exist. It's about you.

It seems reasonably personal to her. I'm not claiming she invented it, but she took the perspective of 'The good and bad guys are both the same guys' far further than any other EU author I've read. Just how in depth are the comics on that particular stance? I wouldn't have thought they'd have the room to go into it in any detail, comics being more illustrations than text boxes, as it were.

**Ahtman**

That doesn't seem all that reasonable to me actually. In fact it seems like a bizarrely unreasonable view of it. She can have it of course, but it certainly seems askew. It seems a strange view to take and to then want to take part in that universe makes even less sense.

One of the problems with the EU in general is that the actual story (Star Wars to Return of the Jedi) is very black and white morality tale but with the EU the more that is made the more people want to inflict reality into it which is not what the universe is built around. You end up with idiotic stuff like Grey Jedi, light side dark side users, Palpatine apologism, and comparing Jedi to Nazis and Slave Owners.

**Yodhrin**

Ketara wrote:

The fiction you regularly choose, and the passion with which you defend it, tells me an awful lot about what goes on in your head. Very few people deliberately choose to read material - fiction or otherwise - that doesn't reinforce their real-life worldview. Most people don't set out to be alienated or offended by their reading material. They tend to settle with what they like - what fits their comfort zone.

Wait, whut? So the fact I enjoy 40K fiction and have in the past defended it to people who slagged it off means I secretly support genocidal, xenophobic theocracies who's rule is enforced by soldiers that are either victims of continual propaganda or who are created by conducting genetic experiments on children? How does that square with the fact I also like and have defended Star Trek?

This bint is wonko. As in, seriously disturbed. She makes a big deal in that wee screed about divorcing herself from "fictional characters that aren't real", yet if someone makes an argument about a fictional character in the context of the fictional circumstances they experience within the fictional universe they inhabit, she thinks that's a cast-iron indicator that the person is a secret Nazi in real life?

**Relapse**

Grey Templar wrote:
99% of the EU is junk. Unlike the Black Library, there is/was no policing of what got published beyond "give George his moneyz!"

Rogue Squadron is good. The Thrawn Trilogy is also good from what I hear. Everything else is pretty much crap.

Its all been tossed from the canon as well, good bad and ugly. So keep that in mind. None of it has happened in the official timeline.

Yep, I remember the first Star Wars novel I got after seeing the movie. It involved Luke looking for the source of the force in a race against Darth Vader. As appalled as people were to find what allowed Jedi to be in touch with the force in The Phantom Menace, it was worse in the novel. It was a 50 pound rock or some such thing in a cave. This was around 1978.

**Compel**

Sounds like Splinters of the Minds Eye?

**Ketara**

Yodhrin wrote:

Wait, whut? So the fact I enjoy 40K fiction and have in the past defended it to people who slagged it off means I secretly support genocidal, xenophobic theocracies who's rule is enforced by soldiers that are either victims of continual propaganda or who are created by conducting genetic experiments on children?

Apply the thought test she points out. If someone says that genocidal xenophobic theocracies are a bad thing, do you get mad and send the person who says it hatemail? (because that's what this article was written as a response to)

You're assuming she's equating 'person who disagrees with me' with 'person who is rabidly obsessive about defending the actions of certain people within the fluff as being a good/acceptable thing'.

This bint is wonko. As in, seriously disturbed. She makes a big deal in that wee screed about divorcing herself from "fictional characters that aren't real", yet if someone makes an argument about a fictional character in the context of the fictional circumstances they experience within the fictional universe they inhabit, she thinks that's a cast-iron indicator that the person is a secret Nazi in real life?

She said nothing of the sort. I suggest you re-read.

My real problem, then, is not with fictional Jedi, but with the people who refuse to believe they can do no wrong. And by that I mean the people who believe it, not the harmless majority who just enjoy Jedi-centric stories as entertainment......So if you get pretty het up about anyone suggesting the Jedi might have made a few immoral decisions - or anything else, come to that - chances are it relates to something you actually believe in for real.

**insaniak**

Ahtman wrote:
One of the problems with the EU in general is that the actual story (Star Wars to Return of the Jedi) is very black and white morality tale but with the EU the more that is made the more people want to inflict reality into it which is not what the universe is built around. You end up with idiotic stuff like Grey Jedi, light side dark side users, Palpatine apologism, and comparing Jedi to Nazis and Slave Owners.

This is exactly the big issue with the EU. While a lot of it is entertaining for what it is, most of it just doesn't 'feel' like Star Wars.

I think that's why I liked the X-wing novels so much. For all that Zahn writes a cool story, the X-wing books are the ones that read the most like the movies. Enough story to keep things moving, an emphasis on battle scenes over exposition, and they don't take the whole thing too seriously (see: Wedge flying a tie fighter in an ewok suit).

**LordofHats**

Ketara wrote:
It seems reasonably personal to her. I'm not claiming she invented it, but she took the perspective of 'The good and bad guys are both the same guys' far further than any other EU author I've read. Just how in depth are the comics on that particular stance? I wouldn't have thought they'd have the room to go into it in any detail, comics being more illustrations than text boxes, as it were.

Oh she definitely took it farther, kind of to an insane level really. Somehow she manages to take perfectly decent people and portray them as evil and sinister, simply by writing it that way. Like I said, she's an amazing prose author XD Able to completely change the tone of the audience with little more than excellent technical ability. And that is a talent!

I still swear eternal vengeance tho

One of the problems with the EU in general is that the actual story (Star Wars to Return of the Jedi) is very black and white morality tale but with the EU the more that is made the more people want to inflict reality into it which is not what the universe is built around. You end up with idiotic stuff like Grey Jedi, light side dark side users, Palpatine apologism, and comparing Jedi to Nazis and Slave Owners.

Is that really a problem though? At the end of the day black and white morality can be entertaining, and even reassuring, but Lucas and the EU authors themselves kind of brought this on themselves. To the earliest days of the EU (and to the Prequel Films) the "good guys are the right guys" mentality became a undercurrent of Lucas' tale. Inevitably, people began to challenge this both as fans and later as EU authors. The 'Good guys are the right guys' has lead to some absurdly twisted morality in the EU and the films, and I'm not sure that can really be brushed aside as "not what the universe is built around."

In a way, Karen Travis can be seen as an extremist response to this mentality. The 'light makes right' mentality that overwhelmed the early EU and lead to things like overthrowing democratically elected governments and replacing them with a terrorist dictatorship is a good thing because Han and Leia Solo did it (and another reason why Legacy of the Force is terrible

). And because they see no moral quagmire in their actions neither should we.

But of course, Karen Travis I think is the opposite problem. A "light makes wrong' mentality. She constantly complains about 'Jedi lovers justifying horrible acts' but the same themes pop up in everything she writes, to the point we can't really separate those themes from her opinion; Karen Travis eschews morality in itself. Morality doesn't matter to her. In fact, morality is evil to her (any kind of morality). This theme is present in her non-EU material as well. She even carried it over to Halo when she jumped ship.

It's kind of ironic that she talks about the Jedi as Nazis because her writing is completely obsessed with concept Ubermech XD. Which really is the exact same problem she complains about, except instead of 'light makes right' she is 'right makes right.' Anyone who isn't 'right' in her eyes gets portrayed as inhuman, amoral, or monstrous. Even perfectly decent people.

**Ketara**

insaniak wrote:

This is exactly the big issue with the EU. While a lot of it is entertaining for what it is, most of it just doesn't 'feel' like Star Wars.

I think that's why I liked the X-wing novels so much. For all that Zahn writes a cool story, the X-wing books are the ones that read the most like the movies. Enough story to keep things moving, an emphasis on battle scenes over exposition, and they don't take the whole thing too seriously (see: Wedge flying a tie fighter in an ewok suit).

I remember that.

The X-Wing series was very lighthearted and enjoyable. Fighter aces in space, and all that. Now that I'm restarting x-wing, I might just pick them back up again....

**Ahtman**

LordofHats wrote:
Is that really a problem though?

Yes. It was an inevitable problem, but it is still a problem. Eventually people would try to inject to much into it, like trying to come up with a serious answer as to why Superman can fly.

LordofHats wrote:
At the end of the day black and white morality can be entertaining, and even reassuring, but Lucas and the EU authors themselves kind of brought this on themselves.

Never said they didn't. These kind of things tend to work in small doses but when you try and drag it out over an extended peroid of time it can't hold up.

LordofHats wrote:
To the earliest days of the EU (and to the Prequel Films) the "good guys are the right guys" mentality became a undercurrent of Lucas' tale. Inevitably, people began to challenge this both as fans and later as EU authors.

Good vs. Evil doesn't have to mean Good = always right and Evil = always wrong. Han wasn't exactly an ideal hero. It isn't hard to do flawed heroes without making them paragons of right.

LordofHats wrote:
The 'Good guys are the right guys' has lead to some absurdly twisted morality in the EU and the films, and I'm not sure that can really be brushed aside as "not what the universe is built around."

This is still basically wanting to explain how Superman flies. If one wants to make something where the Sith are actually good and the Jedi ar actually bad then they seemingly misunderstand how the Star Wars fictional universe is set up.

LordofHats wrote:
The 'light makes right' mentality that overwhelmed the early EU and lead to things like overthrowing democratically elected governments and replacing them with a terrorist dictatorship is a good thing because Han and Leia Solo did it (and another reason why Legacy of the Force is terrible ). And because they see no moral quagmire in their actions neither should we.

That just proves that many authors where creating poor story lines, not that it is somehow what is accurate or right. The latter part about her failings by doing the opposite and falling into the same thinking still shows this in the same way. Either side lacks perspective.

**Compel**

There's a throwaway line in one of the TV shows I liked called, The Unit, that actually does pretty damn well in summing up how a good Jedi story can work.

"A moral choice is not one between good and evil, for a man must always do good. No, a moral choice is one between two evils."

Now, making a story around that, without falling into the Grey Jedi 'copout' could be some very good stories indeed.

**LordofHats**

Ahtman wrote:
Eventually people would try to inject to much into it, like trying to come up with a serious answer as to why Superman can fly.

Isn't it some silly thing like he has telekinesis right now?

Telekinesis he never uses except to fly and that one time he needed some deus ex to save himself XD

That just proves that many authors where creating poor story lines, not that it is somehow what is accurate or right. The latter part about her failings by doing the opposite and falling into the same thinking still shows this in the same way. Either side lacks perspective.

Oh yes the story lines often have severe failings. That's not what I'm getting at though. Like the 'Star Trek purists' who insist that the only real Star Trek is TOS, people who insist that the injection of moral greyness is un-Star Wars in Star Wars irk me. It is inevitable that if you write a Black and White moral tale, someone will come along and ask 'is white really white and is black really black?' This is an expansion on the story, not a divergence from it. Has it lead to stupidity? Certainly, but so has the Black and White. Inserting greyness isn't the problem. Piss poor quality control is.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
EDIT;

Ahtman wrote:

Good vs. Evil doesn't have to mean Good = always right and Evil = always wrong. Han wasn't exactly an ideal hero. It isn't hard to do flawed heroes without making them paragons of right.

And yet, Lucas is so insistent that there is no moral Greyness that he insists Han didn't shoot first

< This is what I'm talking about. There seriously are people who insist that the 'good guys are the right guys' in Star Wars, and Lucas himself is one of them. We're even supposed to root for Anakin as a hero, knowing that he becomes a monster later on. That's the universe Lucas built. it's not like it only started up in the EU.

**Ahtman**

Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that moral greyness isn't a problem, it is how it is executed that is a problem. Part of it may be that I never saw them as expansions or official information, to be honest.

Spoiler:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

LordofHats wrote:
insists Han didn't shoot first

I don't know what you are talking about. There was no first, second or even third shots. Han just shot and that was that. *cries in the corner mumbling that there is no "special edition"

**LordofHats**

A good comparison here is DS9 and all the people who insisted it wasn't Star Trek' Honestly, I agreed with them at the time, but now I look back and to me, DS9 was the master piece of Star Trek. Rodenberry's universe was grand and great but too pure to be anything more than escapism. DS9 took that universe and forced it to face it's itself and ask hard questions about what Roddenberry's bright future would really look like subjected to harsh realities.

I view Star Wars the same way. To me, it's perfectly proper to take it and subject it to harsh realities to see where that leads. I mean, does anyone ever complain that 'Watchmen' wasn't a super hero story? This is the essence of deconstruction and reconstruction as literary forms.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:

I don't know what you are talking about. There was no first, second or even third shots. Han just shot and that was that. *cries in the corner mumbling that there is no "special edition"

There there Ahtman. Have a cookie;

**Ahtman**

Saying that people screw up morality in Star Wars is not the same as arguing that everyone screws it up everywhere.

There is nothing wrong with deconstructing a work, but as far as I can tell no one has done a good job of it in relation to Star Wars. If there is ever something as interesting or as thought out as The Watchmen in regards to Star Wars I'd be happy to read it.

I like DS9 actually and thought it one of the better second generation Star Trek series.

Now gimme mah cookie!

**LordofHats**

Ahtman wrote:
There is nothing wrong with deconstructing a work, but as far as I can tell no one has done a good job of it in relation to Star Wars.

Agreed. Some things have skirted greatness, but maybe they only seem that way because they're better than the rest of the dribble XD Star Wars I think must struggle with the problem that most of its authors are also it's fans. They may question or attempt to take it apart, but in the end they're fans. They love it for better or worse. In a way, I think it takes someone who hates something to truly deconstruct it (Alan Moore and Hideaki Anno are good examples of this). Good deconstruction is brutal. It's something I think a fan would have much more to overcome to achieve.

Now gimme mah cookie!

No. My cookie!

**Tannhauser42**

Ahtman wrote:

I don't know what you are talking about. There was no first, second or even third shots. Han just shot and that was that. *cries in the corner mumbling that there is no "special edition"

Look at the bright side: supposedly Disney is working on a blu-ray release of the original, unaltered trilogy.

**ScootyPuffJunior**

Tannhauser42 wrote:
Ahtman wrote:

I don't know what you are talking about. There was no first, second or even third shots. Han just shot and that was that. *cries in the corner mumbling that there is no "special edition"

Look at the bright side: supposedly Disney is working on a blu-ray release of the original, unaltered trilogy.

That is the reason that I have not yet bought the Original Trilogy on Blu-Ray yet.

**Ahtman**

Store bought is a lie, there is only home made.
Through home made, I gain cookie dough.
Through cookie dough, I gain deliciousness.
Through deliciousness, I gain cookie.
Through cookie, my wants are fulfilled.
The Cookie Monster shall free me.

**LordofHats**

I don't think Master Yoda would approve of the Cookie Side of the Force

**motyak**

insaniak wrote:
(see: Wedge flying a tie fighter in an ewok suit).

**Yodhrin**

Ketara wrote:
Yodhrin wrote:

Wait, whut? So the fact I enjoy 40K fiction and have in the past defended it to people who slagged it off means I secretly support genocidal, xenophobic theocracies who's rule is enforced by soldiers that are either victims of continual propaganda or who are created by conducting genetic experiments on children?

Apply the thought test she points out. If someone says that genocidal xenophobic theocracies are a bad thing, do you get mad and send the person who says it hatemail? (because that's what this article was written as a response to)

You're assuming she's equating 'person who disagrees with me' with 'person who is rabidly obsessive about defending the actions of certain people within the fluff as being a good/acceptable thing'.

No, I'm looking at the words that she wrote and ascribing to them the meaning they have. She's not just talking about the whackaloons who personalise the discussion to the point they send those they disagree with hatemail, she draws an explicit distinction between "people who just enjoy stories that have Jedi in them" and "people who make arguments that the fictional Jedi are justified in their actions in the context of the fictional world they inhabit", the former being fine and the latter being closet fascists. She doesn't differentiate beyond that, just informs the reader that once they pass some arbitrary level of ardor in their disagreement with her opinions on the Jedi, they are no longer simply presenting a differing opinion on a fictional character/group, but are in fact revealing their deep-seated, "fundamental" subconscious attitudes towards real people. There's no acknowledgement in the quoted writing that people may be passionately disagreeing(and again, that's all that's specified, there's no distinction drawn between "passionate disagreement" and "email harassing psycho") with her because they think, for example, that it's incredibly disingenuous to present yourself as someone with an open mind who "[doesn't] have a permanent right answer in [her] head" and then turn right around and essentially state "my view is correct and if you genuinely disagree then you frighten me and are a horrible person".

This bint is wonko. As in, seriously disturbed. She makes a big deal in that wee screed about divorcing herself from "fictional characters that aren't real", yet if someone makes an argument about a fictional character in the context of the fictional circumstances they experience within the fictional universe they inhabit, she thinks that's a cast-iron indicator that the person is a secret Nazi in real life?

She said nothing of the sort. I suggest you re-read.

My real problem, then, is not with fictional Jedi, but with the people who refuse to believe they can do no wrong. And by that I mean the people who believe it, not the harmless majority who just enjoy Jedi-centric stories as entertainment......So if you get pretty het up about anyone suggesting the Jedi might have made a few immoral decisions - or anything else, come to that - chances are it relates to something you actually believe in for real.

I would suggest you do the same;

...well, sweetheart, I want to run a mile from you. Not the Jedi, who - just to remind you - are a figment of various writers' imaginations, just like the clones. You. If I see that you really mean it, and you're making excuses in your own mind for the Jedi just following orders on that delicate point, then you scare the living crap out of me. For real.

Because it's clear to me that you believe deep down in real life that some human lives are worth less than others, and so it's okay to end them. Whether you realise that or not. Because if you don't believe it at that fundamental level, then why do you get so damned angry with me when I rock the boat of your fictional beliefs? It's just a kids' fantasy story. You could shrug and move on. But the fact that you rage about it means it's hit a real nerve in you, in the core of your real beliefs.

...

But to me, you're someone who harbours a vile and degrading belief in the concept of Untermensch - the idea that some humans aren't human at all...

...

It's slave-owner-think: it's Nazi-think. And yes, I bloody well hate it, and all those who think it.

To go back to my earlier example; I like Star Trek. I can argue, passionately and at-length, that, for example, in the context of the fictional future of the setting, continuing to operate a capitalistic economic system when technology makes scarcity irrelevant is unethical, and that as such the Federation are, in that respect, a demonstrably superior society to the Ferengi. I can fully believe my opinions in that regard are correct. And I can do all that without harbouring any secret, unconscious desires for Zombie-Stalin to arise from the grave to lead us all into a real-life unending Communist utopia. Just as someone could disagree with me, passionately and in the full belief they are in fact correct, without giving me the right to assume that they in fact go to bed every night wishing that they could wake up living in some plutocratic right-Libertarian Randian nightmare world.

**Ketara**

Yodhrin, I can see where you're coming from. I do however, disagree that that is what she's actually saying. I believe she's made an adequate distinction between:

-'arguing passionately', as you put it, and
-'people who genuinely get upset/enraged over something'.

As things stand, you believe she is referring to both of those things, put yourself in the former category, and thus believe she is talking about you.I however, having read and re-read, think that she is only referring to those in the latter category, and therefore excluding the issue that you are referring to. And therefore do not believe she is a 'wonko bint' as you put it.

I suppose it's one of those cases in which text is quite simply not sufficient as a medium to necessarily convey what your meaning is. I'd personally be inclined to think that given the context (it being written in response to hatemail), it would be logical to assume for the time being that she's referring to the latter category. YMMV I suppose. Bar sitting her down in a coffee shop and asking her, there's no way of proving which of us is ultimately correct.

But given that she's a sci-fi fan/author and the stated context, I find it hard to be convinced in this instance that she'd automatically classify anyone who would have a sci-fi debate about star wars morality a nazi. It would be strange, unreasonable, and out of character for a fellow geek, so for the time being, I'm afraid I'm given to believe that the evidence points to the contrary. YMMV.