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Mara Jade


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Too much logic there, we can't have that.

 

Well. . . I recall reading a story by a guy who worked at a bookstore. He was ringing up a customer who was buying the Lord of the Rings books, and the customer asked "So, is Gandalf supposed to be based on Dumbledore?"

 

True story.

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Well. . . I recall reading a story by a guy who worked at a bookstore. He was ringing up a customer who was buying the Lord of the Rings books, and the customer asked "So, is Gandalf supposed to be based on Dumbledore?"

 

True story.

 

That... makes me sad on so many levels.

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I am starting to think StarWar Hardcore fans are nutz .

 

Mara died because it was the best way to hurt Luke by his own nephew ! Characters die and so do real people , life goes on ! Happen StarWars is not much like DC or Marvel or everyone who died would eventually rise again .

 

Eventually Luke will die , be happy that hasn't happen yet or the Luke fans would go into a rampage destroying their parents house from the basements !

 

I think the writer sumed it up the best I have seen , some fans are crazy and act like the own the place . Normally I would aggree that Fans Pay the Bills but then no loved character would ever die or lose in a fight and nothing is good about that .

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I am starting to think StarWar Hardcore fans are nutz .

 

Mara died because it was the best way to hurt Luke by his own nephew ! Characters die and so do real people , life goes on ! Happen StarWars is not much like DC or Marvel or everyone who died would eventually rise again .

 

Eventually Luke will die , be happy that hasn't happen yet or the Luke fans would go into a rampage destroying their parents house from the basements !

 

I think the writer sumed it up the best I have seen , some fans are crazy and act like the own the place . Normally I would aggree that Fans Pay the Bills but then no loved character would ever die or lose in a fight and nothing is good about that .

 

1) Grammar and punctuation are your friend.

 

2) Mostly we're just saying that she died in a stupid way that did not do justice to the character or to the author that created her and turned her into the character people love.

 

3) If you think this conversation is stupid... why are you here other than to troll us?

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For the record, it wouldn't have been KT's decision to kill Mara. That would have come from the publishers. Same with Chewie and Anakin (why do you think they got Bob (Salvatore) to right Chewie's death tho he hasn't done a SW book before or since). The manner in which Mara died is all on KT. Certainly Zahn should have been consulted. He is, after all, the guy who's largely responsible for there being an EU. He deserves some respect. And his Mara wouldn't have lost that duel. Or faced him alone in the first place if she thought she might lose.

 

I don't like this move in the EU to write 9 book series with 3 or 4 different authors. What happened to the days of giving the good authors a 3 book series all to themselves, it just made for a more cohesive story. Plus I'm a little unimpressed with the work of some of these new 'serial' authors who just don't know the subject matter and can't be bothered to do the research to get their facts straight.

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I actually got to talk to RA Salvatore during a book signing once about Chewie's death. He said he tried to get them to not make him do it but Lucas Arts insisted. Anakin at least got a -good- death, I was just more upset that right when he was becoming a ****** he died. But at least it was in a ****** way.

 

As for Mara, so many of the EU writers butchered her character whenever they tried to incorporate her. It got better later, NJO and such but then we hit Legacy and it went downhill again.

 

 

On the upside, she shows back up in the Legacy comics as a force ghost and basically tells her descendent off for being a whiny *****. Even as a force ghost she's awesome.

 

 

Edit: sigh.. profanity filters...

 

that's interesting because it seems Lucas Arts had no idea

 

SS (Shelly Shapiro, Editorial director, Del Ray Books):

We didn’t get George’s permission to kill Chewie in particular: Chewie was simply not one of the characters George said we could not kill.

 

Perhaps R A Salvatorie didn't know it was Del Ray books not Lucas Arts pushing for it.

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See, I liked Chewie and Anakin dying in the NJO. It gave the series a much different feel, as mentioned several times in the books, it did away with the plot armor the character had all been walking around with. You can't have great drama if you KNOW that the main characters will always succeed.

 

 

It's like what Joss Whedon did with Serenity. Killing Book was one thing. . . he was an important character, sure, but he was probably the most expendable character in the story. Killing Wash. . . now, that was a signal to the audience that no one was safe, and this whole thing could turn into Butch and Sundance before it was over.

 

 

I didn't even have any qualms about how they died. . . my only complaint is that Anakin had been being built up as the new hero of this story, and Lucas decided that, to avoid any confusion between Anakin Skywalker and Anakin Solo, Anakin Solo had to die. It feels like an insult to the audience's intelligence. Then again, given the exhibited intelligence I've seen from some of that audience, maybe Lucas had a point.

 

 

Actually Wash was killed at the request of the actor because he didn't want anyone else able to play the part if they restarted the show. Which I totally agree with, by the way.

 

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that's interesting because it seems Lucas Arts had no idea

 

SS (Shelly Shapiro, Editorial director, Del Ray Books):

We didn’t get George’s permission to kill Chewie in particular: Chewie was simply not one of the characters George said we could not kill.

 

Perhaps R A Salvatorie didn't know it was Del Ray books not Lucas Arts pushing for it.

 

Possible. It's also possible I'm thinking he said Lucas Arts and he said Del Rey. This was back in either '01 or '02 so it's been a while. :) I just distinctly remembering him saying he didn't want to do it and got basically told "Yes, you will, you signed the contract, you're killing Chewie."

 

As for KT having to kill Mara, yeah, she probably got told she had to kill Mara. Or was given a limited list of people and told one of them had to die. But srsly... was a terrible death and completely out of character.

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I am starting to think StarWar Hardcore fans are nutz .

 

Mara died because it was the best way to hurt Luke by his own nephew ! Characters die and so do real people , life goes on ! Happen StarWars is not much like DC or Marvel or everyone who died would eventually rise again .

 

Eventually Luke will die , be happy that hasn't happen yet or the Luke fans would go into a rampage destroying their parents house from the basements !

 

I think the writer sumed it up the best I have seen , some fans are crazy and act like the own the place . Normally I would aggree that Fans Pay the Bills but then no loved character would ever die or lose in a fight and nothing is good about that .

 

Er, no. Mara was killed by Jacen because, for some reason, he had to make a "Sacrifice" (hence the name of the novel (and it wasn't his wife why?)). Which Karen Traviss then completely made a moot point by having Jacen try to rationalize away Mara's death as self defense.

 

Also there's the whole thing about her saying she killed Mara because she was a "pathetic Jedi" (Karen's own words, can't get the post anymore because she deleted it).

Edited by Aximand
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If Mara was a "pathetic Jedi"... then what the heck's a good one?!?! Oh wait... this is Karen Traviss... there ARE no "good Jedi."

 

Basically. When it comes right down to it, Traviss was an "author" (I use that term very loosely) that came into the Star Wars universe not as a fan, but as someone that wanted to change it to something that they approved of. She had never read another Star Wars novel other than her own (a fact she was proud of), she forced characters to be very OOC in order for them to fit more into her story (Luke thinking in Mado'a for some reason), and to top it all off, she didn't even pay attention to what she herself wrote. Her LotF books are completely full of contradictions of themselves, sometimes one page over!

 

Honestly, I just want everything she wrote to be retconned into oblivion.

Edited by Aximand
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Basically. When it comes right down to it, Traviss was an "author" (I use that term very loosely) that came into the Star Wars universe not as a fan, but as someone that wanted to change it to something that they approved of. She had never read another Star Wars novel other than her own (a fact she was proud of), she forced characters to be very OOC in order for them to fit more into her story (Luke thinking in Mado'a for some reason), and to top it all off, she didn't even pay attention to what she herself wrote. Her LotF books are completely full of contradictions of themselves, sometimes on page over!

 

Honestly, I just want everything she wrote to be retconned into oblivion.

 

I could get behind that. I read the Republic Commando books and her LotF books. I think I -own- her others, but never actually read them. May not even own them.

 

So much of the EU is really awesome. And then there's authors like Traviss who just butcher it to suit their own ends. Their own ends usually also being really really bad even IF everyone had been in character. *coughCrystalStarcough*

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I could get behind that. I read the Republic Commando books and her LotF books. I think I -own- her others, but never actually read them. May not even own them.

 

So much of the EU is really awesome. And then there's authors like Traviss who just butcher it to suit their own ends. Their own ends usually also being really really bad even IF everyone had been in character. *coughCrystalStarcough*

 

Lol. Oh Crystal Star, how you shall forever live on in Star Wars infamy.

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That's possible (regarding Chewie and LucasArts not asking for his death)... if not LucasArts, it could have been Del Rey. Vector Prime was their grand entrance to the EU, I think, and it'd be a pretty big sign that they were gonna do things different by killing off one of the main (albeit underused, and often taken for granted) characters. So they kill off Chewie, the big strong guy, the guy with a life-debt to Han's whole family, and it takes a heavenly body crashing down on him to do him in. "That's no moon...oh, wait, that IS a moon." As ridiculous as it sounds, it was still an epic death. Shot to death? No. A fall from a cliff? Passe. Drop a moon on him? That'll do!

 

Anakin Solo, as I understood it, was set to eventually fall to the dark side and THAT is why George said "No, people might confuse him with Anakin Skywalker." So Jacen went from being the awesome Jedi to the one who goes through drama and eventually falls, while Anakin got to be Jedi Superman and go out saving everyone.

 

Mara... I didn't read LOTF. I caught the gist of it in forum conversations, Wookieepedia, and reading most of YodaKenobi's lengthy review of one of the later LOTF books by Traviss on TFN's forums. That put me off reading any more of Traviss' work, and I really don't want to see her send Mara to her death. Mara was well-written in much of the EU (when she wasn't outright ignored, leading to it taking 10 in-universe years for her & Luke to get together, putting Ben way behind his cousins), except for that tryst with Lando that Zahn had to fix in the Hand of Thrawn duology. I didn't want to read about her foolishly allowing herself to face Jacen alone without telling anyone.

 

I think her appearance in LEGACY isn't as a Force Ghost, but merely a hallucination brought on by Cade's drug abuse. He was being his cranky selfish self, not wanting to be a Jedi or join the Sith, just wanting to be left alone, so his mind conjured up an ancestor who went through a lot of the same emotions in her day, but who eventually joined the light. He also hallucinated Anakin Skywalker who morphed into Vader... neither were spirits, since he was so drugged up (which he often did to keep Luke's actual Force Ghost from bothering him)

 

It's really annoying to me that Mara tends to be depicted in just ONE outfit for her post-ROTJ days, that sleeveless catsuit from the Decipher card and Thrawn comics*. It's a big pet peeve from the Thrawn comics because in the books, she's got a holdout blaster on a rig worn up her sleeve... it's a pretty key gadget for her throughout the trilogy. Also, she's described as wearing jumpsuits and the like; later books, she wears all kinds of different things, including Jedi robes. Not once--in what I've read--was she described as wearing that sleeveless leather catsuit. And she certainly wouldn't be wearing it for the DECADES she was active until her death :p

 

*I know she's been shown in the green dress from the Hand of Thrawn covers, and at least one Japanese NJO cover has her in the catsuit but with a long-sleeve white shirt on beneath it... but she mostly dressed comfortably ala Han or Luke, in coats & shirts & regular pants, or jumpsuits, and often Jedi robes after she became a Master (Luke's Jedi weren't as strict on the dress code as pre-Empire Jedi, after all)

Edited by Toonimator
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That's possible (regarding Chewie and LucasArts not asking for his death)... if not LucasArts, it could have been Del Rey. Vector Prime was their grand entrance to the EU, I think, and it'd be a pretty big sign that they were gonna do things different by killing off one of the main (albeit underused, and often taken for granted) characters. So they kill off Chewie, the big strong guy, the guy with a life-debt to Han's whole family, and it takes a heavenly body crashing down on him to do him in. "That's no moon...oh, wait, that IS a moon." As ridiculous as it sounds, it was still an epic death. Shot to death? No. A fall from a cliff? Passe. Drop a moon on him? That'll do!

 

The moon was, indeed, epic.

 

Anakin Solo, as I understood it, was set to eventually fall to the dark side and THAT is why George said "No, people might confuse him with Anakin Skywalker." So Jacen went from being the awesome Jedi to the one who goes through drama and eventually falls, while Anakin got to be Jedi Superman and go out saving everyone.

 

I didn't know that. That actually makes a sort of sense.

 

Mara... I didn't read LOTF. I caught the gist of it in forum conversations, Wookieepedia, and reading most of YodaKenobi's lengthy review of one of the later LOTF books by Traviss on TFN's forums. That put me off reading any more of Traviss' work, and I really don't want to see her send Mara to her death. Mara was well-written in much of the EU (when she wasn't outright ignored, leading to it taking 10 in-universe years for her & Luke to get together, putting Ben way behind his cousins), except for that tryst with Lando that Zahn had to fix in the Hand of Thrawn duology. I didn't want to read about her foolishly allowing herself to face Jacen alone without telling anyone.

 

I think her appearance in LEGACY isn't as a Force Ghost, but merely a hallucination brought on by Cade's drug abuse. He was being his cranky selfish self, not wanting to be a Jedi or join the Sith, just wanting to be left alone, so his mind conjured up an ancestor who went through a lot of the same emotions in her day, but who eventually joined the light. He also hallucinated Anakin Skywalker who morphed into Vader... neither were spirits, since he was so drugged up (which he often did to keep Luke's actual Force Ghost from bothering him)

 

Been a while since I read the Legacy comics so I could be mistaking hallucination with force ghost. Either way, even if she was only a hallucination, she STILL basically tells Cale "dude, I can't believe you're related to me. You suck." Which is pretty damn awesome imo. :)

 

It's really annoying to me that Mara tends to be depicted in just ONE outfit for her post-ROTJ days, that sleeveless catsuit from the Decipher card and Thrawn comics*. It's a big pet peeve from the Thrawn comics because in the books, she's got a holdout blaster on a rig worn up her sleeve... it's a pretty key gadget for her throughout the trilogy. Also, she's described as wearing jumpsuits and the like; later books, she wears all kinds of different things, including Jedi robes. Not once--in what I've read--was she described as wearing that sleeveless leather catsuit. And she certainly wouldn't be wearing it for the DECADES she was active until her death :p

 

*I know she's been shown in the green dress from the Hand of Thrawn covers, and at least one Japanese NJO cover has her in the catsuit but with a long-sleeve white shirt on beneath it... but she mostly dressed comfortably ala Han or Luke, in coats & shirts & regular pants, or jumpsuits, and often Jedi robes after she became a Master (Luke's Jedi weren't as strict on the dress code as pre-Empire Jedi, after all)

 

Haha, yeah... apparently Mara doesn't have a wardrobe. She's in a Jedi robe on the cover of one of the Legacy books, though, iirc. My books are packed or I'd go look at them. In the books she was big on jumpsuits, as was Luke, unless they were appearing more formally. NJO Jedi are infinitely more practical in their attire than TOR Jedi.

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Says you... when I get a Sentinel over on a higher-pop realm, he'll be wearing a Drelliad Jacket or other Smuggler oranges for most of his career. ;) My low-pop Sentinel has the Aspiring Knight's Vest moddable, which is fairly practical as far as Jedi-centric attire goes.
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There's a lot of debate on if Cade's visions are drug-induced hallucinations, messages from the Force, or some odd combo of both. It's one of the master strokes of the authors (of which there are many) that they left that point rather nebulous, adding a depth to Cade's character. And part of what makes the gag work is that they write the characters who appear as Force/Drug Ghosts VERY well in-character.

 

Aside from the NJO authors, the only person who EVER got Mara Jade right besides Timothy Zhan was Michael Stackpole. She is a pretty tricky character, but so many EU authors are, in my opinion, sub-par, and can't even really write the MAIN characters in character.

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There's a lot of debate on if Cade's visions are drug-induced hallucinations, messages from the Force, or some odd combo of both. It's one of the master strokes of the authors (of which there are many) that they left that point rather nebulous, adding a depth to Cade's character. And part of what makes the gag work is that they write the characters who appear as Force/Drug Ghosts VERY well in-character.

Many? I thought John Ostrander was the only one writing those issues (indeed, all of LEGACY, I thought). In any case, Mara & Vader were primarily hallucinations because the drugs dulled his connection to the Force. Luke's spirit criticizes him for it in another issue... plus, being haunted by his knowledge of his ancestors (fallen Anakin and no-nonsense Mara) was a nice segue to re-introduce K'Kruhk to the EU (STILL waiting for him to pop up in one of the books; maybe by the end of FOTJ?)

 

Aside from the NJO authors, the only person who EVER got Mara Jade right besides Timothy Zhan was Michael Stackpole. She is a pretty tricky character, but so many EU authors are, in my opinion, sub-par, and can't even really write the MAIN characters in character.

Good point. I don't recall her being poorly written in the Corellian Trilogy, but it's been ages since I read that. Hated her in the Jedi Academy Trilogy. Not sure which Stackpole books she was in... she appeared in "I, Jedi", right? And of course in the UNION comic mini, where she looked like a red-headed Mira Sorvino and sounded like Mara in love.

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Man, it's been so long since I've read so many of the books. The ones I really remember her being bad is are Jedi Academy. She got ignored in so many of them. Which, honestly, given how badly some of the main characters were written in some of the books, may have been for the best.
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Lol. Oh Crystal Star, how you shall forever live on in Star Wars infamy.

The only thing I liked from that book was the idea of Force-activated lightsabers. The Solo Kids' little specialties with the Force were kinda interesting, but seemed 'off' for Jedi. I didn't mind Anakin being a whiz at mechanical stuff, but Jaina being better at manipulating non-organics and Jacen at controlling microscopic bugs was quirky and interesting in an out-of-story kinda way.

 

Kinda like the aliens Leia was dealing with for much of the book. "Oh, they're non-verbal dogs when they're kids, then they become humanoids once they've matured. That's pretty cool...for a Star Trek episode." The fact that the whole 'reveal' of that came so late in the book (as I recall, but I never ever ever re-read that book) struck me as very Trek-like, too, with the last-5-minutes solution/reveal.

 

Then you had the 'disguises' for Han, Luke, 3PO, and the Falcon. Ugh.

 

And the book had no Mara, but that's probably a good thing in retrospect.

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Crystal Star... Children of the Jedi... Darksaber... a lot of the EU books that came out around there were pretty bad. They also had little to no Mara, which, as Toon says, probably was a good thing.

 

I remember thinking Callista was awesome in Children when I first read it. Then I reread the Thrawn trilogy shortly thereafter and changed my mind back in favor of Mara. It's stayed that way since.

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Many? I thought John Ostrander was the only one writing those issues (indeed, all of LEGACY, I thought).

 

I meant one of many master strokes by the authors (and I consider, for comics, the artist to be as much an author as the writer), not one of many authors. My phraseology was bad.

 

And from what I recall of the Corellian Trilogy (the ONE time I struggled through MOST of it before giving up) Mara was written very poorly in that, as well. Like the author skimmed her scene in Heir to the Empire, got "cold, *****y, selfish" as his three watchwords, and ran with them. There was no depth or interest to her as a character at all.

 

Yeah, the Corellian Trilogy and Crystal Star pretty much soured me on Star Wars EU until Vector Prime. I gave the X-Wing novels a shot, and didn't regret it, but I only did that because I was a fan of Michael Stackpole's BattleTech novels. I struggled through Jedi Academy (twice, the second time just to see if it was as bad as I remembered it. It wasn't, it was worse.) And I bought Dark Empire recalling some mentions of how it had messed with KJAs plans for his Jedi Academy Trilogy, and figured anything that messed with KJA HAD to be good. Oh, BOY, did I miss the mark on that one.

 

NJO gave me a renewed interest in EU novels. It was different, a welcome reprieve from the "Superweapon and Force Power of the month club" that the EU had been until that point. Sure, it struggled in places, and could have benefited from more solid communications among the authors. . . the series really needed a "Bible" that the authors could reference so they'd all know how things worked. And yes, Star By Star drifted perilously close to the old KJA-style Star Wars EU, what with the overpoweredness of the voxyn and the YVH droids. But at least it broke the poor, abused, not-that-great-to-start-with mold that the Star Wars had been stuck in for so long. I had high hopes for the Star Wars EU after that.

 

Then the Dark Nest Trilogy came out. Followed by Legacy of the Force.

 

Now I resign myself to Death Troopers and Red Harvest, with the odd Old Republic tie-in, and content myself with Legcay and Invasion comics.

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