Remember that AMAZING IG-88 story?
Yeah, that's why I stay away from the Star Wars EU.
edited 5th Jan '11 10:35:16 PM by Scardoll
Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.I think it's the whole "she was one of the Emperor's super special secret agents which were uber-powerful and important despite their existance being hinted at at all in the movies". She could have worked just as well as former Imperial agent with latent Force abilities. It's not Mara the person I dislike, it's the Emperor's Hand concept, which comes off as a bit of a retcon plot device to ensure she's important enough to be paired with Luke.
The funny thing is, I quite like a lot of Luke/Mara AU fanfic. Which I think comes down to actually seeing her in action during that movie time period, and not just hearing about it afterwards.
edited 5th Jan '11 10:57:56 PM by Drakyndra
The owner of this account is temporarily unavailable. Please leave your number and call again later.We do get to see her in action during the movie time period - there was a new Zahn book a few years ago, "Allegiances", set between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Backs.
I don't mind the books adding new details to what was going on during the time of the movies. The philosophy of the Sith is that the apprentice always tries to overthrow the master, so it would make sense for the Emperor to cultivate a servant who was Force-capable but not Sith, whose loyalty he could be more sure of. Giving Mara that background wasn't just a plot device to make her 'badass enough to be with Luke'; it was central to her entire character, her hatred of the rebellion in general and Luke in particular because they destroyed her life by killing the Emperor. That's the foundation of all the character development she goes through in the Thrawn Trilogy.
But that book came out years after Mara was introduced, and even longer since the films themself were made - we weren't shown this stuff until long after we are told about it, which rubs me the wrong way.
If it had come out before the Thrawn books, I might have liked the idea more.
Basically, she's just like all the movie characters, but better. The fact that the movie characters are already demigods in the EU doesn't help at all. But then, I'm only really familiar with her from her debut in the Thrawn trilogy and a handful of other unrelated novels like I, Jedi, so maybe she improved.
edited 6th Jan '11 7:35:53 AM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.![]()
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Actually, most of what she does in the Thrawn Trilogy is on her own initiative (chasing Luke down in the forest, accidentally turning Karrde in, deciding to tell Leia about Wayland) and most of the time it's her going to the main characters for help (needing Luke's help to rescue Karrde, for example) rather than the other way around. As for her "I'm not doing this for you" attitude, it's pretty clearly intended to show her progression towards identifying with the good guys' side before Mara realizes it herself.
But on the whole, the big reason why Mara can't be a Mary Sue is that Mary Sues are perfect from the start - they don't have emotional arcs and they don't undergo major changes. Mara goes through major emotional and character arcs in both the Thrawn Trilogy and the Hand of Thrawn Duology.
If Karrde was female, or if Thrawn was female, we'd have loads of people claiming they were Sues too.
People already accuse Admiral Thrawn of being a Villain Sue.
Also not being a Mary Sue doesn't mean that your character is well written or interesting even in premise, it just means they don't derail the story in a particular way. Despite what whiny fan fiction readers say, the term at least originally had a pretty specific definition.
Modified Ura-nage, Torture RackThat... That's actually pretty clever.
Which means that Kevin J. Anderson actually wrote something competently... I need a drink.
Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.Zahn's Star Wars books I find to be amazing. He seems to understand Star Wars best.
I liked KJA's work; he has several good ideas, though the execution doesn't always work. He and Tom Veitch (Dark Empire) had tons of outrageous, large-scale ideas, which are the kind of thing I actually like. And apparently George Lucas likes them too, given his words to the "Force Unleashed" dev team.
Mara Jade is perhaps my favorite Star Wars character who was not in the movies. When I finished reading the Thrawn trilogy, I was shipping her and Luke, and thought Zahn had set it up very obviously for them to get together. Even wrote a fan fic which included that.
But no one picked up on it, and Zahn had to do it himself in Hand of Thrawn.
NJO - urgh. I still haven't finished reading it. The Vong just aren't very Star Wars-ish to me. I hated Chewbacca and Anakin Solo dying. Now, I'm better with it, cuz the characters have to die sometime. But Anakin? He was in the prime of his life! Other than Luke and Mara, my number one ship was him and Tahiri - and now that'll never happen.
Legacy of the Force had some okay ideas, but it faltered on several things. First, Jacen going bad? Come on, stop killing off Han and Leia's kids! And Jacen became COOL in the Dark Nest trilogy, but then they threw him away in Lot F. Especially since he became stupid after becoming a Sith and stopped using all his amazing powers. Also, each writer in Lot F had a completely different focus. Traviss, for example, kept dealing with the Mandalorians, while the other two barely mentioned them. It was just too disjointed.
Haven't read any Fot J, because I'm waiting for the whole series to come out first, same thing I did with Lot F.
Crystal Star and the Black Fleet Crisis were awful.
The comic series Legacy, is actually great. Probably the best Star Wars comic ever, IMHO. It's a cool concept, but it's actually executed extremely well, with the characters and stories being indepth and colorful. Yeah, people complain about "it's just the original story all over again" - which I don't think is completely true - but it's still very well done.
But, as has been mentioned, how many times can the galaxy be saved? The later Star Wars books just get very depressing, because the big three - Luke, Leia, Han - never find peace, always striving futilely for the end of their battles. Of course, it doesn't help that Luke - while a mighty and powerful Master - is too indecisive in the later books, NJO (in which he waffles about the morality of going against the Vong) and Lot F (in which he could have neutralized Jacen from the beginning if he hadn't been so wishy-washy about it).
And I'm also wondering when the Big Three are gonna bite it. They're getting much older, and age if nothing else will claim them - but you know they've got to go out with a bang.
IIRC, it's a requirement by Lucasfilm that the EU not kill Luke, Han, or Leia on-screen/page/panel.
I've also heard that Fate Of The Jedi will be the last of the really big novel series. Everything afterward will be in single novels, duologies, or trilogies.
"But, as has been mentioned, how many times can the galaxy be saved?"
In a series called Star Wars, I think they are doomed to forever being in some conflict or another. And being Jedi means going around looking for problems to solve.
Though Fate Of The Jedi at least takes a different route from the last two series so the entire galaxy is slaughtering each other this time around.
edited 5th Jul '11 9:33:25 PM by Parable

There's also the fact that she [Mara J Ade] was a bitch to an officer, nay several officers in the Galactic Alliance military - and that was BEFORE J Acen took over the government. Jedi threats are douchebaggery to the Xtreme, no matter if you were a damned dark side Emperor's Hand.
Jaina Solo is just...facepalm worthy as a character in LOTF too, she was probably just as sucky in NJO. Oh yeah, forcepushing a GA pilot who pointed out how her brother was turning Darth Vader, he shouldn't have backed down from that cunt. It's weird but Jacen was REALLY Sympathetic as a character later on, and I wanted him to win :(
don't forget Daala back from the dead...WTF
I never got that far. I read all the stuff on the official starwars.com databank. My 'latest' pre NJO novel is the Thrawn Duology. I plan on buying the other books just for completism...and move into NJO. Legacy Of The Force drained my desire to read more Star Wars for a few years...at least the novels. Comics, yeah i'd go for those now.....
(for NJO I have Force Heretic: Remnant- mainly read the parts dealing with P Ellaeon, the battle of Borosk and Bastion - the main reason i got that book)
I liked Darksaber, but Crystal Star was bad yes :(
I didn't like Knight Hammer's destruction nor flinging out 17 IS Ds
edited 5th Jan '11 10:07:30 PM by BalloonFleet
WHASSUP....... ....with lolis!