Category: Opinion

What Star Wars Can Learn From Assassin’s Creed, Part 2

Posted on October 30, 2013by Cry Havac

Yesterday, we offered the first lesson and sublessons Star Wars could take from Assassin’s Creed. Today, we conclude with lessons two and three.

Lesson #2: Develop character arcs for every story

You wouldn’t think this would need to be a lesson . . . but can anyone tell me what the character arc of any major hero, besides Ben, has been since The New Jedi Order? The Expanded Universe hasn’t always been very good about making sure that its stories feature heroes going through arcs and receiving character development, rather than just pushing their way through another series of events.

Desmond wasn’t even in the games that much. Didn’t stop him from having an arc.

One of the reasons I have enjoyed the Assassin’s Creed series is that its games have always avoided the temptation to be simple sequences of action setpieces. Storytelling has always mattered. Each of the series’ heroes has received an arc in each game. Desmond’s arc, stretched across his games, was to train as an Assassin, uncover the information he was searching for, and come to accept his place among the Assassins. Every game made sure to push that forward and add some new element, and even though his arc was the weakest of the leads’, the ultimate progression from bartender who had rejected his childhood as an Assassin to unwilling participant in the Assassin-Templar war to committed Assassin who ultimately sacrificed his life to protect the world based on his philosophical understanding of Assassin tenets was satisfying.

Altaïr, meanwhile, had a subtly revealed arc taking him from arrogant and dismissive of Assassin philosophy to philosophically engaged, humble, and respectful of others. He also had a nicely complex journey from dismissive of authority to respect of authority and ultimately to questioning of authority, a more subtle shift that did not move along a binary slider but involved changing his motivations, self-regard, and intellectual depth. Altaïr was later featured in flashbacks in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, which made sure to give his life an arc of duty and sacrifice as he struggled to realize how to lead the Assassins and recover from crippling personal setbacks.

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What Star Wars Can Learn From Assassin’s Creed, Part 1

Posted on October 29, 2013by Cry Havac
Lesson number zero: look this good
Lesson number zero: look this good

In our “What Star Wars Can Learn From” series, we’ve been examining lessons the Star Wars franchise can take from other successful series. Cooper kicked off the series with a look at Avatar (the Airbender franchise, not the blue people and special effects franchise). Now I’d like to take a look at the Assassin’s Creed franchise. It is, like most things these days, a multimedia franchise, but I’ll be focusing on the triple-A video games, which are the heart of the series and the only part with which the vast majority of people are familiar.

For the benefit of those not familiar with Assassin’s Creed, it is a series of video games published by Ubisoft in which users play the role of a modern-day man (Desmond Miles in all the games up to now) experiencing the adventures of his various ancestors through advanced technology. The core of the games is in the stories of these ancestors, members of an order of Assassins who fight against Templars who wish to create a “better” and more orderly world without respect to the freedom and rights of ordinary people. These ancestors appear across a range of historical settings, interacting with real historical figures, while living out a sort of “secret history” that plays with the idea, essentially, “What if every conspiracy theory was actually true and all rolled into this one struggle?” There have been five releases up to now, following three Assassin ancestors, and a sixth coming out on current-gen consoles this very day with a new Assassin, plus the PlayStation Vita release Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation, which followed an additional Assassin and will receive a full console port next year.
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Mandalorians at the Gates: A Long Time Ago, Part 3

Posted on October 28, 2013by This Belongs in a Museum

The mystique of the buckethead brigade has only grown since Boba Fett’s first appearances in the Holiday Special and The Empire Strikes Back. Their backstory- and the historical cultures upon which it draws- have grown only more convoluted over time, as various authors have accented, overwritten, or ignored the works of previous writers. However, certain historical influences can be sussed out from the turmoil. The Mongols, the early medieval Vikings, and the ancient Celts of Gaul (with a dash of modern Celtic flavor) have all played a role in building Star Wars’ most well-known warrior culture.

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The panel from Marvel Star Wars that spawned one of my favorite retcons in the history of EU continuity.

First, a bit of background. Out of universe, the Mandalorians originated with Boba Fett and the background notes established by George Lucas in The Empire Strikes Back– according to Lucas, Fett wore the armor of the Mandalorians, a group of evil warriors exterminated by the Jedi during the Clone Wars. Marvel’s “Star Wars” comic line expanded on the armored menaces, giving them a home planet (Mandalore, later rendered as ”Manda’yaim” in Mando’a) and establishing that their warrior culture still existed post-Clone Wars. The Clone Wars adventures of the Mandalorians were explained (and were later brilliantly retconned by Abel Peña in his “History of the Mandalorians” article, creating Spar a.k.a. Mand’alor Gayiyli, or Mandalore the Resurrector), with the Mandalorians eventually aiding the nascent Republic. While the Marvel era was left somewhat to the wayside in the Bantam-era EU, the Mandalorians continued to be utilized by various authors. In particular, Tom Veitch and Kevin J. Anderson laid much of the groundwork for Mandalorian culture in Tales of the Jedi, depicting the early Taung as nomadic warriors and raiders from the Outer Rim. The Knights of the Old Republic mini-franchise further expounded upon early Mandalorian warrior culture, positioning them as something of a cultural bogeyman to the Roman-inspired Galactic Republic. Later, Karen Traviss added her own substantial interpretations to Mandalorian culture, bringing in further Celtic motifs and developing the framework for a Mandalorian language.

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Rohlan Dyre, of KOTOR comics fame, leading a diverse legion of troops into battle.

Generally speaking, the Mandalorians resemble various nomadic groups throughout history. They were driven from their original homeworld- Coruscant- and travelled from world to world, settling on planets such as Roon, Shogun, Basilisk, and Ordo before settling down in the Mandalore system circa 7000 BBY. One element in particular links them to the Mongols of the late Medieval period- their willingness and ability to effectively assimilate conquered groups and cultures into their ranks, whether using their technology, taking advantage of their knowledge of trade routes, or simply assimilating them into their ranks. The Mongols under Ghenghis Khan and his successors were able to utilize Chinese knowledge of gunpowder and siege equipment to conduct their military campaigns in Khwarizm, Mesopotamia, India, and the Russian steppes. They were further able to integrate far-flung regions into their (only briefly unified) empire, respecting freedom of religion, expanding trade routes, and providing military protection to the conquered (assuming one survived the initial military assault, naturally). Similarly, the Mandalorians were almost fanatical about incorporating groups who had survived their conquests. Upon settling in the Mandalore system, the ancient Taung (note: the name “Taung” comes from a young Australopithecus skull discovered in Taung, South Africa in 1924) immediately made war upon the native Mandallian Giants, who survived the buckethead onslaught and were subsequently incorporated into the Mandalorian war machine. Later in history, as the Taung themselves were gradually worn down by constant warfare, the Mandalorian culture became incredibly multiethnic, incorporating species as diverse as Rodians, Twi’leks, Herglics, and humans- humans would come to be the dominant species within the Mandalorian culture.

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He’s climbing on your Capitoline Hill, snatching your Eternal City up.

Perhaps one of the most inspired elements of Karen Traviss’s interpretation of Mandalorian history and culture was her utilization of general Celtic elements to color her spec-ops warriors. The Gauls- a Celtic culture that inhabited parts of modern-day France (the Celts themselves settled as far afield as the British Isles, Northern Italy [Gallia Cisalpina], Modern Spain, parts of the Balkans, and even central Turkey [the region known as Galatia draws its name from its former Celtic inhabitants]) were something of a cultural bogeyman to the Roman Republic, similar to the role played by the Persians in Hellenic culture and the Mandalorians in the Galactic Republic. The La Tene culture- a Gallic subculture located in Northern Italy- even sacked the city of Rome itself in 390 BCE, the last time that the city would be breached by a foreign enemy until the Sack of Rome in 410 CE. Not ones to be upstaged by their real-world inspirations, the Mandalorians participated in several battles at Coruscant, such as Ulic Qel-Droma’s raid during the Great Sith War and the sack of Coruscant at the end of the Great Galactic War under the command of Darth Malgus. Interestingly, the Romans were not absolutely averse to friendly interactions with the Gauls, despite their various wars with them- the late Roman Republic and early Empire adopted Gallic-style helmets, and often preferred to hire Gallic mercenaries rather than utilize their own native cavalry. Similarly, the Mandalorians inspired the armor of the Grand Army of the Republic, and the GAR itself was partially trained by (and cloned from) Mandalorian commandos.

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longship reconstruction

One last historical inspiration for Mandalorians can be found a bit farther north in Europe – the Vikings of Scandinavia. Much like the Mandalorians, the Vikings were perceived as a highly militaristic culture, the scourge of Western Europe. While recent archaeological evidence suggests that the Vikings also engaged in a great deal of long-distance trade, transmitting goods and ideas along the seas of Western Europe and the Volga and Dniepr Rivers, their reputation as successful raiders is nonetheless well-deserved. They were able to conduct long-distance raids through the use of their longships- vessels that could travel rivers, coastlines, and the open sea. The ancient Mandalorians were able to utilize their Basilisk War Droid to similar tactical effect, popping out of hyperspace astride fighter-sized technological terrors that could operate in deep space and in an atmosphere. While they at times menaced the Eastern Roman Empire, Viking mercenaries were eventually hired to form the Varangian Guard, an elite unit in the Eastern Roman military. By the 12th century, the makeup of the Varangian Guard had largely shifted from soldiers of Norse descent to men from the British Isles. While they were an almost existential menace in the Republic’s psyche, the Mandalorians were perfectly willing to work for Coruscant when it suited them. They were hired by both sides during the New Sith Wars, and as mentioned earlier trained the Republic’s army prior to the Clone Wars (which did not preclude the Mandalorians from fighting against those very clones- Mandalore the Resurrector’s 212 Supercommandos were almost entirely wiped out in an engagement with the Galactic Marines on Norval II). The aforementioned gradual shift in Mandalorian identity from a single species to a multi-species culture is also reminiscent in the make-up of the Varangian Guard.

While almost certainly unintentional, the way in which these historical cultures have been interpreted, reinterpreted, and rewritten mirrors the rather haphazard nature of Mandalorian continuity. The Vikings, who for years were seen as little more than raiders, have in recent decades been re-evaluated for their impact on trade throughout Europe and the Middle East. The Mongols have experienced a similar renaissance in Western historiography, in recognition of how their conquests aided in the exchange of scientific, social, economic, and military ideas between Europe and eastern Asia, as well as their ability to integrate a far-flung heterogeneous empire. The ancient Celts, of course, have been utilized as nationalistic symbols by their descendants in the British Isles and France- although the modern nation of France is more directly connected to the Franks than the Gauls. In a similar vein, the Mandalorians have gone from simple elite villains to a dynamic warrior culture who occasionally even get to play the hero.

Last Stands and Final Moments: When Killing Your Hero Works and When it Doesn’t

Posted on October 24, 2013by Halcyon Days

Character deaths have been part of Star Wars from the very beginning. We, as fans, don’t always like that our favorite character is no longer present in universe, but we can learn to accept them and objectively look at what works and doesn’t work for character deaths. Today we’ll look at movies vs. the EU and I look forward to your comments afterwards!

The Movies:

 Jinn: “Obi-Wan. Promise…Promise me you will train the boy.”

Kenobi: “Yes, Master.”

Jinn: “He…is the Chosen One. He…will bring balance. Train him…

Qui-Gon Jinn in the mentor role of the Prequel Trilogy is one of the first character deaths you’ll come across chronologically in the movies. To be honest I’m a little on the fence about his death. I hate to start off on the fence and I promise to not be on the fence on the others. Ultimately I feel like Jinn should’ve waited for Obi-Wan Kenobi. Why would you take on a Sith 1 on 1 when you could take him on 2 on 1? That’s not logical to me and is what puts me on the fence. I think his death did much to boost Kenobi’s character. We know that Kenobi is supposed to be special and it takes a special Jedi Master to train the chosen one, Anakin. Having Jinn die and Kenobi beat the Sith that took out his master 1 on 1 does quite a bit to help the viewer believe in Kenobi. So while I think Jinn’s death is necessary I don’t like how they made him quite stupid in the end and not wait for Kenobi.

 “I don’t know you anymore. Anakin, you’re breaking my heart!

You’re going down a path I can’t follow!“

Padmé Amidala’s death isn’t even one I’d like to discuss. In the first two movies she is such an amazing and strong heroine that the gross misuse of her character in RotS makes me ill. It was so frustrating to watch her utter the quote above and know that it meant they were going to have her die in a silly way. I think I would have even accepted Anakin killing her when he choked her over having her give birth and hearing the medical droids saying that she is perfectly healthy but dying of a broken heart. It is an unbefitting death for your heroine to die from a broken heart.

“You can’t win Darth. If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi’s death is exactly how I imagine a hero’s death. He distracted the bad guy so that the future of the galaxy could escape from the Death Star. Kenobi achieves the ultimate victory over the Sith because he robbed Vader of actually killing him as well as figuring out how to remain behind as a force ghost and continue to influence the events of the galaxy. He also got to rub it in Vader’s face with the quote above. Kenobi’s death after a life lived to its fullest was the right way to kill off a hero.

“You already… have, Luke. You were right. You were right about me.

Tell your sister… you were right.”

Vader/Anakin Skywalker is arguable to be included here but I am going to include it since it is one of my favorites (along with Kenobi’s) from the movies. Despite not being able to show facial expressions, one can clearly tell how conflicted Vader has become over Luke and the Emperor killing Luke. He steps in to sacrifice himself and succeed at what every Sith aspires to do: kill their Master. But in the process he also saves Luke and ultimately the galaxy, so was he redeemed? Was he acting still as a Sith with their desire to take out their Master or was he rejecting the Sith and acting out of love to save his son? It is so deliciously ambiguous in the moment that I love it. Obviously we see Vader proclaim he was redeemed and he shows up as a force ghost with the other Jedi later in the movie, but in the moment it is completely up to the viewer to decide if Vader died as a hero or not.

The Expanded Universe:

“I love you, Chewie.”
“I should have told him that myself! He saved my children! He was always there for them, he died for them! And I never told him.” ~Han Solo

Chewbacca’s death is very unpopular in the EU. He was the first major movie character to be killed off and I loved it. I understand my opinion is not really on par with how others feel, but I can’t help it. Star Wars became exciting again with the thought that someone could die. There is also no better end for a hero than to sacrifice oneself for someone else. I will grant that it seems a little strange since we know Wookiees have a bit of jumping ability to think that Chewie couldn’t have tucked Anakin Solo under his arm like a running back and leapt aboard the Falcon. However, I appreciate what the authors were trying to do and how they gave Chewie a noble, hero’s death by having him complete his life debt to Han and making the ultimate sacrifice for Anakin Solo, who was supposed to be the future of the Jedi. A last stand that includes bellowing in defiance at a moon as it comes down upon you is the right way to kill off a hero.

“I witnessed the death of perhaps the greatest of them all, the one called Anakin Solo, who gave his life so that the ones he loved might live.” ~Nom Anor

Again the EU gets a hero death right. You can whine all you want about how Anakin Solo shouldn’t have been killed off and I’d probably agree with you, but I am looking at how it was done and it was done well. I love the concept of Anakin’s death: to sacrifice himself for not only the lives of his friends and the girl he loved but the Jedi around the galaxy. During the Mykr mission at least four of the Jedi members were killed and multiple Jedi were wounded, including Anakin. He stayed behind to delay the Vong so that the others could complete the mission to kill the Voxyn queen and escape. Anakin fully immersed with the force and truly became the light of the Force in order to defeat the Vong but was unable to recover from such an immersion of Force energy. What happens to the Jedi he sacrificed himself for cheapens that sacrifice but in the moment Anakin Solo was awarded a hero’s death.

“I am Ganner. This threshold is mine. I claim it for my own. Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don’t give a damn. None shall pass.“

Ganner Rhysode may have the most epic death in Star Wars. I challenge my readers to find a more epic last stand for a Star Wars character. The quote is a bit of a rip off from LotR and Gandalf, but I’m willing to forgive that because once again the Star Wars EU killed off a hero correctly and gave them a spectacular last stand. While reading Traitor I was actually frustrated that Ganner was given such an awesome death. I really felt like another Jedi who was more fully developed should’ve been given this death. I think it would’ve been close to perfect for it to have been Kyp Durron instead to finally atone for his wrong doings in the destruction of Cardia to sacrifice himself so Jacen could kill the world brain and the Jedi could finally start to retake the galaxy. Instead the EU once again kills off one of the younger generation characters. Ganner takes out thousands of Yuuzhan Vong warriors with Anakin’s lightsaber becoming a legend and nightmare the Vong tell stories about for some time. Definitely the right way to kill off a hero.

“You think…you’ve won, but Luke will crush you…and I refuse…to let you…
destroy the future…for my Ben.“

Legacy of the Force begins a terrible downturn for hero deaths in the EU. The death of Mara Jade is arguably one of the worst in the history of Star Wars. The “logic” of Jacen’s sacrifice was so far off that even the apologists have a hard time with her death. Just the fact that Jacen felt the need for a sacrifice to truly become a Sith didn’t work for me. At the time of LotF we’ve had over a hundred books as well as numerous comics. We also had the PT where we experienced Anakin Skywalker’s fall and his transformation into Vader. At no point do we see Sith dwell on the concept of a sacrifice in order to become a true Sith. Usually the Sith are so self-involved that there would be nothing to sacrifice. So to begin with, Jacen needing a sacrifice is flawed and then choosing Mara as his sacrifice makes no sense. I acknowledge the argument made that Ben’s admiration is the sacrifice but that could have been accomplished in a different way. There was no reason to kill off a hero for Jacen to be a Sith.

Her death was brought on by the elimination and underdevelopment of characters Jacen’s age along with an unwillingness to kill off Tenel Ka for some reason. Luke, Han and Leia were out of the question. Jaina as well since they can’t kill off all the Solo children. They made the right choice by not killing off the next generation of Allana and Ben. So again, why the need for a killing sacrifice? Jacen was already believable as a bad guy and one turning Sith. The authors had Jade make the mistake of feeling like she had to do this alone which also isn’t logical. She has a literal army of Jedi to use and she decides that she alone can take out Jacen. If you’re going to use her Hand of the Emperor’s training as an excuse then you can’t have her fail. She was too good at what she did for the Emperor to have her taken out by a poison dart, because Jade would’ve thought of that trick herself.

Mara’s death and attempt to save Ben’s life also almost cost Ben his life. After her death he plotted to kill Jacen himself and if he had continued down that path he would have taken Jacen’s place as a dark Jedi at the very least. Given what we’ve seen from the direction of Star Wars after LotF, Mara’s death seems like a horribly executed way to get Luke free from him wife in order for him to retire. Yup…that makes total sense…

I had originally intended to discuss Kenth Hamner as well, but the more I wrote and the more I thought about it this one question kept bugging me. Hamner is known as a Jedi who is bland but does his duty with honor, grace and strength yet in the end is written as almost traitorous to the Jedi order so much so that they decide to do something uncharacteristic of Jedi and kill him instead of capturing or disabling him. Hamner believed he was doing the right thing and trying to keep the Jedi from treason. So I’m going to instead pose that question to you. Can we consider Hamner’s death the death of a hero?

A Case for Starting Over, Part II: A New Republic

Posted on October 22, 2013by Pen and Paper

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When we first laid eyes on the New Republic, it appeared to us as a child just emerged from infancy. We fed it from our wallets and watched it grow with each new entry. We saw it survive and thrive against all odds in a hostile galaxy. We continued to follow the course of its nearly two-and-a-half decade existence until its eventual demise at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong and its rebirth as the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. Much has been said about its life and death, but the Expanded Universe has long remained unusually silent on the circumstances of the New Republic’s creation.

To say overthrowing an entity the size of the Galactic Empire is a difficult task would be a significant understatement, but the process of building a new state remains a far greater challenge. Stories such as the X-wing series, the Thrawn Trilogy, and The Courtship of Princess Leia have told tales of the fledgling government’s conflicts against Imperial holdouts such as Ysanne Isard, Grand Admiral Thrawn, and the warlord Zsinj, but these are primarily military conflicts against external forces – a simple continuation of the Galactic Civil War with foes other than Palpatine and Vader. Read More