Why all the Karen Traviss hate?

"Lucas decided to make the Mandalorians a bunch of pacifists"

... How?

What they mean is who ever is in charge on The Clone Wars show decided to create a group of Mandalorians who wanted to join the Republic

That would be Dave Filoni. IIRC, he was one of the guys behind Avatar The Last Airbender. Whether that makes him good or not is a matter of opinion; I've never seen Airbender, but I love The Clone Wars, even though the latest season has been pretty ho-hum (then again, I've only seen the first four or so episodes of this season, so the latest parts might be better).

If I recall correctly, Duchess Satine, the leader of the Mandalorians was a pacifist. And being a pacifist and the leader of the Mandalorians means her will is policy. Those episodes, however, were about a powerful splinter faction of Mandalorians who wanted to fight and reclaim their glorious military history. I guess in Clone Wars the Traviss Mandos were the bad guys.

(Off-topic: How many old flames does Obi-Wan have?)

He's a Jedi. Jedi are supposed to be celibate, chaste, and detached from fleshly pleasures for all their lives.

Probably thousands.

I think George Lucas has said that Jedi are allowed to have flings and one-night stands, they just aren't allowed to fall in love - because falling in love causes you to put concern for one person ahead of the good of the many.

That strikes me as morally disturbing, but it makes some kind of logic.

Well, Obi-Wan is Scottish (in his younger days). That means he practically oozes sex. Of course he has a lot of old flames.

I'm not just saying this because I'm part Scottish- we Scots are objectively sexy. Hey, I don't make the rules.

I alternately like and hate her books. She does things pretty well, but then throws screwballs like the Suetopia stuff that messes everything up. By the end, I was primarily reading the clone commando books just to see a Mandalorian get his ass handed to him, in a fight or in an argument, one would do. Never truly happened to my memory. At least in Lo F she actually showed other Po Vs viewing them in a negative light.

edited 16th Dec '10 5:43:36 PM by Animyr

Is she really that bad? I loved the banter in the Rep. Com. games and heard that she expanded on that in her books. The whole "jedi-hate" is new to me.

Well, there was one part where one of the ARC troopers says that Obi-Wan was egotistical and wastes troops. (Not sure if that's the exact wording) I remember this being in response to the Battle of Utapau, you know, when they were trying to capture Grevious and the entire Separatist council.

Not sure how the military works in Traviss' mind, but generally: every single leader of the opposition in the same place at the same time = a shitload of troops guarding them. Best way to counter this likely scenario? Bring a shitload of your own troops. And Obi-Wan, egotistical? Grrrrr... /rant

However, that's the only thing that ever irritated me considerably and I find the books are pretty enjoyable when they stay away from jedi-bashing.

edited 17th Dec '10 7:25:51 AM by Bowyn

Well I'm all for the Jedi going down a peg or two, but Jedi bashing?

Exactly. I'm all for a different perspective, but Traviss takes it too far. She complains how the Jedi are always the perfect heros and she's trying to mix it up, which I understand, but substituting clones and mandalorians in their place as center of the universe is not the solution. See suetopia.

PS Then there's the self rightousness. In Lo F, for instance, Fett and the mandalorians (more than one do this)repeatedly harangue the Jedi for not helping Mandalore during the Vong invasion, then sneer and say they didn't need sissy Jedi help. This contradiction is pointed out once, briefly, and dropped. On all other occasions, the Jedi shuffle awkwardly or apologize(to my memory). And Lo F has non mandalorian viewpoints. This stuff is all over in the Clone war novels, where almost everyone is either a Mandalorian or sympathetic towards them/clones. Stuff like this really hurts the books in general, which I find pretty good.

/rant

edited 17th Dec '10 10:15:06 AM by Animyr

But ARC Troopers are badass; have your seen Cpt. Fordo?!

Damn karking straight.

Look up the last of the Clone Wars shorts to see the awesome that is Fordo.

Dual-wielding blaster rifles against a droid horde?

Check

one of those Jedi that was all apologetic and wimpy around the Mandos was Jaina Solo; complete Character Derailment.

And as I mentioned earlier, her characterization doesn't stick. Jaina does a complete about-face in her attitude as soon as Traviss' pen stops and another writer's starts.

Yeah, Lo TF really suffered from Discontinuity between authors. It seemed like each of them were writing their own series.

edited 28th Dec '10 10:54:40 AM by HopelessSituationWarrior

They probably were. When I read Legacy Of the Force, I got the impression that Karen Traviss, Troy Denning and Aaron Allston had pitched three separate series around the same time and Lucas Books decided to stick them all together to save money.

(I know that isn't the case, of course.)

The whole "Mandalorians as Mary Suetopia" thing I read on this wiki kinda rubbed off on me weird after playing the Knights Of The Old Republic games...

You know you thought Canderous was cool.

I barely know her aside from heresay, but that number she bandied about for the Republic army is stupid as hell.

And then when people correct her on the issue, she writes an entire story about how the entire Clone Wars were merely a small-scale "brushfire war," and how the evil Jedi were using inflated numbers to fool everybody. I'm sorry, WHAT?

edited 9th Jan '11 11:27:07 AM by Scardoll

In fairness, she didn't make up the numbers. The line featured in Attack of the Clones was something like, "Twenty thousand units are ready with a million more well on the way." There is room for interpretation here; "units" could refer to one clone or one million clones, which isn't made very clear in the dialogue. One of the subsequent Clone Wars books (I think it was the Mace Windu one, though I'm not sure) went with "a unit is a single clone".

Yeah, but common sense has to come in at some time.

Absolutely. Her failing is that she didn't change the number when she could have rather than the number itself.