aeromancer Posted January 25, 2017 Report Share Posted January 25, 2017 16 hours ago, kaisa said: No where, not once, did anyone mention that maybe people were upset about the Falcon blowing up, and maybe it was a terrible idea, because it would have killed the only black character in the universe. I kept expecting it to come up, maybe have it 'can of worms' for an other episode maybe of 'problematic tropes', but nothing. Nothing. None of them saw the death of the one black character, which is very widely known to be a very racist and problematic trope, as something worth mentioning. Mace Windu, of course, doesn't count because he's not precisely human, he's part of a subspecies which differ from the main streams of humans because every single one can use the Force, kind of like Mirakula, minus the blind part. Therefore, no problem with Palpatine killing him in Episode III, along with the series' only Iktochi, and Nautolan. I don't mean to mock this subject, because this is a serious issue. It is racist and problematic to kill off minorities first, and doubly so if you bring them in only to kill them off first. I will say that Star Wars has a marvelous track record in regards to these situations, the only time Star Wars really plays the race card is the Empire's human elitism. It's to the point that Darth Vader, were he not a Sith Lord, would be discriminated against for being a cyborg. I, however, cannot recall a time in Legends that the Empire cares about human skin color. Also, I disagree with your premise to some degree. If blowing up the Millennium Falcon made sense plot-wise within Return of the Jedi, the pilot's skin color shouldn't have any say within the decision, unless skin color was a major theme, which it is not in Star Wars. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kais Posted January 25, 2017 Report Share Posted January 25, 2017 Mace Windu wasn't in-universe when the original trilogy was written, which is what we are discussing (although I'm happy to have a conversation about PoC representation across the entire series). I'm also not discussing the in-world races. My specific concern isn't even representation in media here, since the franchise is making good steps towards rectifying their very white, very male protagonists. Star Wars universe may be 'colorblind' (haha), but we consumers are not. Therefore my specific complaint is with the podcast not even mentioning the problems with Lando's death. Plenty of talk about the Falcon, and about how Han wouldn't have died (because we are all very concerned about Han), but not even a passing mention as to what it would mean if Lando died. I don't care what the in-universe rules are about skin color. I do care how the one black person and the one female person are treated and portrayed, because I have no other options. There is a real conversation to be had here, about minority representation in media, and it was completely absent in favor of the iconic nature of the Falcon and that thank goodness Han didn't die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeromancer Posted January 25, 2017 Report Share Posted January 25, 2017 I re-listened to the podcast, and I see your point. I can only assume you're referencing (1.22). I do see your original point - seeing as how they were discussing 'Unpopular things', discussing if and how to kill minorities should have been mentioned. Now, for a mini-rant on my part. The reason they gave for why killing Lando was a tragedy was not because of his minority (and they didn't even can-of-worms it) but because the viewer likes him because of the redemption arc. I shall can-of-worms that because I don't think Lando has a redemption arc, Lando switches sides only because he gets guilt-tripped and realizes that making deals with Dark Lords is never a good idea. To quote: "I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further." To call Lando but an opportunist isn't really fair to his character - but it's a lot close than most people think. Remember, while Stars Wars is essentially good vs evil, George Lucas like using the side character (Han shot first!) to throw a little gray into the mix. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinski Posted January 25, 2017 Report Share Posted January 25, 2017 I think the Writing Excuses crew are by far at their weakest when they talk about movies. Movies and written fiction operate in completely different environments. For one thing, blockbusters, which are the only films they talk about, frequently are written or shaped by 'committees' or pass through a number of hands at least. I roll my eyes whenever they start talking about Avengers or something like that, because they are instantly narrowing the subject matter enormously. I think the comparison between any blockbuster and Game of Thrones is ample demonstration of why populist movies are a completely useless format for any kind of meaningful character development. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kais Posted January 25, 2017 Report Share Posted January 25, 2017 18 minutes ago, aeromancer said: I shall can-of-worms that because I don't think Lando has a redemption arc, Lando switches sides only because he gets guilt-tripped and realizes that making deals with Dark Lords is never a good idea. I agree with this completely! I didn't see him redeemed at all in the movie. The expanded universe books definitely he was, but he was still very smuggler opportunist in the movies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinski Posted January 25, 2017 Report Share Posted January 25, 2017 Who has any kind of character arc / development in the original trilogy? For me, no one, not a one. Luke becomes competent, but his character doesn't change. Han? Nah, not really. He was never properly morally ambivalent in the first place. Leia? Nope. Vader..., he's the only one that comes close, but still, meh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neongrey Posted January 25, 2017 Report Share Posted January 25, 2017 Yeah, I'm not really inclined to take any aspect of writing in Star Wars in good faith because I'm not inclined to call even the good ones well-written. I feel like most attempts to claim that they are involve some serious contortions and make presumptions that I don't think are reasonable. I think Rogue One had some really unfortunate effects to it, in that while in a vaccuum it tries pretty hard with representation along racial lines, in the broader context it places the rest of the series as hanging on a lot of PoC corpses, which is very unfortunate. I think I shared an article about the subject around when it came out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeromancer Posted January 26, 2017 Report Share Posted January 26, 2017 (edited) I can't talk about Star Wars writing because my favorite Star Wars plot is from a video game and my second favorite. But, if you're looking for good Star Wars writing, read anything with 'Thrawn' in the title. Edited January 26, 2017 by aeromancer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neongrey Posted January 26, 2017 Report Share Posted January 26, 2017 I'm really not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kais Posted January 26, 2017 Report Share Posted January 26, 2017 I do love the first Thrawn trilogy. Some fifteen years later, when the series finally offed Mara Jade, I was a ball of fiery rage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neongrey Posted January 26, 2017 Report Share Posted January 26, 2017 I enjoyed several of the movies (and felt moved to produce a single, short fanfic last year after watching the new one) but I've honestly never understood what it was about Star Wars that grabbed people so... But, then, I grew up in a Star Trek house. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinski Posted January 26, 2017 Report Share Posted January 26, 2017 10 hours ago, neongrey said: But, then, I grew up in a Star Trek house. I have been, and always shall be, a Trekkie - not a Trekker, but a Trekkie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neongrey Posted January 29, 2017 Report Share Posted January 29, 2017 If current events have taught me anything at all lately, it's that I probably don't need to worry quite so much about characters minding opsec or sounding like reasonable people, and still get away without straining credulity too much. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle of the Forest Path Posted February 2, 2017 Report Share Posted February 2, 2017 How do you guys feel about the word "olyve"? It's a crop in my setting that looks like an olive and also contains oil, but it grows in the sea. Do you think I'd be better served making up an entirely new name, change a familiar name slightly (olyve, oliff, ...) or just literally use the word olive and try to make it clear it's not an olive as we know it? I've seen similar things done in all three of these ways, but I'm interested to see what your opinions on the matter are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinski Posted February 2, 2017 Report Share Posted February 2, 2017 15 minutes ago, Ernei said: To me "olyve" looks cool :3 I'm not a fan of entirely made-up names, because you can end up like Trudi Canavan, where everything has a fantasy-sounding name, and then at the end of the book there's a dictionary that goes like that: "Faren - the general name for arachnids". Totally agree, although I have been somewhat guilty of that in the past myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeromancer Posted February 2, 2017 Report Share Posted February 2, 2017 8 hours ago, Eagle of the Forest Path said: How do you guys feel about the word "olyve"? I personally would drop the 'e' and just have the word 'olyv', but that's a personal thing because I hate English phonics. Like Robinski and Ernei said, it makes sense to use similar words, also I think neongrey called me out once for a nasty case of 'Fantasy Name Syndrome', so I shouldn't be trusted with these kinds of things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neongrey Posted February 2, 2017 Report Share Posted February 2, 2017 (edited) 15 hours ago, Eagle of the Forest Path said: How do you guys feel about the word "olyve"? It's a crop in my setting that looks like an olive and also contains oil, but it grows in the sea. Do you think I'd be better served making up an entirely new name, change a familiar name slightly (olyve, oliff, ...) or just literally use the word olive and try to make it clear it's not an olive as we know it? I've seen similar things done in all three of these ways, but I'm interested to see what your opinions on the matter are. If done in the way you are describing, that is definitely something I would take as a marker of reduced author competence in a published work, yeah. It bespeaks a certain lack of mastery of English orthography (and this is absolutely a question of orthography, rather than phonics) rules to what appears to be not much purpose. (the letter y does not actually quite work that way in terms of spelling, and so it looks unnatural, not because this a variant of a real word but because it's being used in a way that is inherently trickier to parse; 'incorrect' is a needlessly perscriptive way of phrasing it, but it does feel wrong to the eye) This is also something I would call an authorial word, not a word etymologically rooted in its fictive source. You're creating this word to present information to the reader and in this case the word exists solely to tell the reader this object is something they are unfamiliar with. This isn't inherently wrong (and can on occasion be necessary) but it's also a less natural way for a word to come about so it sticks out. Considering the nature of the thing in question it would be a pretty key cultural item, so the society in question would have a distinct word to it. Doesn't mean it is mandatory for you to do so but it is worth keeping in mind. The question to be asking oneself when doing these things is asking what advantage doing this would bring over alternatives. What information is conveyed to the reader by doing this? Going with something like "olyve" pretty much just says that it is probably like an olive but not the same thing and doesn’t really make any meaningful distinction or give any real information. As it is given the needs here appear to primarily be to make clear to the reader that this is similar to, but not precisely, an olive, I would stick with a descriptive term such as "sea olive" or "oilberry" (which has been used for olives real world in a variety of languages but is not really in common usage in modern English). I like "sea olive"; it gives pretty much all pertinent information right there. Edited February 3, 2017 by neongrey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kais Posted February 3, 2017 Report Share Posted February 3, 2017 16 hours ago, Eagle of the Forest Path said: How do you guys feel about the word "olyve"? Dislike. If it grows in water, just call it a 'sea olive'. That's pretty standard naming convention. Otherwise it sounds contrived. Also, I really like the sound of sea olive, and looking above, it would appear I was not the first person to think of that, so there you go! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neongrey Posted February 3, 2017 Report Share Posted February 3, 2017 I might also consider-- given what I recall about how much water everywhere you've got going on, straight-up ditching the olive thing and going for straight-up whale oil and products. I know you're using a lot of that rome-esque window dressing but it's quite a bit more organic to that sort of coastal/seafaring society. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle of the Forest Path Posted February 3, 2017 Report Share Posted February 3, 2017 @kaisa & @neongrey, ah yes, I'd forgotten about naming option 4: sticking an adjective in front of it. I'm going to have to reject that (in this case). Since - as neongrey pointed out - my setting is basically Waterworld(1995), I could put "sea-" in front of everything. But because the people in my story don't really have any alternative to sea-products, it feels illogical to me they would feel the need to qualify that something comes from the sea. It would sort of be like saying steaks are cow-beef. I could go with alternative oil sources, like whale oil (or other big seacreatures, since I'm not really sure Thalas has whales), I just had so much fun imagining an agrarian society on the ocean, you know? That might be a darling I have to kill... or at least put in a coma. So, pending a final decision on life-support or a DNR, I'll be keeping "olyve" for this draft at least. Thanks for the opinions, they've helped quite a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kais Posted February 4, 2017 Report Share Posted February 4, 2017 THIS IS NOT A DRILL!The ebook is up for preorder (print preorder comes later). EEEEEEEE! 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobbit Posted February 4, 2017 Report Share Posted February 4, 2017 6 minutes ago, kaisa said: The ebook is up for preorder (print preorder comes later). EEEEEEEE! WAAAAAAAAAAAA people can buy your book!! Woooooooooooo!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neongrey Posted February 5, 2017 Report Share Posted February 5, 2017 Yay! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kais Posted February 5, 2017 Report Share Posted February 5, 2017 Minutia of publishing, part #572- ARCs are out. My publisher does a lot of blog tour stuff (digital first publisher, which makes sense) so I have pages and pages of 'about me' and interview questions to answer tonight. Exciting, but daunting! Tune in next time, when I (probably) discuss getting reviews! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinski Posted February 5, 2017 Report Share Posted February 5, 2017 Yippee! Shameless self-promotion , the fun doesn't stop! Tell me when and where I can leave comments / likes when you can. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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