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I've observed the various observations about Traviss and viewed 300 recently. Personally I don't have any problem with the film as it is literally told from the perspective of a Spartan basically working to rally up and psyche out Greek troops. Embellishment is the name of that game, particularly in that era.

The movie does however have a culture that as potrayed in the movie is able to take on considerably superior numbers and basically has nods towards what in modern politics would be kissing the babbies.

Given how Traviss handles the Mandos mirrors this considerably, I wonder if what didn't happen was she saw said movie after getting rebuked on the low numbers and merged this with Star Wars mythology without comprehension that 300 is intentionally in the spirit of the ancient world's equivalent of a propoganda campaign. Can someone check on the dates, because there seems to be a considerable amount of similarity if it didn't influence her.

I dout Traviss intentionally copied 300.

I think it's more that she realized (on some level) that she had made an mistake with the 3 million number, but her pride wouldn't allow her to admit it, so she started inflating the mandos to make the nunmbers "more realistic"
ending but with essentially the thing then what Frank Miller did with spartans in 300 but for a different reasons and with less honesty.

I think it's simpler than simply realizing she'd made a mistake with the 3 million number, but couldn't admit it. It makes more sense that she is simply so infatuated with her characters that she liberally wanks them, much in the same way that 300 wanks its characters.

The simplest explanation of all is that she is just not very intelligent. She's only a journalist after all: these are people whose entire job is to talk about what other people accomplish, and who think that's a difficult line of work. Hell, she thinks it's so difficult that she brags about being a "journo" all the time.

She has no idea how to critically analyze things from an objective standpoint and logical methodology; she has a journalist's mindset, where subjective impressions are just as good as empirical data, and the way you spin something or the way people will emotionally react to it is just as important as the objective facts. Just look at the hideous job that American journalists did of covering the issues leading up to the Iraq War back in 2002, and ask yourself why we should assume that she has more than two brain cells to rub together just because she brags that she's a "journo".

I think Mike said it best here, though I tried too, she's not out to destroy SW with minimalism, but rather she's made a mistake due not being all that intelligent and her pride wouldn't allow her to admit that when corrected.

End result is similar to Frank Miller's depiction of the Spartans, but the difference is that while Miller never claimed that his depiction was realistic, Traviss insists that her depiction of the Mandos is.

Darth Wong wrote:The simplest explanation of all is that she is just not very intelligent. She's only a journalist after all: these are people whose entire job is to talk about what other people accomplish, and who think that's a difficult line of work. Hell, she thinks it's so difficult that she brags about being a "journo" all the time.

While I agree that her absurd minimalism is more likely due to stupidity and poor research than any intentional wrecking of the Star Wars universe, that does not adequately explain her insane fixation on the Mandalorians or her unreasonable hatred of the Jedi. She definitely has at least some personal stake in it, somehow; much of it is more or less openly agenda-driven.

TBH, I think why she hates the jedi is that they're "guilty" of the "cardinal sin" of being so good at what they do without being mandos, as for her fixation with the mandos, I dunno about that.

No complicated explanations are required.

She's a self-obsessed idiot hack. The thought process went like this:

1) Jedi are lame. Seriously, man, I'm so tired of jedi this, jedi that

2) Hey, Mandalorians were abused by the Jedi. And hey, they could fight them! Mandalorians are so cool...

3) Man oh man! I discovered THE TRUTH and nobody saw it before! Jedi are so lame and they're also EVIL!

*writes first shitty novel*

4) How DARE those stupid idiots criticize my writing! I will show them!

Her mandowanking is just a classical fault of a poor author. There are countless hacks who can't stop wanking their chosen characters, and Traviss just does that on a huge scale. And since she dislikes the Jedi, she rips on them all the time. It's just that simple.

PeZook wrote:*writes first shitty novel*

Actually, I found Hard Contact to be pretty good. It's a nice action/thriller novel, the only example of Jedi-are-useless comes from an inexperienced Padawan, and the biggest Mandalorian character is portrayed as a ruthless thug, not some sort of Noble Warrior.

It does have the seeds of what would spiral out of control with her later novels (Minimalism, Mandalorian/clone wanking, etc....), but it's a good read.

Actually, what I was alluding to was the whole Family Man angle she has apparently locked on to being present in 300, which is normally at odds with the Warrior concept. This in turn would have given her more basis to fortify her perceptions in regards to "Mandos Good" thereby creating a more solid launch platform to go further into irrationality with regard to these things.

She, like most reporters, undoubtedly starts out viewing or interviewing anything with her story basically already written and the actual going through the movements of fact gathering being more of a chore simply to enhance it along the lines she's already going along. Reporters aren't exactly known to actually get things even remotely right half the time. So even though Frank Miller and otherwise actually did go out of their way to make it sledgehammer to the head clear they were embellishing, and Sparta really wasn't quite so peachy as the Spartan narrator was making it out to be she could have very easily ignored all that and instead locked onto what she basically needed.

Seems as how no one else is interested in doing it. The movie 300 premiered in March 2007, the graphic novel in 1999. Hard Contact came out in late 2004. Triple Zero and Bloodlines are from 2006, as is Boba Fett: A Practical Man. True Colors in late 2007, after 300 would have left theaters.

Thus if there is an influence it would have most likely shown up in a difference in the character of her work from prior to True Colors to after True Colors in relation to the Mandos. If there is not a significant difference there then it is probably safe to conclude she is largely deriving this entirely of her own initiative.

She was basically told to flesh out the Clone Troopers, who inherently are kind of flat so it was inevitable she would take from Jango Fett and Star Wars lore surrounding the Mandalorians which he was supposed be one of in order to help with that. So locking on that is predictable, as is a degree of radicalization as a result of the 3 Million debate, when she was not encouraged to concede the issue and so basically was naturally pushed to grasp for anything to justify her position and unjustify that of those on the other side of the 3 Million debate. This is clearly purely from her, it's these other attributes of the Family Man and otherwise that seem rather unusual.

EDIT:
Digging up the old thread for the debut of True Colors would seem to indicate that the window of opportunity did exist for this to occur.

I saw that my brother purchased the Karen Traviss book "Order 66", of course I laughed about it to his face. That being said. there needs to be a new internet rule similar to that of Rule 34. If you think of a horrible way Karen Traviss can fuck up Star Wars, she will do it. Rule 66 perhaps.

I will now post spoilers for Karen Travissty's new book. I'll shrink them down for the time being. They may not be spoilers for everyone, and even though this book is wretched, I decided to pull these off of Wookiepedia for a laugh. Instead it made me pretty sad.

Included in this book is a Jedi who leaves the Order to become a Mandalorian because he thinks the Clone Army is Slave Labor. This Jedi trains the mando-jedi General chick's son in the Force later on.

The Jedi who gives birth to the Clone Commando's son dies while DEFENDING CLONE TROOPERS FROM JEDI during Order 66.

This baby is now technically Boba Fett's Jedi Nephew, or perhaps Jango's Nephew depending on how you look at it. This kid is apparently a character later on in the LoTF series

Wow. I can't believe LFL is letting her wage a narrative war against Lucas' story from within the franchise.

I had to read those spoilers twice DF.

Fucking wow.

A Mando-Jedi nephew of Boba Fett... REALLY?!?! I mean... are you fucking kidding me?! I know that is a spoiler, but I honestly don't think there is a person here that is going to read that FANWANK FUCKING GARBAGE!!!

I can't believe this actually makes me fucking mad. Fuck you Karren Travis.

She must be writing this stuff with a raging hard-on.

havokeff wrote:I had to read those spoilers twice DF.

Fucking wow.

A Mando-Jedi nephew of Boba Fett... REALLY?!?! I mean... are you fucking kidding me?! I know that is a spoiler, but I honestly don't think there is a person here that is going to read that FANWANK FUCKING GARBAGE!!!

I can't believe this actually makes me fucking mad. Fuck you Karren Travis.

That sounds a lot like the really bad fanfics I've seen on FFN and elsewhere, but to think that they're actually paying her for this just boggles the mind...

It's telling that she hasn't written a Star Wars piece that doesn't include Mandalorians, and that Hard Contact is the only one not gushing with praise for their cultural and moral superiority.

It's one thing to write your characters, like Zahn with Chiss/Mara/etc. or Stackpole and Allston with X-Wings, but Traviss takes it to a whole different level; Ben wishing he were a Mandalorian teenager, Jaina training with Boba Fett, Dooku euologizing Jango and the Mandalorians, the oh-so-subtle bare-chest-slapping war circle in Triple Zero, which has Traviss's Jedi alter-ego watching them rather intently.

Maybe all the praise of Hard Contact, followed by the firestorm resulting from the 3-million clones fallacy unhinged her, or maybe LFL has simply stopped editing, but she's seems to have her own unique interpretation of Star Wars.

First off, I'll actually say she has a point, the Clone Army IS slave labor.
And I wouldn't object ot a Jedi having disagreements or fights over the clones, it could be an interesting concept if properly executed.

The execution is, ,as always, the problem. Traviss continues to interject her anti-Jedi/Pro-Mandalorian absurdity into her writing to such a degree that it becomes parody. all this stuff about the Clones being importtant isn't because they're clones, its because they're CLONE MANDALORIANS. FETT MANDALORIANS. Which is what really matters in these books (and which is why the REpublic Commando books have become ever-increasingly infested with mando-wank the same way the LOTF books did as well.)

The really sad part is the Mando-centric viewpoint is so blatantly obvious - Mando = good guy, while often Force User (Jedi especially) = bad if she can get away with it. The only few "good" force users she considers are either mandalorians or mandalorian "pets" (Witness the Jedi who got knocked up by Darman, or Jaina in her training by "Mandos") and usually only exist to further Mandalorians in some form. I can't recall seeing any BAD Mandalorians in her writing really since the early stuff (Hard Contact, and that guy may not have really been Mandalorian from her POV. And hey, wasn't there some part where it was considered Clones weren't really Mandalorians?? Maybe thats why he's not really a Mando.) The absurdities taken with Fett can also be considered just a more specific application of the "Mando-centric" view to STar Wars - he's basically just a vehicle by which Traviss shows what "makes a Mandalorian a Mandalorian".

What I consider probably quite sad is that while its easy to blame Traviss alone for this idea, I doubt its just her. Most SW writers gain some close circle of people who give advice or suggestions on the writing, and given how "accessible" Traviss has made herself to the fandom, I could certainly bet there are some trolls who influenced her work which resulted in this way (HArd Contact would be from before that influence, explaining why it appears to be so good while everything else gradually degraded.) Maybe thats why TFN mods and people like Dark Moose went on a crusade to suppress and eliminate any and all traces of dissent to Karen Traviss - they took it as a personal affront to their own views.

Don't forget, she's actually tried to incorporate this all into a pseudohistorical "interpretation" of the Celts versus the evil and uncultured-by-comparison Romans. Check her website for her Celt wanking, and clumsy left-wing not-so-subtle relating of the evil U.S. hegemon demonizing Middle Eastern peoples to supposed Roman tactics against the Mandos...I mean Celts.

Much as it surprises me, I have little outrage to provide at this point. Either I am still in shock, or my expectations have dropped so far that this does not really surprise me anymore. I have basically given up on anything post-Swarm War already, and most of the Clone Wars stuff (though I still think more of that than of Traviss's explicit wanktardries).

Connor MacLeod wrote:First off, I'll actually say she has a point, the Clone Army IS slave labor.

Only if you accept that the clones are human and have human rights. Is there not mention of them effectively being genemodded into subhumans by losing creativity and free will?

Of course, doing that to humans is arguably worse than just enslaving them. It smells of Draka, somehow, though I am sure that is pure coincidence, or a simple case of me overinterpreting things.

She's Celt wanker as well? I'm not horribly shocked. (Disclaimer: I am part Irish, English, and Scottish) Celt wankers tend to make Nazi Germany wankers look well based in fact. Now I liked Mandalorians before Traviss got her talons into them. KOTOR had a nice presentation of them as ruthless warrior badasses, a warrior people that were just one people in a galaxy that had seen many wars, conquerors, and filled with sentient species and cultures beyond counting.

One of the things I liked about Hard Contact was that it was the first novel to actually address the moral issue of using clones to wage war. In that respect, it had the most depth of any Clone Wars-era novel. Unfortunately, by Triple Zero, instead of being a moral issue, it became a point for her to screech about how repugnant the Jedi are.

Imperial Overlord wrote:She's Celt wanker as well? I'm not horribly shocked. (Disclaimer: I am part Irish, English, and Scottish) Celt wankers tend to make Nazi Germany wankers look well based in fact.

Do they claim that the Celts had überweapons that would have defeated the Romans in a few years?

More seriously, is it military wanking or society/feminist-wanking (in the line of "Everyone else was misogynist, homophobic and a religious bigot, but the Celts were already as progressive as we are TODAAAY!!!111", much as we see with American Indians and their uncritical supporters)?

Society wanking generally. Apparently a bunch of guys living in hill forts and feuding with their neighbors managed to save Western Civilization by cranking out a few nicely illustrated books in a few monasteries.

Any links? Might be fun to analyse a specimen; I had honestly never heard of this particular breed of wanker before.

Darth Hoth wrote:Any links? Might be fun to analyse a specimen; I had honestly never heard of this particular breed of wanker before.

No links. It was faddish around ten to fifteen years ago and there was a whole bunch of pop culture books and crappy Celtic fantasy novels. The only title I remember was "How the Irish Saved Civilization".