A debate on the cultural merits of Star Wars.

[nightmare]

Unsurprising, considering that Tolkien was trying to create an english mythology.

[Darth Wong]

Which brings me to orcs, but frankly, I don't see how that's terribly racist; expendable evil minions often look ugly, and until such time as humans decide to overcome a preference for pretty people, I won't expect that to change.

There are plenty of sci-fi, fantasy, and conventional works of fiction which do not correlate ugliness and evil in any detectable way. I don't think this medieval notion is nearly as inescapable as you describe it to be.

[Pelranius]

Tolkien though did give a lot of emphasis on the Enemy being able to assume a fair form (though Morgoth and Sauron lost that ability after stealing the Silmarils and launching the Great Invasion, respectively).

In one of his letters, he also mentioned that one of Morgoth's greatest victories came from the Great Enemy being able to claim darkness and the color black for his own use (though a good deal of the Gondorian soldiers wore black surcoats and like).

[Darth Wong]

Tolkien though did give a lot of emphasis on the Enemy being able to assume a fair form (though Morgoth and Sauron lost that ability after stealing the Silmarils and launching the Great Invasion, respectively).

In one of his letters, he also mentioned that one of Morgoth's greatest victories came from the Great Enemy being able to claim darkness and the color black for his own use (though a good deal of the Gondorian soldiers wore black surcoats and like).

Yes yes, I know all about the Christian theme of the Great Deceiver and how he is able to hide his true ugliness beneath a pleasing disguise. That doesn't really change the mindset, though; it just adds another layer to it. "Ugly people are evil, but some ugly people can disguise themselves, so watch out!". It's still medieval thinking.

As I said before, anyone who thinks LOTR compares favourably to Star Wars in terms of the modernity of its outlook is a retard or a liar. Any criticism you can hurl at Star Wars, you can easily hurl with greater intensity at LOTR.

[NecronLord]

There are plenty of sci-fi, fantasy, and conventional works of fiction which do not correlate ugliness and evil in any detectable way. I don't think this medieval notion is nearly as inescapable as you describe it to be.

Utter scads of fiction, including modern fiction, retains the idea that monstrous looking humanoids are monstrous or otherwise inclined to evil. Jem'hadar, Ferengi, Aliens (Scott/Cameron), Geonosians, Babylon 5's Shadows and their various servant races, Firefly's Reavers, to offhandedly name a few critters that I know you're familiar with, that come from the same school of thought as orcs - some, like orcs, probably being specifically bred or altered to intimidate.

The 'meme' that Ugly = Evil and Cute/Handsome = Good is a far more widespread phonomena than Tolkien, or even fantasy. Tolkien doesn't actually say that being evil makes them ugly (the exceptions to this are Gollum, who's distinctly white and various other forms of supernatural monster, like Barrow Wights, and Sauron himself, who all started out looking normal), and he has various villains that are not ugly, chief amongst them Saruman, who's basically Gandalf, but prettier, and with someone to clean his robes.

I don't really see it as a racist concept - when I see an ork, a troll or a drakh, I think ugly monster not eee! Nigger! (or other human group here). If ugly creatures are bad creatures is a descriminatory concept, I'd say it's one that's entirely seperate from Tolkien's various unflattering depictions of pseudo eastern/southern cultures, and the latent racism therein.

Star Wars is comparatively rare in my experience in its depiction a wide variety of alien species that are unappealing to humans, in non-evil roles. Though I have difficulty thinking of any actually 'ugly' heroes, as opposed to cute ones. Nien Nunb is the only alien character with a significant role who's not actually cute looking, as far as I'm aware. (Though, I keep big catfish, so I suppose I might be biased toward finding Mon Calamari pleasing on the eye). This is of course, a subjective judgement, and I'm sure someone will pop up and say they loathe Chewbacca and think he's the ugliest thing since vomit sandwiches.

[PainRack]

Amusingly enough, while the EU does indeed indicate that whatever forgiveness Vader may have received was solely from his own two children, it also has an example of forgiveness of some mass-murdering Dark Side user who later goes on to be respected and all that shit: Kyp Durron.

Unless there is some part of the EU I missed, he basically gets totally forgiven for everything he did, including blowing up the entire Carida system (didn't he also toast a few other Imperial systems as well?). Granted he almost died destroying the Suncrusher and all that shit, but Vader did die saving his son, while also killing the Emperor but it's not like anyone outside of Luke seems to suddenly see him as a standup guy because of it (even those who did know, I think, though the EU doesn't seem to dwell on that point).

I do find it amusing that the movies get crap for doing something they didn't, though the EU (thank you, Kevin J. Anderson) goes ahead and does it.

Well........ not exactly.+
Kyp Duron was viewed with suspicion shortly after the suncrusher incident, although he didn't catch the same hell Zekk, the other Kyp KJA thought up did. I can't recall the exact comics , but he did go on missions to redeem himself and trying to hide his identity, although how much this is personal guilt is debatable.
Furthermore, in the NJO, his rogue actions was linked to the suncrusher incident and used as an attack against the Jedi by Borrsk. Suffice to say Kyp wasn't forgiven so much as he had powerful patrons, ie, Han/Leia/Luke. Albeit, still the same taint but at least reasonably plausible.

[RogueIce]

Well........ not exactly.+
Kyp Duron was viewed with suspicion shortly after the suncrusher incident, although he didn't catch the same hell Zekk, the other Kyp KJA thought up did. I can't recall the exact comics , but he did go on missions to redeem himself and trying to hide his identity, although how much this is personal guilt is debatable.
Furthermore, in the NJO, his rogue actions was linked to the suncrusher incident and used as an attack against the Jedi by Borrsk. Suffice to say Kyp wasn't forgiven so much as he had powerful patrons, ie, Han/Leia/Luke. Albeit, still the same taint but at least reasonably plausible.

Huh. Well still, he never went before a court and still got to go be a Jedi. I'll grant that he wasn't universally loved but they essentially let a mass murderer (does he actually have more blood on his hands than Vader did, WRT who actually pulled the trigger?) go out and be a Jedi, one of the "super police" of the New Republic.

If somehow Vader did survive the DS2, do you really think he'd get to go help Luke co-found the New Jedi Order or would they rather shoot him into a blackhole somewhere?

Then again, there is the RotJ Infinities "White Knight" Vader deal...what the fuck was up with that?

[Molyneux]

Well........ not exactly.+
Kyp Duron was viewed with suspicion shortly after the suncrusher incident, although he didn't catch the same hell Zekk, the other Kyp KJA thought up did. I can't recall the exact comics , but he did go on missions to redeem himself and trying to hide his identity, although how much this is personal guilt is debatable.
Furthermore, in the NJO, his rogue actions was linked to the suncrusher incident and used as an attack against the Jedi by Borrsk. Suffice to say Kyp wasn't forgiven so much as he had powerful patrons, ie, Han/Leia/Luke. Albeit, still the same taint but at least reasonably plausible.

Huh. Well still, he never went before a court and still got to go be a Jedi. I'll grant that he wasn't universally loved but they essentially let a mass murderer (does he actually have more blood on his hands than Vader did, WRT who actually pulled the trigger?) go out and be a Jedi, one of the "super police" of the New Republic.

If somehow Vader did survive the DS2, do you really think he'd get to go help Luke co-found the New Jedi Order or would they rather shoot him into a blackhole somewhere?

Then again, there is the RotJ Infinities "White Knight" Vader deal...what the fuck was up with that?

Vader never blew up a planet. It was Tarkin who gave the order.

[RogueIce]

Vader never blew up a planet. It was Tarkin who gave the order.

Yet Kyp did and they let him become a Jedi (whether or not he was well liked, he still was one). So the question still remains: had Vader survived the DS2, what would the Republic have done with him?

[Molyneux]

Vader never blew up a planet. It was Tarkin who gave the order.

Yet Kyp did and they let him become a Jedi (whether or not he was well liked, he still was one). So the question still remains: had Vader survived the DS2, what would the Republic have done with him?

Self-imposed exile on some frontier planet, perhaps?

[NecronLord]

Excecute him, I expect. They excecuted some Grand Admiral.

[nightmare]

Maybe not. If Luke could pull out Kyp from axe, he could possibly - and would - do the same for Vader. Jedi don't follow quite the same ruleset. The Old Republic was always content (not unchallenged I'm sure) to let the Jedi decide about their own members. Of course, there's also the infamous "white knight" Infinities Vader as a precedence... hah.

[Pelranius]

Tolkien though did give a lot of emphasis on the Enemy being able to assume a fair form (though Morgoth and Sauron lost that ability after stealing the Silmarils and launching the Great Invasion, respectively).

In one of his letters, he also mentioned that one of Morgoth's greatest victories came from the Great Enemy being able to claim darkness and the color black for his own use (though a good deal of the Gondorian soldiers wore black surcoats and like).

Yes yes, I know all about the Christian theme of the Great Deceiver and how he is able to hide his true ugliness beneath a pleasing disguise. That doesn't really change the mindset, though; it just adds another layer to it. "Ugly people are evil, but some ugly people can disguise themselves, so watch out!". It's still medieval thinking.

As I said before, anyone who thinks LOTR compares favourably to Star Wars in terms of the modernity of its outlook is a retard or a liar. Any criticism you can hurl at Star Wars, you can easily hurl with greater intensity at LOTR.

Well, Morgoth, Sauron and Saruman were all "fair" (in form, I persume) in the beginning. Since they were of the Ainur, I assume that bad deeds on their parts marred their originally good looks. I believe that Sauron and Saruman also had good intentions in the beginning as well.

[Adrian Laguna]

Do you seriously mean to say that because a legendary hardened soldier can give birth on the battlefield, so can a former queen that occasionally fought?

And on the subject of me sounding less stupid, there are these things called smilies I should consider using on occasion.

What the fuck does this absurd wankery have to do with anything? Ooooh, there's an inhumanly tough female character in a videogame!!!! Is that supposed to prove something?

Since the discussion was dealing with strong women, I thought it would be amusing to cite a woman who was strong to the point of absurdity.

[Peptuck]

Vader never blew up a planet. It was Tarkin who gave the order.

Yet Kyp did and they let him become a Jedi (whether or not he was well liked, he still was one). So the question still remains: had Vader survived the DS2, what would the Republic have done with him?

Vader, I think, was one of the personifications of the evil of the Galactic Empire from the Reberls' standpoint. I think the Rebels likely would have tried to try and then execute him.

[PainRack]

Huh. Well still, he never went before a court and still got to go be a Jedi. I'll grant that he wasn't universally loved but they essentially let a mass murderer (does he actually have more blood on his hands than Vader did, WRT who actually pulled the trigger?) go out and be a Jedi, one of the "super police" of the New Republic.

You forgot, the systems he blew up were Imperial, not Republic worlds. There probably exists a clique of citizens who would had approved of his actions, as evidenced in the backlash against people connected to the Deathstar project.

[K. A. Pital]

Well, a whole load of bullshit...

It may be detournable--I hope it is, and welcome all efforts to aid in this—but, we cannot accept it as it stands as anything more than fascist propaganda.

Fascism is a corporate nationalist dictatorship characterized by extreme militarism. In Star Wars, it's also the Empire - the main evil force in the movie. Star Wars depicts a social revolution and civil war. Is that "fascist propaganda"?

Quasi-socialist propaganda.

Um... yes, Star Wars rebels are a multicultural military alliance which rebel against economic and social opression by the Empire.

Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings is a better example, because it is partaking of a particular Christian geometry

"Christian" doesn't equal humanist. In fact, often that's just the opposite of humanism.

In your catastrophic smugness you aren't acquainted with classical art, then. Which means, all art is equal, which means all art is equally useless.

Moron. Star Wars is already a classic of cinema; besides it's genre specifications, there's nothing saying it's any less classic than Lumiere's "Train arrival". And why leap to bullshit postmodernism? Art is useful so far as it's socially useful. Star Wars is socially useful, actually much more than LOTR since apparently is has a broader base and reaches more people with it's message of good winning over evil.

What better method to acclimatise a people to creeping fascism, then to present endless "good versus evil" passion plays that teach nothing of value on how to actually combat fascism (or even recognise it!)

Um... he clearly doesn't know what fascism is, but keeps using the word.

[ArcturusMengsk]

This fellow is not a postmodernist, a movement with which I quite readily agree. He is instead a devotee of Lyndon LaRouche, a kneejerk reactionary populist and anti-Semite extraordinaire. "The LaRouche Movement" is actively dangerous, insofar as it is a camouflaged Aristotelian neo-fascism.

"We need a movement that can finally free Germany from the control of the Versailles and Yalta treaties, which have already tossed us from one catastrophe to another for an entire century."

Sound familiar?

It's LaRouche's wife.

[NecronLord]

Well, Morgoth, Sauron and Saruman were all "fair" (in form, I persume) in the beginning. Since they were of the Ainur, I assume that bad deeds on their parts marred their originally good looks. I believe that Sauron and Saruman also had good intentions in the beginning as well.

Morgoth pretty much chose to be terrifying; just like he chose to have his balrogs look like that. Sauron lost the ability to appear attractive after the catastrophic destruction of his first body in the fall of Numenor. Saruman was always human-looking until he died.

[Civil War Man]

Though I have difficulty thinking of any actually 'ugly' heroes, as opposed to cute ones.

How about Yoda?

[Gandalf]

Though I have difficulty thinking of any actually 'ugly' heroes, as opposed to cute ones.

How about Yoda?

Yoda's practically a muppet in terms of cuteness.

[Sidewinder]

Vader never blew up a planet. It was Tarkin who gave the order.

Yet Kyp did and they let him become a Jedi (whether or not he was well liked, he still was one). So the question still remains: had Vader survived the DS2, what would the Republic have done with him?

Vader, I think, was one of the personifications of the evil of the Galactic Empire from the Reberls' standpoint. I think the Rebels likely would have tried to try and then execute him.

Luke would undoubtedly fight to defend his father in such a situation. More likely is the Rebels simply give Anakin a replacement rebreather, use the original rebreather mask as evidence to say, "Luke Skywalker killed Darth Vader!" and exile the reformed Dark Lord to... I dunno... Tattoine, maybe?

[NecronLord]

How about Yoda?

You think Yoda's ugly? What the fuck's wrong with you?

He doesn't qualify for the same reason Chewbacca doesn't - they're lovable and cute. Though I suppose Chewbacca's intimidating size could qualify. It's subjective after all...

Watto, Salacious Crum, Sy Snoodles, Max Rebo, Jabba... These are examples of ugly.

[The Spartan]

It may be detournable--I hope it is, and welcome all efforts to aid in this—but, we cannot accept it as it stands as anything more than fascist propaganda.

Could someone tell me what detournable means? I can't find it on Merriam-Webster and Google gets nothing useful.

[NecronLord]

Ta Da.