Thread:Sakaros/@comment-29301-20180903145046/@comment-104549-20180903221634

Ha ha, enjoy the brevity while it lasts; with Danse Macabre, the whole series is now up to 604 pages.

I'm really glad you enjoyed the non-Human leads, because that was a deliberate choice. I get the OT and even the PT, for cinematic reasons, but at some point in all the various EU works it started to vex me that so many leads were Human in such a diverse galaxy. Apart from Chewie and Yoda (and, if you count The Clone Wars, Ahsoka), there are so few real non-Human leads, that I wanted to do something completely different. Their being non-Human opens up a number of narrative options, too, even putting aside the huge issue of Narasi being a Zygerrian in the Republic (which does continue to be an issue). Admittedly, Tirien and Narasi are still humanoid, but, y'know...baby steps.

I was very intrigued by your "elegant weapon for a more civilized age" point, because while it definitely rings true, I have to concede it's a matter of what I termed "accidental brilliance" for my karate students. The series has something of a "darker and edgier" feel, which is deliberate; my writing philosophy was that when you're engaged in a galaxy-spanning war and both sides are fielding armies of sentients rather than droids, things are going to get visceral and stomach-churning very quickly. The Jedi in the Clone Wars talked about the dark side clouding the Force, but I think they didn't know how good they had it; it's one thing to charge into battle chopping up robots, and a very different thing to be chopping up living, breathing people who will scream and bleed when they die. Narasi's first kill, which was horrible and violent, was a shock to her, as it should be to any sane thirteen-year-old, no matter how much Jedi training she's had. But when I think about your point, Tirien definitely wouldn't have made that kind of mess of it. It's a really cool feeling as an author to have people find angles in your work that even you didn't realize were there.