Thread:Sakaros/@comment-29301-20180903145046/@comment-29301-20181218190651

Okay, buckle up.

Let me start off by mentioning that this is not a comprehensive review, but simply the thoughts that have occurred to me that I deem most worth sharing. If you want me to comment on something that I've neglected to here, then say so.

1. I have to say that you did a pretty damn good job of throwing challenges at the heroes and really testing them in ways that they hadn't been tested before - most of all Tirien, obviously. My second-favorite moment in the duology has got to be the brass-ballsiness-display of the un-powered Tirien goading a Sith Lord into a lightsaber duel.

1.1. I rather liked Tirien bumming around the Jedi Temple in Desperate Times, especially with the EU historical references, like how he compares his plight to that of Ulic Qel-Droma. Chapter 10 stuck with me as well, being set as it is in the extra-ancient part of the Temple, and its brief bit where Tirien prays. It feels like a brief glimpse into a side of the life of a Jedi that doesn't get explored as much as I would like (by the official sources or the fans). I mean, aside from meditation do they do any other religious-y things, like chant or swing thuribles around? Apparently a Jedi might pray, as Tirien does, and that intrigues me.

2. What I really want to talk about, though, is the stuff in Desperate Measures. I have mixed feelings about all the horrors we see in Kai Latra's lair. I'll certainly give you credit for the sheer variety of dangers and grotesqueries. I'll mention also that the level of Dark-Grit-Gore-Horror in your fan fiction is a few notches higher than it is in mine, and stress that I'm not faulting you for that. However, I sometimes found the tone of the story striking me somehow as... At times it seemed imbalanced, or like it was trying a little too hard. Forgive my vagueness, but there's a lot of stuff that comes together to produce this reaction in my head. There's this castle of horrors with its insane architecture, and the surgical monstrosities, the dude with the tentacly hand, the three-headed acklay, the general brutality against the prisoners (that scene about the kid's arm was great, by the way)... and then there's the garden of arms, the Sith dude who's literally just a gargoyle (yes, I know his species is canon), and the ominous bell tower, and the Wizard of Oz reference (admittedly hilarious), and the shrimpy dark wizard mad scientist who plays a giant creepy pipe organ that filters down through the castle from his evil pseudo-cathedral lair... Don't get me wrong, Kai Latra himself was quite amusing and memorable, and none of this stuff made me roll my eyes. It just felt like a bit much at times.

4. There's one purely structural thing that confused me. First we have Chapter Ten, where the Sith Gargoyle dude's fighting the Anzati, it ends right before the final smackdown between them, and I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to infer he loses. But then in the next chapter he's flying down into the slave pen area and talking to the other Sith before flying off again. Assuming I've got the chronology right, why does Chapter Eleven take place before Ten?

5. Ultimately this is not a particularly important point, but I'm confused that Darth Vandak keeps getting mentioned as apparently not dead. Didn't he get smashed through a wall in a burning building or something?

6. Okay, I told you before that there's one thing I disliked. It's a Big Thing. I consider you a friend or at least a proper colleague, Sakaros, so it's all the more critical that I pay you the respect of not mincing my words. Based on how everything was leading up to the climax of Desperate Measures, I think that you really, really should have killed off Tirien Kal-Di in Chapter Twelve, and it's to the story's detriment that you didn't. Don't get me wrong, that passage where he makes his decision and then gets the Force back is beautiful. But there's no other way that I can put it: it's ultimately a cop-out. I've seen this done before, in other stories, where the author sets things up perfectly so that the hero sees that he has to sacrifice himself in order to defeat the villains or save his friends or whatever the case may be, and then he actually does it, but then something contrived or unforeseeable happens so that the object of the sacrifice is gained without the hero actually having to die and stay dead. I think that's fundamentally unfair to the reader (and to the character in question, if you take my meaning).

I get it, I see how what goes on makes sense thematically. Tirien loses the Force so he stops acting like a Jedi, but once he realizes the error of his ways and chooses to act like a Jedi again, he merits to receive the Force again. But having that literally happen, and in such a way that he gets to escape? Well, first of all, I could be mistaken, but I don't remember anything previously in the series (or even any source in the EU) ever suggesting that this should even be possible. But more important, I just think it robs his decision to sacrifice himself of its value. I think you could have kept both themes (both truths, really) intact and in perfect harmony, had his ecstasy of feeling the Force again been immediately followed by his actually experiencing the death that he had heroically accepted. Instead it's just a beautiful passage, instead of the whole chapter and end of the story being beautiful as well.

In my opinion, if you wanted Tirien to get the Force back and survive this one, you ought to have worked things out so that he got the cure instead of Alecto, or so that there was enough for both of them, or figured something else out.

7. Maybe I lied when I said there was one thing I disliked. Or else, Thing I Disliked Number Two really just has the first one embedded within it. For all the length of my criticism, I really enjoyed both of these stories, and as for the series as a whole - so far, I don't think there's a weak link in it. But I had some slight fatigue at the end of Desperate Measures - a fatigue all too close to that I associate with the trope of the Reset Button. Not only does Tirien get the Force back and survive, but so does Alecto, and everyone else survives, too - all the major characters, even Kai Latra. It feels like we've gotten back to the status quo just a tiny smidgen too quickly and too easily. None of this is catastrophic, understand. But, as much as I enjoy reading the conflict of Tirien and Alecto, I can't shake the feeling that there's some danger of there forming a... I dunno what you'd call it - a plot loop, maybe? I mean, this is the second time they've had to suddenly join forces in a fragile, teeth-clenched partnership where they're waiting to betray each other, sort of bonding in spite of themselves, and in the end they go their separate ways to continue the conflict as it was before. That's all well and good, but if this happens again later on, a third time, I really think it'll strain my suspension of disbelief. If you don't get around to killing one of them off (or at any rate doing something that permanently changes the status quo), or wait too long to do so, I think the series as a whole may grow a bit stale.

That's about everything I wanted to say; except, again, I did very much enjoy reading these two and I look forward to whatever's next.