Let's talk about KOTOR II and Kreia
ShapiroKeatsDarkMage
Member Posts: 2,428
While i do think Knights of the Old Republic is a worthy sequel of the first game, glitches and dummied out parts aside, i have to admit, as a Star Wars fan since childhood, that its deconstructive nature felt a bit too whiny and heavy handed and a ''hate letter'' from Avellone to Star Wars lore and its fans, which is unavoidable since that hate letter is in the game's dna.
And i really dislike Kreia, its easy to make her sound intelligent, especially when the writer has the ability to make her sound like she's Always right at a first glance.
Even Avellone admitted he used Kreia's speeches to tear the lore of Star Wars apart, at least the parts that bothered him.
What i really hate, though, are those Youtube and forum commenters who played the game and believe every word Kreia says, and start ranting about how dumb and childish the Star Wars universe is and how boring characters like Obi-Wan and Luke are; ignoring that she is still a fundamentally villainous character (i know, spoilers), and that when she tried to put her own beliefs into action, she ended up creating one guy who tried to enslave the galaxy before getting mindwiped and become a hero, another guy who is a consumate masochist who needs pain to sustain himself, and another guy who turned into a humanoid eldritch abomination who eats planets Galactus-style. And when other characters called her out on this, she brushes off her responsibilities and blames the Force itself, thinking its some kind of evil manipulative entity, and thus, in true Avellone and Obsidian morally grey fashion, she turns out to be a bitter, vindictive, self-righteous old crone who is charismatic and well written enough to make the more inexperienced players believe the jedi are the real narrow-minded douchebags when in reality she isn't better than them.
Her character arc can be summed up with this: "I belive I'm right. I'm a 'grey' Jedi" "Kreia, your disciple just tried to destroy the world. You're wrong" "Screw you dumb moral guardians, I'll prove you wrong just wait and see." "Now you've gone and made three people who've tried to destroy the galaxy" "It's not my fault. It's the Force. I hate you and I'll kill you all" "Kreia, we still don't believe you and you forgot your meds." "Well I'll try and destroy the Force, even though it would kill us all. Then you'll see"
These aren't the ideas of a ''grey jedi'', they are the ideas of a smug objectivist douche.
And i really dislike Kreia, its easy to make her sound intelligent, especially when the writer has the ability to make her sound like she's Always right at a first glance.
Even Avellone admitted he used Kreia's speeches to tear the lore of Star Wars apart, at least the parts that bothered him.
What i really hate, though, are those Youtube and forum commenters who played the game and believe every word Kreia says, and start ranting about how dumb and childish the Star Wars universe is and how boring characters like Obi-Wan and Luke are; ignoring that she is still a fundamentally villainous character (i know, spoilers), and that when she tried to put her own beliefs into action, she ended up creating one guy who tried to enslave the galaxy before getting mindwiped and become a hero, another guy who is a consumate masochist who needs pain to sustain himself, and another guy who turned into a humanoid eldritch abomination who eats planets Galactus-style. And when other characters called her out on this, she brushes off her responsibilities and blames the Force itself, thinking its some kind of evil manipulative entity, and thus, in true Avellone and Obsidian morally grey fashion, she turns out to be a bitter, vindictive, self-righteous old crone who is charismatic and well written enough to make the more inexperienced players believe the jedi are the real narrow-minded douchebags when in reality she isn't better than them.
Her character arc can be summed up with this: "I belive I'm right. I'm a 'grey' Jedi" "Kreia, your disciple just tried to destroy the world. You're wrong" "Screw you dumb moral guardians, I'll prove you wrong just wait and see." "Now you've gone and made three people who've tried to destroy the galaxy" "It's not my fault. It's the Force. I hate you and I'll kill you all" "Kreia, we still don't believe you and you forgot your meds." "Well I'll try and destroy the Force, even though it would kill us all. Then you'll see"
These aren't the ideas of a ''grey jedi'', they are the ideas of a smug objectivist douche.
Post edited by ShapiroKeatsDarkMage on
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Jedi Civil WarPadawan Massacre (aka the most self-righteous and hypocrite act the Jedi Order's ever done... Even if it wasn't the entire Order).Edit: I always mistake the name of those two, dammit.
Melissan on the other hand is, despite it being pretty obvious that she is a villain to anyone with some savviness, written as super goodly and innocent and the plot is structured to force us to go believe and go along with it.
Kreia is pretty much the opposite of that. You can challenge her beliefs as they come up, and you don't have to take her lectures to heart. In the end, her plot twist isn't supposed to be as much a "OMG SHE'S EVIL?!" twist as just a reveal of just how involved she was at the heart of it all.
Theres plenty of dark and ambyguos star wars stories. Even the Clone Wars cgi cartoon has Pretty intense episodes, like the One where Captain Rex had to deal with a crooked Jedi Who was sending his men into Death traps.
Avellone is deep, but hates Star Wars.
Leaving them free to re-use any of the old canon that they like.
The problem with writing ultra-light side characters in the canon of the time is that they just aren't very interesting characters. They're un-emotional automatons and the only drama or struggle is fighting the BBEG or temptations, that's why they tend to operate in a crew where the characters around them are the far more interesting characters (or the subject of their own works entirely - it'd be interesting to see how many books focus on jedis being jedis vs. say bounty hunters and rogue-ish characters). Avellone admitted that he read *tons* of Star Wars books and material prior to writing Kotor 2, as did other members of the team, and I'm sure they had run through that gauntlet too. What Star Wars literature I was drawn to as a kid almost never focused on jedi. I was all about the non-jedi types and bounty hunters and so on.
I hardly see a hatred of Star Wars in it - you wouldn't read as much about Star Wars as they did if you simply despised it, and the criticisms that different characters, Kreia included, level against Jedi ideology aren't the ham-fisted caricatures that somebody simply motivated by distaste would write. Not to mention that it *is* an option to reject her ideas completely or to argue with her from the perspective of a hardcore jedi fanatic. She won't like it, but the objective of the game is not to make Kreia happy. Although purposefully playing to please her does make for a rather interesting play-through and I would recommend trying it if you've not.
The reason Kotor 2 has held on as long as it has, especially with the additional fan-patch content, is that it's a star wars game with a lot more malleability than its predecessor. In Kotor 1 you're *really* forced into either playing a die-hard light-sider (or something very close to that), or a psychopath. There isn't a lot of room from gray or alternative behaviors. Kotor 2 lets you play around with things a lot more heavily and that's freeing in its own way.
I've maintained that the first Kotor game is a lot more like a Star Wars film (at least the ones I've seen - I haven't seen that new standalone) whereas Kotor 2 is more of a ball of clay that you can mold into what you like and play around with established canon more, but it would be a very strange film lol. It also stands out to me because you can take a dark-side path that *feels* somewhat reasonable, as opposed to Kotor 1's murderous psychopath being the only real dark-side option.
The Nightsisters where in the Clone Wars before the continuity reboot, along with a few other bits and bobs of the old EU, which automatically makes them part of the new continuity.
NB, there are rumours of some kind of KotOR reboot at Bioware, which would in theory make it part of the new timeline.