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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   4426 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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I'll have to yield to you on the books. Like I said I really haven't read much, and it was a long time ago that I read any.

I'm not saying that anything needs to be different in order to be good. Like I read a lot of manga that tends to stick to the same structure over and over again... I'm fine with that. Sometimes there's value in just finding something good and sticking with it.

I think Star Wars is weird because the Jedi are just inherently a bit silly. The originals somehow managed to make them look cool by only using their powers sparingly and not going into too much detail about their religion. But every time we see more of them, it starts to fall apart a bit. Their swords don't work very well for fighting in space, they talk a lot about pacifism but mostly they're going around fighting, and they never seem to achieve any sort of real lasting peace so they're just failing at their jobs.

The way I see it, it's sort of like a magic trick. It looks awesome the first time you see it. But when you go back to look at the same trick again and again, in great detail... you start to see the hidden wires and the magic falls off.

You haven't played Knights of the Old Republic 2, have you?

i have not. I played Star Wars: Jedi Knight but I don't remember any story from it.

Jedi Knight had some at-the-time impressive FMV bits, but the story was not exactly the core of the series. Knights of the Old Republic is much more heavily on the RPG side with correspondingly deeper story, and a lot of KOTOR 2 and especially its end boss in particular is focused on questions about the Force and its Dark Side and what that means to individual people force-sensitive or not (along with a bit of theodicy and anti-theism).

Pretty good game, too, if you're into the genre.

KOTOR 2 is my go-to shield when somebody accuses me of just wanting more of the same, or not appreciating the brilliance of subversion.

You could argue even that game is pushing against the limits of what the SW universe can really tolerate. But you never get the sense the writer is scoffing at the pillars he's working with.

Yes, you can have 'dark, questioning' Star Wars. But you need to be competent and respectful.

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