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- Intrepid Legendary Member
Expressing my strong liberal views without shame. Favorite quotes below:
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
"One starts to live when he can live outside himself."
- Albert Einstein
Posted by: Wolverfrog
Posted by: RU551NSP4RT4N
Posted by: Wolverfrog
All Nylund was good at was technical writing - his description of space battles and the science behind the universe was great. Characters were fairly poor, giving us Mary Sues (like Halsey, who could do ANYTHING) or cookie-cutter generic heroes. A lot of his prose was pretty bad too.
I much prefer Traviss over him, I think her approach to the Halo universe is the best yet (with Greg Bear a close second place.) After the K-5 trilogy though, I don't think she should be brought back due to all the controversy she's caused.
It's a shame, but people will be people. Still haven't had a convincing argument as to why she's so terrible.wut?
Wolverfrog I honestly still respect your opinion especially when it comes to writing. I was there when you posted on the halo wars forum and have seen your writing skill. But seriesly you can't think that her writing is good for halo?
Yeah the characters develop a little more than you think but she basically forces her opinion on how making spartan II super soldiers is wrong. She then made Halsey look like a -blam!- as opposed to her actually the one having a conscious in this situation, which aggravates me because she actually cared for her spartans unlike the precious ONI angel Margaret who sent 12 year olds on suicide missions and outright killed her opposing people or made them disappear.
Her disregard for standing halo canon, instead of reading the books she feels like she can just conjure the universe from nothing and change it however see shes fit. As an author she has the right to do so and I understand;however, you can't just start spewing this and that without knowing actual canon. Lucy punchhed Halsey and all Halsey got was a broken nose. Thats a read flag she has no idea what the hell a spartan is! Regardless if it's a spartan II or III Lucy should have caved in her skull.
Do you know why she got kicked out of writing star wars fiction right?
She killed off a main character in the book. Flat out just bam! They're dead. This wasn't suppose to happen but lucasarts let it fly by and the fans practically revolted and she got kicked off from writing for them again. Do you want that to happen to halo? Or are you going to wait till Kelly dies from having her period....
let us see the red flags
Disregards canon and doesn't even read the lore enough to know about:check
Kills off main characters:check
Forces her views on the reader:check
Makes every character and whole toilet bowl potion of completly unneeded internal conflict:check
I don't want this amazing universe to be in the hands of some incompetent feminist who ruins good characters. I liked Nylund because he knew the universe well he created, and although his character development may have been little off, he got every other aspect of the universe down.
/end rant
Someone can only force their views upon you if you accept them. All Traviss is doing is presenting us with another way of looking at Halsey; a world away from the Mary Sue she was under Nylund. I like reading about Parangosky, Osman or Mal citing their hatred for her, because it's so obviously biased that it forms their character.
I still know Halsey isn't Mengale II, and from the backlash from people here for her being persecuted, it's pretty clear everyone else does too. Traviss doesn't NEED to write in the perspective of someone who believes Halsey isn't a bad person, because there are already tens of thousands of people who think this - the reader.
It's the same thing with the Sangheili. We know not every Sangheili hates humanity and some bonds were forged, so she doesn't need to write in the perspective of a Sangheili who loves us.
I think it's quite clever, because even if only subconsciously, when you're reading these contentious claims from characters in the book, you're disputing them - it actively engages the reader, and when I read the book it felt akin to a debate; a character would say something, and I'd think 'ah, but if you knew this you wouldn't say that.' Makes the characters feel more flawed and thus, more real.
Lucy's 5'2 and 70 kilos. She's tiny. I don't think Spartan IIIs are nearly as powerful as Spartan IIs anyway, Lucy especially. Her not being able to toss aside the dead Engineer or her punch not killing Halsey wasn't unbelievable for me - if she'd punched Halsey in the jaw or temple I'd have a problem, but the nose? I can imagine her surviving that.
I don't really care what she did with Star Wars, but I will say that killing a main character is in no way a bad thing - I wish more authors would do it, to be honest. It's why I love George RR Martin so much - he kills his main character at the end of the first book, and no one else is safe from his deadly quill.
Personally, I love Traviss' approach to the Haloverse. There might be a few tiny niggles in canon here and there, but Nylund's books contained loads, as did Staten's, Dietz' and Buckwell's, the latter two being a couple of the worst authors I've ever come across.
Traviss can write, she can make her characters distinct and interesting, and her dialogue is brilliant. I'll take her over Eric 'The Elite was as strong as the Master Chief' Nylund any day.
Your point would be valid if Traviss portrayed Halsey properly at all. I can understand that the perspective of Osman, Vaz, Mal, and even BB would be inherently biased, but Halsey never brings up the points that we the community have in the Kilo Five trilogy. Traviss's novels are a one-sided indictment. Even Naomi, who has known Halsey for her entire life, begins sympathizing more with -blam!- K5. The "bond" between the ODSTs and Naomi is completely contrived. I don't feel it. If Naomi had acted like any characterization of the SIIs in the past had established, then she would be very defensive about Halsey, even after, maybe even especially after reading all the details.
Also, I don't care how tiny Lucy is. She can quite easy kill any human adult with a single punch. She is a Spartan. Spartan IIIs are not inferior to Spartan IIs in anyway except gene purity (which becomes rather moot after the degree of physiological augmentations), thyroid implant, and equipment.
Lucy should have killed Halsey with that punch. End. Of. Story.
[Edited on 10.28.2012 7:41 PM PDT]