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The Wook, I've not only been a Star Wars fan since the age of two-and-a-half, but also spent about my entire conscious life learning whay I liked the stories I liked (books, comics, movies, TV...), what made them good, and how to craft such myself. Over that time, I've read all -- and acquired most -- of the Star Wars ancillary material: novelizations, novels, comics from all sources, Bantha Tracks newsletters -- and, later, Lucasfilm/Star Wars Fan Club Magazines/Star Wars Insiders -- interviews in other magazines, all the art-of-and making-of books, video games, radio dramas, RPGs, and so on. It's to the point for me now that I instinctively and pretty immediately can grok on one axis how good a particular new offering is, and on the other how Star Wars said offering is. There have been good stories that aren't very Star Wars. There have been mediocre stories that are very Star Wars. There have been some that fail at both, and some that succeed brilliantly.
My problems with the Prequels, RotJ, TFA, and R1 have been structural/narrative ones, rather than Star Warsiness. My problem with Tim Zahn's or Kevin Anderson's writing has been a bit of both. Matt Stover is one of the best authors for the old EU, and I wish he'd been able to write more. Good writer and high SWIQ. *heh*
So my resistance comes in as not liking the self-aggrandiznig pretension inherent in the term. Just as we tend to roll or eyes when someone brags about their IQ, or being part of MENSA, or have their IQ rating as a personalized license plate.... We don't want to be "that guy", even when we feel like we have a pretty darn high SWIQ ourselves. If it were a course of study, I'd probably have a Master's degree in Star Wars, going for a double-Doctorate. But I try my damndest not to come across as (
too) full of myself. I only argue when I feel the facts are on my side, I only present sweeping conclusions that are derived from objective analyses. I welcome debates and challenges to my assertions. If they stand up, cool. If I'm wrong, I want to know about it, so I can adjust my thinking. And the thing about the IQ-braggarts is that they often are more rigid and stubborn about admitting an outside viewpoint, or that they might be wrong. The rest of my resistance comes not just from not wanting to be perceived that way, but, worse, not wanting to possibly actually
be that way -- about having a high SWIQ.
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SethS, @
Spyhunter2k, that more or less where you guys are coming from?
--Jonah