Fandom Musings

One of those things that really gets me is when people go out of their way to, like, highlight one specific ship as being morally wrong rather than saying 'shipping enemies to lovers is immoral' or something like that.  Like, I obviously don't agree with the latter example, but I can respect a  statement like that for its consistency at least. And I think it's fine if people are just like 'I can't stand this ship because of the associations I have with it' but they're not categorically saying that if someone likes that pairing then they *must* advocate some horrifying real-life thing or other.  Like I personally hate the word 'squick' and could never use it to describe my dislike of certain things because it simply doesn't carry the right emotional tone for me lol.  But while there are a lot of fictional things I find deeply unpleasant, I don't assume that the intensity of my emotional reaction to something can tell me if that thing is immoral or not.  I also don't assume that I have to get over disliking things that I don't think are immoral, because people are allowed to dislike things without having to justify that dislike to others.  I just think it's useful to be able to separate 'it's categorically immoral to like this' and 'I'm instating a boundary that I don't want people to bring this up with me' and to just...really firmly separate those two concepts.

Spoiler-Free Review of Thrawn: Treason

I finished Thrawn: Treason today.  While the story didn't fail to deliver in terms of pacing or plot, I was nevertheless somewhat disappointed with it.

I actually thought the reasoning for the Treason title to be solid enough by the end.  I won't give spoilers here but I was anticipating that part to fizzle much more epically than I actually felt it did.

No, it was the way I felt the confict was carefully constructed to avoid presenting the titular character with certain thorny moral quandaries.  I have this same complaint about the second book as well.  All three Thrawn novels are solid from a storytelling viewpoint, with all the focus on clever tactical maneuvers one could expect and hope for from a Thrawn novel.  But only the first one really captures my interest from a moral complexity perspective.  There's also a plot device I particularly dislike that the last two novels share in common.  

This book and Rebels are supposed to tie into each other, but I sense enough friction on both ends that there's a thematic disconnect between the two, even while they otherwise mesh well in terms of basic character information and the series of events.  Of course, I would actually be surprised if that *hadn't* been the case, but it's still jarring, regardless of the side I view it from.

Anyway, my review is--this is a Thrawn novel, through and through, and Zahn delivers on his skill with narrative and pacing, as well as managing a variety of intriguing characters. Its title is also firmly appropriate.  I just wish its thematic heart could have been a little closer to my own.