Breaking Down Star Wars' #WeTheFans

Welcome to shooting yourself in the foot 101. If you ever desired to see a better way to annihilate your own argument, stack the deck against your own side and turning yourself into a laughing stock, look no further!

So, after my last couple of articles, I expected that I would be given the time to look into more of the benefits of the Expanded Universe. In fact, this was intended to be a look into the novel Death Star, and then hopefully the Dark Forces trilogy along with some video game releases. No, instead, I bumped into quite possibly one of the worst Star Wars things to be produced in written form since Aftermath. In all honesty, I am not quite such which I feel dumber for reading. Someone by the name of Azula on Twitter decided to try and take a stand against Disney, and produced an absolute joke of a declaration:

It's clearly intended to emulate a document from the EU setting, specifically, the Why Do We Fight The Empire piece. I imagine it was intended to serve as a kind of call to arms, but instead, it reads as if all those involved are the worst kind of fans, demanding everything from a creator and expecting it to be delivered to them. Worse still, this was apparently done without consulting anyone on any side, from those who actually want the EU back to the fandom in general.

A few of the highlights involved include the creators trying to "push an agenda of masculine inferiority" and the desire to "bring about the destruction of your own (Kathlene Kennedy's) career in relation to anything in filmography". Oh dear. You might recall that I said in a previous article that the "It belongs to me" is a stage along becoming a severely toxic fandom, and this is it displayed in all its glory. It's a petty and quite frankly narrow-minded piece which accounts only for the desires of one group above all others, leaving no room for other opinions, and failing to even consider that some might oppose them. More incredulously, rather than pushing for an equal standing among fans, it places the priority of EU enthusiasts above those of the films, getting even the most basic Give Us Legends message wrong.

To be blunt, much of this comes off as an attempt to rant about decisions they disliked, but in a manner which had to be seemingly taken seriously. It's akin to when you have a maniac try to form a court case against someone, purely so they can list off multiple frustrations and severe irritation with another person. All that ends up happening is that one person sets up a pedestal for themselves, allowing for a public demonstration of shoving their head up their own arse. Yes, that's not too eloquent, but by this point, I personally do not give a damn. This in turn only leads to the very thing they opposed becoming worse, and as was discussed in previous articles, it only ends up blowing up in their face. The opposing side is encouraged to double down on their actions and makes things worse for the other side. As a result, someone does something stupid like this, and the whole thing starts over. If you wish for a good example of this in storytelling, just look at Dragon Age II's Templar-Mage situation.

However, perhaps the single most frustrating point is how this ends up both shooting the author in the foot and also undermining their key points. One of the parts toward the end cites the problem with fans who dislike The Last Jedi or the franchise direction being treated as "overweight white males and members of the alt-right". It's a valid point, and if you have ever wondered why I have an approval process for all comments, let me just say that there is a great deal of ugliness that I continually block. Equally, you could discuss the gender politics at work, or how certain directions have been mishandled because there is a discussion to be had there. Yet, it throws these in by whitewashing them all as a single negative agenda and writing them off as an anti-male decree, which ends up making the writer and their points look ridiculous. As a result, they end up resembling the very thing they are openly trying to distance themselves from, and just make these points look laughable.

Normally I would try to offer points on both sides, no matter which I felt was in the right, but in this case this is just a trainwreck. The writer of this is clearly in the wrong, to the point where it is hard to oppose even the worst of the backlash they receive. Looking at this sort of thing, and combined with the lies, mistakes and contempt of the past, I'm starting to think the best thing would be for each side to wipe the other out, and give someone else a chance to try and rebuild the fanom anew.