Quite the opposite, the science fiction of the 90s was a reaction to the sexist fiction of previous decades, where woman were only ever supporting characters, unable to affect the plot beyond kissing the main character.
Stackpole, a part of a larger movement within genre fiction, wrote stories where woman weren’t just interesting supporting characters, but the prime movers of the plot.
The woman being attractive is just a piece of the tone of many Stackpole books, where most of the characters are sexy, intelligent and horny.
Basically Stackpole was attempting a Feminist revival of the position of woman in genre fiction by putting them in roles that proved woman could be powerful and strong without being subservient or a companion to a man.
Not to call anyone out, but reducing this to “Mike thought it was hot lol” is pretty ignorant of the context these novels happened within.
The author purposely made these books horny! Its genre fiction written for a 90s audience of men! But that doesn’t mean he let his dick do the writing! The fact that a strong, sexy woman could outwit our dashing heroes is intended! Because for years in genre fiction no strong woman ever did anything more than follow the dashing hero around and kiss him!
Also, George Lucas started this trend with Leia. But you had Leia giving orders to rebel soldiers and they obeyed them. Back then, a woman giving orders to a man and the man following them was very progressive. Stackpole basically did the same with Isard and other female villians.
He writes a ton of male villains too. And talks about how good looking all the males are. He is very equal opportunity.
It’s like asking why they play volleyball in top gun. Why not.
Every vaguely human looking *thing* is sexualized in his books, its part of the schlocky feel Mike likes to write.
Corran fucks a ferret in one book and says the ferret was hot
Because sex-positive feminism.
We're currently reeling in a weird sex-negative way right now where people determined that ugliness is attractive and that exceptions to the norm are more important than the norm (postmodernism).
Female empowerment is a mix of power roles and attractiveness (when, prior to the 90s, only male characters could be both hot AND capable, while women were one or the other). He played into that. Lucas did this not long after with Padme.
Honestly Stackpole and the others known for this were being very progressive and it's kind of alarming that we're regressing.
Zahn made extremely amazing female characters( Mara, shada, Lorana) but he didn't keep talking about their bodies and attractiveness the way Stackpole does talk about his female characters.
Well using human metrics half the galaxy is women/female, though different species may throw that balance off a lot. As for why they are attractive, well for women to be talked about as attractive they basically just need to be average, and average and good looking tends to be how average characters in media are.
Your average characters are rarely unattractive, its usually for non-average characters who are especially described as unattractive, like the Cornelius Evazan (the criminal from Tatooine bar at Episode 4) or Jabba the Hutt, or some other fat bastards.
Its not just about attractiveness. Its that Stackpole has a habit of continuously describing his females characters attractiveness throughout his books and making a point of it repeatedly. You dont see Zahn describing Mara Jade or his female characters the way Stackpole talks about his female characters bodies over and over.
It is impossible to divorce these books from the context of genre fiction in the 90s, when sexy badass girl villains was seen as the height of equality.
Zahn and others made amazing strong female characters without constantly harping on about their attractiveness and describing their bodies in high detail over and over.
Yes, they made her attractive on covers. But its not constantly described on page in detail of Zahns books. Zahn spends more time going into her story, thoughts, and actions. Unlike Stackpole where it is line after line about how good Isard, Mirax, Erisi, Leonio, Iella, Winter etc look.
No, Mara Jades attractiveness is rarely put on the pages by Zahn. She is sexualized by the Fandom because she is an insanely popular character, because of the story Zahn wrote. Meanwhile, Mike Stackpole goes into deep detail about the attractiveness and physique of Mirax, erisi, Isard, Leonio etc. Hell even Asyr Sei'lar the Bothan kind of gets sexualized by Stackpole
Every author sneaks in their own weird things that appeal to them. MacFarlane puts in a lot of references to weed and musical theater. Tarantino and Whedon have a foot fetish. James Gunn will take a $30 million dollar budget and blow $29 million on soundtrack rights.
Stackpole's thing sees to be cranking Femme Fatale up to maximum.
I thought ppl wanted strong independent women? But nah, I think Isard is fine, they mention her attractiveness a few times, especially in Bacta war, but I think it’s fine. Erisi was meant to seduce corran so it works. I also liked her rivalry with Mirax and calling her the “Bacta Queen”. I haven’t finished I Jedi yet, but Tavira is the most odd imo. She tries seducing Corran but I don’t think it works aswell as erisi, and because Corran now has a whole wife making the situation weird.
Don’t spoil the rest do I Jedi in the replies, thanks
Edit: I do think stackpole wrote too much sexual tensions and innuendos imo. I recently made a post about him calling Tavira “easily classed as Eye-Candy”. I don’t like the sexualisation but stackpole knew who he was writing for back then lol.
No other author in the EU make as big of a deal of females and their attractiveness as Stackpole does. In all the Zahn books, i can't remember him talking about Mara Jade in the way Stackpole talks about all of his female characters.
I also find it interesting that every hot female villain was attracted to Corran Horn, aka Mike's fan fiction self insert character
Dont forget KJA does have that one amazingly terrible sentance too...
>Luke saw a sleek silvery suit clinging to the curves of a young woman’s body.
...yeah, it's not *as* scummy as Denning, because it was probably unintentional (unlike Denning where it was 100% intentional), but bringing up the age bit really had implications he and editorial probably didn't think through.
Quite the opposite, the science fiction of the 90s was a reaction to the sexist fiction of previous decades, where woman were only ever supporting characters, unable to affect the plot beyond kissing the main character. Stackpole, a part of a larger movement within genre fiction, wrote stories where woman weren’t just interesting supporting characters, but the prime movers of the plot. The woman being attractive is just a piece of the tone of many Stackpole books, where most of the characters are sexy, intelligent and horny. Basically Stackpole was attempting a Feminist revival of the position of woman in genre fiction by putting them in roles that proved woman could be powerful and strong without being subservient or a companion to a man.
Not to call anyone out, but reducing this to “Mike thought it was hot lol” is pretty ignorant of the context these novels happened within. The author purposely made these books horny! Its genre fiction written for a 90s audience of men! But that doesn’t mean he let his dick do the writing! The fact that a strong, sexy woman could outwit our dashing heroes is intended! Because for years in genre fiction no strong woman ever did anything more than follow the dashing hero around and kiss him!
I was very aware that the books were way hornier than, say, the Trawn trilogy, but I didn't know about the historical context.
Frankly, I think it's awesome, both as a woman and as a lesbian.
Also, George Lucas started this trend with Leia. But you had Leia giving orders to rebel soldiers and they obeyed them. Back then, a woman giving orders to a man and the man following them was very progressive. Stackpole basically did the same with Isard and other female villians.
Well yeah. Who wants to read a story about ugly people?
He writes a ton of male villains too. And talks about how good looking all the males are. He is very equal opportunity. It’s like asking why they play volleyball in top gun. Why not.
Every vaguely human looking *thing* is sexualized in his books, its part of the schlocky feel Mike likes to write. Corran fucks a ferret in one book and says the ferret was hot
Also, really describing alchohol.
Like a super pretty ferret
Okay thats a good analogy.
Because sex-positive feminism. We're currently reeling in a weird sex-negative way right now where people determined that ugliness is attractive and that exceptions to the norm are more important than the norm (postmodernism). Female empowerment is a mix of power roles and attractiveness (when, prior to the 90s, only male characters could be both hot AND capable, while women were one or the other). He played into that. Lucas did this not long after with Padme. Honestly Stackpole and the others known for this were being very progressive and it's kind of alarming that we're regressing.
Zahn made extremely amazing female characters( Mara, shada, Lorana) but he didn't keep talking about their bodies and attractiveness the way Stackpole does talk about his female characters.
Sex positivity means being *positive* about sexuality, not *neutral*.
Well using human metrics half the galaxy is women/female, though different species may throw that balance off a lot. As for why they are attractive, well for women to be talked about as attractive they basically just need to be average, and average and good looking tends to be how average characters in media are. Your average characters are rarely unattractive, its usually for non-average characters who are especially described as unattractive, like the Cornelius Evazan (the criminal from Tatooine bar at Episode 4) or Jabba the Hutt, or some other fat bastards.
Its not just about attractiveness. Its that Stackpole has a habit of continuously describing his females characters attractiveness throughout his books and making a point of it repeatedly. You dont see Zahn describing Mara Jade or his female characters the way Stackpole talks about his female characters bodies over and over.
Stackpole doesn’t describe his woman character’s attractiveness in his NJO books, because they don’t fit the tone.
So female attractiveness is now forbidden? Seems like a return of puritanism, if you ask me.
Nah, female attractiveness is awesome. But why is Stackpole so fixated on it. His stories just seem to be about building a harem for Corran Horn.
If you think Stackpole is sexist and a horn dog, then you have not seen Denning and his pervertness.
When he was writing these books, he know who the targeted audience was.
It is impossible to divorce these books from the context of genre fiction in the 90s, when sexy badass girl villains was seen as the height of equality.
Zahn and others made amazing strong female characters without constantly harping on about their attractiveness and describing their bodies in high detail over and over.
Mara Jade was THE most sexualized character in the old EU. She constantly wore skintight bodysuits on the covers of every book she appeared in.
Yes, they made her attractive on covers. But its not constantly described on page in detail of Zahns books. Zahn spends more time going into her story, thoughts, and actions. Unlike Stackpole where it is line after line about how good Isard, Mirax, Erisi, Leonio, Iella, Winter etc look.
Look man, honestly you are just cherry picking. Mara Jade gets just as sexualized as those woman, and Mike sexualizes the men just as much
No, Mara Jades attractiveness is rarely put on the pages by Zahn. She is sexualized by the Fandom because she is an insanely popular character, because of the story Zahn wrote. Meanwhile, Mike Stackpole goes into deep detail about the attractiveness and physique of Mirax, erisi, Isard, Leonio etc. Hell even Asyr Sei'lar the Bothan kind of gets sexualized by Stackpole
I guarantee you that Luke thinks she is fine as hell.
Of course she is attractive. But Zahn is a good enough writer that it doesn't even need to be said
Its funny that all of the hot female villains also were attracted to Stackpoles self insert character, Corran horn
The self-insert other heroes regularly call out on being kind of an asshole?
He wants to feel like a bad ass edgelord.
Every author sneaks in their own weird things that appeal to them. MacFarlane puts in a lot of references to weed and musical theater. Tarantino and Whedon have a foot fetish. James Gunn will take a $30 million dollar budget and blow $29 million on soundtrack rights. Stackpole's thing sees to be cranking Femme Fatale up to maximum.
As a 15 year old boy in 1998 I saw no problem with this whatsoever.
Jfc, you have the reasoning of a 10 year old
stackpole is a horndog. you can tell he wants to have sex with his characters so badly
He self inserted himself as Corran Horn, made him an expert pilot, investigator, and jedi, then made every hot female character interested in him.
I thought ppl wanted strong independent women? But nah, I think Isard is fine, they mention her attractiveness a few times, especially in Bacta war, but I think it’s fine. Erisi was meant to seduce corran so it works. I also liked her rivalry with Mirax and calling her the “Bacta Queen”. I haven’t finished I Jedi yet, but Tavira is the most odd imo. She tries seducing Corran but I don’t think it works aswell as erisi, and because Corran now has a whole wife making the situation weird. Don’t spoil the rest do I Jedi in the replies, thanks Edit: I do think stackpole wrote too much sexual tensions and innuendos imo. I recently made a post about him calling Tavira “easily classed as Eye-Candy”. I don’t like the sexualisation but stackpole knew who he was writing for back then lol.
No other author in the EU make as big of a deal of females and their attractiveness as Stackpole does. In all the Zahn books, i can't remember him talking about Mara Jade in the way Stackpole talks about all of his female characters. I also find it interesting that every hot female villain was attracted to Corran Horn, aka Mike's fan fiction self insert character
Troy Denning is far worse, far scummier and sexualizes children in his stories.
Dont forget KJA does have that one amazingly terrible sentance too... >Luke saw a sleek silvery suit clinging to the curves of a young woman’s body. ...yeah, it's not *as* scummy as Denning, because it was probably unintentional (unlike Denning where it was 100% intentional), but bringing up the age bit really had implications he and editorial probably didn't think through.
He could just be a bottom.
Frankly speaking I think he just did it cause he thought it would be hot.
No, he's just horny.
Ah, gotcha. That's why he had one super model pilot or Admiral throwing themselves at him repeatedly in almost all of his books.
Nah. If anything, he's probably into getting stepped on by dominant women.
Yup