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"Star Wars Battlefront II: Inferno Squad" and Character Alignment
So a project that I've been working on for the past year has been reading all of the new canon Star Wars books, and I'm making pretty decent progress. So far, I haven't encountered any books I've disliked, though there are some I've definitely liked more than others. Or at least, that was the case until very recently. Maybe. Part of the reason I'm writing this post is to sort out my feelings on the book Battlefront II: Inferno Squad and why it didn't really work for me.
Warning: The following post contains minor spoilers for Star Wars Battlefront II: Inferno Squad.
Thinking on it, the aspect of the book that I think is it's ultimate failure is the fact that the protagonists are essentially the villains of the story. Now on paper that's not really a bad thing. Tarkin, for example had the Moff as the main character. However, Tarkin is also a character that embraces being a villain. He sees is actions as just but doesn't delude himself into thinking he's ~good~.
Inferno Squad tries to have it's cake and eat it too. Iden Versio and her squad seem to intentionally be written in a way that asks the audience to identify with them, and extensive effort is given in order to humanize them. Iden herself was touted by Lucasfilm as one of the more "heroic" characters of the Empire. But that's just the thing, they are soldiers of the Empire. Not only that, they are soldiers who are aware of most of the atrocities being committed on behalf of the Empire, and wholeheartedly supported the Death Star and the destruction of Alderaan. A thirst for genocide is not a quality that makes an audience identify with you... most of the time anyway.
This all would have been fine if the characters exhibited some measurable growth over the course of the story, but they do not. In fact, I'd argue that Gideon Hask regresses as a character, with the book throwing away much of the careful character work it tried to do in the early chapters. In the Epilogue, it is suggested that Iden, and perhaps Del, have experienced some small development, but it's not one the book has any interest in showing it's reader. I suspect part of this may be due to the fact that this book is essentially a prequel to the Battlefront II video game, but in that case there should have been more of an effort made to give at least Iden more of an actual arc.
I should also say I don't dislike the idea of characters portrayed as morally flawed instead of outright good or evil, it's just that I've seen it done already several times in other books. Ciena Ree, Asajj Ventress, Grand Admiral Thrawn, and Admiral Pryce are just some of the Empire-aligned characters given points of view in books and managed to get the audience to root for them. In fact, that might be part of why Inferno Squad fell so flat to me - the Partisans were much better morally gray characters than Iden and her squad. They exhibited much richer backstory and motivation for their actions, and had internal conflict that would've been enough to carry a book by itself. (And it did in the excellent first half of Rebel Rising). And in the end, even this book didn't seem all that interested in following through on much of what it set up, and I doubt all that much will carry over to the video game it ties into.
So in the end, I didn't like the book, but I didn't hate it either. Inferno Squad is a book that is very well written and rendered, but it's story is sabotaged by its own characters. I don't care if your protagonists are supposed to be unlikable - Having your reader laugh when they experience devastating hardship is not a good reaction by any metric. Well, I don't have a PS4 or Xbox One, but maybe if I'm feeling enough Star Wars withdrawals down the line I'll check out this game and see if it has something more substantial to offer.
Watch Status Roundup:
Digimon Tamers - 34/51
Cardcaptor Sakura - 35/70
The X-Files - 74/210
The Golden Girls Extended Universe - 76/442
Warning: The following post contains minor spoilers for Star Wars Battlefront II: Inferno Squad.
Thinking on it, the aspect of the book that I think is it's ultimate failure is the fact that the protagonists are essentially the villains of the story. Now on paper that's not really a bad thing. Tarkin, for example had the Moff as the main character. However, Tarkin is also a character that embraces being a villain. He sees is actions as just but doesn't delude himself into thinking he's ~good~.
Inferno Squad tries to have it's cake and eat it too. Iden Versio and her squad seem to intentionally be written in a way that asks the audience to identify with them, and extensive effort is given in order to humanize them. Iden herself was touted by Lucasfilm as one of the more "heroic" characters of the Empire. But that's just the thing, they are soldiers of the Empire. Not only that, they are soldiers who are aware of most of the atrocities being committed on behalf of the Empire, and wholeheartedly supported the Death Star and the destruction of Alderaan. A thirst for genocide is not a quality that makes an audience identify with you... most of the time anyway.
This all would have been fine if the characters exhibited some measurable growth over the course of the story, but they do not. In fact, I'd argue that Gideon Hask regresses as a character, with the book throwing away much of the careful character work it tried to do in the early chapters. In the Epilogue, it is suggested that Iden, and perhaps Del, have experienced some small development, but it's not one the book has any interest in showing it's reader. I suspect part of this may be due to the fact that this book is essentially a prequel to the Battlefront II video game, but in that case there should have been more of an effort made to give at least Iden more of an actual arc.
I should also say I don't dislike the idea of characters portrayed as morally flawed instead of outright good or evil, it's just that I've seen it done already several times in other books. Ciena Ree, Asajj Ventress, Grand Admiral Thrawn, and Admiral Pryce are just some of the Empire-aligned characters given points of view in books and managed to get the audience to root for them. In fact, that might be part of why Inferno Squad fell so flat to me - the Partisans were much better morally gray characters than Iden and her squad. They exhibited much richer backstory and motivation for their actions, and had internal conflict that would've been enough to carry a book by itself. (And it did in the excellent first half of Rebel Rising). And in the end, even this book didn't seem all that interested in following through on much of what it set up, and I doubt all that much will carry over to the video game it ties into.
So in the end, I didn't like the book, but I didn't hate it either. Inferno Squad is a book that is very well written and rendered, but it's story is sabotaged by its own characters. I don't care if your protagonists are supposed to be unlikable - Having your reader laugh when they experience devastating hardship is not a good reaction by any metric. Well, I don't have a PS4 or Xbox One, but maybe if I'm feeling enough Star Wars withdrawals down the line I'll check out this game and see if it has something more substantial to offer.
Watch Status Roundup:
Digimon Tamers - 34/51
Cardcaptor Sakura - 35/70
The X-Files - 74/210
The Golden Girls Extended Universe - 76/442