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Thinking of writing a x-over and would like some advice.

Discussion in 'Fanfic Discussion' started by GrayFox, Mar 3, 2012.

  1. Zyphere

    Zyphere Squib

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    With regards to Atris, she had eventually succumbed to the dark side due to her surrounding herself with the sith holocrons she had gathered throughout the years. Her perception and understanding of the force + jedi code was conflicted by time period in which KOTOR II took place.

    Despite being responsible for the jedi archives, I wouldn't say that her knowledge of the force was greater than those who are left. At this time, the characters from KOTOR I are still very much alive and, IMO, individuals such as Revan, Bastila, and Jolee were much more knowledgable of the force than Atris.

    With regards to continuity and canon...George Lucas has slowly been destroying canon over the years, mainly due to the prequels and, most recently, the animated clone wars series (which is a great series, but his ideas of mandalorian culture clashed greatly with what was established by that time).

    To me, maintaining consistency with the other eras is not essential. After all, the KOTOR games take place more than 3900 years before Luke Skywalker's time. There is very little connecting the two time periods (Only thing that stands out is Exar Kun showing up after ROTJ), and I don't even recall midichlorians ever being mentioned in anything related to the old republic era (games, comics, novels, etc.; Me = Fan of that time period ;)). It was a George Lucas idea after all, so it only really was mentioned in the prequels.
     
  2. Red Aviary

    Red Aviary Hogdorinclawpuff ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    Ignore The Old Republic too. There's nothing worthwhile in terms of lore in there, despite whatever tenuous links it has to the previous games.

    Forget midichlorians. If you can come up with a better explanation for magic and the Force, use it.
     
  3. samkar

    samkar Temporarily Banhammered

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    Instead of the Old Republic RPGs I would also look into the older Jedi FPS(Dark Forces, Jedi Knight) games. They had interesting plots and sites but nobody ever used them in a crossover. After reading a few usually bad Old Knight crossovers even these characters get stale like copying Episode 1-3 content and inserting Harry somewhere.

    What usually annoys me about these crossovers is that Harry is presented with some easy solutions like
    o Some ascended Jedi Knight or whoever prepares Harry about the Force and what to do and then sends him on his way
    o Harry understands the language
    o Harry has no survival problems(food, credits)
    o Harry meets the Jedi and becomes a boring Padawan, Knight and Master.
    o Harry forgets his magic and uses a lightsaber from now on

    What I would like to read one day
    o Harry arrives on some planet in the Outlands, knows jack shit, can't communicate with anybody and tries to survive first, maybe even gets captured/blind passenger with some slave traders/miners to escape.
    Just imagine being lost and trying to orientate on Coruscant, a city which covers the whole planet. There's so much potential here for a good story.
    o Harry doesn't use a sword but maybe experiments with the crystals
    o Harry adapts his magic style against the Jedis/Siths style
    o Magic isn't exactly the Force and Harry doesn't use the Force.
    o Harry tries to use his "pointless" astronomy knowledge to find out where he is and a way back against all odds.
    o Jedis hunt/avoid him because they think he's a Sith and the Sith hunt/avoid him because he's an anomaly/danger to their believes of superiority.

    Just my 2 cents.
     
  4. Scrib

    Scrib The Chosen One

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    I've personally always thought the best place to set a HP xover would be during the Yuuzhan Vong war, simply for the conflict it would bring when he told the Order to go fuck themselves and joined the war anyway while Skywalker tried to wiggle his thumb deeper into his rectum. It's perfect for tons of conflict, and Harry has an entire cadre of similarly aged characters to interact with.

    Which brings me to something no one ever deals with: philosophical differences. Harry should be untrainable as a Jedi, his cup is already full of so many ideas that conflict with Jedi dogma that he would never be able to conform. I remember a scene where Mara was telling Anakin how constant and trivial use of the Force lead to the dark side. Imagine the same conversation with someone from a society such as Harry's. Now imagine the battles over the entire idea of the dark side when, in Harry's world, there's a clear divide between dark magic and everything else.

    People just want to see Jedi!Harry but having him on the outside is something never shown, and ultimately it would be more interesting.
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2012
  5. Thaumologist

    Thaumologist Fifth Year ~ Prestige ~

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    I think there is a reason for that, and I think a good one, but you might disagree.

    When reading a crossover, I like a little bleed-over between the universes. For example, in a HP/DF fic, having Harry with a Denarius, able to use DF!magic, or married to one of the characters works well when written well. Having no bleed between the two can still be good, but the writing will need to be better or I'll lose interest. Even in pieces where the bleed is less visible, it still occurs.

    For most people, I think the most well known part of the SW universe are the Jedi/Sith. Having Harry interact with odd conclaves I've never heard of won't interest me that much, as it could well be a crossover with an original universe (yes, I read a few. No, most of them weren't good).

    Crossovers need stuff from both universes. Whether this is characters, settings, technology, or groups. Preferably, more than one. I don't often read crossovers when I'm unfamiliar with one of the universes, but I usually find only a passing knowledge is acceptable - I enjoyed Terminal Justice (HP/Justice League), and have seen one Superman film, and a few cartoons in my youth, with Wikipedia making sense of anything else.
    But if in TJ, Harry had joined up with the Ultramen (or some over group of comic heroes not really that well known), I might have stopped reading.

    So having Harry end up outside Jedi control means he ends up with a group of people quite a few readers won't know anything about, and then you end up in info-dump territory.





    You could maybe do an interesting piece with both Voldemort and Harry ending up in the SW!verse. There are lots of aliens, and lots don't look that human. So Voldemort, whilst still being odd, wouldn't necessarily be the weirdest looking person around. With only a few changes to his character (universe travel makes you re-absorb horcruxes or something), he can be back to his smart, logical youth, where he follows what he should do, not what he wants to do. So whilst he is evil, he does not let his feelings get in the way of anything, he is almost machine-like in his decisions.
    Harry, on the other hand, is still angry about losing Sirius. He lashes out at people, and is scared by the change in the universe. He ends up being picked up by the Sith, but stays relatively good.
     
  6. Scrib

    Scrib The Chosen One

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    Yeah but it's possible to be around Jedi yet not be one. See: Han Solo. I just don't like it when Jedi take in someone they not equipped to train. There's so much to explore in SW as well, to just make him a loyal lackey of the Jedi Order is just lazy.
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2012
  7. Thaumologist

    Thaumologist Fifth Year ~ Prestige ~

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    That works. But unless you have Harry actually develop something useful he'll just be a mehish wizard, and not even fully trained. Granted, magic does a lot of stuff that these people might not have seen before, but Harry is a schoolkid. And he isn't a great one. He failed two of his OWLs, got one top pass, one bottom pass, and the rest middle.

    Assuming that the equivalent of a C grade in O-levels/GCSEs is the A, which does make sense, and that the magical results follow a similar pattern to muggle results, Harry is slightly better than average. If Hogwarts is supposed to be a good school (and we hear, repeatedly, that it is), his results aren't that good. Not bad, but not great.
     
  8. Tasoli

    Tasoli Minister of Magic

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    Yes but who says he has to stop learning. On the contrary once he understands he can't go back I bet he will start to look everywhere for even a piece of knowledge. And he can adapt a lot of force related abilities to Magic. They are not that different.
     
  9. Scrib

    Scrib The Chosen One

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    Especially since this is the Star Wars EU. There are dozen of groups with unique Force powers and philosophies. Harry could do what JAcen did and go around trying to learn shit.

    Or you can simply alter his backstory to be one more reminiscent of pre-HBP fanfic- with him fighting a long war against Voldemort and gaining experience that way.
     
  10. chriar

    chriar Third Year

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    If you want you can make Harry more like a voss than a Jedi or sith. From my understanding the Voss and the Jedi/sith use the force in completely different ways. The Voss share more similarities with magic users than other sects of force users. Or at least how I interpreted the Voss.
     
  11. Warlocke

    Warlocke Fourth Champion

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    The second you mentioned the existence of a magical core, you got in trouble with Taure (not that there weren't a multitude of other reasons).

    There's your mystery solved, in case you were still wondering.

    Magical cores are not canon, they are fanon. Now, there are a lot of different explanations out there for what this core is and how it works, some more stupid than others - so it's really a number of ideas that all fall under the heading 'magical core', as if wizards were walking nuclear power plants. Generally speaking, though, pretty much any story that employs the notion of a magical core is going to be bad.

    Often really, really, bad.

    That's where you got in trouble with me. Not just pseudo-trouble, either.
     
  12. GrayFox

    GrayFox Slug Club Member DLP Supporter

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    I apologize for my bad spelling, and I realize the magical cores are fanon. But I was at a loss as to another way to explain his magical power in a quantitative way.
     
  13. Warlocke

    Warlocke Fourth Champion

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    LIKE A VOSS!

    I apologize, but I couldn't resist. :awesome

    It is the age old struggle of HP fanfic.
     
  14. Heather_Sinclair

    Heather_Sinclair Chief Warlock

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    *sigh*

    Glowing multi-colored-mood-enhanced auras, hello!

    It's sudo-canon ala Dumbledore busting in on Mad-eye/Crouch Jr. before he anal rapes Harry after the graveyard scene. Dumbledore had his intimidating-glowing-aura cranked up to eleven or something.

    That was canon, right? :confused:

    Obviously I'm reading way too much fanfic.
     
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2012
  15. CrackedMind

    CrackedMind Minister of Magic

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    I always wanted to see a Mandalorian!Harry, but alas.
     
  16. Scrib

    Scrib The Chosen One

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    Ugh, fuck the Wankalorians.
     
  17. GrayFox

    GrayFox Slug Club Member DLP Supporter

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    Its not just me
     
  18. Tasoli

    Tasoli Minister of Magic

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    ^QUOTE in your sing. Where did you get that?
     
  19. Heather_Sinclair

    Heather_Sinclair Chief Warlock

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    I was poking fun actually; like a running gag.
     
  20. GrayFox

    GrayFox Slug Club Member DLP Supporter

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    sure:rolleyes:
     
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