Why aren't the Rogues more screwed up?

[Jesina Dreis]

There's a similar thread to this in the Lounge but I wanted to take a different angle.

We see in the books a few occasions where characters run into some emotional trouble.

Han descends into a drunk stupor after Vector Prime and Donos has a breakdown after losing his astromech. If I remember correctly, Kell had a few problems because of his daddy issues.

All totally reasonable, I think, given the circumstances.

So why don't we see this with the Rogues?

They've been flying, by the time of Adumar, for thirteen years. They've lost friends, watched their entire squadron decimated except for themselves on more than one occasion. Tycho's faced Imperial torture that rendered him catatonic, and which he alludes to, pointing out that nothing the NR could do would match up to a single day in Imperial captivity. Hobbie and the ground are way too friendly; the man's lost limbs and died, depending on who you talk to Janson, well, occasionally we get allusions to how he feels about himself but they're few and far between.

Why don't they have problems? Why don't we see any of them deal with things like Han, or Donos, or Kell?

Janson considers himself potentially "unfit for a normal life when the war was over." In the beginning of Wraith Squadron, he seems genuinely afraid Kell's going to kill him (which I personally see more as paranoia than a well-founded fear, but that's me). Hobbie looks like he might snap on Adumar when he demands to be able to shoot something, but that's more comic relief.

I think that's as close as we get to seeing any real sign of emotional trouble with these guys. Why is that, when we've seen it with other characters, albeit only rarely?

I know you guys laugh at me because I'm all about the angst in my stories and part of that is challenging the limits and part of it is that I just think it's more interesting reading. But part of it is because I think it's unrealistic that these guys would do what they've done and see what they've seen and be none the worse for wear. I suppose we see Wedge hardened by it all somewhat but... I don't know.

Look around at the stories of returning veterans. These are guys that see one tour and come home and aren't functional. And that's no slight against them but genuine human emotion and ability to cope. Granted, there are the people who come home and are fine, who survive imprisonment at enemy hands but are fine. So maybe it is realistic. But why?

Is it the authors? Is it the target audience of the books? Is it something about the characters that you think, yeah, they could get through all this none the worse for wear?

[Corellia's Dream]

*screams* I'd written a couple of paragraphs in reply, but hitting the tab key or something caused the damn computer to eat my post, and it's all lost "

OK, one of the comments I was making. In regard to the Fab Four, I think that if Wedge hadn't got together with Iella, he'd have found it much harder to cope. Much as he likes the company of his fellow Rogues, he's always been a family man at heart, and he needs the warmth and the security of his family life to remind him that the galaxy isn't entirely about hate, politics and death. His family are his present and his future, and stop him from spending too much time brooding in the past.

[Astronut]

I think part of it is the audience of the books. They were meant to be wild romps across the galaxy; average heroes taking on an Evil Empire. So they through in some angst and drama to keep things moving, but it isn't the center, it's meant as high adventure. Having everybody's four favorite pilots behave in a manner that didn't seem to fit in with Top Gun would have be contrary to the purpose.

Now days, Del Ray seems to like the angst (and other depressing things) but minor characters have been lost in the overwelming cast list so we don't see any on page pilot angst, although some of the situations surely caused some.


Random tangent: This is one of the reasons I'm optimistically looking forward Shadows of Mindor. Stover tends to put his characters through an emotional grinder, meaning Luke getting torn apart is a given. However, given the timeframe (after the comics, before the X-Wing books) and that the Rogues are actually in this one, the squadron is likely to get shredded as well. So there's a fair chance we'll see angsty Wedge. Of course it's more likely I'll be highly disappointed. Again.

[Corellia's Dream]

I don't think I've read any of Stover's books so don't know what to expect. Like you, I suspect the Rogue will largely be backup, wiith little from their point of view, and that rather shallow - like Timothy Zahn's books.

Your point about the publishers aiming the books at a specific audience is one I was making before the computer ate my post. The Bantam books stayed largely in the spirit of the original movies, with plenty of adventure with a little angst. Del Rey seem to have encouraged Jedi angst, at the expense of other characters. Han Solo (who can't be ignored, really) and Jag Fel are about the only non-Jedi who get any real character development - unless Aaron Allston is writing (Wedge) or Karen Traviss (Boba Fett)

*This only really applies to stories set post-OT, as I've read very few books set during the Old Republic or Empire*