: Hello, gentlebeings, and welcome to the final section of our commentary about “The Bartender’s Tale,” wherein WHYYYYYYYY.
In personal news, in the last two weeks I have finished my … I have to think about this now… eighth arrangement (fourth collaborative arrangement) and third set of lyrics for someone else’s arrangement; concerts coming up the weekend after Hallowe’en and two weeks after that; life is hectic but good.
Which is nice, because I’ve this commentary to do, and WHYYYYYYY.
: In other news, I finally picked up some of the books I’ve been meaning to get, including Zahn’s new Thrawn novel (which I’m already thinking might be what breaks the seal for us with the new canon, though I won’t predict how many years it’ll take to get there), and the new version of the Tales-style side-story anthology, From a Certain Point of View.
I’ve not started that one yet, but I am looking forward to it–they got some really good names writing stories there. The one thing I have heard, though, I’m not impressed by. I may have misheard, and there may be more to it, but…it sounds like whoever wrote Greedo found an even more cliched reason for Greedo to hate Han.
I’ll report back when I know for sure.
In the meantime, the WHYYYYYYY goes marching on.
: Last we saw Wuher, he was leaving the cantina after some sort of epiphany that he must save the droid who’d asked for his help, after all. When his assistant asked where he was going, he grandiosely declared he was “leaving on a mission of mercy:”
Thus saying, Wuher left.
Hi, tonal mismatch. I hadn’t missed you. But before this section is over I’ll miss you bitterly… or more accurately, I’ll miss when you were the most obvious problem.
: This is like its own version of a suspense story, here. Like, I know what the reveal is. But I don’t know if you, the reader, does. Z… wishes she didn’t.
(She gave me grief last week, both on and off line, for where I cut the story.)
: I mean, on the one hand you had a perfect right, but on the other hand WHYYYYYYY.
Wuher goes back to the alley where the droid begged him and said he would be recharging at during the day, but the droid isn’t there, and Wuher is alarmed. “The droid must be saved.” All of y’all’s starting-to-grow senses of dread are only for the best, believe me. He examines the ground and finds some fresh tracks, small prints, obviously a Jawa, and we’re going to skip right over the discussion of Holmes, Wuher Holmes, because that’s the least of our issues. He follows the tracks while taking his club in his hand and finally lays eyes on a Jawa and the droid with a new restraining bolt fitted on him.
(I’m using “him” for the droid, as is good and proper, although Wuher keeps thinking “it.” I’ll try to make sure there’s no confusion.)
: On that point at least, because confusion there is.
: He runs up behind them before they can get to a main road and quite literally brains the Jawa. The WHYYYYYYYs are, I am sorry to say, only beginning. He drags what I am very afraid is a body to a darker part of the alley (why)–
: The forms must be obeyed…
: –and removes the restraining bolt from the droid, only to receive profuse thanks (“You have delivered me from my enemies,” which line meant nothing to me when I was a teenager and now makes me nauseous after approximately a decade’s worth of exposure to psalms read at church). Wuher plays along, and okay, I think we’ve found someone who’s got an even worse tin ear for dialogue than George Lucas, and that takes doing: “You’re welcome, Ceetoo-Arfour. Yes, I realized that you were a wronged droid. The squalor and sadness of my life made me realize that I should do something good and worthwhile for once.”
If this is some fifteen-dimensional chess on the part of the author to indicate that Wuher is manipulating the naive droid, there’s Issue The First about writing the droid that naive in the first place, and Issue The Second about the readers all very naturally coding the droid as a moron, not naive, and Issue The Third about WHYYYYYYY.
: No, I really think Wuher’s moment of Cosmic Wisdom made him a more enlightened individual, freed from his prejudice.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s idiotic. But I think it’s genuine.
: You do know that’s worse, right. Because that is the most Fakey McFakersson way of expressing that which could have been.
But moving on.
I turn the page on my tablet and instantly regret it:
“Oh, my lucky stars shine this day. Sir, you have redeemed my faith in the true pure spirituality of the human soul. For you see, we droids, though of metal, possess consciousness and thus spirituality as well.”
“Oh, good. I’m sure we’ve got a lot of philosophy that we can discuss.”
Bischoff, whom exactly are you mocking, droids, this droid who is one of your own characters WHYYYYYYY, Wuher who is ditto, or the reader? Because let me tell you exactly how much I don’t appreciate this, and I’m beginning to nurse revenge fantasies involving you and R2-D2 in a locked room.
At least he didn’t say “mine lucky stars shineth,” I’d be short a tablet.
: If your tablet is developing shorts, you should stop gripping it so tightly…
: Oh, that’s what those flashes are? Well, now that I know…
Wuher says that he’s completely changed how he feels towards droids and he’ll hide the droid in the basement of the cantina where it’s safe without droid detectors. C2 says he’s finally experiencing the milk of human kindness WHYYYYYYY. Wuher says he isn’t interested in milk today.
Bischoff, newsflash? That isn’t… smart, really. Not if I could see it coming from three lines away, even though I tried really, really hard not to.
Scene cut: Wuher is taste-testing another iteration of his target liquor. And, this one is a success, he can already smell something new, and he can detect “a hint of bergamot” and… something better and more. Will, this is my revenge for leaving this part to me, because go ahead and look at Earl Grey the same way after this:
“The taste of two bloody aliens arut in a tangle of erupting spice pods and mud mushers.”
: You forget, my wakeup drink has the smell of walking through a burning cedar forest. But yes, I think that even across the fictional multiversal divide, Jean-Luc Picard (which–speaking of an expanded universe that got itself lost up its own…erm) winced.
: Governor Nereus of Bakura had more decency in him than this entire story. No, really, because this still isn’t our worst problem.
That… description… is said to hit him powerfully, as if someone had kicked him in the head. (I wish. I really wish.) He falls off his stool, and C2-R4 solicitously asks if he’s okay. Wuher is.
: On the short list of good/interesting points, this continues the whole “bartending for multiple species is alchemy” one; Wuher is basically drinking, if not poison, something his system is completely incompatible with. No wonder it knocks him for a loop.
: The beaker is almost half full of this new “deadly elixir,” and more is being distilled in the lab apparatus, and Wuher is very happy (“a silly smile on his face,” and I recognize that as the silly smile of someone who’s in the throes of creation and I HATE YOU BISCHOFF) and Wuher thinks that this is exactly the liquor that Jabba the Hutt will love.
The droid is a bit concerned at that name, because isn’t that a criminal gang lord? Nonsense, says Wuher, he’s wronged by his enemies but he will be our benefactor! We’re going into business together, and first we’ll work for Jabba, then we’ll leave this detestable planet and become great, wooo!
: I wonder if this is supposed to be more of Wuher’s sudden philosophical change, or just him being box-of-hammers dumb.
: “Detestable” is an interesting choice of word there. Because next we get a snapshot of the distillery/lab: C2-R4 is standing in the center, and has a new spigot installed on his side, under which a small bottle is filled with emerald green liquid. We’re told that this is the Jabba-happy-making-secret-sauce. And
: *watches it coming*
: Look I’m sorry
This isn’t my fault
WHYYYYYYYY
and there’s a green alien foot in the toothy grill-jaw of the droid, which had been lovingly described when we first met him, remember.
No, please go ahead and take that moment, I’ll wait.
In case we’re all illiterate and also six months old and also tadpoles or maybe baby ladybugs or something and didn’t get it: Greedo’s head is literally hanging from a literal spike in the alcove next to the droid.
: His head on a spike, and his bits in a straw.
: Wuher toasts the head for the alien’s pheromones.
I hope Jabba sits on you, Wuher.
C2 complains that his grinders will need sharpening after this, since “the creature was a gnarly, gristly thing.”
I hope Jabba sits on you too, C2.
The story ends by literally saying that Wuher now had an entirely new attitude toward droids, and WHYYYYYYYY.
: As we rocket away at hyperspatial speeds…
: I’m really frantically searching for an answer. If this was meant to be a horror story…? Nothing else fits that, not the tone, no buildup of tension, the twists weren’t telegraphed, they were bullhorned, and WHYYYYYYYY. Were we supposed to go “ah, just desserts!” because Greedo was arrogant towards Wuher and also obviously a bad guy because he tried to shoot Han?
: More like just aperitif.
: WILL!!!!!!!
!!
!
(“And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head.” –Terry Pratchett, Maskerade
“It’s all Will’s fault.” –Z, here and now)
But anyway. I am very sure that there are second graders who would be able to construct that by stylistic choices better than this. To show that Wuher is a bad guy? Subtlety isn’t Star Wars‘ strong suit, but this isn’t only not subtle, this is not subtle like a kaiju.
Were we taking the “someone in the throes of creative madness can and will do anything” tack? This is meant to be a psychological exploration of the horrors of the one-track, obsessive mind?
- Do not want. 2. This is horribly done. 3. Do not want. 4. Go read Perfume, [link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume_(novel) ] which I also loathe and couldn’t read past about twenty pages by the way but at least it’s a classic and stylistically light-years better. 5. If this was an “homage” to Perfume… no. 6. Do not want.
I hope Jabba sits on you, Bischoff.
: I really think it was intended as a bit of…I dunno. Humor? Random wackiness?
: And on you, KJA. Because for the sake of whatever’s holy, this story was picked by you, presumably edited by you, and deemed acceptable by you for inclusion in an actual publication bearing your actual name. I cannot blame the author solely for a story in an anthology; the editor is quite literally the gatekeeper. After this, I’m actually surprised not to find photoreproductions of pages scribbled in crayon as one of the later “stories” for all the gatekeeping that was obviously performed.
That’s it, I’m done. Will?
: Yeah, not a lot to add here. This was a misstep and I can’t say I’m shocked that Bischoff didn’t work in Star Wars again; tonal mismatch doesn’t begin to describe it. The one good idea is lost in a sea of nope.
But we’re out, so.
Next week, a different spin on the Scene, and more than a little tonal mismatch again! Z and I are considering whether to take a break from this messy book for a while, maybe do something else as (ahem) a palate cleanser, before coming back to it. Watch this space!
But until next week, may the Force be with you.
Force Visions 