ALIEN: The Weyland-Yutani Report (S.D. Perry, 160 pages)

[Xenomrph]

You know I never actually looked at 'Prey' that way, and you bring up a REALLY good point.

Going by other EU sources I'd like to believe that they have SOME standards, it just varies from individual to individual or between tribes or whatever.

[happypred]

You know I never actually looked at 'Prey' that way, and you bring up a REALLY good point. Going by other EU sources I'd like to believe that they have SOME standards, it just varies from individual to individual or between tribes or whatever.

I'd go so far as to say that it's glaringly obvious if one actually pays attention to how the other predators behave in Prey.

Broken Tusk's students attack a human family. They kill the father, the unarmed mother, and the family's dog. They then try to kill the kid as he escapes on the hover bike. They're clearly not a bunch of "honourable" space samurai. In all likelihood, asshole students remain assholes when they become Blooded. Other predators probably view Broken Tusk as the uptight, "by the book" type. 

[Kimarhi]

Well its not like samurai were always noble either.  They were such douches when they visited Okinawa that a whole martial art was developed to disarm them from their samurai swords.  (precursor to karate)

Perception is reality.

We perceive samurai as strict code followers that do what they have to in an honorable fashion.  Not people that slaughtered unarmed innocents on Okinawa (and other places).

[Xenomrph]

Yeah, the point being that trying to classify the entire race as "honorable" (or saying that's how they "should" be) kind of misses one of the fundamental parts of the Predator creature concept: their individuality. About all we can say about them is "their culture puts a lot of relevance on hunting", but what that actually means varies from tribe to tribe and even individual to individual.

[happypred]

Yes, that's why I find it silly when people say "Steve Perry turned the predators into honourable space samurai"

Only one predator could be considered "honourable". The rest were complete douchebags (by human standards). It makes me wonder whether people who claim to dislike Prey for this reason have actually read the book

[SiL]

Perry made Predators honourable space samurai not by portraying each one that way, but by making the ones who don't out to be dicks (even by Predator standards). Broken Tusk is the protagonist, he's presented as the ideal Predator in the story, not them. The audience is left seeing him as how a Predator ought to act because he's the freaking good guy.

[Kimarhi]

I was gonna say.

Still doesn't really bother me.  I think mainly because I care about the Preds less.

[happypred]

Perry made Predators honourable space samurai not by portraying each one that way, but by making the ones who don't out to be dicks (even by Predator standards).

We don't know that. Maybe they are dicks when measured against the ideal, but it seems that the majority of predators are dicks. Would you still be considered a dick if, say, 90% of the population behaves like you? 

Broken Tusk is the protagonist, he's presented as the ideal Predator in the story, not them.

Depends on who's judging him. He probably thinks of himself as the ideal hunter/warrior. His students might view him as a pompous, uptight, "do everything by the rules" stiff

The audience is left seeing him as how a Predator ought to act because he's the freaking good guy.

But all the other predators in Prey aren't like that.

The predators are only a race of noble space samurai if a large majority of them behave like Broken Tusk. If predator society officially places great value on being honourable and fair but in practice, very few predators actually behave that way, then the predators are not a race of noble space samurai. They are a race of space hypocrites.

[SiL]

Whether 90% of the Predator population are arseholes, whether Broken Tusk is considered an uptight fogey by Predator society, and whether all the other Predators in the book are different doesn't really matter.

I know that sounds silly, but that's how stories work. The Aliens in Aliens don't actually act like wholly mindless cannon fodder, either, but that's the perception so many people are left with, so that's what people make them. Perry gave us this noble, honourable Predator (or at least, fleshed him out) and he's the Predator character the reader connects with and sees through. It doesn't matter if all of the others are tools: Broken Tusk doesn't like them, so we don't like them. That's the popular image that comes out of reading the book.

Whether it's entirely accurate isn't particularly relevant. Broken Tusk is the "good" Predator, so all "good" Predators -- even the villainous ones -- ought to act like Broken Tusk.

That's how Perry made Predator honourable space samurai. It's the image that sticks.

(EDIT: I'm not actually saying I agree, I'm just explaining how it's entirely justified to say Perry changed the popular perception of the Predator).

[happypred]

Then we're not really disagreeing

You can't blame Perry if readers misinterpret his work. By "turn the predators into space samurai", I mean "potray the predators as a race of fair, noble, honourable space samurai". Steve Perry didn't do that.

What Steve Perry did was write a novel susceptible to misinterpretation. Similarly, Cameron's Aliens is susceptible to misinterpretation. The aliens aren't mindless cannon fodder. They might not be as smart as intelligent human beings but they show above-animal intelligence on several occasions (cutting the power, crawling through the ventilation shafts). It's highly debatable whether Kane's son is smarter than the xenomorphs in Aliens. 

[SM]

But didn't Perry base his Predator on what existed from Randy Stradley?

[SiL]

Perry took it much further. The comic pretty much left it within the sporting/unsporting "rule" of the original movie.

[SM]

Oh right.

Been a long while since I read either the comic or book.

[Xenomrph]

Then we're not really disagreeing

You can't blame Perry if readers misinterpret his work. By "turn the predators into space samurai", I mean "potray the predators as a race of fair, noble, honourable space samurai". Steve Perry didn't do that.

What Steve Perry did was write a novel susceptible to misinterpretation. Similarly, Cameron's Aliens is susceptible to misinterpretation. The aliens aren't mindless cannon fodder. They might not be as smart as intelligent human beings but they show above-animal intelligence on several occasions (cutting the power, crawling through the ventilation shafts). It's highly debatable whether Kane's son is smarter than the xenomorphs in Aliens. 

This is a really good point, especially in light of how often 'Aliens' gets misinterpreted as the Aliens being mindless cannon-fodder. I mean yeah I can see where people could get that impression about the Aliens from that movie, but there's a lot of other things going on in that movie that run counter to it that people seemingly forget.

I remember discussions on this very forum where Steve Perry himself defended portraying the Aliens as mindless cannon-fodder in his books.
Makes me wonder if anyone ever brought up the very point with him that you're bringing up about Predators not all universally being "honorable space-samurai".

[Corporal Hicks]

Did you read 'Predator: South China Sea'? It's pretty kickass and does a good job of making both the humans AND Predator into interesting characters.

Brilliant book. Thoroughly enjoyed SCS. I know I'm a bit late but I'll get this on the front page this evening.