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The Secret History of Star Wars — Page 4

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Originally posted by: caligulathegod
Content is excellent, as before. I did notice that the new edition still refers to Anakin's virgin birth as an "immaculate conception." Immaculate conception is not virgin birth. It is a Roman Catholic concept created to reconcile how Mary, as a human and subject to Original Sin, as are all humans, could give birth to a sinless Jesus. It was decided that Mary, unique among humans, was gifted a special grace by God and was not stained by Original Sin from the moment of her conception by normal sexual intercourse. So of Anakin Skywalker, Christ, Buddha, or Heracles, none was born by immaculate conception. Mary was.

The Roman Catholic doctrine of Incarnation refers to the virgin birth of Christ. Immaculate Conception and Incarnation are specifically Roman Catholic doctrines rather than generic terms for the concepts to which they refer.


Yeah, but in common understanding when you say "Immaculate conception" people understand "virgin birth." To me, it seems that since "Immaculate (free of sin, virginal) conception" is not just a title but also simply a description it is still apt to use it in this broader sense, though its true that in Catholic theology it refers to a specific event (ie Mary's conception).
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Yeah, it's not meant as a criticism. The book is just so fascinating that when I run across those it takes me out of it for a brief period. Everyone commits typos. That Loose/lose one is just one of my biggest pet peeves and it drives me nuts when I see it because it's usually not a typo but how that person thinks it is spelled. I'd actually mentioned it before in the thread back in May but it wasn't addressed so I just mentioned it again. I've even seen professional help manuals and websites that miss that one, since spell check overlooks it. But yeah, there/they're/their drives me nuts, too, as well as your/you're. The worst one has got to be "I should of done that" instead of "I should've done that. ("should have")" That doesn't even make sense. No one is talking about pluperfect subjunctives or anything complicated and esoteric. If I make a basic grammar mistake, I'd rather be corrected here than use it on a job application or presentation to a customer and look foolish. We're all just afraid to be "Grammar Nazis" when, on occasion, it becomes right and proper to make suggestions. Casual posts in a forum might not need corrected (and can technically be rude, unless done in the right manner), but I think a 500 page tome of worthwhile scholarship is one of those situations.

Oh yeah, another one that I see a lot now is Ludacris/ludicrous. Apparently everyone thinks that is how it is spelled now, but I digress.
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Well, I cleaned up a lot of the typos from the original version, LOL. I'm pretty sure I've gotten them all, but I've been going through the book again this week and making little nip-tucks.

And yeah, "there", "their" "they're"--especially that last one--can be annoying when you see it. Hopefully I am not guilty of that!
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Originally posted by: caligulathegod
Content is excellent, as before. I did notice that the new edition still refers to Anakin's virgin birth as an "immaculate conception." Immaculate conception is not virgin birth. It is a Roman Catholic concept created to reconcile how Mary, as a human and subject to Original Sin, as are all humans, could give birth to a sinless Jesus. It was decided that Mary, unique among humans, was gifted a special grace by God and was not stained by Original Sin from the moment of her conception by normal sexual intercourse. So of Anakin Skywalker, Christ, Buddha, or Heracles, none was born by immaculate conception. Mary was.

The Roman Catholic doctrine of Incarnation refers to the virgin birth of Christ. Immaculate Conception and Incarnation are specifically Roman Catholic doctrines rather than generic terms for the concepts to which they refer.


Yeah, but in common understanding when you say "Immaculate conception" people understand "virgin birth." To me, it seems that since "Immaculate (free of sin, virginal) conception" is not just a title but also simply a description it is still apt to use it in this broader sense, though its true that in Catholic theology it refers to a specific event (ie Mary's conception).


But it is still incorrect. I see no purpose in perpetuating a mistake regardless of the public misperception. The Secret History of Star Wars should illuminate the truth rather than perpetuate error. Plus, do you really want to rely on the assumption of error on the part of your reader to get your point across? Especially when those that do know the difference will be confused or irritated. Don't get me wrong. I'm not objecting to the religious content. I think earlier someone objected to what I found to be true and incisive scholarship on your part involving Christian myths. I'm only interested in correcting the nomenclature involved. Immaculate conception is something specific to Roman Catholicism and not even Christianity at large and it is only tangentially related to the virgin birth. Incarnation or simply "virgin birth" would be clearer rather than assume error on the part of the reader.

Here's a Wiki link to Incarnation. It is the more correct term regardless of religion.
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Well, I cleaned up a lot of the typos from the original version, LOL. I'm pretty sure I've gotten them all, but I've been going through the book again this week and making little nip-tucks.

And yeah, "there", "their" "they're"--especially that last one--can be annoying when you see it. Hopefully I am not guilty of that!




No, your work is great. I take it seriously enough that I'm bringing up what might be brought up by a real editor. Keep up the good work. I really love this book of yours.
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Originally posted by: zombie84


The Roman Catholic doctrine of Incarnation refers to the virgin birth of Christ. Immaculate Conception and Incarnation are specifically Roman Catholic doctrines rather than generic terms for the concepts to which they refer.


Yeah, but in common understanding when you say "Immaculate conception" people understand "virgin birth." To me, it seems that since "Immaculate (free of sin, virginal) conception" is not just a title but also simply a description it is still apt to use it in this broader sense, though its true that in Catholic theology it refers to a specific event (ie Mary's conception).


Outside of the Catholic idea of sex being dirty, immaculate conception wouldn't even make any sense in regards to Anakin. Unless we are talking about physical dirtiness or messiness, but that is part of the fun... At anyrate, immaculate has never meant virginal. It may not be just a title, and it may be a decription, but even outside of Catholic doctrine it still simply means clean and doesn't refer to virgin. I don't really see any evidence of the term even being applicable in any broader sense to apply to the idea of a virgin birth other than by the misconception of what the word actually means. Even if you search "immaculate" in wikipedia (the ultimate scholarly source of information, LOL) it will redirect you to "immaculate conception" with a link at the top that say if you meant the virginal conception of Jesus Christ, see Incarnation (Christianity) or Virgin Birth of Jesus. So it is enough of a misconception that wikipedia places a direct link to the "virgin birth" page from the "immaculate conception" page, but it still recongnizes that they are two different things.

Sorry, I am certianly not trying to nitpick your work. I love the book you wrote and have even recommended it to some friends from outside the forum and they too read it and liked it. I am trying to help you with a tiny bit of constructive critisim, but I know as well as anyone when help isn't wanted it can be very annoying. If this is the case, my sincere apologies.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I think this type of "clean" refers to the blood that may be spilled the first time a female person has sex (i.e. loses her virginity). At least that's the ethymological point of view I have seen it from over all these years.
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Seriously, I kid you not, immaculate conception has absolutely nothing to do with not having a blood spot from the woman loosing her virginity. The word immaculate means spotless, pure, flawless, etc. Its association with Mary and Jesus comes from the Catholic idea of the immaculate conception, ie Mary was conceived immaculately. This does not mean her mom was a virgin, or that her mom did not bleed or anything else like that. And it has nothing to do with the way in which Jesus was conceived. It does not derive from some other etymological meaning, or any like that. Like I said, the word "immaculate" became associated with the word "conception" simply because of the Catholic idea of immaculate conception.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Originally posted by: caligulathegod
Loosing?


Do'h!! See, that is really easy too do.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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No, I do appreciate the input. If it bothers or distracts people I'll edit it out because its semantic meaning is really secondary to the actual point I was making.
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Originally posted by: zombie84
If it bothers or distracts people I'll edit it out because its semantic meaning is really secondary to the actual point I was making.


Yeah, I know that. Your meaning came across perfectly clear. It is not that it bothers or distracts me. I would think YOU would want your book to be as accurate as possible. I imagine a lot of people are going to be reading your book over the years to come, most of them will not even notice it, but inevitably there will be a handfull who do. When it really comes down to it, it doesn't matter one bit. As long as the important facts that are discussed in the book are accurate, that is all that matters. And with all the time, research and care you have put into this thing, I don't have too much doubt that they are.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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You guys definitely need to check out our new documentary, The People vs. George Lucas:

www.peoplevsgeorge.com

If you're compelled to speak up about this, please send us your footage!
Alexandre O. Philippe
The People vs. George Lucas
Release date: 2009
Which side are you on?
www.peoplevsgeorge.com
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To add to this (and I'm sure it's been since corrected), "Immaculate Conception" refers to the Virgin Mary in Catholic doctrine (there's a parallel in Orthodox doctrine, but most Protestants and non-Christians don't accept it or even know what it means)...

That Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin. That is, the tendency towards sin that all other human beings (sans Jesus of course) were born with since the congenital stain inherited from Adam & Eve (read St. Augustine for exhaustive detail) is not present in Mary, so that she can be the "pure vessel" to hold the perfect Christ in her womb.

To say Anakin is an "Immaculate Conception" is thus totally wrong and makes no sense at all. If it were true, then Anakin would be born sinless, meaning he could not have become Darth Vader (as we know he does in the story).

We don't know if Shmi Skywalker is a virgin, but the movie puts forth the notion that she got pregnant without intercourse, which is what the virginal conception of Jesus (and virgin birth) was all about.


To sum up, according to Catholic teaching:

Mary's parents were ordinary people who had sex. Mary's mother got pregnant and gave birth to Mary in the usual way.

Mary was born sinless, never committed sin in her entire life.

Mary got pregnant miraculously (she didn't have sex with anyone her entire life) and gave birth to Jesus, the sinless messiah who was both divine and human.

(and no, this doesn't mean Mary had sex with God or with an angel, there was no sex, period, again according to Catholic understanding).

And it's not that sex was assumed to be "dirty" but by giving Jesus a human father, it would diminish the miracle (so it wouldn't fit with the Christian interpretation of the prophecy of Isaiah) and give Joseph some kind of claim to being his actual father, rather than God.



To call anything that happens in Star Wars "Immaculate Conception" is to take a popular misunderstanding of the term (usually from non-Catholics or nominal Catholics) and slap it in there, which hurts the credibility of the piece.

It's not as bad as the "Jesus Myther hypothesis" that was in an early draft of "the Secret History of Star Wars" but it's still bad, and so I'm glad it's been addressed (right?).
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Okay I was WRONG, the document still contains some serious mistakes (I'm looking at the second edition I just downloaded):

Page 86 mentions "immaculate conception" (when it should say "virgin birth").... third full paragraph.

Page 356, second paragraph (claiming Jesus, Buddha and Heracles had "Immaculate Conceptions" which is blatantly false in terms of Heracles, misapplied when it comes to Jesus, and not true of Buddha either... if the writer meant VIRGIN BIRTH, that isn't true either, since Zeus had sex with Heracles' mother, and Buddha's mother had sex with her husband to produce her child).


Anakin Skywalker's virgin birth in Episode I = not an "Immaculate Conception" by any means. Immaculate Conception is only rightly applied to the Virgin Mary (and it could theoretically be applied to Jesus Christ, but nobody calls it that, because it's simply understood that God isn't a sinner).
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Something else I just noticed.... page 495 is blank.

The previous page states a Mark Hamill quote is coming... but the next page doesn't contain any text in the body area. What's up with that?
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Originally posted by: Kurgan
Something else I just noticed.... page 495 is blank.

The previous page states a Mark Hamill quote is coming... but the next page doesn't contain any text in the body area. What's up with that?


The page is there on the version I downloaded off the site yesterday. Possibly your version is corrupted or I corrected this mistake in the newer versions.

It may not be just a title, and it may be a decription, but even outside of Catholic doctrine it still simply means clean and doesn't refer to virgin

Outside the Catholic doctrine it is a colloquialism that is taken as meaning "virgin birth". I probably should use the term "virgin birth" so as to leave no doubt to what I am referencing (I believe its still in the book), but "immaculate conception" translates to "conceiving a child without sex" in the popular understanding (with regards to non-Catholicism), even if semantically the definition is technically not that specific.

Anakin wasn't even a virgin birth anyway (Schmi probably wasn't a virgin), he just was concieved without sex (an "undefiled" or "immaculate" conception). But thats the archetype it recalls. In fact not all "immaculate" conceptions in myth are virginal. And in some of them, like some of the Greek ones, they arent even immaculate, the gods actually have physical sex with women to sire a half-mortal son. "Divine conception" is probably a better term to all-encompass this stuff, but people identify meaning better with the term "immaculate conception", at least when it comes to Anakin.
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I thought we had already covered it. He just repeated everything I had said.

Anyway, I suppose it is just as well since there is still a misunderstanding. There IS no "Immaculate Conception" concept outside of the Catholic Church. No one else uses it for any other purpose, not even other Christians. The name sounds fancy and people know it has something to do with Jesus, but it's actually a rather esoteric notion about Mary. It's not a colloquialism but a malapropism that non-Catholics make. I don't understand why you would want to undermine your otherwise extremely impressive scholarship. When a fancy word is used incorrectly it undermines the credibility of the author. There's an irony in that the whole purpose of the book is to dispel the myths and half truths that George Lucas has spewed over the years causing misunderstandings about the nature of his sub-creation while still perpetuating a misunderstanding about Immaculate Conception. You are now aware that this word has a very specific and exclusive meaning so there is no reason to use it incorrectly regardless of the general perception.


I really didn't mean it to become a big thing. It's just a personal pet peeve and I correct it when I see it.
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The horse is dead. Time to hang up the whip.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Its changed in the revision I am working on. I'm just saying that describing a sex-less conception as an "immaculate conception" is not that inaccurate. Its not a catholic thing; its part of a public calloquialism. It has catholic etymological roots but it doesn't belong belong to catholics, and its used freely by catholics and non-catholics to describe miraculous sexless conception. Schmi is not a virgin birth, so you could call it a "divine conception" or an "immaculate conception", but people understand "immaculate conception" better.
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Its changed in the revision I am working on. I'm just saying that describing a sex-less conception as an "immaculate conception" is not that inaccurate.

It's completely inaccurate. The term has NOTHING TO DO WITH SEX, and everything to do with ORIGINAL SIN.

Immaculate Conception = someone is conceived without the stain of original sin (applies to Jesus and Mary, but since Jesus is DIVINE, there's no reason to single him out as sinless, since of course God is sinless)

Virginal Conception = someone is conceived without sex (applies to Jesus alone)

Virtually all Christians accept the virginal conception of Jesus. Only Catholics (and perhaps some Orthodox, but it is not official teaching of any of those communions) accept the Immaculate Conception, and it refers exclusively to the virgin Mary.


Fact: In Catholic (and non-Catholic Christian) understanding, MARY'S PARENTS HAD SEX. Her mother got pregnant from her husband's sperm. Mary's mom gave birth to her. The only difference (for Catholics) between Mary and all other mortal human beings who have ever been born, is that she didn't have original sin (meaning she had no tendency to sin in life, meaning she was sinless as an adult). Protestants don't accept Mary's sinlessness (though Muslims apparently accept it), but they do accept the fact that her parents conceived her in the usual, biological fashion.

Fact: Both Catholics and the vast majority of non-Catholic Christians have traditionally accepted the "virgin birth" (virginal conception) of JESUS (Mary and Joseph didn't have sex to produce Jesus, rather Mary became pregnant miraculously of the Holy Spirit). I don't know of any who assert that Mary's parents didn't have sex to produce her.

So if sex is "dirty" then how was Mary kept unstained by Original Sin even though her parents had sex? IC just means that she herself is unstained, not that her virginity made her pure (she was pure from conception, not from when she hit puberty and decided to abstain from all sexual activity).


Since non-Christian religions (like Greco-Roman pagan religions) lack a belief in original sin, "Immaculate Conception" has no meaning. Virginal Conception might, but again, that's another topic entirely (and I would still say there's a difference Christianity's virgin birth story and Zeus transforming into an animal to physically seduce a human woman and produce a half-divine child).


Its not a catholic thing; its part of a public calloquialism.

And it's completely wrong, just like the stories Lucas is perpetuating about Star Wars. So promoting ignorance via repetition of a common misunderstanding undermines the entire point of the work which is to correct the history of the development of the Star Wars stories.

It has catholic etymological roots but it doesn't belong belong to catholics,


It belongs completely to Catholics, who have and continue to define it as the sinless condition of Mary, the mother of Christ. If non-Catholic (or even some Catholic) laymen misuse the term to refer to another concept, that doesn't make their misapplication therefore excusable. A lot of people misquote Shakespeare or confuse common words with one another. That doesn't mean those things therefore are excusable mistakes when we know better either.

and its used freely by catholics and non-catholics to describe miraculous sexless conception. Schmi is not a virgin birth, so you could call it a "divine conception" or an "immaculate conception", but people understand "immaculate conception" better.


Anakin isn't divine (and calling the Force "God" is an outside interpretation of Star Wars which is another whole can of worms), so it's not a divine conception. We know he turns into an evil jerk, so he can't be sinless. We have no idea whether Shmi ever has had sex, but the movie leads us to believe that Anakin has no human father. So his conception is "miraculous" in the sense that the Force presumably has something to do with it (no other theory is presented in the movies themselves and Lucas hasn't said word one against those ideas, though in an early draft of Episode III Palpatine was to be Anakin's real father). Calling Anakin's conception an "Immaculate Conception" is completely erroneous, no matter how many Star Wars fans and movie reviewers have misapplied it to Anakin.

The fact is that if Anakin were sinless, the entire Star Wars saga wouldn't have happened like it did.



Once this error has been corrected (and it's a simple one to fix), I'll be happy. It's a pet peeve of mine too (ever since '99 when every other rant on Episode I misused the term).
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Okay, I re-downloaded the secret history of star wars and 495 is there (though "immaculate conception" is still mentioned on twice- on pages 86 and 356).


I do notice that when I download the PDF and open it in adobe reader the first time, it says that the file is "damaged but being repaired."
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Originally posted by: Kurgan

It belongs completely to Catholics,


I'll just say that this is the point of departure for you, and that thats your view. Since non-Catholics use it in non-catholic usage, that means it doesn't belong to Catholicism, even if they are the ones that coined the phrase. You're looking at it from the perspctive of Catholic dogma. Since that term--not The Immaculate Conception, the specific Catholic theological event--has come to encompass a broader, non-Catholic-specific meaning, it hence has more uses that those with regards to Catholic dogma. If I said "the Immaculae Conception refers to Jesus' sinless conception" (a common misconception about the term) that would be wrong, because thats in reference to a Catholic context where it has a specific point of reference, whereas in a non-Catholic context its definition is not related to the Catholic deities and their specific conditions.

In the Catholic context its a specific theological event. All other places, its just two words that describe a generalised definition of conception without intercourse. I'm sorry if you cannot believe or accept that.
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Originally posted by: Kurgan
It's completely inaccurate. The term has NOTHING TO DO WITH SEX, and everything to do with ORIGINAL SIN.


I don't mean to nitpick, but you're kind of nitpicking Zombie here, particularly in light of the fact that he's already changed his text, so I'll go for it:

The term immaculate, while not containing the word sex in its definition, actually has nothing to its meaning which absolutely forbids its application to sex if people really want it to. I personally think it's stupid to use the term "immaculate conception" to describe a virgin birth, since it muddles the origin and meaning of that technical phrase within Roman Catholic thought, but it's not exactly as if the terms "immaculate" and "conception" cannot possibly be combined to have a different meaning involving a "sexless" impregnation, since sex can be a messy, spot-producing thing I suppose. In fact, that is probably how the Roman Catholic phrase was originally misunderstood; it's too vague.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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The thing is, there's a concept in the English language called connotation and denotation. Denotation is the literal meaning of a word or phrase. Connotation is the subjective meaning of a word and it implies an underlying meaning beyond the literal. For example, someone described as stubborn could be called strong-willed or pig-headed. They both mean stubborn in the literal sense but strong-willed implies admiration for the level of someone's will, while pig-headed implies frustration in dealing with someone. While one could spin the individual words to mean basically the idea of a "clean" conception (e.i. without the stain of blood or other bodily fluids), the concept being attributed is a parthenogenic virgin birth. The term immaculate conception already exists in the context of a virgin birth and it is used for something else. You can call a room or a table immaculate and just mean clean. When you are referring to an incarnation (the proper term), the phrase immaculate conception already has meaning and baggage relating to a specifically Catholic dogma. No one else uses the term immaculate conception for that or any other idea. Think of it like, say, a copyright of a common word. You could open a garage to fix cars and call it "Apple Autocare", or you could open a hairstyling salon and name it "Apple Hairstyling". You can't start a record company and call it Apple because that's taken and you can't start a computer company and call it Apple because that's taken, also. Do you see my point? Immaculate is a word and conception is a word. Put them together and relate it to a virgin birth and you've violated copyright, if you will.

Another point is that it is not truly in the general vernacular except as a mistake. Even when used mistakenly, it always refers to the concept of a virgin birth in comparison to Jesus. As it is an exclusively Catholic concept and not just descriptive words put together to describe parthenogenesis (in other words, you won't ever hear a scientist or teacher use it when referring to amphibians or reptiles that spawn with asexual procreation), it does imply a comparison to Christ and a divine involvement. So when used in context of an Anakin Skywalker, it is still meant to imply or invoke a comparison to Jesus and divinity. Once a person is educated on the matter, he should use the terms correctly rather than perpetuate the incorrect usage. When used incorrectly, it comes across as ignorance in furtherance of appearing erudite. It's like how you can tell someone has little experience with computers when they refer to the picture on their desktop as their "screen saver". On a computer, the screen saver is a specific program that comes on when the computer is idle for a period of time to prevent the screen from burning in (on old CRT monitors) it's not the picture on their computer screens behind their icons. Changing the background of the desktop is one of the first things a person usually learns on a computer and they are often get confused by the terms.

The proper term is incarnation, which means literally "embodied in flesh", and it refers to the conception and birth of a sentient creature (generally a human) who is the material manifestation of an entity or force whose original nature is immaterial. That describes Anakin being conceived of the Force in a most succinct and descriptive way without involving any specific denomination or baggage.

For the record, I really didn't mean it to be a major thing, just a minor correction like fixing a typo. The only reason that it's gone on is that there's a difference in arguing differences of interpretation and correcting outright error. You aren't going to find an authoritative source that doesn't say what we've been saying. It's actually one of those things that rarely gets discussed educationally where the author doesn't point out the common error; like when someone is writing educationally about snakes, they almost always point out how snakes are not slimy despite the general perception that they might be.

Anyway, I've said all I care to on the subject. Do what you will, I suppose. If you were going to be published professionally, you would most likely receive the same comments from your editor. We love your work and greatly admire it. You've actually done the research and backed up things I've said for years but with so much more detail and dedication. It's nice to have an authoritative source for exposing Lucas' mischaracterizations of his conception of Star Wars over the years. We're just helping correct typos. You've put in all the hard work and love.