#I cannot fucking believe they published that shit. and it gets glossed over bc the author DID queerbait to hell and back

[spectordameron]

Definitely not making it up! Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse features the charming scene of Maz physically assaulting and pinning Poe down to berate him, calling him arrogant several times (I think it's used probably eight times in two pages? I was genuinely shocked by how many times when I glanced at it the last time, did an editor not look at it) and comparing that so called arrogance to the First Order! And the author describes him as arrogant in nearly every interview she gave for the book (or supremely arrogant, if she was feeling a bit creative).

Various official tie in descriptions of him, especially for Topps and anything Pablo Hildago gets his hands on, uses the same thing, or uses other terms that essentially round back as synonyms for being arrogant, and that Skywalker: A Family at War in universe biography claims Poe is self involved and vain.

It is a gross perception of Poe that sprung up quite randomly and that Lucasfilm has been subtly pushing since before TLJ released properly (if you look at the visual dictionary for that film, you'll see that Hildago point blank rewrote the Resistance arc and Poes motivations, and goes as far to include that Leia doubts he can lead — the book came out prior to TLJ, and I really suspect it added to the poor reception of Poe's character) and hasn't dropped at all in the years since. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I can't remember re: novelizations, but I know Jason Fry dislikes Poe deeply and he wrote the TLJ novel and there's quite a few subtle digs in it from what I have seen at him.

What's quite ironic is that the tfa novelization opens with describing Poe as having a proud countenance that could be mistaken for arrogance.....

Guess Alan Dean Foster was a prophet.

okay maybe it's just because my eyes officially glaze over the term from how often I see it incorrectly applied to Poe, but I truly have to wonder why men, especially love interests, are always written by women and claimed by the protagonist to be arrogant. 'Cause I'm reading a romcom right now and it's got a dual pov and it's like, really undermining the claim that this guy is arrogant. I'm not even sure why the protagonist is calling him that he's just a smartass and a prankster...