She's space sick, and if I recall she was canned as a sw author over her mando love.
I think she quit when they retconned a lot of her backstory work for the Mandalorians in TCW... That being said, I'm not particularly familiar with terms of her career... I have read her blog enough to know the woman is certifiably insane.
What exactly is the point?
I mean, the blade is weightless, so essentially you're just swinging around a lightsaber hilt, without a blade attached.
There would really be no need for leverage or moving the blade faster or stronger as it wouldn't exactly change anything. A lightsaber is a lightsaber. A slow moving blade would still cut through the same metal as a fast moving one, the only difference is maybe the force or speed in which it cuts.
I understand the idea of leverage, but if the blade is completely weightless then it would be extremely easy to change the direction of the blade in mid-swing to swing it in a completely different direction.
Obviously, we never really saw that in any of the movies whatsoever, at least to my knowledge, and even video-games treat lightsabers as if it were a real sword such as the Jedi Knight series, most specifically, JK2 / JK3 in which Strong Style has the player moving really slowly to emphasize the strength even though technically, those movements are pointless and wouldn't add anything to power or strength.
Well, if we examine how a lightsaber works, it's quite different from a weightless blade attached to a hilt.
Apparently the gyroscopic effect makes a lightsaber nye impossible for anyone who isn't trained in the Jedi arts to wield.
A lightsaber has been shown to need more strength to move through certain types of armor. Think ESB when Luke tags Vader in the shoulder armor. He doesn't hit him hard enough to go all the way through his armor. There are numerous other instances in books and such. I'd have to read more to find them though lol.
Strength is also needed to power through an enemies defense... A lightsaber will stop on another blade, so strength is necessary when dealing with an opponent's strength.
Just some things to think about... I agree with your point though that half swording is unnecessary with a lightsaber.
Edit:
I disagree. It's lightsaber resistant, not proof. And the Mandos got built up quite a bit before Traviss got involved - they're presented as pretty nasty in KOTOR and its sequel, able to take on Jedi there...
And yes, Beskar is rare - the major deposits didn't get found until after the Vong carpet-bombed Mandalore. I imagine that working beskar is similar to katana manufacturing - rare, treasured, and difficult at best.
I think it'd be a shame to can her, really - I like how the Mandalorians got defined more as a culture through Traviss' work. Improved on the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy.
Mandos got built up, but they didn't get mary sued until Karen showed up... Mando's have always been Jedi killers... Hopefully that will never change, but there are some things that they are, and some things that they aren't.
I like some of what Karen did for the Mandos... She developed much of their culture and story, but some of it even was counter intuitive to how Mando's are often portrayed.
If I remember correctly, she went against everyone's wishes and killed off Mara Jade. Not her character, not her place to do so. Her hatred of Jedi pushed her to do so. She also frequently berated fans who expressed any opinions other than hers. She then proceeded to cry foul and quit when they retconned the slightest bit of her work. She's rather unprofessional if you ask me, and while she wrote some cool stories, she wasn't worth the trouble.
I was making the point that in the Karen Traviss novels she wrote that Beskar'gam was lightsaber proof.... One excerpt actually describes a lightsaber making contact with a crushgaunt, and barely scratching it's surface. My point is, that from Lucas' vision, nothing stops a lightsaber absolutely. While we see things that are resistant, he never intended anything to be impervious to a lightsaber blade.
As I said though, I really do like some of T