Hello friends, and happy weekend!
In books this week, I’ve started Galaxy’s Edge: Black Spire. Despite some reservations at first (I thought it might be too gimmicky, considering it’s based on an amusement park, lol), it’s pretty good so far. I like the complicated past between Vi Moradi and Archex, and am looking forward to the evolution of that relationship. I have to admit, though, when Vi walked through Black Spire Outpost on Batuu with a native showing her around, I got some serious “amusement park tour” vibes. That’s okay, though, as long as it pulls through on its promise of an interesting story.
I also finished “Skywalker: A Family At War,” by Kristen Baver. I’d had some reservations about this book, too, but it turned out to be surprisingly entertaining. It’s not in novel form at all, just a straight retelling of what happened to the Skywalkers, beginning with Anakin and ending with Rey. I appreciated Baver’s insight and interpretation of events, and liked reliving the scaled-down story in chronological order.
So now I get to choose a new Kindle book, and I think I’m going to order “Stories of Jedi and Sith,” a new book of short stories that just came out. I kind of forgot about it in my excitement of new novels; plus, I usually buy the middle-grade stuff on Kindle for some reason (don’t want to be caught reading kid’s stuff? Hmm…) Anyway, it should be fun.
Now, onto Obi-Wan Kenobi Part 5.
This was a great episode. I really loved how the director juxtaposed the flashback duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin with the events of the show. It was a great way, not only to get more Anakin in the series, but to show how these two know each other so well. It was a great characterization method.
As predicted by many, it was revealed that Reva had been one of the younglings shown during Order 66 at the beginning of the series. The revelation didn’t really have much of an impact for me, because it just seemed so obvious. And I’m not sure how she survived a lightsaber to the gut as a little girl, and again as an adult. Yeah, the Grand Inquisitor survived his gut-stab (two stomachs or something?) but Reva is human. It beggars belief, but okay.
But there’s still a lot of questions left about Reva: how did she become an Inquisitor? Why is she considered the “least” of them? I do like the fact that she only did it to get to Vader for revenge. I hate the idea of children being tortured into evil. That’s super disturbing. At least here, she has a purpose. And I love how Obi-Wan turns himself in and says to her, “You’re not bringing me to him. I’m bringing him to you.” Basically he’s saying, he’s all yours if you can manage it. He still doesn’t want to kill Anakin/Vader (his hesitation when Reva asks him, “You don’t really want to kill him, do you?” is telling.) So he’ll let Reva do it if she can, and in the meantime, get the people of the Path away.
Reva does attempt to get her revenge on Vader. But it just seemed so hopeless to begin with. When she began her attack, I thought, oh honey, no, that’s not gonna work…going up against Vader is beyond insane. And she fails miserably. He just toys with her for awhile before stabbing her with her own weapon. Why they don’t finish her off is beyond me, but it gives her a chance to find Bail’s message on that holo-chip thing (is it just me, or is Bail being extremely foolhardy for naming names in that message? Seems out of character, but he IS worn down with worry.) So now we have to wait and see what Reva does with this information. Clearly, with the last scene of little Luke sleeping away on Tatooine, he’s in danger, and Obi-Wan senses it.
There was a lot to love and mull over in this episode (and a few little nitpicks–seriously, they lost the hyperdrive? What is this, the Millennium Falcon? Lol.) But I’m chomping at the bit for next week, and there seems to be a lot to wrap up. I heard a rumor it might be an hour and a half long, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
That’s it this week. What’s been entertaining you? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!
Star Wars and Other Obsessions 
I sort of touched on this in my own recap last week, but… I have a bit of suspicion we’re about to find out how Vader learned of Luke’s existence. We were just kind of left to assume he learned about it some time after Yavin in the original movies, but it was never expressly drawn out. How, exactly, this game of telephone between Bail to Obi Wan to Reva to Vader would scrub out the fact that Luke is on Tatooine before Vader finds out about it is kind of up in the air, if this _is_ how it happens… but I’m not sure how many other plot developments to tie up loose ends we don’t know from the original trilogy are left on the table for this series to pick up.
We know now why Leia immediately reacts to Luke in ANH knowing that Ben and Obi-Wan are the same person, and perhaps even why Leia named her own son after his alias.
We know now why Obi-Wan thinks Vader is beyond redemption when Luke seemingly naively seeks to go about it.
We perhaps know why Obi-Wan thinks he’s getting “too old for this sort of thing” by ANH, although this leaves Rebels as a bit of an outlier with the idea that he’s still at something like full strength when Maul finds him.
The only questions left are, how does Vader know Luke exists (likely finding out before the Emperor, because he’s _clearly_ ahead of Palpatine on his information in their brief communications in TESB and is actively trying to keep it that way), and why does Obi-Wan have a more openly noticeable residence when he takes Luke in in ANH instead of continuing to live in a cave as we see him here? Does Vader somehow make it clear that he either doesn’t want to go to Tatooine to find his son, and/or does Reva go rogue after Vader stabbed her in a way that makes it clear that Vader won’t look for them there?
T minus 34 hours, 15 minutes, and counting… 😛
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These are all good questions. As far as Obi-Wan’s house, I think he’ll finally come to forgive himself for what happened to Anakin and allow himself to live in a real house rather than a cave, lol. I feel like right now he doesn’t believe he deserves it. Maybe Bail will help him out and pay for it in return for saving Leia (and maybe set him up with funds so he doesn’t have to have a menial job anymore, lol). But everything else is on the table, and I can’t wait!!!
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