Yoda Kenobi explains why Karen Traviss is an awful author.

I'll apologize now for the length of this post, but I have a lot I wanted to say and I want to explain this as clearly as possible. I've divided this review up in more sections than I normally would, simply because I'm afraid it becomes a jumble otherwise.

The cover: Jacen looks like the lovechild of Andy Warhol and Dieter from Sprokets, with Skut Farkus' eyes and a mouthful of those wax vampire fangs we've all worn at some point or other on Halloween. He also looks more and more like he's wearing a green Holiday sweater every time I look at it. I guess we know what Jasa got for Christmas... and he's pissed.

The photoshopping of the space battle in the background and the SD hull look worse than things I've seen users here make for fan fics. That seems fitting, as Revelation is the worst fan fic I've ever read.


What I liked: Unfortunately this will be a shorter section than I would have liked.

The thing I liked most about this book was some of Jacen's characterization. There seems to be an attempt to dial things back to the Betrayal days (I would like to see more of a natural continuation from TUF, but this is definitely improvement).

For example, we see Jacen analyzing his actions in killing Tebut and finally making the connection that he's doing what he set out to stop! Still waiting for him to do similarly about Nelani, Mara, all the Wookiees, and, ya know, the whole vision of fighting Luke he didn't want to happen... But as I said, this is improvement. And I really appreciated the extra effort to get us away from the days of mustache twirling we've become accustomed to.

Some other things I liked in relation to Jacen were the scene where he realizes his eyes have changed to yellow, and also the way Jacen lost Luke in the X-Wing dogfight by putting the lives of civilians at risk and getting him to back off. I especially liked the way in which his influence over fleet commanders was presented through Niathal's POV over the comm, hearing them curse and scream at their crewpeople to motivate them with hatred— very effective.

There were also some elements of Tahiri's characterization that I liked, but I'll address that later.

Pellaeon's line about a gesture and two words was kind of cute.

And another thing I thought was good was the way Ben put pebbles in his shoes to change his gait and fool the security systems when he was looking for Shevu's girlfriend. I think Traviss is doing her best writing when she includes this kind of clever detail and would really like to see that level of care put into the rest of the story.


What I Didn't Like:

Traviss' writing style is all small, simple sentences, almost always turning inwards on the character than outwards. Some people may like this— I do not. I don't see much in the way of art to it, and it kind of reminds me of something I might see in a youngsters creative writing class. It does remind me of when I took journalism way back when, and the emphasis put on writing things so simply that a 4th grader could understand it.

There's rarely anything that's shown to us rather than told. If Caedus is sad, Traviss says that Caedus is sad— instead of say, having him look longingly out a viewport and letting us piece together what he's feeling.

The introspection takes a turn for the worst when it seeps into the dialogue. Most of the dialogue in Revelation is really pretty solid, but there are often moments when the characters start telling each other things that seem to intimate, like the way they think rather than what they're thinking. It's very awkward, like a soliloquy even though they're talking to another person.

As in Sacrifice and Bloodlines, there's a rhytmn to it all: Two paragraphs of introspection followed by a line or two from the character's thoughts, almost always closed with something sarcastic. The pattern and voice results in most characters sounding exactly the same.

And that's another problem that continues to be pervasive in Traviss' writing: All the characters sound the same, whether in their thinking or speaking. Often times, it's sarcasm punctuated by gruesome imagery. For example, on page 9 we see Pellaeon say, "I hope you're rushing to tell me that the chef has Jacen Solo's entrails and is braising them for dinner." It's the same voice we see from Boba Fett at the other end of the novel, on page 398 when he says, "You can invite Jacen Solo. He's a popular man on Corellia. They'd give him a warm welcome... heat-seeking missile, maybe."

It seems like Karen Traviss is writing with her own voice rather than giving her characters one.


The Rewrite:

There's been a lot of discussion about the intentional changes in continuity in relation to Shysa and Spar and I'll try not belabor the point here, other than to say I don't like it— especially because it seems so unnecessary.

According to our resident aficionado on all things Karen Traviss, patchworkz7, Karen said this as to her reasoning behind the rewrite:


Karen Traviss posted:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, I did change the continuity that appeared in Insider as "The
History of the Mandalorians" - I asked LFL if I could [change it] to make a better and
more logical story. They agreed to it. There'll be more changes
visible in Order 66, too.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Am I the only one who doesn't see how this makes things better or more logical? In fact, I can't see what it added to the story at all. I can't see what even mentioning Shysa really added to the story. We've already gotten lots on "Boba the reluctant leader" so it just seems like overkill, and completely pointless.

It just makes Shysa seem like a liar.

It does make me wonder if other things have been rewritten by Traviss and we just haven't been notified yet— it would certainly explain some things:

Did Traviss rewrite Mara's past and give her a severe head injury to explain why she was so unbelievably stupid in Sacrifice?

Or perhaps we can explain Jaina's characterization as a boy-obsessed princess— instead of fighting in the Yuuzhan Vong and Killik Wars, Jaina was just lounging around with her girlfriends reading the latest issue of Tiger Beat?


The Slop:

As in Sacrifice, I found much of Revelation to be distractingly sloppy. Though not as bad as her previous effort, it often seems as though Traviss forgets what she's already written and makes a lot of mistakes. Most times it's simply little things but there are enough instances of things that affect the story that you have to wonder about the lack of care in the writing and editing processes.

Right away in the prologue, we see Jaina calling Jacen a Sith and knowing he worked with Lumiya. Neither of which really adds up to what she should know at this point. This is a recurring problem in the story, as Luke also seems to know Jacen is a Sith without reason.

It seemed like there were a lot of instances where characters were aware of things they shouldn't have been. On page 181, Jaina remarks that Fett's comments about Jedi were, "No different than all the head-rolling jokes her father had made about Jango Fett's demise." Would Han even know about Jango Fett being killed by Mace Windu? It just seems... bizarre.

Some of the stuff was small, like the mention of a Yuuzhan Vong "soldier" (there was a YV "officer" mentioned in Sacrifice...) or page 363 when Jag brings a comlink in for Jaina to be present during the meeting between Ben and his family and reveal his evidence— a comlink that somehow gives her the ability to see them and for them to see her... No explanation on how this is possible. Others, had a direct impact on the story, like Mara's ghost appearing to Ben, but instead of coming out and telling him that Jacen murdered her and where to find the evidence, they do their best Penn & Teller routine for the sake of dragging it out. Though I did see some humor in Mara Jade pulling at her hair as a clever parody of the readers of this book...

In the vein of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, we have a window into Jacen's mind on page 325 that gives us this:


Of all the people he'd lost, Jaina was the one that troubled him most. He had been certain that it would have been Allana; he made a conscious effort not to think of his daughter and it worked— mostly. But it was his twin who haunted his thoughts and that perhaps was inevitable


This seems rather convenient, but it's downright frustrating for anyone who can remember what was written a few chapters earlier on page 154:


He tried to search for his twin sister, just out of... curiosity.

Jaina. I can't believe how easy it is to forget people. I can go for days without even remembering you exist, Jaina.


There are lots of contradictions in Jacen's thinking, and I'm sure some will try and argue that's what's happening here, but I just don't think that's what this one is. Jacen isn't trying to rationalize anything and lying to himself. It seems more like, "I can't remember what I wrote yesterday." Not being able to remember someone even exists is hardly considered "haunting."

Conversely, we see Jaina talking to Boba Fett about Jacen on page 134:


"But what about Jacen's weaknesses?"

"They're yours."

"He's my twin. I know him."


First off, "I know him" isn't a logical response to "they're yours," and secondly, Jaina has said so many times in this series that she doesn't know her brother that it's maddening. See, check out page 258:


"I don't know him anymore."


What?

I'll go back to this later when we get into the logic of Jaina's actions with the Mandos...

On page 215, after Pellaeon meets with Daala and is watching her walk away he remarks to a commander nearby, "Do you think it might be time for our first female Moff?"

Those of us who read the NJO, know that there was already a female Moff in several books... those of us who read the NJO.

I saw someone in the discussion thread say that Pelly was obviously just joking so this isn't a continuity error, but I fail to see how this is a joke. Would anyone laugh if I said, "Do you think it might be time for America's first female Senator?" Besides laughing at me, of course?

Sticking with Pellaeon, we see Jacen's scheming on page 13 when he explains to Tahiri, "To get the Moffs to back me, I need to be endorsed by Pellaeon." But just a few paragraphs later, Jacen suggests leaking information of his deal to the Moffs so the Moffs put pressure on Pellaeon to answer. On page 29, he says, "Well, just to give the Moffs an incentive to persuade him (Pellaeon) to forgive and forget, I was thinking of offering them some extra turf in return for joining us— Borleias and Bilbringi."

So Jacen needs the Moffs to back him by gaining Pellaeon's endorsement but the Moffs will already be backing him in order to pressure Pellaeon into that endorsement.

Do you follow?

This really wasn't very well thought out.

Lastly on these issues, I want to touch on something that echoed some things from Traviss' last Legacy of teh Fett effort. In Sacrifice, neither Luke nor Ben seem to know what the role of a Jedi Knight is, with Ben proclaiming that he's "being a Jedi" by serving the GAG and Luke finding his logic "impeccable," apparently unaware that Jedi actually serve the Force. In Revelation, it seems no one knows what a Sith is.

Ben on page 40:


"Jacen's a Sith, you know what that is? It's a Jedi who uses only the dark side of the Force. Not a Jedi at all, really."


No, that's a Dark Jedi.

Luke talking to Niathal on page 46:


"Do you know the term Sith? They're Force users who prefer the dark side. Like Palpatine."

"Oh, I see. Fallen Jedi."

[...]

(Niathal )"And does he have different powers than a regular Jedi?"

Luke looked strangely embarrassed. She wasn't sure why. "Not really. He's just very strong and he has an ability to use a battle meditation technique that gives him a remarkable awareness of the battlefield."


I hope he's embarrassed because he realizes he doesn't know what he's talking about and that Sith have a bunch of powers Jedi do not have

Also, why would Niathal say "Fallen Jedi" when Luke mentions Sith and Palpatine?

At first I thought Luke was just giving his explanation for the average citizen but the powers thing kind of blows that theory out of the water.

This is pretty basic Star Wars stuff.

Lastly there were a lot of sloppy POV switches, like this one on page 392, which is written from Boba Fett's point of view, yet suddenly switches to things Sintas can see and feel:


He hadn't finished calibrating the HUD, but he put his helmet on anyway. And once it was on, he looked like the Bo she once knew and loved, and the lost years vanished for a brief time.


... Let's just move on.



Some Character stuffs:

Niathal's change in perspective is obviously supposed to be a sort of, "what have I done?" about helping a monster take complete control of the government and their navy, but it just felt like too much of a shift. I've enjoyed Niathal in the past despite the obvious Mary Sue quality of the character, and here it just becomes too much, especially when she becomes the voice of morality questioning how Luke Skywalker lives with himself.

I really haven't liked Ben since Betrayal, and he continues to be an embarrassment to the Jedi Order. When he's not elevating Lekauf and Shevu to the status of gods, he's absolving himself of all guilt, as seen on page 362:


Jori didn't have to die, either. He didn't, Jacen. You made me carry out the Gejjen assassination to make me just like you, and Jori was only some detail, one of the small people.


Han was only present for a couple pages, but we have him asking Jaina one of the dumbest questions of all time:


"So you do think Jacen would harm his own family?"




Lastly, I found the repeated references to Pellaeon's age and references to senility to be a bit odd. If he's only 92, that's not really at death's door in the Star Wars universe. In The Joiner Kindg Leia remarks that Han is only in his mid-sixties and has at least 40 good years left, or 50 if he takes care of himself. Seems a bit bizarre for all this talk of Pelly's mortality if he's got a good 13-23 years of life left on average.


Naboooo:

I love Naboo. It's one of my favorite things about the prequels and probably my favorite Star Wars planet. But even I couldn't handle the volume of needless references to it. Within the first 51 pages alone, there are at least three mentions of Naboo, all completely independent of each other. There's Pellaeon's game, Niathal talking about Naboo time-shares, eating of Naboo porciplast plates, and references to Naboo maritime battles... I didn't take the time to count them all, but it was a little over done.

There's more than one planet in the Star Wars galaxy. To me, it shows a lack of imagination, or perhaps just a lack of interest in a lot of the story.



Politicking:

We continue on with the Tony Blair = Darth Caedus show in Revlelation, with Jacen echoing Blair's, "I feel the hand of history on my shoulder," at the end of the book. There's also a reference on page 217 to Jacen's "Ill-defined war on chaos" and the planning session between Pellaeon/Niathal/and Jacen is loaded with clumsy references to Iraq.

So topical!

Traviss' attempts at political commentary are handled with the deftness of a fat kid desperately grasping for the last cookie in a jar that's opening is far too narrow for his meaty fist.

I just find the whole thing kind of juvenile, and quite frankly, low-brow. omg Tony Blair is just like a Sith Lord!!111

Meh.

What's more irritating is the continued elevation of Lekauf as some patriot and martyr. Lekauf stuck a gun to an innocent woman's head, held her hostage, threatened a bunch of people, then went back to his ship and blew himself up, killing or injuring dozens of security guards in Sacrifice.

That's not an act of heroism— that's terrorism.

Ben is constantly lamenting over Lekauf's "sacrifice."

On page 409 we see him wonder, "If Lekauf's folks were coping, unable to tell anyone that their son died a hero."

He blew himself up. That's a fanatic.

This brings me to my next point...



The Elevation of Shevu & Lekauf:

The galaxy just seems to revolve around Traviss' OCs and pet characters in this book, and Shevu is certainly no exception. Everyone respects this guy, even Jacen.

Luke says on page 47 that, "Yes, there's such a thing as Force-certainty and I have it in that young man."

Shevu is able to hide the fact that he's deceiving Jacen from him, even adjusting his hidden camera to record his confession  Great stuff.

Going back to Lekauf, Ben has some stunning thoughts on the man:


It hit him hard sometimes. Even when he was mired in grief over Mom, Lekauf would suddenly appear in his mind, and he'd feel it all over again. It wasn't any less of a sense of loss then the one he felt over his mother, just different.

Lekauf had taught him about evading detection and tracking others, so this was another way of ensuring that his sacrifice to save Ben hadn't been in vain. Using it to bring down Jacen was right.


He's doing this for Lekauf as much as he is his mom

At a certain point, this just becomes very silly, doesn't it?



Daala:

Well, Admiral Daala is back. And it's pretty obvious from her entrance on page 188 and the way it's revealed that we're supposed to think it's cool.

Finally all the fans who have been demanding this return can cease their 11 year letter writing campaign to LFL.

Page 209:


Pellaeon was happy to admit he was in awe of her. [...] He'd lost count of how many times she'd been written off, apparently defeated, even presumed killed, but still kept coming back to put a serious dent in the New Republic."


Erm... What?

I really don't have much to say about this subject that hasn't already been said, but I really found Pellaeon and Daala's interaction nauseating. On the positive side though, I was amused that she wore an eyepatch.

A little more on Daala later.


Jacen & Tahiri:

While there were things about Jacen's characterization in this book I enjoyed, I was also left dissatisfied with some things. Within the first pages of his opening scene with Tahiri, I had to wonder why Jacen doesn't just attack Mandalore if the Mandos are such a threat to him? It doesn't really make sense, and since he's already willing to assault a world like Fondor for leaving the GA despite the possible fallout, it's hard to see why not.

Secondly, I thought Tebut's death was a bit overblown in the grand scheme of things. Choking Tebut makes Jacen a monster but burning Kashyyyk and killing thousands, maybe more, wasn't so bad? Tebut's death seems to be more alarming to people like Niathal and even Jacen gives it more thought than anything else he's done in this book.

Then there's the confession. Jacen would have to be unbelievably stupid to do this. I know there's an argument to be made that he's just arrogant, and that a lot of killers confess at some point, but as far as fiction goes, having a villain who is this dumb just isn't putting me on the edge of my seat.

On top of that though, there's some confusion over the details of Mara's murder in the confession. In it, Jacen says that Mara pursued him into the abandoned tunnels on Kavan and later thinks of his confession that he, "had omitted detail about Lumiya, because it wasn't relevant; but the rest was true. Mara had ambushed him, had tracked him into the tunnels, had tried to kill him— not arrest or detain him, but kill him."

The problem with that is that it was Jacen who pursued Mara into the tunnels, and chased her limping X-Wing to Kavan in order to kill her. It could be that Jacen is just rationalizing here, but he acknowledges that he's leaving things out about Lumiya. Either way, I don't like it, as with nothing in the book itself to contradict it, a reader is left with the impression that Jacen really did kill Mara in self defense. And while Mara certainly had gone after Jacen with the intention of killing him, the choice to chase her down to Kavan and pursue her through the tunnels was entirely his, and he could have escaped instead. He was hunting her at that point.

Also, if Jacen truly believes he killed Mara in self defense, wouldn't that make his Sith sacrifice totally meaningless? If he truly believes he had no choice in the matter, then he didn't make the choice to sacrifice anything. It doesn't really hold up.

As far as Tahiri goes, I'm just not buying the whole Sith Apprentice thing as it stands now. Most of us would do just about anything to see a loved one again if they passed away, especially if it was romantic love and you felt you never got a chance to say goodbye. But that "just about anything" does not include murder. Yeah, maybe Tahiri would be willing to spy for Jacen for a few chances to see Anakin, but fire on the Fondorian pilots and kill Pellaeon? It just seems ridiculous.

This is incredibly out of character for Tahiri. In The Swarm War, it's Tahiri who reports Jacen actions to Luke and Mara first, telling them how she doesn't believe Jacen had a vision of war at all and made the whole thing up in order to ignite a war between the Chiss and Killiks. This isn't a woman who is under Jacen's sway.

Secondly, she's been in the series so little, that suddenly throwing her in as Jacen's apprentice just seems poorly planned out at this point.

That being said, there are lots of hints that things are not as they seem with Tahiri and she may be hiding something. I sincerely hope whatever it is can explain her sudden shift in character in a believable way. Could Tahiri really believe she could destroy Jacen by getting close to him à la Ben in Inferno? It seems doubtful, but I guess we'll find out soon. We aren't given Tahiri's POV at all in this book, of course, and not even Jacen can read her very well. I actually thought the characterization of Tahiri in dialogue and mannerisms was good, and enjoyed the way everyone was unsure about her— it's just that her actions are so out of character.



Jedi are Useless:

The theme of the book becomes very clear early on. Jaina wants to capture Jacen and end the threat he poses to the galaxy, but she fears he is too powerful. So how does she counter it? By training with Luke and nurturing her own Force powers so that she can take him on in an epic clash of Light vs. Dark, Jedi vs. Sith? No, of course not. She's going to go see Boba Fett and ask for his help because Jedi skills are of no use against a Sith Lord.

Ben wants to find out for sure if Jacen murdered his mother or not. How does he do it? By turning to Shevu's training of course. It's not like the Jedi are trained to investigate crimes. We've never seen them solve murders, track bounty hunters with little more than a poison dart as a clue, or follow a Sith back to her apartment based on the flashes present in security cameras.

Jedi skills are useless.

On page 4, we get Ben's reasoning:


Ben had committed himself to take the rational, legal path rather than the intuition of Force users.


This implies, of course, that the Jedi way is irrational and illegal.

Later, on page 199, when Luke expresses pride in his son, it's after Ben explains how he has been investigating the crime in the impartial analytical way that Shevu has trained him in.

But it's not just solving crimes that the Jedi are deficient at. On page 62, we get Pellaeon's thoughts:


"Jedi are very good at being in opposition, being the conscience on the shoulder of learders and keeping them on their toes, or even playing peace-keeping shock troopers when needed, but they do not run things well. They're doers, not managers."


Strange. By all accounts, Tenel Ka is doing a great job as leader of the Hapes Consortium, and Pellaeon later mentions Leia, so it's odd that he would hold steady to this rule when he knows there's an exception.

We get a little more later:


The Jedi Council was part think tank, part special forces, part mystical reassurance for the ruling class; Jedi could nudge and steer, and even block, but they were used to being a small weight added to tip the scales.


That's right, the Jedi Knights— there to serve the ruling class.

Jedi also suck at fighting. Ben and Shevu on page 88:


"Do Jedi actually land punches?"

"No, but..."


Beviin knows this too. He scoffs when he hears that Jaina wants to learn how to kill Jedi:


"Is that all you want? Just a few tips on whacking the bathrobe brigade."


OMG funny!

After Jaina gets beaten down hard by Beviin on page 175, she explains:

Jaina: "We're even trained not to think, just to feel intuitively with the Force."

And the Force doesn't work with a beskad...? Poor stupid Jedi. No good at teh thinking

Page 181:


"If you ever get a Force-using Mandalorian, how would they be treated?"

"They'd be in demand for getting stuck lids off cans."


Followed later on 392 when Jaina uses the Force to open the Mando champagne bottles like a trained seal:


pg392: "I've found a use for Jedi! I knew I would one day! Look!"


Those loveable idiots.

You'd think Traviss could mix it up a little more instead of basically using the same insult twice.

On page 369, Boba ends a conversation with Jaina with this little nugget of encouragement:


"No, you don't get it. But if any of your kind could, it'd be you."

Jaina felt suddenly irrelevant.


The second part made me laugh, because Jaina certainly is irrelevant in this story. I'll get into that later. But basically, the Jedi are incapable of understanding. Got it.

One more quick way in which the Force just doesn't do much:


"Ben had once said to her that he used the GAG helmet comlinks, because the Force was all well and good, but he needed to send complex information in apparent silence, and the Force was pretty poor at that."


Seems like kind of a strange point to make while Jaina is thinking about how she needs to warn Mirta. Yes, the Force sucks at communicating complex information, especially to non-Force-sensitives... And? You know what else the Force sucks at? Flying. Jedi can't sprout wings and fly. It's true.

It's almost as if we're just trying to find ways where the Force is inferior...

Also, lol @ Jaina for having to learn how a helmet comm works from a 14 year old. Didn't she like, fly an X-Wing before? What a dummy!

But it's not really Jaina's fault. All the Jedi are basically dumb animals. We see numerous references to this in revelation. "Better go find my tame Jedi," Boba Fett says in page 349. And check out these two wonderful comments mined from the same deposite of beskar:


"The trouble with getting attached to Jedi, Buir, is that it's like making pets of nerfs and nuna— really upsetting when you have to slaughter them." (pg 181)


And on page 223, Yomaget on Jaina learning Mando stuff:


"It's like sticking beskar'gam on a bantha. Good for a laugh, and the bantha might feel safer if it understood armor, but it doesn't turn it into a soldier."


Constant metaphors made by Mandos comparing Jaina & Jedi to dumb animals. This seems especially odd considering how little Traviss' writing relies on anything as artful as metaphor (go ahead and add up how many times its used in narration), so it seems like she's going especially out of her way here...

Lastly, we see that everyone and their pet whisperkit has figured out who killed Mara Jade Skywalker... Except the Jedi of course!

Niathal suspects it on page 45. Shevu knows. Fett knew right away. A gossip magazine seems to have put it together, and before that, a random crewperson even knows Jacen killed Mara on page 148!

The only Jedi who knows is Ben, and that's only because of his superior GAG training at the hands of the almighty Shevu and Lekauf.

The single contradiction to this "how useless the Jedi" are theme is when Boba Fett is impressed by Jaina wading into a stream of blaster fire with nothing but her flightsuit and a lightsaber... that's it.




Welcome to Mandalore, A.K.A. Jonestown. Time to Drink your Mando'ade:

Not everyone one in the galaxy is as useless as the Jedi— thankfully the mighty Mandalorians are there to pick up the slack, and show at least one aimless Jedi what's what.

The Mandos are the best at everything. Their Bes'uliik fighters are faster than an X-Wing and made of "virtually impregnable armor." The same super armor that protects their righteous bodies in combat, known as beskar. Not even a lightsaber can damage this magical metal.

And guess what: In all the galaxy, the Mandos are the only ones who can make beskar.

So it's really no surprise that the galaxy as seen in Revelation seems to revolve around the Mandalorians and Boba Fett.

It takes less than a page in chapter 2 for us to get into our first Mando'a lesson, with an explanation of the word, "Ba'buir." We get an explanation on this word no fewer than three times in the course of the novel. Is it overkill? A completely unnecessary indulgence of the author that does little but slow down the story?

Yes, yes it is.

It's also not a working language no matter what Karen Traviss tries to sell you.

There are times in this story when it seems like every other paragraph is an explanation of a Mando'a word. Nothing new of course. But the kewlness of the Mandos and their language has spread across the galaxy.

Check out my favorite scene on page 46 with Luke talking to Niathal:


"Do you know the term Sith? They're Force users who prefer the dark side. Like Palpatine."

"Oh, I see. Fallen Jedi."

"Oddly, that's just what the Mandalorians call them. Their word means ex-Jedi, although that's not always the case."


Luke is thinking in Mando'a now!  Completely out of nowhere he pulls out a Mando reference. This is also incredibly similar to the scene in Bloodlines where Mara sees Ben in his GAG garb and thinks about how Mandalorian children go into battle.

Is there really anyone who doesn't see this as absolutely ridiculous?

Luckily, that's not where the Mandos' awesomeness ends. We see this right away when Jaina Solo, a trained Jedi Knight, goes to Mandalore and is scared and intimidated by them. She even notes things for "future anxiety sessions." The Mandalorians, on the other hand, aren't concerned by her at all and keep focused on their game.

Like anyone else who would go to Mandalore, Jaina is enthralled and anxious to learn Mando'a immediately.

On page 97, we start to see why they are so much better than the Jedi from Jaina's eyes:


"Lovely," she said. "I'll take it as a good sign that none of you (Mandalorians) ever came after us (Jedi)."


The Mandos would have killed the Jedi with ease!

Jaina's announcement that she's a fighter pilot on pg 117 is ignored by Fett because, "They're all fighter pilots here." Nevermind that Jaina is a Jedi and arguably the best pilot in the galaxy— she's not match for a Mando!

Boba O'Riley agrees to train the poor Jedi, and in their first sparring match on page 131, Fett sucker punches her in the stomach— an assault that is later described as, ""Old man Fett nearly taking her spleen apart with a gut-punch."


"Nobody had ever jumped her like that before, she hadn't sensed it coming."[/quote]

Not even the Yuuzhan Vong?! Mandos are so awesome! They can shut down their intentions in the Force better than someone who doesn't even exist in it.

On page 133, Boba explains what's wrong with Jaina:

[blockquote]"No, I'm telling you this isn't about lightsaber technique. I'm more than twice your ago, no Force powers, and I got you to drop your guard. Winning isn't about being better. It's finding your opponent's weakness and exploiting it."


Jaina doesn't know this! Cause, it's not like they didn't do that over and over again with the Yuuzhan Vong, coming up with new techniques like shadow bombs, melds, and ya know, those Yammosk Jammers Jaina took the initiative to engineer in DJ!

But you know Jaina. She's a by-the-book Jedi incapable of thinking outside the box.

Then on 134, they get down to beskar tacks and discuss how this relates to Jacen:


"But what about Jacen's weaknesses?"

"They're yours."

"He's my twin. I know him."

"And he knows you. Be someone else."


I already addressed the part about Jaina claiming she knows Jacen, so let's try and ignore that and look at the logic behind this: Obi-Wan never had to be someone else to beat Anakin Skywalker. They were "brothers", trained and fought together way more than Jaina and Jacen have.

It doesn't make a lot of sense, but we'll stay focused on the Mandos and come back to this later...


"If I could be that different, Fett, I wouldn't be a Jedi."

"There you go."


See, Jedi are no good at fighting Sith. Throughout history, it's always been someone else who defeated them. Wait...

Jaina immediately sinks into Mando life and takes an interest in things that shouldn't matter to her at all and really have nothing to do with the story, like Shysa Fenn and Sintas Vel. As in Sacrifice, we get to see the only happy well-adjusted families in the Mandalorian realm, most notably Beviin & Medrit's large clan of kids and happy grandkids. We're at their dinner table more than once again, and at the end, we even get to see the party after a Mandalorian wedding!

On page 171, we get to see Beviin act out his favorite scene from Hamlet after stuffing his besk'ad into an old Yuuzhan Vong skull.

"Not one now to mock your own grinning— quite chop-fallen."

"Yorick" does sound like a good Yuuzhan Vong name, doesn't it? (There has to be a good "yorik coral" joke in here somewhere, but I'm too tired to make it).

Speaking of Beviin and his partner, We get a tactful reminder about Medrit immediately when he steps into the story on page 53, to watch Boba Fett wheel out a Block O' Sintas:


"I'm no expert, of course, but that was a handsome woman you got there, Fett."


The cynical part of me can't help but think someone wanted to stir up some controversy with the introduction of gay characters in the EU and was disappointed that no one seemed to care. It all seems kind of transparent, as if the subtleness with which Medrit was introduced as a male in Sacrifice hadn't gotten the desired response. Translated from Mando'a, I think it reads, "MEDRIT IS GAY!!! DID YOU NOTICE HE'S TEH GAY!!??? GAY!!! also gay men can't usually tell when women are attractive lolers."

Getting back to Beviin and Jaina in the field: Jaina has to wear armor to spar with him and besk'ads of course, even though the weapon Jaina usually fights with can't even touch her. Immediately we see that Beviin knows everything about Jedi and lightsaber techniques, and the Mando way is flawless.

"See what happens if you get used to a beskad. It'll change the way you handle that shiny stick."

That's not a good thing...

As could be predicted because Mandos rule and Jedi are teh suck, Beviin kicks Jaina's butt in two seconds on page 174:


"It was over in two seconds flat and he hadn't even used the blade [...] It was the first time she had been taken down in a saber fight of any kind in years."


Incredible!

Beviin says that, "The only point I'm making is that you don't know any of my moves yet."

He doesn't know hers either, but since Mandos are superior...

Beviin's point gets driven home. On page 175 he beats her down over, and over, and over again. The feeble Jedi just has no chance.

Why? According to page 175, it was because "Armor changed the game, making any limb both a shield and a weapon."

If only the NJO had fought an opponent with tough, lightsaber-resistant armor before...

Jaina: "This is like nothing I've ever seen. You break every rule of close combat."

Those YV were real sticklers about rules of combat. I would also like to point out how absurd it sounds that Beviin gets "inside Jaina's reach." She's like 4 foot 10!

pg178: Jaina gets beaten up with a small stick even though she can't do the same to Beviin. She falls into a fetal position on the ground and thinks he's going to beat her death.

Anyone getting the sense that there's some pent-up anger here?

Jaina is enthralled by Beviin's tactics. Says "Wow."

The berserker tactic itself or "red mist" is almost exactly what Vergere was trying to teach Jacen in Traitor— it was even described as a "red tide" in that book...

Often times, we see that the Mandos always seem to guess what Jaina is thinking. I think this may be a sort of Mando'sense.

On page 203 we see more examples of how important the Mandos have become in this heart-warming father/son moment between Luke and Ben:


pg 203: "Don't get killed, Dad. You know what it did to Fett. I don't want you to end up like him."


Everything is relatable to Fett in one way or another, right?

Then we have the battle at Fondor: The Mandos crush everyone with ease and take no losses or even injuries. All while dealing out lots of snappy one-liners and quips during the action, of course. Their beskar armor is ridiculously strong, absolutely impenetrable. They take an endless amount of shots and it never does any damage (I'm pretty sure "beskar" is mando'a for "character shield.").

And of course they whip up on the Jedi/Sith (they're the same you know). Page 334:


Mirta shouldn't have been able to beat a Jedi's reaction time. But she did."

Tahiri gets flatened by Mirta and then can't injure her with a lightsaber. "Jaina could see Tahiri through the faceplate and knew she would never forget her look of horror as the blade of energy simply failed to slice through Mirta's body. My lightsaber doesn't work. For any Jedi, it was a shocking, naked moment.


Unless, you know, they fought the Yuuzhan Vong...

Mirta on 336:


"Don't worry, I got my own Jedi."


The Mandos beat the Jedi and Sith at every turn. "Invincible" must be about them!

On page 335, we jump into total absurdity when Jacen's Force illusion doesn't fool a Mando the way it did Mara in Sacrifice. And of course, the Mandos only shoot him in the knee to give those pathetic Force-users a fighting chance.

You have to wonder about the point of a scene like this. Why write a scene where the Mandalorians have a chance to kill a Sith Lord and pass on it? All you're doing is making the villain look less scary and more mortal... Oh, and elevating the Mandalorians of course. So I guess that is the point.

The Mandos could have killed Jacen if they wanted to. They're just so awesome they didn't feel like it.

More proof Mandos are better than Jedi, we have Jaina and Medrit discussing Gotab on page 381:


"He didn't have a choice to be a Jedi, did he?"

"No, but he chose to be one of you."


Cuz they're better and stuff.

And on page 401, Jaina seeks guidance from Gotab— guidance that will shape the galaxy's future! I couldn't help but wonder what difference it made to Jaina if he thinks of himself as Gotab or Jusik and if he has a family, but I guess the Mandos are just that fascinating and we have to go off on these huge tangents that have no bearing on the story at all.

So what about flaws? Surely the Mandalorians have them, right? We see Jaina notice one and immediatley think of herself on page 260:


"She'd never had to worry about where her next meal was coming from."


That's right: any flaws in the Mandalorian society are only injected to make them more sympathetic and the rest of the galaxy like *******s who don't care. Mando children are starving, meanwhile, Princess Jaina Solo has never missed a meal.

"For only 19 cents a day, you could provide enough gruel'ika to feed a starving Mandalorian for a month."

Let's move on to the king.




Chew the Fett:

The puns will get worse as we go.

But let's talk about Boba Fett. Immediately in the prologue the attempts to build Boba up into a huge mythical figure are evident, as they have been in the other Traviss books, but Revelation takes it to a new level.

On page 112 we're again reminded that Fett could kill Jacen if he wanted to and he's only letting someone else do it because it's better revenge. This is followed by the most perplexing and repeated claim in the story when Jaina is talking to Boba:


"You've killed and captured more Jedi than anyone."


What Jedi has Fett captured? I've been looking and I just can't find any anywhere... if someone can name one, feel free to PM me. In the films, all Boba ever did was escort a chunk of carbonite to Jabba the Hutt and then get his *** kicked royally by a blind man and a hole in the ground.

What? Darth Vader, anyone? Or if we're strictly talking the living, Luke Skywalker has everyone beat in the "defeating Force-users" segment. We'll come back to that later though.

Boba's response:


"Oh, I don't know... some of my brothers rack up a pretty good score back in the day."


lol. Order 66 was so kewl!!!11

Jaina:


Jaina: "And I'm pretty sure you never gave Jacen the top ten Mandalorian tips on Jedi busting."


Boba Fett is the best at everything.

He is all things to all people, existing beyond time and space. He eats beskar flakes for breakfast, has X-ray vision, and once took down an Executor-class Star Destroyer with a single head-butt. Boba Fett was the second gunman on the grassy knoll, he framed Roger Rabbit, and was in the Jackson 5, the West Memphis 3, and the Oceanic 6.

Boba Fett totally shot first.

At the end of the book, we see Jaina confide in Boba Fett and we learn that he didn't kill Jacen because he doesn't want the Solos or Skywalkers to blame him. On 371, "He (Boba Fett) was an injured but dangerous bystander, landing a punch any way he could."

Fett is just an innocent victim

But let's get to Sintas. Fett's former squeeze isn't dead. Traviss is really upping the ante for bringing back the most characters no one gave a damn about to begin with. I wonder if we'll see people complaining about Star Wars "jumping the shark" because we thought she was dead and now she's alive...

Anyway, what was the point of any of this? Like Boba Fett's illness in Bloodlines, this has absolutely nothing to do with the main storyline in any way. We spend time learning about the history of jewelry Boba gives Sintas rather than see the family reaction for the Skywalker/Solos to learning Jacen killed Mara. And what does it all lead to...?

And this is the difference between Traviss and the other authors when it comes to "pet character." The story doesn't revolve around Allston and Denning's favorites. We never see Wedge's anguish at Iella's tangential battle with breast cancer, Saba Sebatyne's elation at locating her long-lost hatchling, or go to Endor to meet the little gray Ewok Tarfang is currently bumping paunches with. Those characters are only there to enhance the story for the main characters, assist it along the way.

Fett's story is all about Fett.

And everything about it is a huge soap opera: Boba is dying of an illness, but its cured! His daughter is killed, but his long lost wife who died is actually alive! But.. but.. she has amnesia!!! Then we have a Mando wedding where Fett is the happy father of the bride. How touching. Plus, there are lots of clones— really ups the chances of an evil twin to emerge. My money's on Striker Ramoray.



With such an immeasurable level of awesome, it's really no surprise that all the characters in the story spend time thinking about Boba Fett. We learn early on that both Jacen and the Solos have been worried about his revenge.

On page 41, Shevu brings him up out of nowhere:


"My only dilemma was whether I wanted to see him impeached and charged by the Alliance or whether it would be more satisfying to see Fett or the Jedi Council get him. I think Fett's revenge might be more fun."


And Jacen on 249:


Fett hadn't come after him, either, and if one thing was certain it was that he would find a way of getting him.


This is the one thing that is certain!

Like most of Karen Traviss' characters though, Boba Fett is a tough guy with a heart of gold. It's especially funny on page 114 when Traviss says that he's just a tough guy and does not have a heart of gold

Let's look:

Page 48 when Fett recovers Sinta's slab:

"There was only one thing Fett wanted. The rest he'd jettison it, even give it to the deserving poor, or— given that this was Phaeda— the undeserving criminal classes."


How generous. And then on page 50, "Fett stayed with Sintas slab, unable to leave her alone in this miserable place."

On page 118 we learn that the reason Fett kept his word to Shysa even though no one would have known he made the promise was because he'd know. What a guy!

In the end, Boba feels bad for Sintas and gives her a bunch of credits. We learn that he only left her because he killed the man who had raped her and took exile rather than reveal what happened to his wife and further her trauma. He did it all to protect her honor.

At what point do we all join hands together and agree that this is a bit much?

Page 377:


He wasn't completely without morals; he had principles all right, pretty rigid ones, but they didn't fit a lot of folks' idea of ethics.


We get it, he's the greatest guy ever.



Jaina Solo:

Boba's new apprentice in this "book" is Jaina, who believes it is now her job to stop her brother and that learning from Boba Fett is the best way to go about doing that. Why? Because Boba has "a track record of bringing down Jedi."

The problem is, that he doesn't, and this is just a very clumsy way of writing yet another way into the series in which Boba and the Mandos pwn the Jedi, but that's not even the only problem with the reasoning here. If Jaina wants to stop Jacen, why not go to Luke Skywalker. He has actually killed a lot of Dark Jedi, and even defeated Sith. Just in the last 5 years in-universe he's defeated Lomi, Welk, a super-powered Raynar Thul, and Lumiya. Oh, and he crushed Jacen in Inferno...

So wouldn't that be the most logical place to go? Instead of jumping to the conclusion that she can't fight like a Jedi if she wants to defeat him because Jacen is stronger right now and knows some new tricks, why not train with Luke, get stronger, and then face Jacen? Jedi have been defeating Sith for thousands of years— no one else has.

And even if you accept this faulty premise that Jaina has to learn non-Jedi skills to destroy Jacen, it still doesn't make any sense to go to Boba Fett. She has Jag at her disposal who just spent several years tracking a Dark Jedi and killed her, not to mention showed a lot of ingenuity in doing so . Or Zekk who is also an experienced bounty hunter.

But that would make too much sense, I guess, and wouldn't involve teh Fett!

Page 32:
pg32: "Jacen's not invincible, Dad. No one is. But when I go after him, it'll have to be with skills he doesn't have. Like Fett's."


What skills does Fett have that Jacen doesn't?

It's not explained, of course.

We get our first hints at Jaina's characterization in this book on page 2:


"But I have to ask him. Swallow my pride, eat humble pie, and beg if need be. Dad seems to hae thawed a little toward him; I still despise him.

But yes— I swear I'll be the best pupil he's ever had. Come on, Fett, show me how it's done."


Sounds just like her, doesn't it?

And it only gets better. Jaina is often portrayed as a snob, or at least someone who has never really done any hard work and is incapable of outside-the-box thinking. She is constantly apologizing to Boba Fett and saying, "please." Her body language is also telling: Jaina is jumpy, even flinching in fear that Fett might "erupt."

page 259:


"It was also sobering to tally the net score of incidents and realize that the Solos had done more lasting harm to Fett than Fett had to them."


Oh geez... I'm afraid to ask who is doing the math...

Fett tells Jaina she's not ready yet, but that he and the Mandos will make her ready.

After her training, we see Jaina use Beviin's berserker tactic to try and kill Tahiri... but she is still refusing to kill Jacen at this point. I guess Tahiri is the new Alema.


"I learned a lot today. Even did a Beviin, you know. Red mist, crazy, swinging away like a maniac.”


What exactly did Jaina learn?


"I know a lot about how Mandalorians fight now.

"So what have you really learned, Solo? Our weapons? Everything from a Bes'uliik to our bare hands. Our technology? We're still using tech four thousand years old. Our secret headquarters? We're everywhere. Our numbers? We don't even know. How to assassinate our leaders? We don't need any. If I get shot tomorrow, they'd all regroup and carry on without me. The only secret we have is how our metaworkers forge beskar. And we're not even reliant on that."

Jaina shrugged. "When you put it like that, it's zero."


Exactly what I was thinking. What a waste of page time.

So why is Jaina really there? Well, mostly she's just there to "Ooo" and "Ahh" at the Mandalorians, but her presence is really just an excuse to get out a lot of pent up rage towards Jedi. When she's not being physically beaten, Jaina is being constantly brow-beaten about how useless and evil the Jedi Order is, and also being on the receiving end of a lot of "omg funny!" one-liners. Jaina's contribution is to act dumb and malleable, or say the most selfish thing possible in order to setup her next dressing down.

Basically, it's all just another plot function to show us all how great the Mandalorians are and how corrupt and silly the Jedi are.

Traviss seems aware or this, going so far as to tell us through Boba Fett on page 183 that Jaina "Wasn't here to be fascinated."

Of course, that's exactly what she's there for.

I'll get into her supposed "Revelation" later.


On page 394, Mirta tells Jaina that execution is wrong and she should hear Jacen out. Jaina believes this until she talks to the next Mando and again changes her mind. She just can't think for herself, it seems.

There are lots of examples of Jaina being portrayed as a snob who previously believes she was better than the Mandalorians and quickly realizes just how wrong she was!

Page 74, Jaina thinking to herself:


If a bunch of Mandalorians had shown up asking for Dad, I know how I'd react.



Page 95:


A Jedi name used to be enough to open doors back at the Core. It closed them here.


On page 114, we get more about how self-centered Jaina and the Jedi are:


It was funny how victims mattered more when they had names. Fett resisted the urge to remind her that beings in all the places Jacen had attacked had names too.


Those Jedi just don't care about others. Thank God Fett has this kind of insight. It's not as if Jaina Solo spent several novels grappling with the realities of war in the NJO...

Page 116:


She was small and her smooth hands said that she'd never had to build an entrenchment with them.


Umm... The Killik War? Seriously, read the NJO and Dark Nest. The "Jaina is a princess who's never had to work hard thing," gets old quick and isn't even close to accurate.

And of course we get Jaina's impression of a Mando on 134:


He was very well spoken, surprisingly so, as if he was highly educated. Jaina had expected him to be an inarticulate brute.


What a snob!

Page 183 when Jaina takes the last nerf steak:


pg183 - something she would never do at home.


She was so proper before.


On age 259 Jaina wonders what the Mandos are talking about behind their helmets.


She wondered if they were gossiping about her. They radiated amusement.

aha

It was always edifying to see your own characteristics reflected in others. The next time that some ordinary being treated her with suspicion, she'd think how her Force abilities looked from the outside.


I'll talk about what I found really disturbing about this part later, but she finds out they're talking about something else— "Life didn't center on her small circle, another reminder that there was a wider world she seldom saw."

Jaina has been so isolated!

Page 334 shows Jaina deflecting blaster bolts and them clumsily richocetting into Mirta's armor:


pg334: "Jaina had never been close enough to someone in those circumstances to worry about what happened to deflected bolts."


lol! Never?! Those Jedi just don't care about anyone but themselves. Good thing Mirta's there to open her eyes.

Page 401 shows more of Traviss' knowledge of the NJO, when Jaina seeks advice from Gotab:


"I haven't ever spoken to a Jedi who walked away from the Order but wasn't a Sith."


Actually, the only Sith Jaina has ever spoken to is Jacen (and Vergere, though some will object). Off the top of my head I can name three Jedi who walked away from the Order and didn't become Sith in just the last 5 years in universe, or 2 1/2 years in real world book releases: Tenel Ka, Danni Quee, and Alema Rar.

Of course, Gotab explains to her what she needs to do and Jaina says the most selfish things possible:


"We're talking about selfishness here— how will I feel. How will Jaina feel?"

"And the rest of my family..."

"Oh, sorry I thought we were talking about the welfar of the galaxy. How foolish of me."


Starting to see the pattern?




From My Point of View, the Jedi Are Evil!:

The other theme throughout the novel is that the Jedi are no better than the Sith, that the two terms are really interchangeable, and that the Order is more harm to the galaxy than good. This point is hammered again, and again, and again, especially within the last 70 pages from everyone’s POV.

Boba kicks things off on 113 when Jaina mentions Mara as a reason for being there:


"Ah, so that's when you decided he needs stopping, when it's Jedi getting killed."


Actually, Jaina made this decision after Jacen burned Kashyyyk and attacked the academy... Why does she mention Mara? She just learned that from Ben and didn't believe him 100%. Oh, I forgot, we have to cast Jedi in the most selfish light possible.

On page 115, we have a stunning revelation about the Jedi during the Vong War, when Boba says this to Jaina:


"You sacrified Mandalore to the Vong for your own ends."


Which NJO book did that happen in? Mandalore was never even mentioned, but I guess the Jedi are just evil and wanted the Mandalorians to die. I'm really loving these rewrites of Traviss' where we take what was in TUF and multiply it out to the Mandos yet again cleaning up the Jedi's mess against the Yuuzhan Vong.

Luke isn't safe either. Besides more about how he's a butcher for blowing up the Death Star (You know, the weapon that was destroying whole planets and killing billions of innocent people?), we also have Niathal of all people becoming the voice of morality on page 324 and questioning how Luke will live with himself after the minelayers were killed at Fondor.

Luke didn't do anything wrong there. Niathal's the only one who betrayed her people. Luke Skywalker is no longer a part of the GA, and was protecting a bunch of innocents on Fondor. To portray the Minelayers as bystanders in this when they were helping to mine a system so that the Fondorians would be trapped and easily killed, or die when they attempted to escape, is a bit bizarre.

But anything to make the Jedi look evil, I guess.

As I said, we really get the message in the last 70.

Page 346:


"As long as you've got Jedi, you'll get Sith," Daala said. "One begets the other."


Umm... no.

Page 347, more from Daala:


"I think there can be a third way. No Jedi Council. Keep them in a box, away from politics, and certainly never arm them."


This is where Daala's real function in the story is revealed. She's basically another new mouthpiece for Traviss' own views. Her comments and others are remarkably similar to KT's own here:


Karen Traviss posted:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I see Vader as a tragic character who's been betrayed by everyone, and I can't help thinking of the Jedi as self-serving unelected elitist spoon-benders making whoopee on Republic taxpayers' credits. It's an iconoclastic journo world-view. Believe me, Order 66 was long overdue. I have a couple of Jedi that I don't want to shoot on sight, but they're my own creations, so I could make them a little humbler and more aware of the consequences they create for others.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Genocide is just tops, isn't it? What was your guys' favorite part of Order 66? Mine was when the little kids get slaughtered.

And with that:

Karen Traviss posted:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Boba Fett was sheer bloody joy to write, of course; my Mando boys never let me down. Getting into Jedi heads was that much harder. But I swore I could get into the most repellent characters' heads and see them as they see themselves, so I had to. I still wouldn't trust the Jedi Council with my wallet, let alone with running my country, but you won't spot that in the books. I keep my spoonbenderist views to myself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Starting to see the similarity between all the characters?

If not, read ahead on page 369 where we get Fett's view on this subject:


"Because Force-users are all trouble. Sith, Jedi, no difference, although the Sith always paid well. Every big war since the Old Republic apart from the Vong has been about your two having your sectarian conflicts and dragging everyone else in. I say it, guys like Venku say it, and then folks start thinking that maybe galactic peace doesn't include you."


Like the 1,000 years of peace prior to the Clone Wars where no Sith had been seen? A pretty ridiculously distorted view of galactic history. He seems to have ignored the Mandalorian Wars...

And since when is the Mandalorians goal "galactic peace"?

Jaina, of course, does not call him out on any of this.

On page 379, we're subjected to Gotab's diatribe about how the Jedi are evil:


"I left the order because I couldn't stomach how we talked about compassion and then turned a blind eye to using human clones for our slave army. [...] I did whatever I could to atone for the wrong the Jedi did to these men."


Right, it was the Jedi, not the Republic.

I find this especially interesting given the Mandalorians history of slavery, but I notice that no one brings that up...

Venku on 380:


"I'm all for keeping Jedi away from government— and Sith, of course."


The end is definitely the worst of it. Page 402, more Gotab:


"The Order has long been about justifying its own existence, about acquiring and holding power and from what I see now, nothing much has changed since my day. I know what I swore to do as a Jedi, and it didn't have anything to do with turning a blind eye to social evils because the Sith were a bigger evil. But every act of evil we commit creates an environment where the Sith exist. So Jedi who cut corners— a Jedi Order that cuts corners— forfeit the right to hold the moral high ground."


And 403:


"One Sith can't stand against hundreds of Jedi. Your problem is that he's your flesh and blood and none of you have the courage to do the job. You've been hoping that he'll see the light and stop so that you don't have to do the dirty work. How many ordinary beings have died while you made excuses for him because he's family?"

"I know. Okay, I know."


It's all the Jedi's fault, they dont' care about anyone else, blah, blah, blah, and of course, Jaina bursts into tears and agrees with him.

Pretty funny considering the Mandos are the ones who just passed on killing Jacen... for what? Because Boba doesn't want to be blamed! That's the definition of "lack of moral courage." And yet Gotab is now following Fett. How can Gotab turn a blind eye to that social evil?

Why would Jaina care what this hypocrite thinks?

More on 403 from Jaina's lobotomized POV:


Had anyone tried to redeem Palpatine, or that apprentice of his on Naboo? No. But Vader... Vader had turned out to be family. Uncle Luke had bothered to look for the good in him.


Umm, no. Vader was redeemed because it was his destiny and he was the only one who could bring balance to the Force. It was the Will of the Force. Also, Luke has went to great lengths to redeem others, like Raynar Thul!

How does Jaina know if anyone tried to redeem Palpy or Maul?

This is also is nonsensical. Palpatine and Maul were never Jedi. They were always Sith— you can't bring them back into the light when they've never been there.

And then the thesis from Gotab:


"There's no easy answer for a Force-user except rigid self-control, and I do not mean avoiding the dark side, I mean not using the Force at all."


More on this in the closing.

But the conversation between Gotab and Jaina about why Jacen has to die is filled with bitterness and hatred, like much of Revelation. I couldn't help but contrast it with some events in Conquest and another crisis of conscience. Check out Anakin Solo's explanation for why the YV have to be stopped in that book even though they don't exist in the Force. The difference is remarkable.

Here's a hint: "Opposed."

Page 406:


"Personally, I never bought this pious nonsense about Jedi violence being fine as long as it was done with a pure heart. Sophistry, my dear. You're going to kill your brother because he's a power-hungry, murdering dictator, no one else in your Jedi Circle has the oral courage to do it, and you stand the best chance of stopping him. Finish the job like Fett and Beviin showed you. Then you can worry about your motives when the galaxy is safe again and you have time for the luxury of contemplating the state of your soul."


That's exactly the way Jacen started, of course. "I'll just go dark for a little while until there's peace in the galaxy!" The ends justify the means. We've already covered how the "red mist" is remarkably similar to the "red tide" and exactly what Vergere wanted from Jacen.

Jaina would end up no better than him.

This was also the whole lesson of Dark Nest, rejecting Jacen and Vergere's view of the Force. So how can this be a "revelation?" Jaina already knows where this path leads in previous books, yet dumbly goes along with it. Are we really going to get more, "uber Jedi who can use dark side powerz!!111" in this series? Didn't Luke already put a stop to that? (And yeah, Luke should have known better too, given the events of DE).

What is most telling about all of this, is there sheer repetition of the message. It's not that Daala, or Boba, or anyone else wouldn't feel this way towards Jedi— it's Traviss' need to keep hitting that drum again and again, ad nausem.

And there is never any counterpoint.

Never anyone saying, "no, that's wrong," or, "That's not what Jedi are."

Even in scenes where Jaina is there, she never disputes these claims. She either agrees with what Gotab says, or says nothing at all. But when Fett is insulted:


Jaina was surprised to feel an urge to defend Fett.


But not the Jedi when they're criticized.

This is where we go from telling a story to some bizarre piece of in-universe/real world propoganda.

No emphasis is ever placed on all the supposed Jedi being killed as innocent, but Jedi's victims are a great cause for concern and guilt. We only see someone like Jango in a sympathetic light, not as a man who allied himself with the Sith and was as responsible for the creation of a "slave army" as anyone— all for money.


Summary:

Revelation left me with a bad feeling when I finished it on Thursday night, and it took several minutes for me to realize just why aside from the obvious skewed and ridiculous nature of the story. But when it hit me, I realized it was because the greater theme of this book was something far more disturbing.

This is a book about bigotry and prejudice, but not one with a message against it, or even one that seems ambivalent: It's very clear from beginning to end that the message here is that it's just to hate someone for a genetic trait, and that if that trait makes you uncomfortable, they deserve your scorn.

We see this, again in the scene where Jaina wonders if the Mandalorians are talking about her here:


It was always edifying to see your own characteristics reflected in others. The next time that some ordinary being treated her with suspicion, she'd think how her Force abilities looked from the outside.


The onus is on Jaina for being different.

Force-sensitives are born dangerous and should be kept away from government and weapons at all costs.

So what are these twisted freaks of genetics supposed to do? The best the Jedi can do is try and hide their "otherness", to blend in and refuse to use the Force as Gotab has:


"There's no easy answer for a Force-user except rigid self-control, and I do not mean avoiding the dark side, I mean not using the Force at all."


That's the message here.

It's kind of the opposite message in those books they make us read in kindergarten, or cartoons we watched, normally with blue, green, and purple people, learning to love, appreciate, and respect each other for their differences.

This is reinforced by the seemingly pointless repetition of the same message, presented without a counterweight. We see a similar mean-spiritedness in Niathal's and Pellaeon's chapters, with their hatred for Jacen almost as venomous as anything he thinks.

Its spews hatred from cover to cover. In the end, I find it very sad and not at all like Star Wars.

This is without a doubt the worst Star Wars novel ever published— I say this without the slightest bit of hyperbole. Planet of Twilight, The Crystal Star, Children of the Jedi, any of Kevin J. Anderson's books— I got more enjoyment out of all of them than this book.

I'll close with my favorite quote from it though, on page 4:


It was an alternate universe.


God willing!

0.4/10 is my rating, but if 1 is the lowest, I will begrudgingly give it a 1/10.