This is not going to be like doing surveillance on a bail jumper.
Okay, so, more thoughts on FotJ: Outcast.
I really, really love this book to a degree that kind of surprises me. And in between commenting to comedownstairs about it this morning and then driving to work, it kind of hit me why. Spoilery stuff back behind the cut, yo. And yeah, probably a lot of Tahiri again 'cause this is me.
Consider this. The Darkmeld conspiracy team as it stands at the moment consists of Jaina, Tahiri, Winter Celchu, Mirax Horn, Tekli, Cilghal, and Jag. Jag. And a bunch of women. Two or three generations of them, even. Three of whom are Jedi, one of whom is a former Jedi/bounty hunter, one of whom is one hell of a former Intelligence operative, and one of whom is a successful businesswoman and former smuggler. Seriously. Darkmeld is full of some badass women. And it kind of cracks me up that the first time the core Darkmeld group (Jaina, Jag, Tahiri, and Winter) meets, the conversation highlights Winter and Tahiri's skillsets . . . and Jag as the guy financing the operation. I don't know if that was intentional or not but I love it.
Hell, going through the rest of the book, even the Kessel plot I don't really care about is pretty well populated with kickass women -- Leia, Tendra Risant Calrissian, Koyi Komad, Inyri Forge . . .
Even the bounty hunter (the one who isn't Tahiri) who gives them the most trouble throughout the Coruscant-based parts of the book is female, as are many of the Baran Do sages in Luke and Ben's plotline.
I can't not love that. I don't think I've seen this many kickass female characters in one Star Wars book in . . . hell, I don't know how long.
Which brings me down to the point I touched on in my last post.
Throughout NJO and LotF, both Jaina and Tahiri kept getting defined, or at least framed, by their relationships with men -- Jaina kept getting associated with things like being Jacen's twin, Anakin's sister, Kyp's apprentice (and there was that whole sorta-crush), and everything with Jag and Zekk. Tahiri was always the girl who loved Anakin Solo and was shattered by his death, and later Jacen's Sith apprentice who was lured into that position because she would do anything to go back and relive memories of Anakin. This isn't to detract from some of the awesome things that they did (well, in NJO at least for Tahiri, 'cause uh, WTF, LotF), and it's not even that I really noticed the framing all that much at the time, at least on Jaina's part. It was more frustrating with Tahiri, especially in LotF, because her entire character arc there revolved around Anakin. And it's why, when the first (bad) spoilers I heard said that she hooked up with Dab the Anakin lookalike, I frothed at a few poor unfortunate people for days on end, because I was all "OKAY IT HAS BEEN FIFTEEN YEARS, CAN WE GIVE HER A PLOTLINE THAT DOESN'T REVOLVE AROUND HER LONG-DEAD BOYFRIEND NOW?"
. . . and you know what? That stuff is so on the back burner in Outcast. What we see of Jaina's relationship with Jag isn't about the shippiness; it's about the plot. What we see of Tahiri isn't (so much) about the woman who spent half her life obsessing over a dead boy; it's about the woman who's trying, without much success so far, to do something to atone for the very big mistakes she made. And it seems to me like, with her violently bad reaction to Dab ("I spent months getting myself addicted to seeing him, Anakin, and then a couple of years trying to get over it. And, boom, he's [Dab] here. And you want me to come back? With him here every day?"), they're setting her up for finally really getting past her emotional issues about Anakin. I hope so, anyway. (Dear Christie Golden and Troy Denning, while I like the addiction angle that Aaron Allston's set up here for this, if you turn it into BtVS Season 6 Willow, so help me, I will hurt you a lot.) Much like comedownstairs I'm finding upon rereading that almost all my favorite parts of the book involve one or both of these two. Um, probably not surprising as they are two of my favorite EU characters ever, but.
I mean, they're doing stuff like Jaina trying to get Tahiri to come back to the Jedi Order, and plotting these secret missions, and god, I want more stuff with the two of them in the rest of the series, please, and you know what it all comes down to, in the end?
I think that this book passes the Bechdel test for me in a big, big way.
And that's freaking awesome.
***
A few other assorted notes.
- I think it's entirely fitting for Tahiri to be in the unusual role she is now: Force-talented but not Jedi, not Sith, and thus able to win legal immunity from the GA legislation requiring both of the above to be assigned an observer (which of course makes her an asset to Darkmeld). Because as she says in the book, she really has been so many different things in her life.
- Kenth Hamner might be stuffy and boring, but ". . . one to each Jedi operating solo -- my apologies, Leia, Jaina, I mean each Jedi operating unpartnered" might crack me up forever, because I'm a dork like that.
- "Did he have to hit me with a whole cargo ship?" Seeeeeeeeriously, where the hell was the Tahiri who said stuff like this all through LotF?
- I really, really, really love the Ben and Luke interaction. I can't overstate that. ("Dad. Jacen. Coruscant. Answers." "I don't like that you can win an argument without using verbs.")
- Jaina nearly tripping in the dark and being glad Dab wasn't around because she doesn't want word to get out that Jedi can be klutzes cracks me up so hard.
- So yeah. Jaina and Tahiri some more:
"I don't know. There are plenty of Jedi who don't remember me fondly --"
"And they should know that you and I are on good terms. It'll make them think about things."
That will never make me not be all skjsd;flkjal;sjdf "AWW I LOVE YOU GUYS."
- I love Aaron Allston for doing things like this: "a sturdy yellow hard-top speeder with enough room for two adults, eight younglings, and a Wookiee." Where you can sit there and go "OMG AHAHAHA IT'S A GFFA SUV," and it's all couched perfectly in the SW universe's terminology but you can still clearly draw the line to exactly what it would be in our world.
I'm pretty sure there's more I'm still missing. You might get another post. Heh.
I really, really love this book to a degree that kind of surprises me. And in between commenting to comedownstairs about it this morning and then driving to work, it kind of hit me why. Spoilery stuff back behind the cut, yo. And yeah, probably a lot of Tahiri again 'cause this is me.
Consider this. The Darkmeld conspiracy team as it stands at the moment consists of Jaina, Tahiri, Winter Celchu, Mirax Horn, Tekli, Cilghal, and Jag. Jag. And a bunch of women. Two or three generations of them, even. Three of whom are Jedi, one of whom is a former Jedi/bounty hunter, one of whom is one hell of a former Intelligence operative, and one of whom is a successful businesswoman and former smuggler. Seriously. Darkmeld is full of some badass women. And it kind of cracks me up that the first time the core Darkmeld group (Jaina, Jag, Tahiri, and Winter) meets, the conversation highlights Winter and Tahiri's skillsets . . . and Jag as the guy financing the operation. I don't know if that was intentional or not but I love it.
Hell, going through the rest of the book, even the Kessel plot I don't really care about is pretty well populated with kickass women -- Leia, Tendra Risant Calrissian, Koyi Komad, Inyri Forge . . .
Even the bounty hunter (the one who isn't Tahiri) who gives them the most trouble throughout the Coruscant-based parts of the book is female, as are many of the Baran Do sages in Luke and Ben's plotline.
I can't not love that. I don't think I've seen this many kickass female characters in one Star Wars book in . . . hell, I don't know how long.
Which brings me down to the point I touched on in my last post.
Throughout NJO and LotF, both Jaina and Tahiri kept getting defined, or at least framed, by their relationships with men -- Jaina kept getting associated with things like being Jacen's twin, Anakin's sister, Kyp's apprentice (and there was that whole sorta-crush), and everything with Jag and Zekk. Tahiri was always the girl who loved Anakin Solo and was shattered by his death, and later Jacen's Sith apprentice who was lured into that position because she would do anything to go back and relive memories of Anakin. This isn't to detract from some of the awesome things that they did (well, in NJO at least for Tahiri, 'cause uh, WTF, LotF), and it's not even that I really noticed the framing all that much at the time, at least on Jaina's part. It was more frustrating with Tahiri, especially in LotF, because her entire character arc there revolved around Anakin. And it's why, when the first (bad) spoilers I heard said that she hooked up with Dab the Anakin lookalike, I frothed at a few poor unfortunate people for days on end, because I was all "OKAY IT HAS BEEN FIFTEEN YEARS, CAN WE GIVE HER A PLOTLINE THAT DOESN'T REVOLVE AROUND HER LONG-DEAD BOYFRIEND NOW?"
. . . and you know what? That stuff is so on the back burner in Outcast. What we see of Jaina's relationship with Jag isn't about the shippiness; it's about the plot. What we see of Tahiri isn't (so much) about the woman who spent half her life obsessing over a dead boy; it's about the woman who's trying, without much success so far, to do something to atone for the very big mistakes she made. And it seems to me like, with her violently bad reaction to Dab ("I spent months getting myself addicted to seeing him, Anakin, and then a couple of years trying to get over it. And, boom, he's [Dab] here. And you want me to come back? With him here every day?"), they're setting her up for finally really getting past her emotional issues about Anakin. I hope so, anyway. (Dear Christie Golden and Troy Denning, while I like the addiction angle that Aaron Allston's set up here for this, if you turn it into BtVS Season 6 Willow, so help me, I will hurt you a lot.) Much like comedownstairs I'm finding upon rereading that almost all my favorite parts of the book involve one or both of these two. Um, probably not surprising as they are two of my favorite EU characters ever, but.
I mean, they're doing stuff like Jaina trying to get Tahiri to come back to the Jedi Order, and plotting these secret missions, and god, I want more stuff with the two of them in the rest of the series, please, and you know what it all comes down to, in the end?
I think that this book passes the Bechdel test for me in a big, big way.
And that's freaking awesome.
***
A few other assorted notes.
- I think it's entirely fitting for Tahiri to be in the unusual role she is now: Force-talented but not Jedi, not Sith, and thus able to win legal immunity from the GA legislation requiring both of the above to be assigned an observer (which of course makes her an asset to Darkmeld). Because as she says in the book, she really has been so many different things in her life.
- Kenth Hamner might be stuffy and boring, but ". . . one to each Jedi operating solo -- my apologies, Leia, Jaina, I mean each Jedi operating unpartnered" might crack me up forever, because I'm a dork like that.
- "Did he have to hit me with a whole cargo ship?" Seeeeeeeeriously, where the hell was the Tahiri who said stuff like this all through LotF?
- I really, really, really love the Ben and Luke interaction. I can't overstate that. ("Dad. Jacen. Coruscant. Answers." "I don't like that you can win an argument without using verbs.")
- Jaina nearly tripping in the dark and being glad Dab wasn't around because she doesn't want word to get out that Jedi can be klutzes cracks me up so hard.
- So yeah. Jaina and Tahiri some more:
"I don't know. There are plenty of Jedi who don't remember me fondly --"
"And they should know that you and I are on good terms. It'll make them think about things."
That will never make me not be all skjsd;flkjal;sjdf "AWW I LOVE YOU GUYS."
- I love Aaron Allston for doing things like this: "a sturdy yellow hard-top speeder with enough room for two adults, eight younglings, and a Wookiee." Where you can sit there and go "OMG AHAHAHA IT'S A GFFA SUV," and it's all couched perfectly in the SW universe's terminology but you can still clearly draw the line to exactly what it would be in our world.
I'm pretty sure there's more I'm still missing. You might get another post. Heh.