The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark (Short Stories 6-11) by various
The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark (Short Stories 6-11) by various
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"Bane's Story" by Tom Angleberger
This story covers Episode 15 "Deception," Episode 16 "Friends and Enemies," Episode 17 "The Box," and Episode 18 "Crisis on Naboo" of Season Four in which Obi-Wan poses as Rako Hardeen to discover the Separatist plot to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine. I found this one to be quite enjoyable and creative as it's Cad Bane retelling the story to Boba Fett and Bossk after he gets put back in prison. So we get his perspective on the story, knowing in hindsight that Rako was actually Obi-Wan. The man is pissed!!
We start off with Boba Fett bad mouthing Bane for being back in prison. Bane thinks, "There was no man in the prison with the guts to talk to me that way. But there was one kid. A bounty hunter like me can't afford to have friends, but this kid was alright. Plus, I owed his father, Jango, a few favors." I find it so interesting how even as a young child, Boba Fett is seen as important and worthy in the bounty hunter realm.
In retelling the story, Bane speaks to the Jedi's reaction to "when a 'Jedi killer' like Hardeen escapes." "Turns out they'll chase you from planet to planet doing their stupid Jedi tricks. Turns out they're not so different from us bounty hunters when they get mad. I always heard Jedi were supposed to be in control of their feelings, but the two crazies on our tail sure weren't in control. You're not going to believe this, but it was Skywalker and his little trainee, the one with the horns or whatever those things are. Every time I turn around those two are sticking their noses in my business!" I'm a little disturbed again by a person not knowing a species' name--I'd think Togrutans (Ahsoka's species) aren't that uncommon in the galaxy... He continues to speak ill of Ahsoka in, "the other Jedi jumped out of their wrecked ship and went nuts. She had two lightsabers and was swinging them around so much I thought she was going to cut off her own horns." Although it's clear Bane doesn't like either Jedi one bit, I find it hilarious that he pretty much hits the nail on the head in regards to how reckless the two of them can sometimes be.
And then Bane moves on to bad-mouthing Dooku!! "Dooku's joint was like a castle, and he was strutting around like he was a king. I wasn't impressed. Money impresses me, not the fools who have it." And "I hoped he wasn't expecting me to kneel like Eval. That's one thing I won't do. Another is call some old man 'my lord' just because he's got a long beard and a big house." Hahaha!! Again, Dooku is pompous as hell.
In regards to the fairness of Moralo Eval's competition--The Box--, "Eval got where he is by lying, cheating, and shooting people in the back. Any test he designed would be about as fair as playing sabacc with a Socorrian"...which is actually a super funny statement because you know who's from Socorro?? Lando!!
Bane really doesn't like Palpatine. As evidenced by, "If you ask me, listening to that old bag of wrinkles run his mouth ain't no festival. If we could kidnap him before he started, the Naboolians or whatever they're called would probably give us a medal." Naboolians--lmao! Cad Bane definitely has a fantastic sense of humor as evidenced by all of the above!!
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Trivia:
Cad Bane's weapons include two LL-30s and an electro-lash.
I love how Thunian wart-hornets are used as a description for Twazzi--these insects are first mentioned in Tom Angleberger's wonderful middle-grade series "Adventures in Wild Space"!!
The five bounty hunters who complete The Box include: Rako Hardeen (Obi-Wan), Embo, Twazzi, Cad Bane, and Derrown.
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So this one was quite enjoyable! A fantastic fresh perspective and quite a bit of unique insights from Bane himself. Plus, the humor was top notch!
"The Lost Nightsister" by Zoraida Cordova
This story delved into the dark and slightly disturbing Episode 20 "Bounty" of Season Four in which the Krayt's Claw Gang (Latts Razzi, C-21 Highsinger, Dengar, Bossk, and Boba Fett) with their newest recruit, Asajj Ventress, protect a box en route to the Belugan Otua Blank--the box ends up containing a young Kage girl, Pluma Sodi, destined to be Otua's bride. Yuck!!
The focus of this story, hence the title, is Asajj, and we start off with this wonderful description, "Asajj Ventress was hard to kill. She'd survived being ripped away from her mother on Dathomir. She'd survived being enslaved. She'd survived Jedi training with her old master. She'd survived Count Dooku. She'd survived General Grievous' massacre of her sisters. She'd survived dueling with Jedi scum like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. Ventress survived because the only other choice was not surviving, and she was too stubborn for that." Although she may be stubborn, we do get a taste of her doubts and insecurities in not knowing where to go next, post-massacre of her family.
Major Rigosso, a Belugan, lauds the bounty hunters with the wonders of his lord, Otua Blank. "Ventress didn't care for the way he talked about his lord. Was that how she once sounded when talking about Dooku?" Love it!!! From what I know of their relationship, she definitely did...*cringe*.
Trivia: The "massive centipede-like animal" ridden by the Kage chasing down the tram is called a milodon. It has giant glowing eyes and pincers on its face.
We see Asajj's doubts and uncertainties clearly in this, "She drew on the Force. For so many days there had been different voices in her mind. Each voice was louder than her own. Doubt. Fear. Failure. They sounded like her past. In this moment, she only heard herself. Survive."
And then she turns her doubts on their head by at first sinking to the lowest levels of worthlessness, then realizing just how fatalist she's being. "Part of Ventress was envious that there was someone willing to fight so hard for this girl. What made her so special? What made her worth-- No. She couldn't think that way. This girl's worth didn't diminish her own." "The truth was, she'd always had a path. She'd only lost it for some time. Ventress had been so many things. Slave. Jedi. Sith. Nightsister. Survivor. Bounty Hunter. She had never been nothing. She had never been no one. She was Asajj Ventress, and the galaxy was waiting."
For a story about Asajj that has such dark undertones, the ending was incredibly uplifting and inspiring and I recommend reading it for anyone who has their own doubts and insecurities. You are powerful. You are important!
"Dark Vengeance: The True Story of Darth Maul and His Revenge Against the Jedi Known as Obi-Wan Kenobi" by Rebecca Roanhoarse
This short story is presented as a "bedtime" story told by Maul that covers Episode 21 "Brothers" and Episode 22 "Revenge" of Season Four which of course involved him being found by Savage on Lotho Minor and then making himself known to Obi-Wan on Raydonia.
I really enjoyed this one because it did not rely heavily on dialogue that we already knew, but instead fleshed out the story by having Maul retell the events in narrative format from his point of view.
It starts, "Tell me, child, do you know who I am? Do they whisper my name in the classrooms of your academy, down the winding halls of your space station, in the hollows and fields of your farming planet, or across the dunes of your desert home?" I don't ever want Darth Maul telling me a bedtime story...
"I survived in darkness, lost to madness, discarded and forgotten...until my brother found me and set me on my path of revenge. [...] Through sheer will and driven by my hate of Obi-Wan Kenobi, I survived down in the darkest depths of the planet. I fashioned for myself out of discarded metal a lower body that resembled the abdomen and legs of a spider. It suited my circumstances. Creeping, creeping, small and broken, always waiting, I was. [...] I could not even remember my own [name]. Only one name did I remember between my mutterings and rantings and screaming howls, and I said it then to [Savage]. Kenobi, Kenobi, Kenobi." Maul is so completely insane when Savage finds him that I thought it extremely interesting getting his hindsight take on what he went through on Lotho Minor once he'd gotten his bearings about him again.
And in regards to Raydonia, "I will not lie to you like the Jedi would. Many died by my hand that day. Many children among them, just like yourself. Does that scare you? Disturb you? I understand. But do not blame me! This was all Kenobi's fault." *Shiver*! Again, no bedtime story told by Maul for me!
So this was a really great one. It delved deep into Maul's psyche and added so much to the story we already know.
"Almost a Jedi" by Sarah Beth Durst
This short story was Episode 9 "A Necessary Bond" of Season Five and was told from the point of view of the Tholothian youngling Katooni!! It was precious, wonderful, and such a joy to read about her coming into her own and recognizing her own strength. Her looking up to Ahsoka was frequently referenced and it was adorable!! You'll remember Katooni was the one who had trouble putting together her lightsaber once she acquired her crystal on Ilum. There's also plenty of Hondo goodness and his boosting of Katooni to become her own person is so sweet.
An example of her looking up to Ahsoka, "Yes, the Padawan Ahsoka Tano, apprentice to Jedi Master Anakin Skywalker and pretty much the strongest, fastest, bravest, and cleverest Padawan ever. (I drew a poster of her with her signature double lightsabers for my room at the Jedi Temple. Okay, I drew three posters of her.)" This hero worship is so freaking precious!! Katooni's role model isn't a famed Jedi, but a famed Padawan, someone she can more easily see herself being in the near future...and yet she even has a difficult time with this.
Katooni doubts herself continuously, "Almost, I thought. Almost wasn't good enough. Just like it wasn't good enough that I'd almost assembled my lightsaber. 'Almost' meant it was still a jingling mess of parts in my pocket. I was almost a Jedi. I was almost brave. I almost believed we'd survive this." The little Tholothian has so far to go in believing herself, but through this story, she finds a way!
As Katooni again attempts to assemble her saber, this time with Hondo encouraging her, she thinks, "[Hondo] seemed eager. Even excited. Staring at him, I realized that this pirate, our enemy, believed I could do it. He looked at me, and he didn't see a Tholothian girl dreaming of an impossible future filled with brave deeds and glorious victories that she'd never achieve. He saw me, Katooni, a Jedi youngling with the kyber crystal I'd retrieved on my own and the pieces I'd chosen for my lightsaber. He saw a girl who had helped trick him to free Ahsoka. He saw someone who was here to rescue him. More than that, he saw someone who could become everything she wanted to be." My heart is exploding!!!
And finally, "He'd believed in me, and he'd listened to me. He'd seen what I'd been having so much trouble seeing: that almost a Jedi doesn't mean never. It means someday. Someday soon." D'awww.
This was definitely my favorite story in the entire collection. I LOVE how it wasn't told from Ahsoka's perspective which could have been the easy route, but it took more of a From A Certain Point of View approach and went with the minor character instead. This made it more heartwarming, more relatable, and just so gosh darn cute!
"Kenobi's Shadow" by Greg van Eekhout
This story felt short, rushed, and did not at all have the impact I expected of a retelling of Episode 16 "The Lawless" of Season Five in which Duchess Satine of Mandalore dies in front of Obi-Wan's eyes. I thought we'd get some romantic backstory, learn more about why they mean so much to each other, something. But we don't get a thing.
The one stand out unique quote was, "At least the flames hadn't singed his beard." Funny, but inconsequential.
Although this description of Duchess Satine was quite fascinating, "She always took care to present herself with dignity, wearing colors that reminded one of rich foliage and adopting floral-inspired hairstyles that she wore like a crown. It was not vanity. It was strategy. Her appearance was designed to remind her people that their world had been one of lush forests and jewel-colored lakes before war turned Mandalore into a desert."
And Obi-Wan's views on Maul do dig a bit deeper. "The one who kept coming back, dragging with him the deepest, heaviest shadow of wrath and leaving nothing but death and mourning in his wake. Hate was not the Jedi way. But for this man, Obi-Wan had grown weary of keeping it at bay."
So there's a tiny bit of extra but not really enough to make this a true re-envisioning of the episode.
"Bug" by E. Anne Convery
And finally we come to the original story inspired by Episode 19 "Massacre" of Season Four in which Dathomir and the Nightsisters are completely wiped out by General Grievous and his troops. This story does not take place on Dathomir though the story told by the Dathomirian witch, Falta, who's one of the main characters does. Instead, we meet Sidi, "a gray, outer rim planetoid that lay cold under a heavy sky and smelled, when the wind blew out of the east, of rotten eggs."
Bug is the name of the story's protagonist, a little girl, who is constantly ignored by her inn-owner parents, Rank and Leera, or made to do every chore in the book by them. She has no meaning in life and her only desire is to have a replacement for the missing monnok piece on the Inn's dejarik board. Rank and Leera dominate the local comms tower and force passersby to pay them to access it's data and use.
Falta is a witch of Earth magicks, creating, rather than destroying. "She tended a few small rancors as mounts and for meat in times of scarcity, and a tooka cat would come in from its hunting to sit by her fire or even in her lap on cold evenings." This witch sees the burial rites of Nightsisters--hanging the dead from trees wrapped in rancor hides--as an abomination against life. And so she seeks to combat this abomination by creating life instead. "She began to collect what she would need: clay from the Singing Mountain and water from the Dreaming River. She traded for colorful shells with a traveling witch from the Blue Coral Divers Clan and gathered berries bright as rubies from the Red Hills. She bundled these things [...] together [...] swaddled in the living fronds of giant ferns that grew beside the Misty Falls." Her magickal creation was a child, "Her skin was a warm brown like the clay Falta had used to form her body. Her lips were red as berries, and on either temple, she bore marks, like tattoos, of the ferns that had cradled her. She looked at Falta with eyes the blue of coral and reached for her with tiny, perfect hands. Falta named her Yenna, and she was her dearest creation."
Falta's story follows Yenna's journey as she outgrows living in isolation with her mother and desires to learn greater magicks from the Nightsisters themselves. Not long after Yenna finds her way to Mother Talzin, General Grievous arrives and the massacre occurs. Falta races to the Nightsisters' realm but no Yenna is to be found. She is now at Rank and Leera's Inn trying to locate her long lost dear daughter. Sensing Bug's susceptibility and need for purpose, Falta tells the story to the young girl to lure her into getting her access to the comms tower and hopefully access to finding Yenna. Turns out Falta and Bug needed each other and didn't even know it, because Bug ends up wanting nothing more than to travel the galaxy with Falta on the search for her daughter.
This one definitely tugged at my heartstrings and it added fascinating new lore to the planet of Dathomir!! Apparently there are many more witches living there than merely the Nightsisters. Of course now, I want to know more!!!
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And there ends my double-review of The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark. Definitely worth the read even though a couple of the stories weren't much to write home about. Most of what we got was new insight and new perspective and digging deeper into familiar tales. I do feel like some of the less impactful stories relied a bit too heavily on dialogue which already existed, thus bringing them down in creativity and uniqueness. But there were enough stories in the mix that were creative and were unique and that left me feeling like I had experienced something altogether new. So I absolutely recommend this collection to any fan of "The Clone Wars"!!
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