There is
an inherent difficulty in ending a multimedia event. These types of stories have far too many branching
paths to expect every audience member to have experienced all of them. If the story is going to hold up over time
there is an added danger of some of the stories to be inaccessible. Charles Soule was responsible for beginning The
High Republic and Trials of the Jedi is his novel closing it. In writing an ending it becomes clear that
Soule is touching on every arc that The High Republic had opened,
meaning that although I have been reading all of the adult and young adult
novels there are some stories finished here with which I am unfamiliar. Soule’s style as a novelist is also to
intercut between several stories in such a way that feels less like a novel and
more like a comic book, a criticism I had with Light of the Jedi. The final pages of Trials of the Jedi
are where Soule’s style of prose works at its best, going for a visceral
reaction of despair at the fate of Marchion Ro as well as a montage of where
the characters’ lives are headed from certain happy endings, to bittersweet
separation of lovers, to falling completely to the dark side, though with hints
at possible redemption. The prose works
because the scenes are particularly short, Soule’s style favoring quick and
snappy descriptions of actions and dialogue that lingers more on the emotion
than exactly what is being said. Soule
also works on the logic that every scene should end essentially on a mini
cliffhanger, so the pace of the novel is this back and forth between tension
and resolution before that final montage brings the final closure. For a novel this creates a staccato pace that
does not ever settle into the rhythm that it should, though unlike Light of
the Jedi because there is closure, and that closure is largely satisfying
for characters that the reader has been presumably following these characters
for the long haul.
Where Trials
of the Jedi is most interesting is how Soule centers empathy. The Force having a light and dark side does
imply there is an objective standard for good and evil, with the Jedi and the
Sith representing those sides of good and evil.
The High Republic has been questioning that morality at the core
of Star Wars as a franchise and Trials of the Jedi commits fully
to the Nameless being not inherently evil but misunderstood. The breaking through of the miscommunication
barrier by Elzar Mann and Avar Kriss feels like the first big breakthrough of
the novel. It’s where the tides of
battle can turn and the story itself works around. They are given a name, the idea of being
Nameless indicating they are things and not worthy of humanity. The Shrikarai as they are named is fitting as
a name in terms of the onomatopoeic potential, but their own abuses are used as
a way for understanding. It is that
breakthrough that collapses Marchion Ro’s empire and begins his downfall,
though the final action sequence between Ro and Bell Zettifar is a secondary
parallel of reclaiming empathy towards a villain. There’s explicitly parallels to the films: Revenge
of the Sith, Return of the Jedi, and The Last Jedi come to
mind. Soule keeps the path to redemption
open for Marchion Ro because that is the empathetic thing to do. He can no longer harm anyone at the end of
the novel and it is a road he rejects, but the choice was there. For Bell Zettifar it is also making the
correct choice in leaving the path open, as Mann and Kriss make the choice to
forego attachment and proximity for the greater good of the galaxy to provide
the Nameless humanity and to stop the Blight.
Soule does
not simplify the choice for empathy as a road without consequences either. Ro is put in prison and given the option to
improve, but the actions of those who follow him are also examined. Ghirra Starros’ ending comes to mind as the
prime example of someone who has not changed, equally lacking the potential to
do so. The outcome of her arc is that
her daughter is dead and in her own grief she denies the reality, coping by
rationalizing the death as her daughter following in her own footsteps and
feigning death as an exit strategy. This
is after a genuine attempt to reconnect with her daughter. It is essential that it is a genuine attempt
at reconciliation that will never come to parallel that Ghirra has the
potential to change unlike Ro, although her ending indicates that she will not
change. Compare that with Azlin Rell who
falls completely to his madness by the end of Trials of the Jedi, that
fall correlating with the Dark Side taking him.
It is notable that there had not been red lightsabers in The High
Republic as far as I can recall until Azlin Rell, hoping to alleviate the
pain, creates one by in his pain bleeding a kyber crystal. Yet, while he has fallen and is likely on the
path to becoming a Sith, Soule hints that redemption is still attainable,
although that would be a different story to tell.
Overall, Trials
of the Jedi in many ways is the story of hope returning to the galaxy while
riding the fine line of finishing the stories of every character who has
featured thus far in The High Republic in some way. There are story and character arcs here that
don’t even get a mention in this review because of how much Charles Soule has
to pack in here, which is why this is for me stronger than Light of the Jedi. His style is less of an issue with the ending
of a story than the beginning, even if Trials of the Jedi takes a while
to get going. Once it does it reaches
some incredible highs despite the slow start and the stylistic issues. 8/10.
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