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A review by goodverbsonly
Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray
4.0
Did I enjoy this book? Yea, of course I love Obi-Wan, I love wanting to fistfight Qui-Gon, resident dumbass of the Jedi, but like, can we talk about Anakin:
Real Aveross who came to the temple at the age of 5 refuses to assimilate. The Council makes certain exceptions for him, because they believe that it’s in his best interest and because they are a religious order founded on compassion. Qui-Gon believes that these exceptions led to Rael’s loss of his Padawan, AND that the leniency they treated him with in regards to the role he played in her death was WRONG. What does the Council take from this? What side of the argument did Yoda fall on?( I actually don’t know, and it is important, because I believe that Yoda did like Aveross and Anakin but he doesn’t like Qui-Gon very much at all.) Aveross is so distraught from the death of Nim that he throws himself into his next assignment, and loses sight of his mandate and what’s best, and causes, in part, the catastrophe at the end of the novel.
He is a clear Anakin parallel, but the questions I asked, which are, what does everyone learn, are...left hanging. Why do we even ask these questions if we don’t know what Qui-Gon learned, except that the chosen one is someone who exists, and is someone who is coming soon (and is Anakin, I can’t believe they let Claudia Gray put the Prophesy in print. It is undeniably about Anakin imo. The one about Shmi is less hard-and-fast, but clear enough that I’ve decided it’s about Shmi). What did Obi-Wan learn, except that he is still young (true, this is, in a lot of ways, a coming of age story for Obi-Wan and an adult story about Qui-Gon: a chance to reassess the things he’s believed up until now, to reevaluate what he believed was important) and had a lot to learn. What does the Council learn? I don’t know. What do they learn about Compassion, about how they will treat someone they don’t know yet. Nothing? A lot? It’s a mystery.
Are we even meant to see Anakin in Rael? That’s something I don’t know. Anakin might have trouble assimilating and letting go, but we see it manifest differently — in how hard he tries to, and how hard it is for him anyway. Where Rael accentuates his differences because he was older, Anakin who was even older when he came to the Temple, chafes against the Jedi who treat him like an outsider, who don’t trust him. What does Anakin do when he loses Ahsoka (a question I don’t even know fits in the schema of this book...but something we might have some perspective into come 2020...; also is this death more parallel to Padme or Shmi’s?) To be fair, Nim’s death is certainly more about Qui-Gon’s insecurities about his apprenticeship with Obi-Wan than anything else
Also, Qui-Gon displays a startling lack of compassion. I think there’s this idea that he would have been a better master for Anakin than Obi-Wan, that Obi-Wan was too young, and the death of his master, AND that his master tried to replace him with Anakin, was too fresh for him to be a good master to anyone, let alone a troubled, recently freed 10 yo who he was almost replaced with, but I’m just here to say, if Obi-Wan, who was at least half as rebellious and insecure as Anakin, had trouble with Qui-Gon’s vagueness, inconsistency with the way he applied rules, and inability to show that he cared about Obi-Wan (especially this one because sometimes Anakin is STUPID and doesn’t realize that Obi-Wan is insanely devoted to him out of love not duty and Obi-Wan actually could hardly make this clearer), then I have no idea how Anakin would have felt.
It’s good, it’s fun, it’s Star Wars, it’s completely detached from the Clone Wars somehow, and Padme’s teeny appearance in the EPILOGUE was like a GUT PUNCH but like...what did this book add to the canon.
Oh except for some vagueness about Dooku. Yeah, I forgot to add that this does work best if you listen to Jedi Lost first.
Real Aveross who came to the temple at the age of 5 refuses to assimilate. The Council makes certain exceptions for him, because they believe that it’s in his best interest and because they are a religious order founded on compassion. Qui-Gon believes that these exceptions led to Rael’s loss of his Padawan, AND that the leniency they treated him with in regards to the role he played in her death was WRONG. What does the Council take from this? What side of the argument did Yoda fall on?( I actually don’t know, and it is important, because I believe that Yoda did like Aveross and Anakin but he doesn’t like Qui-Gon very much at all.) Aveross is so distraught from the death of Nim that he throws himself into his next assignment, and loses sight of his mandate and what’s best, and causes, in part, the catastrophe at the end of the novel.
He is a clear Anakin parallel, but the questions I asked, which are, what does everyone learn, are...left hanging. Why do we even ask these questions if we don’t know what Qui-Gon learned, except that the chosen one is someone who exists, and is someone who is coming soon (and is Anakin, I can’t believe they let Claudia Gray put the Prophesy in print. It is undeniably about Anakin imo. The one about Shmi is less hard-and-fast, but clear enough that I’ve decided it’s about Shmi). What did Obi-Wan learn, except that he is still young (true, this is, in a lot of ways, a coming of age story for Obi-Wan and an adult story about Qui-Gon: a chance to reassess the things he’s believed up until now, to reevaluate what he believed was important) and had a lot to learn. What does the Council learn? I don’t know. What do they learn about Compassion, about how they will treat someone they don’t know yet. Nothing? A lot? It’s a mystery.
Are we even meant to see Anakin in Rael? That’s something I don’t know. Anakin might have trouble assimilating and letting go, but we see it manifest differently — in how hard he tries to, and how hard it is for him anyway. Where Rael accentuates his differences because he was older, Anakin who was even older when he came to the Temple, chafes against the Jedi who treat him like an outsider, who don’t trust him. What does Anakin do when he loses Ahsoka (a question I don’t even know fits in the schema of this book...but something we might have some perspective into come 2020...; also is this death more parallel to Padme or Shmi’s?) To be fair, Nim’s death is certainly more about Qui-Gon’s insecurities about his apprenticeship with Obi-Wan than anything else
Also, Qui-Gon displays a startling lack of compassion. I think there’s this idea that he would have been a better master for Anakin than Obi-Wan, that Obi-Wan was too young, and the death of his master, AND that his master tried to replace him with Anakin, was too fresh for him to be a good master to anyone, let alone a troubled, recently freed 10 yo who he was almost replaced with, but I’m just here to say, if Obi-Wan, who was at least half as rebellious and insecure as Anakin, had trouble with Qui-Gon’s vagueness, inconsistency with the way he applied rules, and inability to show that he cared about Obi-Wan (especially this one because sometimes Anakin is STUPID and doesn’t realize that Obi-Wan is insanely devoted to him out of love not duty and Obi-Wan actually could hardly make this clearer), then I have no idea how Anakin would have felt.
It’s good, it’s fun, it’s Star Wars, it’s completely detached from the Clone Wars somehow, and Padme’s teeny appearance in the EPILOGUE was like a GUT PUNCH but like...what did this book add to the canon.
Oh except for some vagueness about Dooku. Yeah, I forgot to add that this does work best if you listen to Jedi Lost first.