#luke’s amazing ability to make people and creatures rethink their life decisions was there in movie 1

[phoenixkaptain]

Random thoughts time! Splinter of the Mind’s Eye edition~

1. I’ve already said how much the novel changed my perception of Luke, but it did the same to my perception of Leia. She tells Luke that she joined the Rebellion because she was bored and she discovered that the Empire didn’t allow art because it could so easily be used to create free thinkers and she wanted those free thinkers to be allowed, encouraged even, to create. She likes arts and she likes people and she likes people’s art.

2. Leia is the best combatant. In one book alone, she: kicks a guy so hard in the face she almost decapitates him, manages to sweep the legs out from beneath someone, claws a man until he passes out, goes toe-to-fucking-toe with Darth Fucking Vader with Luke’s lightsaber and actually manages to hold her own pretty well, throws an axe into a person’s shoulder while she and her target are both running. She’s so cool in this book, and every time you think “oh they’re gonna do the sexist damsel thing again” it turns out that Leia was just biding her time. So. Fucking. Cool.

Also, my favourite Leia scenes because they’re funny:

“”That should give them something to think about,” she announced with satisfaction. “Let them think we dematerialized the bars. It won’t bother Grammel, but it might make the troops uneasy. I want anyone trailing me to be as nervous as possible.””

“Leia moved closer, reached out uncertainly to touch his arm. He eyed her, then coughed. She sat back. Suddenly she began screaming. Luke looked around but there was nothing in sight.

Bending over, the Princess screamed into clasped hands. The muffled wail continued for several minutes. When it ended, she looked back up at him again without apology.

“I’m all right now, I think,” she said with forced steadiness.”

3. Love how eepy Luke is.

“Hin bared sharp canines, grabbed Luke by the neck. Luke stared resolutely at his furry visage. Abruptly, the hand moved away and Hin nodded slowly, giving out an apologetic grunt.”

-

“Luke was looking past her. On the other side of the stream they’d been following grew a small forest of water plants, apparently stimulated by the steady flow of fresh nutrients here. The huge leafy pads floating on the black surface were a dull, yellow-brown color. They were round and pointed slightly at two ends where the upturned edges met.

“You can’t,” Leia commented, “be thinking of traveling on one of those.””

-

“”I’m going to cut this one loose,” he announced.

The Princess looked skeptical. “With what? Your saber? I didn’t know they operated under water.”

He gazed back at her solemnly. “They’d better.””

-

“A voice sang fancifully in the back of his mind. It was exorting him to relax. Well, that was simple enough to do, he reflected pleasantly. Relax he would. He was tired, so tired now.”

-

“What had riveted his attention was not the Coway’s continuing methods of medication, nor the vanquished warrior’s convulsive reactions to them, but a large rock. As big as a man’s head, it lay in the water close by the Coway’s head.

His fingertips retained the memory of that stone. It was the one he’d encountered prior to passing out. Or had he passed out? It seemed as if something deep inside him, some resource of which he was unaware, had reacted on the brink of asphyxiation to help him raise the rock, turn and fling it at his tormentor.

Yet he couldn’t recall even placing both hands around it, let alone lifting it clear of the water and throwing.

“How did I do it?” he asked the Princess.

She eyed him uncertainly. “Do? Do what?”

“Beat … him,” he added exhaustedly, gesturing loosely toward the Coway fighter.”

-

“Suddenly his hand opened as if he’d been shot. The pink bulb fell to the ground as Luke stood bolt upright, eyes open and staring. The Princess rose, tried to make something of the gaping expression on his face.

“Luke… what’s wrong?” He took a couple of unsteady steps.

“Was it the fruit, boy?” Halla looked equally concerned. “Boy?”

Luke blinked, turned slowly to face them all. “What?”

“We were worried, Master Luke. You…” But Threepio broke off as Luke turned away to stare eastward.

“He’s coming,” he murmured, every letter resounding. “He’s near, very near.”

“Luke boy, you’d better start making some sense of I’ll have Hin hold you down and feed you dipills,” Halla said. “Who’s coming?”

“There was a stirring,” Luke whispered by way of reply. “A profound disturbance in the Force. I’ve felt it before, weakly. I felt it most strongly when Ben Kenobi was killed.”

Leia inhaled in terror, her eyes widening. “No, not him again, not here.”

“Something blacker than night stirs the Force, Leia,” Luke told her. “This Governor Essada must have contacted him, sent him here. He’d be especially interested in locating you and me.””

-

“”I guess I’m probably the cause of that.” They all turned to face Luke. “Just as I sensed Vader, he no doubt can sense me. He’s had a lot more experience in the Force than I have, so his senses are probably stronger. Don’t forget, he was a pupil of Obi-Wan Kenobi.” He glanced back toward the shaft-tunnel leading to the surface of Mimban.

“He’s coming for us.”

-

“Luke felt a wild sense of elation as he brandished his father’s weapon. “I’m not worried about anything, Vader. Not now. I have no more worries and only one concern.” His voice held an unaccustomed hint of conviction. “I’m going to kill you, Darth Vader.”

That humorless laugh again. “What a high opinion you hold of yourself, Skywalker.”

“I’m… I’m Ben Kenobi,” Luke whispered in an odd way.

For just a moment, Vader seemed shaken.”

-

“Luke’s motionless form was enveloped in a rich, red bath of light. In his hands the crystal shone with a brilliance unnatural. Nor was the light still. It shifted, fluttered, ran over him like a live thing. It sought out every extremity, each finger and follicle, like the St. Elmo’s fire of old on the rigging of a sailing ship.

After several long, rapturous moments the radiant envelope shrank, sucked up by the crystal which resumed its normal coloring.

Luke sat up so abruptly that Halla was unable to repress a short screech. He blinked once, looked at her.”

-

“”I don’t understand,” Luke murmured. But he hefted the crystal again in both hands, closed his eyes and tried to concentrate and relax at the same time. The glow from the crystal intensified.

“I understand,” came a voice out of Luke’s body that might or might not have been Luke’s.”

-

Like Luke spends half the book scaring people and making them uncomfortable. He’s perfect. I love him.

And some more Luke scenes because these could go in wildly different directions and I need someone else to see them:

“”Oh no, Captain-Supervisor!” Luke cried, dropping to his knees and clutching desperately at Grammel’s trouser legs. “Please don’t do that. They’ll have us executed. Please, we’ll work till we drop, but don’t send us back there!” He was sobbing openly now.”

“Wiping tears conjured with difficulty away from his eyes, Luke tried not to appear too hopeful as he regarded Grammel.”

“Reaching with both arms, the Coway warrior clasped Luke around the shoulders and pulled. Luke thought he’d have to use the saber after all, when the native pushed him away gently. Then it slapped him on one cheek.”

“”Well…” Using his right hand, he belted the quiescent Coway hard enough to rattle the native’s teeth. Despite Halla’s assurances, he braced himself for some sort of violent response. Instead, the native displayed a satisfied expression and dropped to his knees before Luke as the crowd howled its approval.”

“Only his neck still bothered him. It ached at the back, where the Coway’s unyielding fingers had pressed.”

-

And, finally, here’s a collection of Leia lines that I can perfectly hear in Anakin’s voice:

“Turning serious, the Princess told him, “One learns to accept whatever events life has in store with the best possible spirits.” She stared straight ahead.

“That’s just what I’m doing,” Luke confessed, “accepting them in the bets possible spirits—nervousness and fear.”

“Well, you needn’t look at me as if this is all my fault.”

“Did I imply that? Did I say that?” Luke countered, a touch more tightly than he intended. She glanced sharply at him and he cursed his inability to conceal his feelings. He would have been, he decided, a rotten card-player. Or politician.

“No, but you so much as…” she began hotly.”

-

“”Do you have any idea who I am?” the Princess started to tell her. She caught herself just in time. “Not that it matters. What does matter is that you can’t do it, can you?”

Halla started to object but the Princess cut her off challengingly. “Can you?”

-

“”Temples, gods, crystals,” the Princess murmured. “Okay, suppose this legendary place does exist,” she hypothesized, jabbing an accusing finger at Halla. “This Kaiburr crystal, just what is it supposed to be… a big gemstone of some kind?””

-

“Still skeptical, the Princess sat back and looked in askance at Halla. “A small fragment of radiant glass or plastic, or an ordinary silicate treated to glow. You expect me to accept that as proof?””

-

(Honestly, the entire scene of them talking with Halla in chapter 4 is just filled with Leia being Anakin.)

-

“The Princess noticed her one victim recovering consciousness and kicked him soundly.”

-

“She concentrated her stare on the middle of the sergeant’s back, trying to drive him insane. The sergeant showed no hint of being affected. Probably solid bone under the helmet, she mused.”

-

“She whispered back tightly, “You have this wonderfully evocative way about you, Luke, of reducing the most excruciatingly uncomfortable circumstances to the merely mundane.”

Luke looked hurt.”

-

“”That’s funny,” noted the Princess, “because you strike me as having a particularly limited capacity for learning.”

-

“Thanks to the tactics being employed by the Imperials, Luke discovered that the Princess was too furious to be really frightened.”

-

(A lot of the earlier quotes also have this vibe. I love Leia so much.)

All in all, would I recommend Splinter of the Mind’s Eye? Sure. It’s 12 chapters, 298 pages, not too long, and it has the first lightsaber throwing, the first instance of Luke lifting anything in the Force, it’s the first mention of kyber crystals (spelled “kaiburr” but still), it’s one of the only times in the entire series Leia wields Anakin’s lightsaber (and she’s really cool doing it), it has if not the worst then a very poor portrayal of Darth Vader, and Luke and Leia both come back from the dead because of space magic. Really, it’s a rollercoaster of a read and I highly enjoyed it, somehow.