Books The High Republic: Path of Vengeance by Cavan Scott

https://www.starwars.com/news/swca-2022-the-high-republic-panel
YA novel.

 

For those in the UK, Blackwell's is taking preorders for this at £13.13

Given inflation predictions and where it might be by end of April / start of May 2023, might be a good time to order.

 

Spoiler

is that Marda Ro?

 

Looks like it.

 

Wonder if this is the ice cave where Marchion retried the leveler and was a shrine to his family's religion...

 

Spoiler: Synopsis

This enthralling follow up to Path of Deceit finds cousins Marda and Yana Ro bound by blood but driven apart by faith.

Marda and Yana belong to the Path of the Open Hand, a group led by a charismatic woman called the Mother, which believes the Force must not be used by anyone. While Marda joins a perilous expedition to Planet X in search of more mysterious creatures to use against the Jedi, Yana finds herself forming an unexpected alliance with the father of her dead lover in attempt to wrest the Path from the Mother’s control. These two young women will face a crossroads, forced to choose not only their own fates, but that of the galaxy itself.

First four chapters preview
https://odcom-4ba2c4552cf7cde8993e13347102b330.read.overdrive.com/

 

A little over halfway through.

Spoiler

Marda Ro is an incredibly frustrating character because she's such a fanatic and an obvious dupe. There are so many signs in her face that the Mother is a con, but she's just such a sucker. Worried about being manipulated by Force-users, but she can't see that she's being manipulated by the woman she's devoted herself to. Elecia may turn out to be a Force-user, which would probably just make Marda even more a fanatic but perhaps a more... nihilistic one.

Marchion Ro is clearly about to unleash an Eldritch horror on the Outer Rim in Phase 3 judging by what I've been reading on Planet X.

 

The thing about cults, is that you only recognise they are a cult from the outside.
& being outside, you think about how on earth can anyone be duped by the cult, because it is so obvious.
& yet, even in real life, people fall for them.

 

Oh, I know. Marda is just frustrating because she was such a sweet girl and she's had so many opportunities to moderate and even realize the Mother isn't everything she thinks she is. From Path of Deciet onward.

It's been such a wild shift between her and skeptical cousin Yana. I'm sure I'll know by the end, but I can't even tell which one of them will essentially be the founder of the Nihil at this point. Marda's fanaticism seems like the perfect fit, but then so does Yana's comfort with violence.

It struck me today that the Path and Dalna are shaping up to be the Waco or Ruby Ridge of the Jedi.

 

Well, that was a hell of an ending to read on Mother's Day! LOL

Spoiler

This might be my favorite book of Phase 2.

Finally got a lot of answers, dots connected.

Elecia the jealous sibling.

Still think there are some dots needing connected between how the Nihil come about with Asgar Ro's mom. And how the Leveller is not in Marchion's possession in LOTJ, because now we have it on the Gaze with Marda.

Do Marda and Yana link up again at some point, starting an Evereni offshoot of the Path on that ice world that Marchion got the Leveller from in The Rising Storm?

Clearly Yana, Opari and the Littles become the remnants of the Path on Trymant IV.

It's going to be interesting to read through Phase 1 again before Phase 3 commences.

 

Spoiler

It definitely feels like some things happened between phases 2 and 1...well, obviously, given the centuries, but yeah there seem to be some key turning points missing. (Even without getting into how the whole Togruta plotline seems to have oddly disappeared despite being set up as much as Dalna and the battle of Jeddha.)

Until we get something concrete, my headcanon is that Marda had multiple children, and while most stuck with a version of the Path somewhere between open hand and closed fist - were the high republic people Jade Empire fans? - one especially rebellious one is the person who first took their mother's philosophy of not being played for dupes and turned into a secular, violently individualist philosophy at the heart of the Nihil. Certainly, Shalla Ro is the one first credited for bringing together the different pirate gangs that would become the Nihil, and her son who made them into the Nihil proper, so it isn't something Marda or anyone else created all at once.

 

Spoiler

I feel that Marda is the real MVP of Phase II of the High Republic, for the simple fact that she elicits such strong emotions from the reader. I'm only on chapter 11 of Path of Vengeance, but I keep swinging from wanting to shake her and wanting to give her a hug. She seems like a very sweet, nice person. And yet she's just so stubbornly, willfully obtuse. She is, to me, a really awesome character because she is such an non-malicious person who is nonetheless allowing evil to be enabled and perpetrated.

And she's not just a nice person being duped. There is a fair amount of naive conceit on her part. She laments that the Herald screwed up the Path's relationship with the Convocation and started the riot. And then she notes that they would have listened and been swayed to the Path's view if she had been the one chosen to speak on their behalf. And one gets the sense that she's projecting a bit when her thoughts dwell on her belief that Kevmo was easily tricked into believing the Jedi philosophy.

So there is a bit of a selfish "I reject your reality and substitute my own" aspect to her character.

It's very easy to say that she's just a willful idiot and leave it at that. But this young woman has such immense dreams for the future of her organization, that you can't help but want her to do well.

And then you remember that she's indirectly responsible for a lot of death and destruction. Which leads to the question; how much sympathy should we really have for her? She is a legitimately pleasant person, but her philosophical rigidity is causing a lot of trouble for a lot of people.

 

Something I'm really curious to know more about:

Spoiler

Oliviah mentioned that her master was passionate about not just spreading the teachings of the Jedi, but the doctrines of the Luminous.

Who are the Luminous? Is that some overarching Force religion that all others are connected to or derived from? Another name for the Whills? Will we hear more about this from what was once called Project Luminous?

 

This was a very good book and quite frankly the High Republic has been pretty damn good. The combination of comic books and novels has really worked out.

 

I think many of the YA novels have outshone the adult novels as well.

 

Just finished it and it is a really good book and definitely will make me all the more interested in the Nihil during Phase III (which was really what this Phase was intended for).

One thing I am a little surprised at though is

Spoiler

Is that they didn't end the book with Marda leaving with a boyfriend. She had a romance during the book but they killed him off before the book ended. It's of course obvious that Marda is the ancestor of Marchion so she obviously does meet someone but I am surprised they didn't set it up at the end of the novel.

 

Spoiler

I actually prefer that they left so much about her final fate and direction open. I don't know how reliable the sources it cites are, but Wookieepedia implies that Shalla Ro was Marda's daughter, meaning Asgar Ro was her grandson and Marchion Ro her great grandson. Since there is a 150 year gap between Phase II and Phase I, I could see Marda waiting a few years before having children. She is fairly young in Path of Vengeance, after all. And after the double punch of Kevmo and Bokana's deaths, I think she'd probably take a break from romance for a bit to focus on building her new movement.

That does, however, add even more tragedy to her character. Shalla and Asgar seemed to be real pieces of work who live down to every Evereni stereotype. It sucks for Marda that she was usually so good with children, and then her own child turns out so badly.

 

Spoiler

Yeah I'll have to go read that comic again that Shalla is in but I'm not sure it exactly states that Marda was Shalla's mom. I think Wook is as of now coming to that conclusion because we currently don't have any known characters in-between them.

We'll have to see how much more of the Ro Family Tree is developed during Phase 3.

Spoiler

.

 

So i wonder if anyone is a Jade Empire fan

Spoiler

Open Hand becoming a Closed Fist? I mean I know it is a saying but it seems like a reference, or maybe I am over thinking.

 

Cavin Scott?

 

Amazon UK still hasn't got this in stock so I used the Marketplace to order from Blackwells. Should come toward the end of the week or early next week.

 

It's a chunky volume Laj.

 

About 520 pages.