This is a guest editorial written by Morwen. It will completely spoil Ruin, so if you have not read that book, you probably don't want to read this. Any opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily my opinions. If you are interested in reading more articles and musings by Morwen, you can visit her site here. Do not repost anywhere without the permission of the author!
"There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorace; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is the Force." The Jedi Code
Then there are Jedi. And there are Corellian Jedi.
Specifically, there is one Corellian Jedi. And there's what happened to him, which is what I'll touch upon first. And what's happened in him, that I'll consider second.
At the end of Dark Tide: Ruin, Corran Horn has become what many politicians have before threatened Wedge would become, or what Tycho had almost become in the Krytos Trap. Reviled, put on a par with [irony gods are rolling on the floor] Kyp and Vader, his reputation destroyed, all that he has done for the New Republic, the countless times he has laid down his life and the saves he has made as Rogue or Jedi discounted completely. So discredited by politicians looking for the scapegoat and mass media being their usual Jawa selves that to protect the Jedi from going down with him, the Jedi have to outcast him. Half does that with bleeding heart, mostly, while the other half would as soon dance on his grave to start with, anyway.
So he's exiled, effectively put out of the game, and so the first reaction of Morwen is "Mike, you could just have let him die in peace."
But--where is he exiled? Corellia.
Hello? "Exiled" to his homeworld?
Let's flash back to I,Jedi, to the time Corran spent on Corellia with his grandfather. In his grand search for identity, that stop was one in which he learned a lot about Corellian Jedi. Remember that Luke always kept talking about Corran bringing the famous tradition of the Corellian Jedi with him to the Academy, but there was scant sign of that except in Corran taking off on his own at the end and refusing to come back until peace with the Imps. Because keeping to themselves and a fierce individuality had been one sign of Corellian Jedi.
We also had learned that Corellian Jedi hardly ever left their homesystems while serving as a Jedi, and there was even a belief that "a Corellian Jedi who leaves the system does so at his own peril." Superstition or not, that belief certainly indicates one thing. Corellian Jedi did not normally go traipsing around the Galaxy.
But that's in peace time, you'll say. Nejaa Halcyon did go out in the Clone Wars, because he was needed. Last time he went out, he didn't return. The Empire took care of the rest, and Corellia was without a Jedi.
Until such time as Halcyon's grandson returned. No, Corran doesn't think in this way when you close the back cover on the last page of Ruin. It will take him some time (hope he has that time, but more on that later) to realize that he has, actually, "completed a cycle", and brought the Corellian Jedi truly back--not to mention has completed his own cycle.
He isn't dead; he isn't worse than dead; and he even has a chance to fulfill a destiny that is not that much different from Luke Skywalker's, just on a smaller scale.
So I am sort of at peace with what happened to Corran now, and I don't think he was better off dead, anymore.
* * * * * * * * * *
So are things just fine? Of course not. It's Corran's bleak mood that makes us turn the last page of Ruin with a grimace on our face, and it's not unjustified.
For one thing, what happened to Corran might be right, but the timing was pretty well wrong. Now isn't a time he can afford constricting his sphere of responsibility to the Corellia system, not even with doing refugee work. Now is like the time Nejaa Halcyon had to go out of the system and fight. And besides, since Corran returned to Corellia and at least seemingly disassociated himself from the Jedi working as a whole not out of choice but because his hand was forced, the whole principle of the thing is not quite right, and it might easily be argued that a lot of his character development, his growing up and seeing the whole Galaxy as "folks he's sworn to protect" starting with Rogue Squadron, has gone to waste. Which is sad, probably true, and part of Ruin. It happens.
It could have been worse, as his request from Ganner and Jacen indicates. Luke clearly needs every Jedi that will support him in the coming showdown. Now Corran is out of that game--to have him support Luke would be like Jabba supporting Karrde in a similar smuggler organization. But, thankfully, Ganner has had an attitude overhaul and will help shift the balance a bit.
Corran's aware of how much his standing and situation has changed; he's now speaking of "linking with Booster." That is something he wouldn't have said aloud if you kept him in an Embrace of Pain for weeks, just two days before the last scene.
But his standing has changed, and as Luke is aware of, something within him changed as well.
Gone is the Jedi that so rightfully snapped at Luke in that magnificent final Temple scene in I, Jedi. Gone, with him, are my doubts about the strength of the Dark Side.
In the movies, we were constantly being told how powerful the Dark Side was, how strong the lure, how slippery the slope. But I had always believed in Corran's stance--"It's possible to stand there and not fall. It's possible to look at it in the face and not go over."
True. If you're healthy, strong, not under mind-bending stress of having the fate of a planet and a very important military resource in your hands, and not have had a friend, someone very important to you, murdered needlessly in your eyes in the bargain.
Still, for Corran, there are no excuses; I tend to think Luke agrees with that, although he's probably more than symphatetic. What Corran considers as his dabbling into the Dark Side--pausing a moment before killing Shai, and savoring the knowledge of his death because he had killed Elegos, among other things--has taken all of half a second, tops. Plus he had had to kill Shai anyway--self-defense, saving Ithor, he had ample justification, so much so that Jacen or Ganner never realize what's bothering him. But this is our Corran that has pushed himself to excellence and beyond ever since he first appeared, and he's not likely to forgive the smallest fault in himself easily.
*But when the "smallest fault" involves Dark Side, is he right? If not, why are we still respecting Luke?*
What he needs is, now, maybe, some time with Iella, Mirax and Wedge to set him right, or shake him hard enough to rattle his teeth (Booster might help). What he needs is another long talk with Luke, afterwards, to set things in perspective. As in, a nanosecond's impurity of motive that did not change your course of action anyway as opposed to years of acting as a Sith henchman and coming back in your last ten minutes. Lacking these things what he needs is time. As Shai himself has noted, the people of GFFA are remarkably resilient, and Corran is even more so.
I like to think, at this point, that he will have the time to sort what's happened in him, put that in perspective, what's happened to him, put that in perspective, and emerge as yet another Corran Horn from this next cocoon of his life.
But of course, whether future authors touch him or not (unless guided by Mike or privy to what he intended, I hope they won't) he might or might not have that time, or might or might not have the internal and external guidance to come to either or any of those realizations.
Which is why the book--and Corran's story--ends on a cliffhanger, and not on a happy note, certainly not as happy as he deserved.
Dark Tide. Ruin. Not "Total Annihilation", but...
Thanks, many thanks to Michael Stackpole...
Copyright August 25, 2000 by Morwen.
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