You know, I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep going. After that absolute fuckfest of a chapter, I was tempted to call it quits. Then, after two days and two nights of finding anything else to do, I finally opened the next chapter and saw this:
And in that moment, I knew that my work was not complete. I am damned to this journey, destined to see my sanity slowly unravel as I behold this comedy of errors. To those of you with the courage to follow me into this hell, I salute you.
Two things: first, a quick catch-up on the state of the team. Rey has not forgiven Aliana, but is willing to give her the chance to earn forgiveness, Finn is down an out with the same injury as per the movie, Chewie is unharmed beyond his emotional injuries, Aliana has a nasty sunburn, and Aliana's protocol droid that I never mention because his primary function is to fail at comic relief still exists.
Secondly, I'm feeling another wasted opportunity here. The return to friendly territory is an excellent opportunity to take stock of the heroes' physical condition, to sell how exhausting being a hero is. If you ever want your D&D group to spend some money, describe what they look like as they come back to town: dust-caked sweat along their faces, blood matted in their hair, armor battered and dented, week-long stubble on their chins, hunched under the weight of their rucksacks and glancing warily out at the world with sunken, sleep-deprived eyes.
I'm just going to point this one out because it's another damned reference that Jerry didn't even bother to set up properly. I went back and checked, and there was no "she won't get a scratch" line, which then renders Poe's report just awkward. If you absolutely
have to use a one-liner OT reference about minor ship damage, then why not go with "
A little cooked, but she's okay", especially since Poe flew through a
wall of fire to do his bullshit?
Look, I use all caps, too, but never when I'm writing prose or dialogue, because it is fucking unprofessional. This is what italics are for,
use them. Good on Jerry for passing up the opportunity to make
the obvious reference, though.
Oh the other hand, Poe then says this:
And ain't that just the perfect summary of this whole damn story.
See? Aliana's not a Mary Sue, she can only do crazy bullshit like that when the plot wants her to!
And for fuck's sake, Jerry,
stop using cultural expressions!
We also get our first taste of Aliana philosophizing about the Force. On the face of it, there's nothing wrong with it, but considering who it's coming from, well...
Anyway, Aliana goes to check on the map.
As far as trying to unfuck Abrams' decision to use an easy visual signal that makes no sense when any form of logic is applied, this isn't the worst way to go about it. Of course, we all know where this is going.
Aliana figures out where Luke is, because of course she fucking does.
No, wait, never mind, she only gets it down to 8, because she's totally not a Mary Sue.
This chapter is really ramping up the praise for Aliana. Surprisingly, Jerry is actually headed somewhere with it.
You know what? Maybe it's just because it's 2AM as I write this and I should go the fuck to bed, but I think I actually like this exchange. Seeing someone struggle with expectations placed upon them is a theme I enjoy, and despite all the contrivance and horseshit that it took to get here, despite the likelihood that this is just trying to "prove" that Aliana isn't a Mary Sue, for one moment, Jerry actually made something genuinely
good.
Time skip to finding the planet, and we get what might be a surprisingly subtle callback to EU canon. In the EU, Dagobah was also a planet that resonated with the Dark Side of the Force, which was effectively neutralized by Yoda's presence, essentially meaning that a Force user wouldn't be able to detect him from orbit.
And here we get our first peek at Aliana's views on destiny. I get the feeling we'll be getting a nice, fat rant on that topic later, so I'll save my own for then.
Naturally, Aliana is going with Rey to visit Luke. There is so much potential here to see a Jedi and a Sith have a prolonged philosophical debate, I can't wait to see how Jerry fucks it up.
