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If “A Closed Fist Has No Claws” was the dark epilogue to Phase 2 of the High Republic, then “Shield of the Jedi” is its light and sweet balancing story, featuring the Jedi Knight trial of Silandra Sho’s Padawan, Rooper Nitani. Punch it!
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Raw Episode Transcript:
Hey, Rebel Rouser, I’m Allen Voivod, and this is Star Wars 7 by 7, your daily dose of Star Wars joy. Thank you so much for joining me for it. Shield of the Jedi is the third of 10 stories in Tales of Light and Life, the High Republic story collection that bridges all three phases of the mega, ginormous publishing initiative. I guess a multimedia initiative at this point.
Anyway, this is George Mann’s story, and as the title suggests, it’s about Silandra Sho, but it’s really more about Rooper Nitani, who is Silandra’s Padawan. Specifically, it is about Rooper being ready for the Trials, ready to move on from being a Padawan and becoming a Jedi Knight. There’s nothing about the Path of the Open Hand or the Closed Fist or the ever or anything like that. It takes place roughly three years after the events of phase two, of The Battle of Jedha and The Night of Sorrow. So yeah, comparatively low stakes, but I will say it was actually very fun and cool to be along in the story of a Padawan going through a Jedi Trial. We haven’t really gotten a lot of that in Star Wars storytelling.
We get to see the creativity in which Silandra Sho sets up a trial that is particular to Rooper Nitani’s skills, but also allows for Rooper to consider Silandra and think about what trial she would set up for Rooper. There’s an interesting little interplay between the two trying to read each other’s personalities, basically, in the inventing of the Trial and the completion of the Trial. As it is a George Mann story, there are also a couple of little checkboxes for stuff that he likes. Darth Caldoth gets a mention in here, surprise, surprise. And a creature that is one out of fairy tales shows up. This is a Salmaca, and George Mann is, of course, the writer of various Star Wars legends and fables and myths and whatnot. So it ends up playing right into his wheelhouse in that regard.
We are in spoiler territory, by the way. As I’ve said with the other stories that we’ve been talking about, they’ve been out for long enough. So, yeah, we’re definitely going to spoil stuff potentially as part of this. But the whole Trial centers around Silandra shows saying to Rooper Nitani, hey, go find my shield.
Silandra is a rare Jedi that actually has a shield that she wields, because it’s a reminder that she’s supposed to be protecting people as a Jedi. And the shield has been passed down from generation to generation, particularly from master to apprentice and also particularly upon a Padawan’s successful completion of the Jedi Trials and their ascension to knighthood. You can imagine where this story goes as a result, which is really touching and beautiful. It’s so well done. The story itself is just put together like a classic timepiece. Everything just ticks very smoothly, runs along beautifully. Like I said, comparatively, low stakes, that’s fine. Just a beautifully put together little short story.
There’s also a bit of a wink toward Tolkien because this Salmaca is hoarding all sorts of bits and bobs and funny pieces of junk, glittery, shiny stuff. But unlike Smaug, who is hoarding gold and riches and whatnot, this thing is just hoarding trash. But it turns out that as opposed to letting the town’s people try to kill this thing, they actually need to let it live because it is serving a purpose that nobody really even knows about – that there are these really horrific spiders that it just happens to like to eat very much. And so it’s keeping the people safe from those. There’s a way for the villagers to live in peace with this thing, give it some of the junk trinkets since it can’t discriminate between the good stuff and the bad stuff and let it do its thing. And that’s the balance that Rooper has to find and understand as part of the situation.
The Salmaca, of course, has also taken the shield. And so getting the shield back leads into this whole adventure. I really enjoyed it. It was very nicely done. That’s what I’ve got to share with you about Shield of the Jedi, which is George Mann’s short story in the High Republic collection Tales of Light and Life. That is going to do it for this episode of the podcast. It just remains for me to say thank you so much for joining me for it as always. And may the Force to be with you, wherever in the world you may be.