#FBF Book Review: Bloodline by Claudia Gray

 For today's #FlashbackFriday post, here's a review I posted on another blog a while ago (back in 2016). It is interesting to read my thoughts and perspective regarding this book and the role I thought it might play in a larger scale for the sequel trilogy. This was, of course, before the masterpiece called The Last Jedi and oh well, the ending chapter of the saga that I'm not really sympathetic about.

Please join me reading the unfiltered comments of my 2016-self regarding this book!

My immediate reaction after reading this book (Spoilers are coming):

OMG. Finally finished reading this book. And if my own personality was not as similar as Leia's I would be crying my heart out right now.

I have no words. Perhaps it was more my prior admiration for Leia that compelled me to read the book as soon as I could, turning page by page with the hope of finding out what happened 6 years before the events of The Force Awakens on a galaxy far, far away.

But Claudia Gray does a great job developing Leia Organa's character. She is the same feisty, duty-bound Princess we met back at the Tantive IV in A New Hope. I could write two pages worth of the events we do know about her, but the point is that she portrays her same as stoic, but with her own flaws as a human being. And one of those flaws is the way she handles the fact of being Vader's daughter. When The Force Awakens came out, I was already wondering that she might have not come to terms with her inheritance the same way as the old Expanded Universe (now called Legends) books had portrayed - see Truce at Bakura, Tatooine Ghost and the original Thrawn Trilogy - which it is interesting per se since we could take this as a proof of what Yoda said: "Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.". Had she publicly acknowledge this in the early stages of the New Republic would have changed the outcome? Being a Game of Thrones fan, it reminded me of the following quote by Tyrion Lannister:

"Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like an armor, and it can never be used to hurt you."

I held my tears in most of the chapters, recognizing passages from the new canon - like the Vader Down comics reference to Vrogas Vas - or the sole mention of Padmé being an inspiration for her daughter, made me feel a big lump in my throat. But the keepsake box was too much for me to handle - I could hear the soft voice of Jimmi Smits as Bail Organa in my head, talking to his adopted daughter, with a background music piece being a mix of "Across The Stars" and "Princess Leia's Theme", while snippets from Episodes II and III would show as a background for the revelation being given, and I could not hold the tears anymore. Especially since a lot of SW fans that hate the prequels consider Padmé a weak character, which she might end up being portrayed as by the end of the trilogy, but not during the first two episodes - as a courageous child Queen and a impulsive yet brave Senator.

I agree that Lost Stars - the Star Wars canon book written by the same author - might provide us with an enhanced perspective since we are getting to know characters that are not familiar to us, on a timeframe of events we already know, but that we end up liking them. In this case we know Leia, surrounded by our favourite scoundrel - I'll be talking about that relationship in a minute - and mostly new characters, some of them recently acquainted in The Force Awakens. It helped a lot following Claudia Gray's Pinterest to get her mental casting for most of the characters we don't know previously from Episode VII, but I found myself really engaged after reading about them. Maybe the one I ended up most infatuated with was (oh surprise) the Centrist Senator Ransolm Casterfo. Here Gray does one of the things I found more endearing from Lost Stars: she portrays her characters as sentient beings, whose political allegiance should not be used as a base for prejudice. At first I thought Casterfo was just any random Empire-worshipping fanboy, but getting to know him could help me understand why he was like the way he was and why he did what he did. But Gray proves a point: not because you are a Centrist that means you are despicable. (Well, I cannot talk about the new character Carise Sindian. I utterly despise her.)

Another thing of the book I loved was the mention of the Jabba the Hut incident from Return of the Jedi. I'm definitely getting a shirt with the image "Huttslayer" on it.

(Note from 2021-self: I did!)

I liked newcomers Greer and Joph a lot. Having not seen them included in The Force Awakens as part of the Resistance led by Leia could mean a lot of things, but part of me thinks their history might have taken a tragic turn, due to her condition. Could they make a spin-off story for them??? Just wondering. Anyhow, I liked Leia interacting with them, when watching the races and sipping on jet juice - lol, with this and the Sabacc game I can tell a certain Corellian scoundrel has been an influence for the Alderaanian princess lol.

And well... talking about that one, Han Solo. For some of us, the simple fact of having them apart, in love but apart by the time Bloodline takes place might sound not like the best thing we might have foreseen for these two, but we have to face it: they are maybe two of the Galaxy's most difficult, stubborn people. Her nature was to be a politician and to serve; his was flying. Both had really strong personalities - we knew it from the time they met at the detention block shootout. It reminded me of a quote by Mexican painter Frida Kahlo about her husband, Mexican painter Diego Rivera: "Perhaps you might expect to hear from me tales of suffering about my life with a man like Diego. But I do not think the margins of a river suffer for letting it flow." (Small license: Kahlo might have been talking about his extra-marital affairs, but in this case we can use it for the two strong-headed characters of Han and Leia lol).

I would have wanted to hear more about Luke and Ben. Their absences and the way Luke is described make it sound like Luke followed the Jedi way to the extreme: not to mess with the New Republic business, and living a life apart with his Jedi Academy. In some way, after the exhilaration of the Victory Celebration in Endor, makes me feel like Luke ended up living like what Gary Kurtz mentioned it was going to be originally the end of Return of the Jedi: Luke as a lone Jedi Knight, walking off into the sunset alone.

And I could not imagine what was coming to Tai-Lin. (Insert shocked and sad face here.) In some way, I'd love to find out later that Casterfo was not actually sentenced to death and that he might make it to later episodes - only if they cast Tom Hiddleston, pleaseeee! That was why seeing Tom Hiddleston and Carrie Fisher together at the White House Correspondants Dinner two weekends ago was really nice for the people like me waiting for the Bloodline release (and for Claudia Gray too, based on the mention she made on her Twitter account):

Anyway, I feel like I'm pouring my thoughts in a random way and that later I might have a greater picture of everything. However, I confirm what I have said previously: Leia is the strongest and most tragic character of the entire saga. And by the effect of his inheritance, both this post-"Return of the Jedi" material and the Sequel Trilogy are still the extended Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker - just hope it's not because there is a reincarnation in the future! (I am talking to you, Reddit rumored plot leaks for Episode VIII!)

Back to 2021:

Oh well. I still think this book is really good. It is obviously way more poignant to think that a few months later, we lost Carrie Fisher. I got to give it to this book, that it started me to move me towards the Bendemption hype train and to be sympathetic to the idea of Leia's son being saved. And regardless of the missed connections with further entries to the saga *cough TROS cough* I think this is a good book. Totally recommend it.