If you haven’t noticed, it’s a great time to be a Star Wars reader. The franchise has always had talented writers, but in recent years, the constellation of authors has been incredibly bright. Of those stars, Cavan Scott’s has been exceptionally brilliant. He's been a busy man between comics, audio dramas, and novels, and as readers, we’ve been feasting.
Path of Vengeance lives up to his preceding work, bringing Phase II of The High Republic to a thrilling conclusion. Picking up character arcs and narrative threads from the phase’s initial installment, Justina Ireland and Tessa Gratton’s Path of Deception, Scott gives key characters a semblance of closure while setting up the transformation of the Path of the Open Hand into the Path of the Closed Fist — a possible predecessor to the Nihil we see in Phase I.
Interconnected Storylines
While integrated storytelling has been a key element in The High Republic since the beginning, the creators took the concept to new heights as Phase II progressed. Path of Vengeance meshes tightly with George Mann’s audio drama The Battle of Jedha, Lydia Kang’s Cataclysm, and The High Republic comic series (also written by Cavan Scott).
Phase II follows a mysterious sect called the Path of the Open Hand. Led by a charismatic individual known as the Mother, they believe the Force should be free from those who would use or manipulate it. That puts them clearly at odds with the Jedi Order.
Laboring in relative obscurity, the Path becomes known after the Battle of Jedha. Path of Vengeance begins with them leaving the beleaguered moon and retreating back to their compound on Dalna, but not before the Mother publicly blames one of her chief lieutenants. Thus, the stage is set for a showdown with the Jedi and a schism within the Path itself.
One issue some readers had with Phase I was that not reading every title in every medium (comics, young adult, and middle grade in addition to the adult novels) risked missing vital elements of the story. In Phase II, the story architects may have tried to correct that. We ultimately see the conflict on Jedha four different times and the Night of Sorrows on Dalna at least three times.
If that sounds like a recipe for redundancy, fear not. Throughout the phase, we encounter these events from different perspectives, following different characters. Furthermore, Scott’s mastery of his craft keeps the narrative fresh.
This feat is even more impressive when you realize that a reader keeping up with Phase II will already know most of the major events in Path of Vengeance and how they resolve. However, with convincing dialogue and excellent pacing, Scott kept me turning pages the whole time — the last 150 pages in one sitting.
Characters
Path of Vengeance shifts the focus back to cousins Marda and Yana Ro, two of the main protagonists in Path of Deceit, but have been mainly in the background since then. Both suffered significant losses in the earlier book. Scott examines how those losses and associated grief, anger, and sense of betrayal motivate the pair, each in their own way.
The cousins find themselves pulled in perhaps unexpected directions as a result. Formerly mild-mannered Marda finds herself on a path —pun somewhat intended — toward radicalization. Yana, who had never bought into the Path’s ethos the way her cousin had, was plotting her escape from the group for years — but her grief keeps her from disentangling herself until it’s too late.
For some readers, Marda’s transformation might feel a little abrupt. However, I suspect that’s mainly because of the amount of time she’s spent in the background since her introduction in Path of Deceit and not due to any misstep of Scott’s. Readers who’ve kept up with Phase II have, by this time, spent a lot of time with the Republic’s dual chancellors, warring planets, and high galactic politics. Re-encountering Marda is like running into an old acquaintance who’d dropped out of touch for a while and now has a new job and a different spouse.
The third main character point of view character is Matty Cathley, a Jedi Padawan Scott introduces in Marvel’s The High Republic comic series. Matty travels to the planet Dalna with Jedi Knight Oliviah Zeveron after the Battle of Jedha to learn more about the Path. While it might have been an easy choice to use Oliviah as the point-of-view Jedi, Matty’s youthful and not entirely neurotypical outlook is a fresh viewpoint into both the Jedi Order and the events surrounding the Path.
Path of Vengeance also offers the most complete exploration of the Mother’s character in Phase II. Though earlier works had dropped hints that she may not be what she appears, Scott removes all doubt. Thanks to a reveal on the Star Wars YouTube channel six months earlier, the root of the Mother’s animosity toward the Jedi Order wasn’t necessarily a surprise. Nevertheless, Scott’s writing skill gives it the needed gravitas — and no matter what you might have guessed about her origins, her fate was unexpected.
A Conclusion That Leaves Us Looking Ahead
Cavan Scott's Path of Vengeance delivers a satisfying conclusion to the Phase, even for the devoted reader who already knows how most of the events on Dalna pan out. Most of the main characters who’ve survived to this point have their arcs wrapped up, and we can start to see how what began as a pacifist opposition to the Jedi Order’s methods warps into something entirely different.
Of course, one bittersweet aspect of The High Republic’s grand plan is that we’ll be leaving many of these characters — and unlike Avar Kriss, Bell Zettifar, and others from Phase I, there’s no guarantee we’ll see them again. Given this era’s popularity, one hopes that we might see other stories featuring Matty, Oliviah, and Yana somewhere down the line.
There is also one lingering question that we will hopefully see addressed. Path of Vengeance’s closing scene makes it clear that Marda Ro is pursuing a completely different calling, but it’s unclear how this leads to Marchion Ro and the Nihil.
Of course, if I oversaw a large multimedia storytelling initiative, I’d want to leave the readers wanting more, too. So, mission accomplished.
Path of Vengeance is available from all booksellers or directly from Disney Lucasfilm Press.
This review originally appeared at wealthofgeeks.com