klcthebookworm

Previous Installments

Introduction, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Outline for Mission on Mimban

What Happens in the Chapter

Luke and Leia find an open tavern, tell the droids to go hide, and they enter to buy some real food with the miners coming off shift. They get through ordering a meal without alerting officialdom. The popular form of entertainment in this tavern is kicking the native sentients around, who are addicted to a liquor and will debase themselves to get any of it. Luke and Leia don't cause a scene with stopping this entertainment.

The waiter realizes Leia's not a miner by her delicate hands, which is kind of impressive, and tells an Imperial civil servant, which makes me wonder if there's a standard credit bounty for turning in suspicious people. Leia starts to panic and leave and Luke slaps her across the face. Leia sits back down and stays quiet as Luke tells the Imperial that he bought Leia and she's his servant. The Imperial believes this story and leaves them alone. Leia, now furious with Luke, tries to leave again but is stopped by an old woman who introduces herself as Halla.

Halla very shrewdly has their number, recognizing that they are strangers to the human population of Mimban and Luke's strength in the Force. Luke senses that Halla has the Force, but Halla claims to be a master. She works hard to move a spice shaker on the table. She offers to help them if they help her, and makes them admit how they crashed on the planet. They establish Luke and Leia's price is stealing a ship so they can leave. She warns them about Grammel, the Imperial in charge of the Mimban mining. Halla wants their help to find the Kaiburr crystal. As proof that the crystal is real, she shows them "a splinter of something that looked like red glass and glowed softly. The color was deeper, richer than red corundum. It had a vitreous luster resembling crystallized honey." When Luke touches the fragment, he experiences an increase in his perception of the Force. "It magnifies and clarifies... in proportion to its size and density, I think."

Luke agrees with Halla that the Kaiburr crystal must be kept out of Imperial hands, and Leia finally agrees to the expedition. They settle the bill and leave the tavern with no more attention paid to them. Then Leia kicks Luke in the shins outside and he lands in a ditch next to the walkway. Luke pulls her into the mud and they start wrestling.

Halla was watching, amused, until several large me came out of the tavern behind her. They paused, their attention also drawn by the wrestling match in the mud. They were all just drunk enough to be dangerous and the longer they watched, the quieter they became.
Much too quiet to suit Halla...

And that's where this chapter ends.

What I Liked

The miasma of narcotic incense and other smokes nearly asphyxiated Luke, and he had to struggle not to cough.
"What's wrong?" The Princess looked worried, though unaffected by the decadent atmosphere. "People are looking at you."

What kind of dive bars has Leia been hanging out in since she's unaffected by the deathsticks and et cetera being burnt in here? But I do appreciate it that it's not the dainty female hacking her lungs out.

Halla is a Force user, granted very weak and untrained. But given how angry Leia is at Luke just then (about to storm off again), I think Halla uses the Force on Leia when she's introduced.

"Hey honey... you okay?" a new voice inquired. Luke looked at the old woman who'd appeared next to the Princess. Placing a firm hand on the Princess' shoulder, she exerted a gentle but unyielding pressure. Still slightly stunned, the Princess sat down slowly.

Luke wouldn't know what to look for in this situation with his complete lack of training, but what else could defuse Leia that quickly?

What I Found Problematic

How the leads react to Mimbanites' abuse that happens right in front of them does bother me. Example One:

The big miner met this pitiful request by putting out a broad foot and kicking the native in the face. Luke winced and looked away. The Princess glanced at him.
"What's wrong, Luke?"
"I can't stand to see anything abused like that," he muttered, "human or animal or alien." He faced her curiously."How can you watch it?"
"I saw my whole world, several million people, destroyed," she responded with chilling matter-of-factness. "Nothing mankind does surprises me anymore, except that anyone could still be surprised by it." She turned her clinical gaze back to the scene at the bar.

Example Two:

Without further prompting the native dropped on its belly. An unexpectedly long, snake-like tongue darted out and began to lick the grime and mud from the man's boots.
"I'm going to be sick," Luke whispered, barely audible. The Princess merely shrugged.

"We have our devils and our angels, Luke. You have to be ready for both."

Wow, how callous can you make Leia sound? This is the same woman who befriended the Ewoks later? This is the same woman who championed alien rights in the Imperial Senate earning the nickname ‘Little Miss Inalienable Rights’? This abuse is making Luke empathically ill, but it should make Leia livid and put her on a quest to find the Mimbanites' hierarchy and pull them into the Rebellion against the Empire. She doesn't even come up with it as an option for Luke to shoot down. She doesn't even mention it as something else to tell the underground about what's happening on Mimban. Granted in the middle of the tavern is not the place to mention your allegiances, but it comes off callous instead of pragmatic.

The slap heard through the tavern; Jake Skywalker has taken Luke's place again. This whole set-up is an infuriating display of 1970's condonation of domestic violence against women. You have a woman of course you have to slap her to keep her in line, as Luke point blank says to the Imperial at the end. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's take the scene in order. The waiter, Elarles (new contender for the worst GFFA name) notices Leia's delicate hands and scurries to tattle. Leia points out the tattling to Luke.

"They do suspect!" she whispered tightly. She started to stand. "I've had enough, Luke. Let's get out of here."
"We can't rush off, especially if we're being watched," he countered. "Don't panic, Princess."
"I said I'm leaving, Luke." Nervous, she started to turn and leave.

First, I don't have a problem with the suspicious waiter turning them in and the Imperial scoping out the situation. Being found out is a standard complication for infiltrating a group. But who the hell is this woman freaking out and ready to run away? This is not Princess Leia Organa who lied to Darth Vader's mask maintaining her cover story. It didn't matter Vader had already pierced the cover story, but she sure the hell kept to it. Okay, these two haven't stopped and considered their cover story, but I expected whispering that we need a cover story not this that draws more attention to them.

Without realizing what he was doing, he reached out, slapped her hard across the face, and as heads turned in their direction said loudly, "No favors for you until I'm finished eating!"
One hand went to her burning cheek. Wide-eyed and voiceless, the Princess slowly sat back down. Luke frantically attacked his steak as the uniformed Imperial sauntered over to them, backed by the attendant at a discreet distance.

The only way this violence is justifiable from the HERO of the whole saga and protagonist of this novel is by agreeing that when women get emotional they deserved to be hit. I hope that Foster outgrew this misogynistic mindset by the time he was given the Force Awakens novelization. I think it's reprehensible and nothing Luke Skywalker as we know him would do. So he will not be hitting Mara to get out of this jam.

He thought furiously. "No, she's... uh, I bought her." Leia twitched, stared at him a moment before returning resolutely to her food. "Yes, she's a servant of mine. Spent all my earnings on her." He tried to sound indifferent, shrugged as he returned to his eating. "She's not much, of course." Her shoulders shook. "But she was the best I could afford. And she's kind of amusing to have around, though she tends to get out of line at times and I have to slap her down."
The bureaucrat nodded understandingly, smiled for the first time. "I sympathize, young man. Sorry to interrupt your meal."

I have made the argument that Luke is way more devious than the fandom gives him credit for, but this cover story doesn't make anybody look good. First the author because it looks like "servant" is just replacing "slave" without changing anything that makes slavery in this objectionable. There are other options for the cover story that could explain Leia's hands without using slavery. Second George Lucas because wow, you just couldn't wait to associate Leia with slavery. Third Luke Skywalker for not having any internal repugnance for owning people while selling the cover story. And no, I'm not basing that on the changes made to the Skywalker family history after this story was published; decent people should be horrified about owning people!

Alas this story was written before Leia was given Force sensitivity because Halla refuses to let her touch the fragment. "Touching it would prove nothing to you."

The mud wrestling: what are you IDIOTS DOING?! You are stuck on an Imperial-controlled planet and you both are wanted by the Empire with bounties. You have no fake identities beyond the miner outfits and just what credits Luke has left. So you do the stupidest, most childish thing you can think of? Both of these characters should be smarter than this. So Foster just wants to create a situation so these miners are a threat in the next chapter. That can happen without adolescent mud wrestling.

What Changes in My Fic

Mimbanites' abuse mini-scene is an opportunity to display some growth from Mara. Since she was raised on Coruscant in the Imperial Palace, the only contact she has had with aliens are the ones who have been subjugated as slaves or the ones trying to survive in the ghettos created on Coruscant. Humans abuse aliens when they can is all she has seen. The equality in the Rebel Alliance ranks is a cultural shock she is soldiering through in her endearing Mara way (which probably isn't helping her reputation any), but Luke's reaction to the abuse puts her perspective in a different light. Actually that may be the best way to sum up their relationship. It gives Luke's empathy something to play off without making Mara callous, like the scene currently does with Leia.

Luke and Mara's cover story won't involve slavery.

Threatening miners will be threatening without being titillated by a mud-covered Leia.

We now have more scenes to fill out the plot events for the first act. Helping Writers Become Authors further explains this breakdown.

Hook 1% mark = Crashing onto Mimban
Set-up 1% - 12%
Inciting Event 12% mark = Finding the Imperial mining outpost
Build-up 12% - 25%
1st Plot Point 25% mark = Luke and Leia agree to find the Kaiburr crystal with Halla