– Spoiler Review –
Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade by Delilah S. Dawson charts a more unusual path for a Jedi…how one falls and joins the deadly organization known as the Inquisitors! Picking up in thrills once Iskat Akaris finds herself in the Inquisitorious halls, which comes far too late in the novel, Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade’s fatalistic attitude, repetition, brushing over certain aspects, and concerns over character coding holds it back.
Fans first met Iskat Akaris in Charles Soule’s Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith comic, who I originally called “Shades” since she didn’t have a name, but we catch her at the end of her story there and at the time I felt like we’d never know her motivations and if what Vader told Emperor Palpatine about what she did was true or not. Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade answers the lingering questions, provides some new ones and answers to go with them, but it takes too long to get there, among other things, and the whole reason for the first question gets lost along the way anyways. As a one-of-a-kind species, Iskat’s immediately othered being so different, mainly by her peers, and it only gets worse after she hurts a fellow Padawan in a training accident (sometime before the book starts). Not knowing much about herself, and the Jedi treating her differently due to her earlier actions, she constantly feels like the galaxy is out to get her; this is repeated often and becomes one-note very quickly, used as a shorthand to only tell us how messed up the Jedi’s priorities are, not show us. When it turns out her Master, who dies early in the book, knew more about her than she let on, her search for answers about her past does lead to some interesting developments, once again much later in the book, but there are some lingering concerns over the representation they seem to be based off on. With a mindset so focused on proving everyone right about her, and the suggestion an interaction with a Sith artifact could almost let her choices slide as it was all predetermined anyways, Iskat isn’t the easiest character to read nor to sympathize with, and her being the sole point-of-view becomes grating towards the end, though the recounting of the Vader comic story and it’s tone embracing what this novel felt it was supposed to be is one bright spot far too late.
Coming into Red Blade, I liked the idea we’d be seeing the Jedi from a different point-of-view, as the Jedi Order in this era had its failings as it got swept up in a Sith Lord’s machinations with the Clone Wars and it’s always interesting how creatives point out the good with the bad. Iskat Akaris is the lens through which we see this side of the Order, a Padawan who quickly becomes a Jedi Knight due to the Clone Wars who doesn’t feel like her Master understands her and thinks the Jedi Order is holding her back because they’re worried about her after a training incident when she was younger. This point-of-view certainly starts interesting, as we see the Battle of Geonosis in a whole new way, while once Iskat actually goes on missions (she spends portions of the book wandering the halls of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant hoping for her chance to prove herself again, complaining and telling us how bad the Jedi are, not showing us) we get more opportunities with it, but her narration ends up too repetitious and fatalistic, almost nihilistic, for its own good. Iskat is written in such a way she’s doing mental gymnastics to frame everything the Order does and says to her to fit her beliefs on how they are always against her, though Red Blade doesn’t try to show the Order in any other light to help prove or offer counterviews of her points, missing any nuance and devolving the story and motivations into simple black and white when we know there’s a lot more to the whole situation. Case in point, in what feels like a rebuttal to The Clone Wars swashbuckling fun, Iskat is reprimanded and looked down on for improvising on a mission by talking to their contact when everyone else couldn’t come up with anything worthwhile to gain their compliance. Because of her actions, the mission is a success, and it’s hard not to think Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi would’ve done something similar and it’d be played for laughs, but whereas they face no consequences she’s essentially held back and grounded, so it’s hard to make peace with the Order as Dawson writes it versus everything else we’ve seen from it during this era, as these two feel mutually exclusive when they shouldn’t. This would be interesting if we had a more well-rounded look at the Order, but every bad thing Iskat has to say about them becomes truth, so who are we to argue? Every step on her fall felt fatalistic then, almost predetermined, like how she believes the Jedi felt about her and her not-so-terrible accident at a young age, yet the ending some readers know is coming bursts forth in such a way, you wonder why we didn’t get a chance to see her accept and embrace her life more until the very, literal end.
By the time the book gets to the Inquisitor aspect of Iskat’s life, which is well over halfway through the book to its own detriment, her self-fulling prophecy of how she was treated by the Jedi finds its home, but as readers we’re worn out on the viewpoint already. This then feels like the perfect moment to support Iskat’s views by introducing us to the Inquisitors she’ll come to call brother and sister, letting us see how the Jedi Order failed them too, helping build a case why we should believe her, but Red Blade decides against this. Instead, familiar Inquisitors from across games, comics, novels, and shows appear and somehow, off-screen at some point and time, Iskat seems to have already met them, as if the novel just assumes everyone knows these characters and so should Iskat. There are interactions with recognizable Inquisitors but it never feels like anything more than a cameo, even a rivalry that forms between Iskat and the Seventh Sister (as seen in Star Wars Rebels), as the amount of violence done to the two women feels excessive much like the unnecessary torture in Dawson’s Black Spire and it only serves to tell us why the latter uses her little probe droids and nothing about her. Each Brother and Sister, and even the Grand Inquisitor, exists, fully formed and subservient to their new life, allowing Iskat to once again find ways to fulfill her viewpoint of the system always being out to get her, and while it makes sense the other Inquisitors might not be open books, this just feels like a big missed opportunity to explore them to any degree. In fact, most of her time with the Inquisitors feels this way, as part of this section is her being idle at the compound and training/having a rivalry, there’s a ceremony for her receiving her robes and blade but it happens in the span of a sentence, and we don’t really learn anything new about the organization we didn’t already from their appearances elsewhere. If we hadn’t already had material featuring Inquisitors so far, this would’ve been fine, but after shows and games and comics were they’ve taken center stage, having a book with ‘Inquisitor’ in the title and barely scratching the surface dulls this sharper quarter of the book. Red Blade is about Iskat, in the end, so it wasn’t on this book to answer any big questions on the Inquisitorious, but even in her parts after joining the group, it’s all to serve what she’s already decided about herself, so this section doesn’t feel like it adds more to her arc than just finally leading into acceptance of the dark side, but when she sees and we’ve been told she has no other option this whole time, it could’ve happened far sooner in the book since it’s such a foregone conclusion.
Serving as a supporting character, fellow Jedi and eventual Inquisitor Tualon, whom we also saw in the Vader comic, doesn’t offer too much to the story. Iskat and Tualon have a tenuous friendship, one which is mostly on the fritz while they are both Jedi, as she’s such an odd duck out and he’s trying to be a good, proper little Jedi despite his own concerns so associating with her will bring him down. There’s an underlying tension, as because of course Iskat is both more violent and has urges for him, but it’s never able to develop fully until they both turn bad. When Iskat finds Tualon amongst the ranks of the Inquisitors, he’s been brainwashed, but like everything else with the Inquisitorious, it’s both never explored and undercooked. It makes him unhinged, as he’s still sort of fighting it when they meet, and he ends up stabbing her with his new lightsaber because she left him for dead at Order 66, but this seems to clear the fog for him and then they’re on to romance, her wily ways and mindset pulling him along and helping him embrace the new life. It all seems so easy for this twisted brainwashing process to be over so quickly and, like many other things, too late in the book to really make an impact when he appears again. He’s not fleshed out enough to be an interesting secondary character in the first place and the novel’s fatalistic approach to Iskat’s narration makes hoping he had a bigger part not feel worth it, especially knowing he’s going to die anyways; it could’ve been like caring so much for Rey’s parents I was left on the edge of my seat they might escape their fates, where instead here I was just hoping we’d get to the moment of his death. I also got the sense Iskat was often looking for her self-worth from him through most of the novel instead of through herself, so when she does find it on her own towards the book’s end, it’s rather disheartening she makes a realization she’s needed him this whole time before they die, undercutting her earlier progress.
When we finally meet Iskat’s people, a matriarchal society devoid of technology and no desire to see the stars, it’s quite an interesting turn for the book. Iskat feels loved and accepted for the first time and it makes sense with how caring and open the women of her family are towards her. They extend an invitation to stay with them, to learn their simple, yet purposeful and hardworking lives, but of course she rejects this, on multiple levels, one of them being concern for their safety from the likely retaliatory Inquisitorious if she were to leave. Her people are described with a heavy focus on their hair style, that they are strong, willful women, and they all sort of look alike. With Iskat already othered for her alien look, it’s hard not to feel like she’s coded as a real-life Person of Color, and it’s not uncommon for alien or animated characters to be seen as coded Black specifically, so it makes choices with her personality concerning: she’s more aggressive than other Jedi around her while other Jedi seem to think she’s aggressive when she gets to voice her opinions, known as the “sapphire” caricature of black women; she’s sexual in nature and can finally give in later in the novel, acting as a temptress to Tualon to give into the dark side fully, known as the “jezebel” caricature. Having her people described so specifically with attention to hair and a society of strong, abled women with strong opinions, can’t help but make the connection to them being Black coded as well, like Iskat. Once you factor in Feyra’s story, of a mother who succumbs to drugs and abandons her child, later killing herself because she can’t overcome her problems (Black women have a higher mortality rate when it comes to pregnancies, with racism a giant factor), and there’s no knowledge of who the father is and he’s not in the picture at all (just look at Harold Perrineau and what he fought against with his character on LOST as that’s another harmful stereotype), it takes the coding of these characters to an even more uncomfortable level. I could be totally wrong and I am not sure if Dawson specifically meant to match such Black stereotypes on purpose or on accident, but given some questionable history with her Black Spire work (where were the sensitivity readers then?), the aro-ace stereotypes in Phasma, and a sense of unease from her short story in FaCPOV – The Empire Strikes Back, it’s hard not to be concerned regarding the intentions (where are the sensitivity readers now?).
Here are a few other things:
- I’ve been hoping for more non-human protagonists, but in the future I think it would be better if they’re approached more like in The High Republic era, Alphabet Squadron Trilogy, and Jedi: Battle Scars where what sets them apart isn’t a bug to everyone around them and themselves, but rather a feature of what makes them so interesting to follow instead of more humans.
- There was some neat connectivity to Brotherhood, from the Knighting scene/news of the attack on Cato Nemoidia to having Noxi Kell included, while there are some references to both The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian (not Grogu, but a helpful friend to the little one!) I quite enjoyed and felt very natural here.
- Kristen Sieh’s narration was engaging and her ability to play up the voices of the other characters kept dialogue scenes entertaining. I quite enjoyed the whole production during the epilogue, which recounts the events of the Vader comic, as it really played up how deadly a being the Sith Lord can be, no matter how powerful one thinks they are.
- The SDCC exclusive cover is SO gorgeous, and those who preorder the book regularly can at least get the great artwork for their phones or computers.
Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade by Delilah Dawson, through one-sided point-of-views, fatalistic attitudes, and concerning representation, is more of a fall/fail than a rise.
+ Tiniest glimpse of what it’s like to be an Inquisitor
+ Seeing certain events from a different angle
– Fatalistic POV is grating and repetitious, slowing down book from inevitable
– Missed opportunities with Inquisitor section by not delving beneath the surface
– Concerning coding with Iskat and her people
– Lots of telling, not showing as Iskat reiterates how the galaxy is out to get her
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.
DISCLOSURE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher at no charge in order to provide an early review. However, this did not affect the overall review content. All opinions are my own.
ALSO BY DELILAH S. DAWSON:
“Worthless” Stories of Jedi and Sith (novel) | “She Will Keep Them Warm” – From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back (novel) | Black Spire (novel) | Phasma (novel) | The Perfect Weapon (short story) | “The Secrets of Long Snoot” – From a Certain Point of View (novel) | “Rose and Paige” – Star Wars Adventures: Forces of Destiny (comic miniseries)