The Lord of the Rings

I've been re-reading The Lord of the Rings.  Near the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, the elves in Lothlórien give lembas to the members of the fellowship, and this lembas is mentioned again near the beginning of The Two Towers (which I'm reading now).  In one of his letters (#213 in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien edited by Humphrey Carpenter), Tolkien writes (apparently approvingly) that a reader "saw in waybread (lembas) = viaticum and the reference to its feeding the will (vol. III, p. 213) and being more potent when fasting, a derivation from the Eucharist."  I don't disagree with this, but I think 1 Kings 19 provides a closer analogue, at least in a more prosaic sense.

4 But he [Elijah] himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree.  And he asked that he might die, saying, 'It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.'  5 And he lay down and slept under a broom tree.  And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, 'Arise and eat.'  6 And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water.  And he ate and drank and lay down again.  7 And the angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, 'Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.'  8 And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

Like the cake God gives to Elijah, lembas sustains travellers.  When the elves give it to the fellowship, they say, "One [cake] will keep a traveller on his feet for a day of long labour, even if he be one of the tall Men of Minas Tirith" (Book II, Chapter VIII).  This is borne out at the beginning of The Two Towers where "Often in their hearts they [Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli] thanked the Lady of Lórien for the gift of lembas for they could eat of it and find new strength even as they ran" (Book III, Chapter II).  When they meet Éomer, he's surprised at the great distance they've covered in such short time.  Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are able to sustain this pace because of the lembas in the same way that Elijah "went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights."

Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice #6 The Uncertain Path

I recently started re-reading the Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice series.  I read this a handful of times as a kid, but I haven't read it since at least 2002 or 2003, and it's interesting to see what I remember.

Last month, I re-read the sixth book of the series, The Uncertain Path, written by Jude Watson, and I noticed a number of interesting elements.

This post contains spoilers.

The series follows Obi-Wan Kenobi when he first becomes a Jedi apprentice.  At the end of the previous book, however, he decided to leave the Jedi to join the cause of the Young, a group of children on the planet Melida/Daan.  For centuries, the planet has been in civil war between two tribes (the Melida and the Daan), but in recent years, some of the children have abandoned the older generations' causes and sought refuge underground.  At the end of the previous book and for the first few chapters of this book, the members of the Young are fighting their own campaign to take the planet back from both warring tribes.

At the end of the previous book, Obi-Wan became close friends with Cerasi and Nield, the leaders of the Young.  The first chapter of this book details a mission they go on in order to disable the starfighters that the Elders have acquired.  Before they head out, they exchange words that are part of "a ritual they'd developed through the many battles over the past weeks":

"All we need is timing and luck," Cerasi said.

Obi-Wan grinned.  "Who, us?  We don't need luck."

"Everybody needs luck," Nield shot back.

"Not us."

In chapter 5, Obi-Wan and Cerasi again exchange these words, but the formatting is such that it's ambiguous who speaks what words:

"Good luck."

"We don't need luck.

"Everybody needs luck."

"Not us."

This ambiguity illustrates the depth of the relationships that Obi-Wan has formed.  He has become so much like the other members of the Young that at this moment his dialogue is indistinguishable from theirs.

The Young end up winning the war against the Elders of the Melida and of the Daan, but soon rifts begin to appear in the new system of government.  Nield, who has been elected governor, is adamant about destroying the Halls of Evidence that both tribes have.  These buildings house the remains and hologram messages of the dead.  Nield's view is that the Young must destroy these buildings in order to stop the hate that each tribe encourages toward the other.  Others oppose him, albeit for varying reasons.  Wehutti, the leader of the Melida, doesn't want the memories of his ancestors to be destroyed, and some of the Young feel that rebuilding the war-torn city should take precedence over destroying the memorials.

In chapter 9, there's a showdown between the Elders, who are trying to protect the Halls, and Nield's squad, which has started to destroy them.  Obi-Wan and Cerasi arrive and try to persuade Nield that other problems in the city also require his attention and that the destruction of the Halls can wait.  After Cerasi urges Nield to compromise, "he shook his head violently."  I think the adverb here is significant.  It illustrates a nascent change in Nield.  Before this, he was striving for peace, but from this point on, he is bent on destroying the Halls of Evidence and anyone who would stand in his way.  After Cerasi is killed during a protest concerning the Halls, Nield's view is even more extreme.  In chapter 14, he says, "I won't rest until every filthy Elder is dead.  I will avenge her or die!" and Obi-Wan notes that "Nield sounded like a hologram in the Halls that he detested."  That one adverb - "violently" - foreshadows this change.

For most of the book, the chapters alternate between storylines:  the odd-numbered chapters are about Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the even-numbered chapters are about Qui-Gon Jinn, who is investigating thefts and an intruder at the Jedi Temple.  This alternating pattern is broken at chapter 14, however, and I think there are two reasons for this.  At the end of chapter 13, Cerasi is killed in a protest over the destruction of the Halls of Evidence, and this break in the consistency of the alternating storylines mirrors the disrupting effect that Cerasi's death has on Obi-Wan.  Additionally, Cerasi's death starts a series of events that eventually brings Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon back together.  Nield blames Obi-Wan for Cerasi's death, claiming that as a Jedi, he ought to have been able to protect her.  Nield brands Obi-Wan as an outsider to those on Melida/Daan and strips away Obi-Wan's command and the Young's loyalty to him.  (This is illustrated even on the book cover, which shows Obi-Wan and Nield facing opposite directions.)  With no one left to turn to, Obi-Wan finally contacts the Jedi, and at the end of chapter 16, Qui-Gon arrives on Melida/Daan to help Obi-Wan sort through what happened.  Their storylines merge, and from this point on, the chapters are about both of them.