This article contains spoilers for Alphabet Squadron and Shadow Fall
As is normal within the Star Wars franchise, Shadow Fall is the smarter and more character-driven story compared to the greater Alphabet Squadron trilogy. While the first novel comprised more of character studies than starfighter action, the second book finds a way to stray from the action even more and give that focus to its characters. Also following the lead of other Star Wars trilogies, the main players of the series are separated and given individual focus. This allows for those characters to experience different forms of development and for different lessons to arise from their journeys. Alexander Freed makes great use of individually exploring each of his primary characters that help highlight the development of the characters and possibly hints at where the trilogy will end when Victory's Price is released.
Probably the most blatant form of introspection in this book comes from Yrica Quell's journey through the asteroid and its dark tower. Her lesson is all about moving on from the past and moving on to the future, and this lesson is clearly shown throughout three phases. First, she literally has to fight her past in the form of IT-O. When corrupted from damage after crashing on the asteroid, IT-O attacks Yrica due to viewing her only as an Imperial and unearned defector from a faulty memory system. Then, she is directly told this lesson in her darkest hour. As he dies from untreated wounds, Caern Adan uses his last moments to give her advice on moving past her background and looking towards what lays ahead. Finally, Yrica puts this lesson to use in order to access the tower and make it off the asteroid she is stuck on. She is able to succeed where her friends failed and met their demises.
This lesson in itself ends up foreshadowing Yrica's eventual shift back to the Empire and Shadow Wing. By moving on from her past and looking towards the future, it would make sense for Yrica to turn back to the 204th based solely on who would be most open to accepting her and keeping all other information from her past out of her mind. With the New Republic now knowledgeable of her compliance with Operation Cinder, moving on from the past would allow her to look past her new friends and return to her old colleagues. The manner in which she ended up learning this lesson gives her decision more of a cause. The tower in which Yrica applies her lesson to and which pushes her to new understanding is implied to be a tower of the dark side of the force. Maybe the tower helped corrupt her enough to switch sides back to the Empire and away from her path of redemption.
The choices Yrica makes in the final moments of the book help speak to the core of her motivations. Yrica isn’t a person devoted to a cause or even filled with a drop of loyalty. This can even be seen in the first book when she so flippantly chooses the Empire even though she had just planned to join the Rebellion in her teenage years. Her ability to just switch sides shows how self-preserving she is despite all the relationships she forms across both aisles of the war. As is his specialty, Freed is a master of outlining the motivations and workings of the common people in a galaxy filled with extraordinary beings.
Yrica's lesson doesn't just have to show that Yrica was led down a path to darkness. There are always two sides to a possibility, and this one might show that she was inspired to finally take root in the New Republic. The tower's lesson of leaving the past behind could finally take away the guilt Yrica has so that she can finally do what is required of her in order to take down Shadow Wing. The lesson might have led her to go undercover to take out the 204th from the inside and fulfill a path of redemption for what she did to Nacronis. The tower's lesson of leaving the past behind could also take away her want to stay with her new squadron and allow her to take up this new responsibility for the New Republic as a double agent. In the end, Yrica's decision isn't clear to readers yet and should be open to as much interpretation as possible. No matter how Yrica's story ends in the next book, her struggles with the tower will end up being the key to it all.
It’s hard for a character full of pure light and innocence to have any development without exploring a dip into darkness. While Wyl Lark doesn’t necessarily feature any form of corruption, he certainly develops in a way that his fellow teammates would view as wrongdoing. The main cause of Wyl’s steep into darker territory is the fact that he’s too good for his own good: Wyl begins to feel sympathy for the enemy. The constant killing and destruction starts to wear down on him to the point where he attempts to save the lives of Shadow Wing.
Wyl’s relationship with Blink serves as the catalyst for his decision to help his enemies live. Blink helps show Wyl that there are still people behind the TIE Fighters that he regularly shoots down alongside his squad, even helping him escape the airspace above Troithe when telling him to flee as Shadow Wing shot down the Lodestar and invaded the planet. Add this to Wyl’s caring nature and it’s hard to see how he couldn’t have felt conflicted over all the deaths he’d caused alongside Alphabet Squadron and his earlier years with the Rebellion.
One avenue we could see Wyl go down is a continued attempt to save the souls of Shadow Wing. Using his actions in either of the first two books, we could see Wyl try to bring everyone together in a peaceful outcome through the heavily used communication channels to try and bring an end to the violence. Plus, Blink isn’t the only person in the 204th anymore that could push him to find a nonviolent outcome to this conflict. Having his former friend and squad leader, Yrica, on the side of the opposition would only increase Wyl’s desire to go against the New Republic’s wishes and make sure that Shadow Wing doesn’t die off with the larger Empire.
On the other hand, the events at the end of Shadow Fall might show that Wyl is willing to loosen up his compassion in the pursuit of helping the New Republic. His choice to attack the fleeing Shadow Wing at the behest of Nash during the final moments of the battle at Troithe tells a tale of submission to the will of the New Republic. That moment could have been a turning point where Wyl decided that loyalty to the old Rebellion and his friends is more important to him than following his morals.
No matter what happens in Victory’s Price, Wyl Lark will have a tough time following in the footsteps of Yrica when he becomes the new leader of Alphabet Squadron. Not only will he have to lead his squad after such a tragic turn of events, but he’ll also have to weigh the importance of his new role when it comes to whether he truly wants to save Shadow Wing or not.
Whenever someone thinks of Chass na Chadic, they usually imagine a destructive ball of chaos that will rip open anything in it's path. Unfortunately for Chass, the best parts of her development forced her to be separate from both her B-Wing and the music she holds so dear to her heart. Trapped in the fortress of the Children of the Empty Sun because of her recklessness, Chass is forced to question what makes up her soul and whether she's lived her life that best fits her. It's here that Chass comes to terms with her past while also changing in a way that'll bypass readers' past judgments of her character.
When Chass first arrived at the temple, she connected her surroundings with a largely traumatic part of her childhood. When she was young, Chass‘s mother forced her into a cult whose sole purpose was to exploit it's followers into doing favors for their leader. Chass eventually ran away from the Inheritors of the Crystal but held onto the wounds of her youth all the way into her adulthood, as evidenced by her outlook on the Children of the Empty Sun when she first arrived there. Thinking that both cults would end up being the same, she kept looking for the corruption hidden beneath that was either never revealed or never even existed in the first place. Throughout her time with the cult she kept her facade up and never moved past her distrust of the cult, and who could blame her after what she went through in her childhood.
It ended up being the passive lessons that she listened to while she planned her escape that ended up changing Chass's character the most. After the accident that grounded Chass, the Children of the Empty Sun force her to stay with them until she's healed up. This obviously just adds to Chass's suspicion of the group but while she both searches for a way out and for any kind of corruption in the cult, she might have accidentally picked up on some of the morals being preached to the attendees of this religious order. Whether it was while listening to some of the recorded sermons being listened to around her or participating in group sessions that act as a sort of therapy, the main thing that could have affected Chass would have been one of the most important moral to the Children of the Empty Sun: non-violence.
It might be hard to assume that Chass would shift to a more respective outlook on life after everything we've known about her, but her actions throughout the novel point to the fact that she might have taken up more of the ideals of the Children of the Empty Sun and moving past what she's believed for most of her life. First, when finally escaping the compound Chass decides to go out of her way to ensure the safety of a guard standing in the way of her freedom when she could have just taken the easy path in killing them. Whereas before Chass would have just plowed through the guard to make sure she was able to escape, this new Chass may be indicative that these lessons are starting to get to her. Then, when Chass discovers that all of her music was replaced with religious sermons while her B-Wing was under the watch of the Children of the Empty Sun, she decides to just shrug it off and carry on. There is no way that the old Chass could ever reasonably deal with the loss of the music that made up so much of her personality.
Regarding the final book, readers can expect a much calmer Chass with more respect not only towards those around her but to her own life. The days of a suicidal Chass hoping to find the right moment to off herself in service of the galaxy is probably behind her, not leaving much more for Chass's development. The impact of the Children of the Empty Sun might have even been enough to turn Chass into a more religious person, especially if she listens to those sermon tapes whenever she can in the place of her missing music. It's only a matter of time before it's revealed whether Chass gets the survival that she finally wants or if the tragedy of her former self's desire to die in a fiery blaze comes true only for her to have finally moved past that mentality and have to sit in the remorse of a lost life shortly before her downfall.
Nath Tensent takes a step away from most tropes that come from characters who’ve experienced loss before who come to be a part of another group. While most interpretations feature a character distancing themselves from their new family either out of protection or out of grief, Nath instead embraces his new family and acts as probably the most connected character out of the whole squad. Whereas characters like Yrica, Chass, and Kairos operate as lone Wolf types, Nath bases himself in associating with others like with his deep friendship with Wyl or attempting to get the others to trust him despite his past.
If any character is going to die in the next novel, it will most likely be Nath Tensent. Not only is he so completely devoted to his crew that he’d put himself in danger’s way, but his growing sense of duty would be enough on its own to ensure Nath’s sacrifice. Just from that final battle on Troithe when Nath puts himself so far in harm's way that his Y-Wing literally falls apart around him it is shown how deeply he believes in the New Republic. The perfect culmination of how far he’s come would be to have him sacrifice his life for the family he’s come to love so much, the ultimate proof of how far he’s come since setting aside his loyalties to the Empire he served just to turn a profit.
A story is never complete without its villains. Finally taking his place at the center of the story, Soran Keize finds himself in both a better yet also worse position after his lowly life as Devon Lhent. Despite his current situation being the polar opposite of how it was in Alphabet Squadron, the endings of both books that happen to focus on Keize end up mirroring each other perfectly. In the first book, Keize decided to risk his sheltered life to rejoin with the ever hunted 204th. In the second book, Keize decides to rejoin the 204th with Rae Sloane's Imperial remnant fleet and in turn risking the lives of everyone in Shadow Wing. Each time Keize knows how destructive he's being when taking these chances, but it shows how devoted he is to helping these people who are destined to be destroyed.
The story of Fara Yadeez is one of duty even in the face of imminent failure, and it might be an early warning about what might happen to Shadow Wing. As New Republic forces rush in to retake Troithe, Yadeez decides to stay on the planet to defend Imperial rule while knowing that her efforts will ultimately fail and she'll either be killed or captured by the enemy, even declining Keize's offer to join the escaping 204th in order to survive. It's this action that shows how much loyalty can completely destroy someone's sense of self-worth and can actively make someone weigh duty as higher than one's self-interest. If there's anyone who fits this description besides Yadeez herself, it would be Keize and his connection to the 204th. Both Keize's devotion to his people and Shadow Wing's devotion to the Empire will be what brings them down instead of taking that path to safety in hiding from this all.
Ultimately, Keize will never have a happy ending to his story. Besides the title of the next book being Victory's Price and implying that the good guys will have some sort of victory over Shadow Wing, Keize's attempt to balance the safety of his people and satisfying the wants of his people directly contradict each other. The people of the 204th seek justice, and in doing so try to get their revenge no matter how dangerous the situation is. It's this mindset that forces Keize's hand in fully rejoining what's left of the Empire so that he can fairly lead his people and make sure their needs are being fulfilled. Either Keize will force the hands of his people in getting them as far away from the conflict as possible and betraying their will or he'll have to lead them joyfully into the grips of an unruly fate. Judging from both his individual actions as an exiled man and his decisions for the group as a whole, it's likely that Keize will end up taking the path of the latter.
The most mysterious and ominous occurrences throughout Shadow Fall were the strange actions of the Emperor's Sentinel Messenger. Throughout the book, attention is given to this Messenger droid for no apparent reason and it never does anything to move the plot of the story along; there is almost no way that this Messenger serves any purpose but to showcase some amazing symbolism. No matter all that the droid goes through, including the destruction of the ship it was on, it always finds a way to get back to the 204th. This droid symbolizes that no matter how hard Keize tries to escape the Empire, he always ends up back in its grips whether that be in the form of Shadow Wing or Sloane's Imperial remnant. Its broken form represents the broken form of the current Empire, how the remaining Imperial members manage to hold on to life and maybe even signify how they managed to live on until their resumption of power in 30 years in the form of the First Order. A larger stretch could be tying this Sentinel's perseverance to the success of Palpatine himself in regaining life, although it's both more likely and more creative that the Sentinel's purpose is tied more to the characters of this novel and the journeys they face.
One of the most prevalent themes of Shadow Fall is change and reimagining characters as the opposite of who they were at the start of the trilogy. For Yrica it was looking away from the past and a possible devotion to a cause, for Wyl it was digging his roots deeper into the New Republic and possibly going against orders to help out the enemy, for Chass it was looking past violence and taking a more spiritual mindset on life, and for Nath it was developing into a selfless being who might even sacrifice himself for the people he loves. Even Kairos who unfortunately wasn't given her right due in this novel is given more characterization in how daringly she attempts to help out her fellow soldiers to the point where she almost kills herself, taking a step up from the mystery in more than one ways to set up how prevalent she'll be in the next book. Victory's Price will see these characters completely flipped on their heads almost as if it's a completely separate story from what started in the first book, highlighting how brilliant Shadow Fall is to have pulled off such great character work while also bringing the trilogy to a whole new level. There's almost no doubt that Alexander Freed will make the best trilogy in the history of Star Wars books.
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