SPOILER "Bloodline" by Claudia Gray (Discussion)

the one piece of information i really really wish we could have gotten here was when did Leia send Ben to Luke?
she's not the least bit concerned about the fact that she doesn't hear from them in--what?--months?
even when her own world is crumbling around her. even when she sends Ben the message toward the end.
so it seems like they've been off cavorting around the galaxy for a long while? maybe?

there is one tiny reference to Luke's "acolytes", but it's pretty vague.

 

hahaha! that's practically how Bail says it to Leia in his own message in the book.

we have no idea what she told him, only that she apparently barely remembers herself and that she was crying at the time.
and she has no idea whether he gets it since he and Luke have been out of touch for a long time.
and she's worried that Ben might hear second-hand before her message gets to him because the scandal is all over the news, of course.

 

yeah, i love Leia, but i kinda feel like she done stepped in the poodoo by waiting to say something.
i mean, Ben is not a child (unless, as i said before, there's something wrong with his wits).
she even flips out at the guy who blows her secret by complaining that her son didn't know and he should have given her the chance to tell him.
i sorta felt like she was not really on solid ground to be casting aspersions in that moment. eek.

 

right? the youngest he could be is about 23 years old, which is well past the age of majority ~ especially in this world when Leia goes on an on about how she was a senator at 14 and remarks on how young the kids who work for her are (Korr Sella is 16).

Ben is waaay to old to be treated like a child and it's impossible to tell whether he ever had anything like a job or responsibilities like those kids do.
she even calls her colleague a spoiled brat (and all the while i'm thinking: and what's your son, then?).

and yet she never worries about Ben, so it doesn't seem like he's unstable?
or that she worries about his stability? maybe because she trusts he's with Luke? and yet....
i think it's very weird.

probably not in a "this must be a plot point" way, but in a Gray didn't know what to do with it way.

 

No, you said Ben would have been 26...but 29 (years old) minus 6 (years before TFA) equals 23.

--- Double Post Merged, May 4, 2016, Original Post Date: May 4, 2016 ---

I guess I understand wanting Luke to tell Ben about Vader, since Leia hasn't really come to terms with it herself...but man, Leia! First we find out she didn't tell Han about Snoke getting his claws into Ben (ha! apparently she didn't tell herself either ), and then we find out she doesn't even know if Ben has been told about his grandfather at 23???? That is some serious blind trust in your brother and I'm sorry, but also downright abdication of parental responsibility. Recorded message is too little too late.

Poor Leia--out saving the galaxy, and all the while her own son is slipping into the Dark.

Meanwhile, I'm going to remember Leia thinking of Ben as a little guy dirty and messy from being outside playing, and recalling his puppyfat cheeks.

One thing I'm confused about--what are the Elder Houses and the governorship of Birren? And now that Lady Carise isn't in the running for this royalish position, and Leia has turned it down, is it still a thing? Is Ben still eligible for it? Just wondering if that could have been a foothold for power and wealth for Kylo Ren and the FO.

 

If Leia had told Ben in conjunction with Luke it would have been OK, I think. Even if she and Han just were there and didn't say diddley, it would have been better than what they did. Maybe Leia was afraid of the questions Ben might have asked her later. I don't see Leia being afraid of anything...except dealing with this.

Good point about Luke--I hadn't thought about him being the one to find out about Snoke. (I can imagine when Ben breaks bad, he gives Luke quite a speech. ) EDIT: Then again, maybe he's learned to way to handle these things is through a recorded message.

 

I haven't read the novel and I don't mind being spoiled. I've been reading the comments and no one seems to say anything at all about REY. Does the novel help in any way to put some light as to what could be going on with her at this point? Could she be in Jakku? On the -possible- cenarios that she could be either Leia's or Lukes daughter, how could the setting of this novel fit with the knowledge that a possible Skywalker youngster might have been dropped out in Jakku while Leia is busy in politics and Luke is travelling with Ben?

Could someone who read the novel help with this speculation? How does Rey fits with the overall plot now that there is some background with the other main characters who -might- be her relatives?

 

She's not mentioned at all, but should be on Jakku at this point in the timeline.

I think this certainly squeezes the number of realistic possibilities that would allow for her to be Luke's daughter (she's not Leia's because Daisy has already debunked that theory). Ben is yet to become Kylo, Luke seems absorbed in travelling with him, researching Jedi lore...there's no suggestion of any hidden trauma or trouble that might account for leaving a small girl on Jakku, or any family for Luke as far as Leia is aware. There's not even any mention of any other padawans, which was VERY interesting to me.

If Rey is Luke's - and I DON'T think she is - he'd have had to be unaware of her existence.

 

yeah ~ i'm really struggling with this, especially since she herself was about his age when she found out and look at how it wrecked her whole world.

she must have thought he was really fragile (or else spoiled him really rotten) to have done this. it's unfathomable.

playing with his friends, no less. he wasn't always so lonely perhaps?
though i begin to think Leia's rosy picture of their happy family might be a bit of delusion.

i had this thought too ~ not the wealth supporting the FO (it seems like the Birren titles were all ceremonial and that there wasn't much wealth there since Lady Carise was disappointed at the "treasures"). she might have been hoping for something to use but didn't find it. and now they've abolished the titles completely (as i understood it), so even if by some miracle Ben wanders back into the fold without anyone knowing his dirty laundry, there's be nothing there for him to take.

@Blackcanary, @Teemto Pagalies : the only suggestion we get about possible students of Luke is Lady Carise's offhand thought about his "acolytes".

--- Double Post Merged, May 4, 2016, Original Post Date: May 4, 2016 ---

she seems to imply that she knew about Snoke in the movie when she says "no, it was Snoke, he seduced our son. that's why i wanted him to train with Luke." or am i remembering the order of those statements incorrectly?

part of the problem is that Gray is hamstringed by a timeline she doesn't have control over and characters she can't really talk about.

i feel like it ends up doing a real disservice to Leia here in many ways because she comes off as an almost indifferent/insensitive mother who has no problem endangering the lives of people younger than Ben (Greer, Korr, Joph) but somehow raised a son she doesn't (?) connect with and wasn't honest to (for his own good?).
again, what's so wrong with Ben that she seems to treat him like glass? we never get any insight into their relationship at all.
and maybe he is already demented and she's just in denial. she comes off as so bomb-shocked in some scenes i feel like Han is actually the "steady" between them ~ and that makes me so sad.

in all fairness, we get so little here, it's not fair to judge entirely, but what little we do get doesn't paint a very flattering picture.

 

Leia's failure to tell him is even more baffling in light of the fact she knew he was being tempted by the darkness - what's more of an effective cautionary tale than Anakin's?!

 

i blame them both. and if Charles Manson was my father, i certainly wouldn't want to find out only after the truth had been outed by the media.
especially if i enjoyed sharpening knives and didn't understand why (to the point of needing to be sent away for my own good).

no, it's not simple at all. neither are the results of these unfortunate choices.

p.s. i checked the line and i did have it out of order. but knowing Han doesn't know about Snoke at this point, they still had concerns about him having too much Vader in him. at best they abdicated responsibility for him to Luke thinking Luke could train him to be stronger (maybe to prepare him for the truth). but exactly what kind of a mess was he that he'd gotten to that age without them telling him? he's practically a decade older than Leia was when she became a senator.

--- Double Post Merged, May 4, 2016, Original Post Date: May 4, 2016 ---

seems like she was leaving it up to Luke since Luke had all the compassion.
and they were planning to tell him ~ just kinda never got around to it for reasons that are never explored/explained.
but i agree, it seems like a terrible decision to have ever kept any of it from him.

 

Welcome to the Cantina, @Blackcanary!

It does seem odd. Or, as @LadyMusashi points out, perhaps she didn't find out until later that he was being tempted. It is possible (although not likely IMO) that she sent Ben to Luke simply because he was FS and she wanted him to train with Luke because of simply the possibility that he'd go Dark. It could be that she didn't find out he was being tempted until after the fact, and then she put all the pieces together about what went on while she was unaware.

However, that contradicts the novelization, in which she says she didn't tell Han about Snoke's influence on Ben "from the beginning." "I kept hoping that I was wrong, that it wasn't true." Apparently Leia took hoping to the level of denial...

I thought I empathized with Leia after TFA, but I really empathize with her now--because she made some very human, but very tragic mistakes with the son she loved.

FYI: Here's the relevant bit from the TFA script:

 

No kidding, Darth Vader and other darksiders are basically serial killers, though I think Manson never killed anyone he may have just manipulated others into doing that for him. That's a good analogy.

And Luke, Leia and Han don't actually know that much about the details of how Anakin was tempted and lured by Palpatine. But there was someone who did know. Ben Kenobi. The same fellow who told Darth Vader "If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine". So powerful he could do nothing to prevent Anakin's grandson from being turned, after already having seen Anakin go through something similar??

That's what the kids call "Epic Fail". #BlameKenobi Perhaps the Force being somewhat dormant will explain any lack of contact from Ben?

So I still haven't started reading yet but basically it sounds like Claudia Gray has made it where Leia essentially gets "outed" as being the daughter of Darth Vader. Which seems perfect, to be honest. The perfect way to tell that story.

 

Thank you! Been lurking a little while, finally decided to be brave and start posting!

The canonicity of that novel is always a little murky but, yeah, I feel like 'denial' is the right word here: it seems like poor Leia really had her head stuck in the sand on this one.

I don't blame her for not wanting to have that conversation - particularly as she herself didn't really experience Anakin's redemption in the same way Luke did, so she might have struggled to find the words.

And now in the long term, she must wonder to herself...if only i'd said something...would it all have been different...would I still have a son?

 

Yeah, we have to blame them both, although it's Leia's family that's the issue. Of course a parent would tell a child this, but hopefully neither when too young to understand the implications nor too old for them to have already found out from another source. The temptation, though, would be all but overwhelming to keep putting it off "for a better time," or to let someone else do it for you, because it would be a terrible, painful task. Exemplary people like Leia (and Han) and Bail and his wife failed at this, after all.

--- Double Post Merged, May 4, 2016, Original Post Date: May 4, 2016 ---

Thanks for clearing that up. I'm reading through again, at a much slower pace, so hopefully I'll catch more. I didn't think no one wouldn't know he's Vader's grandson, just that he might be able to claim a position (even merely ceremonial) whether people liked it or not, and wring some power out of it.

Yes, it's weird. And unnatural, frankly. Like maybe someone she's transferred her revulsion to her birth father onto her son somehow? Oh, I really hope that isn't the way it came across...
Here's a paragraph that strikes a rather ominous note somehow:

Han was just as committed to his current crop of young pilots. Leia wished she could believe he mentored them out of the same impulse that had led him to befriend Luke; probably, on some level, he did. But Han was also teaching these kids the same lessons he'd wanted to teach their son.
​

And didn't because...? Because he'd been carted off to Luke, or...??