Review: My Mother

Hello dear fellow Cantina members!

Well, I guess I should be working on my own fanfics rather than reading new ones, but there you go, another weird one I found.

"My Mother"

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2440805/1/My-Mother

AU fic: The dying Padme is frozen in carbonite and discovered by Leia years later.

I know, right??? Personally, I'm a little bit reluctant regarding Alternate Universe fan-fictions - even when I had an idea to write one, I switched it to fit into the current canon - maybe because in my opinion, this kind of treatment can take you to different directions, and in some way you might lose the essence of the original story. I don't see a problem trying to think about the "what if" potential situations for a GFFA - even the previous Legends dealt with it in the Star Wars Infinities comics - because it is interesting the different outcomes you might have with the same characters. I had previously reviewed "Children of the Future" - a Legends-based story of the Solo children time-traveling to be under the care of their parents - and found interesting how the author presented the development of the characters we already known on unfamiliar situations.

Well, "My Mother" takes on a similar route, but rather than taking someone from the future to the past, it goes the other way. At first, the length of the story (50 chapters!!! And I had previously thought "Children of the Future" was long with 19 chapters! How naive of me!) sort of discouraged me from reading it, and my own reluctance as well about reading AU stories. However, I started reading and I found it quite agile and interesting. The treatment of the author and the development of the characters was adequate - I had some concerns at first but it is alright - and it has several interesting points, actually the reluctance of Leia to accept Anakin as her father is treated - as it was previously on the Legends - and the author keeps the Solo twins treatment into scene, but takes the current canon idea of having them born closer to the Battle of Endor. (Which means Han and Leia got married shortly afterwards Endor, as in the current canon).

One of the good highlights of this story is how she justifies the fact that Leia has memories of Padme even though she was dying in childbirth. The way the author portrays this is quite good, actually.

The pace of the story is good, I kept on reading it because it keeps your interest and I actually liked something that is stated on one of the chapters: it was widely known that Luke and Leia were children of Anakin Skywalker, who had become Darth Vader from the end of the Empire. Leia would publicly acknowledge it just stating that being his daughter was just a biological accident and that she was raised an Organa and truly committed to the Rebellion. When I read that part, I couldn't help but think about "Bloodline" and wonder what would have happened if she had done that?

Hope you enjoy reading this, I know for me sometimes to think about a different and somehow unrealistic outcome was a little bit hard but at the same time couldn't help but picture in my head ROTS Padme dealing with ROTJ Leia, Luke and Han.

May the Force be with you!