Fanfiction – Truths Revealed Lies Exposed

Title: Truths Revealed Lies Exposed by VFSNAKE
Fandom: Star Wars
Status: Complete
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

I don’t normally read Star Wars fanfiction, since I never really got into the extended universe as a kid, but every fandom can produce at least one thing I might be interested in.

This story is built around a simple premise: What if young Leia had overheard her adopted parents talking about her biological father and brother, then took a calculated risk when faced with interrogation by Darth Vader.

It is also one of the small number of stories that I’ve read a second time.

While the need to keep Palpatine and the moffs in the dark results in this story following the rough details of the original trilogy canon, it does its best to be original in every other way possible.

Motivations are changed or built upon, many many new scenes are added, focusing much more on the rebels who got no significant screen time in the original roles, and it incorporates characters who were retconned into the timeline, such as Qui-Gon’s force ghost, Mara Jade, and Ahsoka Tano.

In general, It makes for an engaging blend of the expected and the unexpected which serves as a backdrop while the drama and intrigue take centre stage.

However, while all of that is just “a good read”, there are two elements which manage to go beyond that and their elegance is what prompted me to write this review, despite it occupying relatively little “screen time”:

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Once Anakin’s plans are revealed to the reader, it sets up a poetic “For want of a nail, the republic was lost. Given that nail, the destroyer will restore it.” symmetry to close off the unaltered canon events:

For fear of losing his family, Anakin Skywalker destroyed the republic. Given his family, he will rebuild it.

I find that especially clever when paired with Mon Mothma’s descent into a Palpatine-like role in the story at the hands of her own flawed convictions.

Just as the Jedi council’s refusal to see their own faults spelled their downfall. Mon Mothma’s refusal to reconsider her preconceptions about Vader and his role in Padme’s death leaves her the leader of the withering terrorist organization that the Rebel Alliance becomes.

Fanfiction – Truths Revealed Lies Exposed by Stephan Sokolow is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.