Extended Thoughts on Path of Deceit
The first entry in Star Wars: The High Republic's Phase II is the best one yet
Warning: do not read unless you have read Path of Deceit as there are major spoilers ahead.
Every diehard has their own personal list of great Star Wars books. All SW books are good and enjoyable but we all have our select few that hit a little differently. They’re the ones we return to multiple times, the ones that don’t just satiate our fandom, but actually make us fall deeper in love with the galaxy. For me it’s titles like Heir to the Empire, the first Star Wars book I ever read. It’s Lost Stars. It’s The Rising Storm. It’s Out of the Shadows.
It's the same feeling I got reading Tessa Gratton and Justina Ireland’s Path of Deceit. To be blunt, it is the greatest Star Wars novel I’ve ever read. It made me fall deep in love and hate with several new characters. It made me fall for a relationship that I knew was doomed from the start. It contained scenes that chilled me to my core. And for fans of The High Republic publishing initiative, it’s the most essential title released to date.
Path is the first release from Phase II of The High Republic. Phase I was epic in scope and tracked the fallout as the Jedi battled a new enemy in the form of the Nihil, a group hell-bent on ravaging the galaxy. The phase ended with Nihil leader Marchion Ro’s destruction of Starlight Beacon and his unearthing of an ancient race of creatures that preys on and kills Jedi.
When Lucasfilm announced that Phase II would take place 150 years before Phase I, I was mildly stunned. It is true Star Wars fashion to start your story in the middle, I suppose. But other than to explain the origins of the creatures Ro wields – to this point, they’re only called The Nameless – I was skeptical these titles would contain enough important story information to justify the major move back in time.
Good lord, I was wrong. Path of Deceit already feels like the most critical High Republic novel. We do indeed get the beginnings of the Nameless in some form. We are also introduced to Marda and Yana Ro, family members of Marchion’s though in what way we do not know just yet. (I have my theories!) But forget how important Path of Deceitfeels to the overall High Republic construction for a moment. It’s just so damn good!
The core relationship of the novel is that between Marda and Jedi Padawan Kevmo Zink. The pair are instantly attracted to one another upon their first meeting but Gratton and Ireland drop immediate hints that these two are not meant to be. First of all, Kevmo is a Jedi and we’ve seen how great that works out in other Star Wars stories. His instant infatuation with Marda already feels forbidden to us the reader. A Jedi…flirting?? But it’s what happens at the end of the scene that warns us not to get attached to these two as a pair. Kevmo does a simple trick with the Force to make some flowers move around in an attempt to entertain the children from the Path that Marda is watching. Marda isn’t just unimpressed. She is horrified. See, the Path believes that the Force is not to be abused and using it in the way Kevmo just did takes away from it being used somewhere else in the galaxy for good. That scene tells us all we need to know. This isn’t going to end well.
Marda is an all-time Star Wars character for me already. She is both smart yet naïve, loving yet fierce. She is absolutely all-in on what the Path is teaching, and a devout follower of the Mother, a mysterious figure who has a connection to the Force and guides the Path’s actions. (Not to mention some off-world illicit activity.) It’s easy for us to listen to Marda’s strict beliefs and scoff. We know the Force can’t be abused in the ways she and the Path think it can. Yet can we definitely say the Jedi are using the Force solely for good? They certainly think they are. Kevmo and his master Zallah Macri obviously do. They’re good people trying to do right in the galaxy.
But the Jedi’s intentions are not always as pure as they seem. They are on Marda’s planet – Dalna – to investigate the Path’s involvement in a series of robberies of Force-related instruments around the galaxy. It is yet another Star Warstitle that explores the Jedi and their role in the galaxy at large. For the most part, each Jedi we meet in Star Wars is truly good in nature. However we’ve seen the Jedi as a whole can be misguided at times, sewing distrust even when they do not mean to. Marda and the Path – even those uninvolved with the Mother’s illegal activity – have good reason to keep the Jedi at arm’s length.
Despite this, Marda and Kevmo continue to be drawn to one another throughout the book and I to them. After the pair kissed, I even briefly wondered if Kevmo would end up being Marchion’s father. Look, I know this makes absolutely zero sense both logically and creatively, but goddamnit I was under a momentary spell by this great writing. I won’t apologize.
Their debates about the Force are the kind of rich, geeky discussions found at the hotel bar the Friday night of Celebration. Two people absolutely enthralled by the Force, yet in completely different ways. The best thing a Star Wars title can do – especially for a franchise over 45 years old – is make you look at something in a new way and Path of Deceit does that with Marda’s thoughts on the Force. It doesn’t mean I agree but it still made for an enthralling read.
All of this helps make what happens in the book’s closing pages so shocking. There is so much going on with the story that it lulled me into a sense of security. I thought we were headed for a finale where Marda and Yana confront the Mother about her off-world activities and question her motives. See, I forgot about the mysterious jewel that the Mother had been oddly attached to throughout the novel. Well it wasn’t a jewel. It was an egg, out of which came the Great Leveler – a Nameless that we see Marchion unearth in Phase I. If you’re reading this you know what happens next. Zallah killed instantly. And because Tessa and Justina wanted to twist the knife just a little bit more, Kevmo is spared just long enough for an excruciating goodbye with Marda.
What truly makes this ending special though is the fallout and Marda’s reaction. I was sure this would turn her against the Mother. Here is the man she cared for viciously killed by a creature at the Mother’s behest. Well, I was wrong a lot while readingPath of Deceit. The Leveler’s destruction of the Jedi plunges Marda deeper into the beliefs of the Path. She sees the Leveler as a true agent of the Force. The death of the Jedi is what happens when you abuse the Force in the ways she thinks they have. She still very much cares and grieves for Kevmo. But she believes in something bigger. She believes in the Mother, in the Leveler and in the Path.
It's a chilling ending for a character I truly grew to love. And us as readers can mentally connect some threads to what we know about Phase I. Not only do we see an origin of the Leveler (although there is still much to learn about these creatures!) but are we also seeing the beginnings of the Nihil? It doesn’t take too much to trace a line between the Path’s distaste for the Jedi and Marchion Ro’s. I doubt the narrative will be quite that clean but certainly Marda and her beliefs will be core to Phase II moving forward.
That seemed to be confirmed by the New York Comic Con reveal of the cover for the next YA Phase II novel, Cavan Scott’s Path of Vengeance (shown above). On it, we see a number of the Nameless surrounding Marda. And that is definitely the symbol of the Nihil beneath her. Things appear to be getting quite a lot darker. I can’t wait to see what’s next for Marda, even if I might be reading some of it through half-covered eyes. Scott is a genius writer, both of novels and of comics. But he has a tough act to follow. What Gratton and Ireland accomplished with Path of Deceit is something truly special and will stay with me for quite a long time.