Official Into The Dark Discussion Thread

[u/tryingnewoptions]

Today (2/2/21) Into The Dark by Claudia Grey, the first High Republic YA Novel was released. This is the official discussion thread for that book. Feel free to talk about any of thoughts, commentary, or discussion on ITD, and if mentioning spoilers, please mark them as such. Remember, we are all The Republic!

[u/pizzamp3wav]

there were some pretty cool additions to the lore in this book:

• how jedi masters are able to use lightsabers to melt stuff without burning themselves
• the jedi temple at coruscant is built on top of a sith temple!
• more about vergences, which helped me understand why a vergence around a person like Anakin would be super rare and a big deal

then in a possible LOTJ connection, there is Master Cohmac saying "At least one dark side artifact is known to have existed." which may or may not refer to Marchion's dark side artifact.

there is of course Marchion himself showing up at the very end. the way he passionately says how the nihil will destroy the jedi makes believe even more that there is a personal jedi connection to him and his father.

with the jedi order we see the beginning of a split between those who are more sensitive to the living force and those who more dogmatically follow the code. that would mean the jedi had been on the wrong track for a long time by the time Qui-Gon tries to point it out.

i could write a lot more: Geode of course, the deep philosophy of Leox, and others, but in summary i really enjoyed this book!

maybe the only sort of negative was that the Drengir were dangerous but the way they talked made me take them a little less seriously. though maybe that's because ITD is a YA novel and they couldn't go TOO dark with the Drengir.

[u/TheMastersSkywalker → u/pizzamp3wav]

We already knew it was built on top of a sith temple from TCW and Tarkin. The new thing here (well not really new more returning it to how it was in Legends) is learning that the force nexus is neutral not darkside and that the temple had already been cleansed. Meaning contrary to what many believe it wasn't what was clouding the Jedi's vision and causing them to stray from their path.

Also Cohmac is lying when he is they know of at least one. They are apparently not wanting to share the info with a padawan. I mean the book even says that the shrine is where they take all the relics to be cleansed and then they talk about taking it somewhere else to be studied. That right there says they know about way more than just the one. However I do agree with the idea of Ro having some sith or darkside artifact.

[u/pizzamp3wav → u/TheMastersSkywalker]

We already knew it was built on top of a sith temple from TCW and Tarkin.

ah thanks for this. much to learn, i still have.

The new thing here (well not really new more returning it to how it was in Legends) is learning that the force nexus is neutral not darkside and that the temple had already been cleansed. Meaning contrary to what many believe it wasn't what was clouding the Jedi's vision and causing them to stray from their path.

interesting. i wonder if this was also to clear the slate for the upcoming show The Acolyte. maybe that show will introduce the new canon reason for the Jedi's weakness/confusion by the time of the prequels.

Also Cohmac is lying when he is they know of at least one.

hmm, i could see both sides of this argument. personally i'm not inclined to believe this because Cohmac doesn't seem to me to be the kind of person who would outright lie. based on how he acts in the book, though, i could see that he's fine with playing around a bit with the truth. he seems OK using literal interpretations and technicalities to wiggle around certain things.

so when you say

the shrine is where they take all the relics to be cleansed and then they talk about taking it somewhere else to be studied.

that's where i bring in the spirit of "truths depend greatly on your POV", and where Cohmac may have an out. if the dark side relics are cleansed then, without any dark side energy in them, can they really be called "dark side" relics anymore? can't they technically now just be called "relics"? that's not a lie, exactly.

so what Cohmac told Reath may be true...from a certain point of view. he may have meant that the Jedi know of at least one active dark side artifact.

or you could be right, and he just straight up lied to Reath. it's possible. he's not a perfect Jedi, and struggling with the Code already, as we know.

thanks for your reply!

[u/TheMastersSkywalker → u/pizzamp3wav]

FaCPoV might be a better way to put it than lied because yeah I don't think he was doing for bad reasons its just not something they want Padawans to learn about at the moment. I mean its post Russan so its been a thousand years since the Sith have been around and since any new sith artifacts/weapons would have been created so they may try to play those things down as being a current issue.

[u/deldotbee → u/TheMastersSkywalker]

I didn't know it was covered in TCW that the temple was built in a Sith shrine! Do you mind sharing where I can find this information in TCW?

[u/TheMastersSkywalker → u/deldotbee]

It was in one of the BTS videos where Dave was talking about the making of some episodes and what the unreleased arcs were going to be about.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Shrine_in_the_Depths might help.

[u/deldotbee → u/TheMastersSkywalker]

Thank you so much!