The Underrateds: Billy Joel

Back even though literally no one demanded it, it's a new segment of The Underrateds!

Ladies, please; control yourselves.

As soon as the Afterglow of my revisitation of the entire Genesis discography began to fade, I started to wonder if I could apply the same experience to some of my other all-time favorite artists. There are a lot of favorites of mine where there isn't quite enough typical "album" material there for this idea to make sense. Simon & Garfunkel and ELP are two examples where their "official" discography is relatively brief, making any run-through a pretty short exercise (Paul Simon's solo career is another matter entirely). Other major favorites of mine, like Peter Gabriel's solo career, don't have the kind of stuff that can be easily compared; in Gabriel's case, what "popular" success he's had is mostly restricted to a specific subset of his music, while the rest of his work might as well exist in separate dimensions from the rest.

Some, however, do offer the combination of relatively significant mainstream awareness with a long enough discography to make this activity quite fun. Like Billy Joel, for instance. Though later eclipsed by Genesis and ELP, Billy Joel was the first modern musician I became a legitimate fan of- discovering his early albums was a watershed moment in my life, the door that introduced me to the world of rock music and its many flavors. And the best stuff has only gotten better over the years.

With 12 studio albums to his name (plus a classical album that, for obvious reasons, I won't bother trying to compare to his other work) and a wide range of hits that are still familiar to most people today, there's lots of meat to dig through here and plenty of hidden gems I love reminding people of, so without further do, let's keep the good times rolling. These are my 12 most underrated songs by the great muse of Middle-Class Suburban Malaise, Billy Joel.

Cold Spring Harbor (1971)

Underrated Track: Everybody Loves You Now

Like with most artists, Joel's first album has sort of disappeared over time and not gotten much attention outside of the most hardcore fans. This particular song is easily the best in the whole tracklist, a fun, driving tune featuring an early test of Joel's finger-breaking playing style and lyrics on his usual subject matter of pretty, superficial people trying and failing to hide the emptiness inside.

Piano Man (1973)

Underrated Track: You're My Home

This was the one that started Joel on his track to stardom, with the title song becoming one of his two most well-known hits. But, let's be honest, as great a tune as it is, it has been played to death, and I doubt the man himself would argue that point. Thankfully, the rest of the album has a whole lot of fun stuff to pick from. For my money, "You're My Home" has the best sound and sentiment of the lot, a truly sweet love song that I personally find more heartfelt than his later wedding staple, "Just The Way You Are."

Streetlife Serenade (1974)

Underrated Track: Root Beer Rag/The Mexican Connection

These two tracks, plus the "Nocturne" from his first album, are the only instrumental pieces Joel ever recorded for an album (again, excluding his one classical set). And as far as I am concerned, that is an absolute crime, because these two jams are among the most interesting, dynamic, and unique sounds he ever came out with. I mean, no, technically "Root Beer Rag" isn't "proper" ragtime jazz, but who cares? It is catchy as shit and is a hell of a time to try and actually play. Out of all the songs I single out in this list, these two deserve better treatment the most.

Turnstiles (1976)

Underrated Track: Summer, Highland Falls

Ah yes. This is the one. This is the rock album that will always be my "first," one of the defining experiences of my musical self. There is not one false note here, from start to finish, and a good half the album- immortal classics like "Say Goodbye To Hollywood," "New York State of Mind," "Angry Young Man," and the titanic "Miami 2017"- is regularly ranked among the all-time best stuff Joel ever produced. And even the "in-between" tracks that are less well-known all add to the whole experience that is Turnstiles.

"Summer, Highland Falls," the second track, stands out for the lilting rise and fall of the arpeggios on the piano and a simple but cuttingly effective melody that contains some of the most poetic lyrics Joel ever wrote. When I finally got to see the man live in Frankfurt a few years ago, he let the audience choose at one point between this and another song, I forget which one. The audience overwhelmingly wanted the other song. I still haven't gotten over it.

The Stranger (1977)

Underrated Track: She's Always A Woman

Standing alongside Turnstiles atop the Billy Joel discography, I can't blame those who would argue that this is his all-time best album, although I personally think the last two tracks peter out a bit (I mean, how do you follow up an album-finisher like "Miami 2017"?). "Just The Way You Are" is his best-known love song, "The Stranger" is one of his most cutting commentaries on relationships, and there is simply nothing else he wrote to compare to "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant."

As such, it was hard for me to pick a song that I think is actually underrated, but ultimately I settled on this tune, where the tone and sound make it feel like a love song in the vein in "Just The Way You Are," but once you pay attention to the lyrics, you realize it's much closer to "The Stranger."

52^nd Street (1978)

Underrated Track: Stiletto

This song is a great example of how, at his best, Billy Joel structures every part of his song, from the lyrics, to the key, to the particular sounds he creates on the piano with the other instruments, to create a completely unified experience. The idea of sharp stilettos as the symbol for a woman who keeps breaking hearts is mirrored by the tip-tap effect of the piano, sounding like someone is dancing on the keys wearing high-heels.

Glass Houses (1980)

Underrated Track: Sometimes A Fantasy

I first heard this as part of a live set in a VHS recording of a concert from the 80's and was instantly hooked. Most don't remember it today, and the album as a whole is not remembered as one of Joel's strongest works, but I like the rough and occasionally almost desperate tone of this one, which is very much in line with its subject of a person possibly losing their mind.

Nylon Curtain (1982)

Underrated Track: Scandinavian Skies

All in all, it's pretty remarkable just how much mileage Billy Joel got out of writing song after song and album after album focused on the banal, superficial, materialistic worries of upper-middle-class American Suburbia. There's at least several on every album and the aesthetic of people with just enough money to waste it on whatever crosses their path permeates the worlds of even the songs that don't specifically focus on it. "Scandinavian Skies" is, for me, one of the more delightful of these, an incredibly atmospheric piece that describes a group of Americans traveling Northern Europe for, seemingly, the sole purpose of getting higher than the plane and throwing all their money away. I always feel like I've been zoning out above the clouds myself after listening to it.

Innocent Man (1983):

Underrated Track: This Night

Now this is when Billy Joel really started to try and branch out from his 70's rock roots. This album is basically a mixed homage to all sorts of 50's and 60's pop music styles, including Doo-Wop, R&B, and Soul, and it is radically different in tone and style from what he'd done up to that point. It is certainly an admirable effort, and the album's hits do hold up pretty well- "Innocent Man" and "Keeping the Faith" are solid, "For The Longest Time" will live forever as a men's acapella standard, and "Uptown Girl".....exists...- but it is a far cry from his artistic heights in the mid-70's and for many, the album was the start of his professional downturn.

That said, I do have a strong affinity for "This Night," which hits the very small sweet spot of 50's tribute music that I actually like, with its effortlessly engaging chorus. That's not all on Joel though; it so happens that he directly lifted the chord progression and melody from Beethoven's "Pathetique" Sonata, which he was fair enough to mention in the song's credits.

The Bridge (1986)

Underrated Track: Code of Silence

Listening to this album with the benefit of hindsight, it definitely feels like this was the time when Billy Joel's creativity started to dry up a bit; his sound here leaves the 50's behind and is very much of the 80's, but frankly, that is not an aesthetic that ever really fit him. It's a perfectly fine album, but like Innocent Man it really doesn't do much to distinguish itself. This duet with Cyndi Lauper, though, really stuck with me and is, for my money, the most interesting track on the album. He and Lauper strike a great balance in the chorus and make it a very fun listen.

Storm Front (1989)

Underrated Track: Downeaster 'Alexa'

With his last project of the 80's, Joel seemed to finally get back into a good groove. "We Didn't Start The Fire" might not be quite on the same plane as "Piano Man," but it is certainly one of the most ironclad parts of his musical legacy, and there was a time in my life when "I Go To Extremes" was basically my theme song.

More than anything, the track I come back to the most is this driving song about a sailing man whose home and livelihood is increasingly under threat by the gentrification of the Northeast coastline. It's rather ironic, given that Billy Joel himself ws very much a part of that process, but perhaps this song is him showing a little bit of self-awareness about the arc of his own life.

River of Dreams (1993)

Underrated Track: Shades of Gray

Although it wasn't really planned as such at the time, I am rather grateful for the fact that this ended up being the final studio album Joel wrote and recorded. It is easily his best album since Nylon Curtain, with quality tracks from start to finish. "River of Dreams" is obviously the most enduring hit to come out of this one, but nearly every song is solid, with "Shades of Gray" a personal favorite. In many ways, the song is a spiritual successor to "Angry Young Man" from way back in the 70's, a subtle reflection on how much Joel himself aged and changed over the course of his musical career.

And so ends my revisitation of the discography of Billy Joel, as well as my writings for this, the God-awful year of 2020. May in burn in hell for eternity.

-Noah Franc

Films for the Trump Years, Part 20: The Social Network

               I have long argued that The Social Network, one of the greatest films of the 2010's, is at its core a spiritual successor to Amadeus, one of the best movies of the 1980's. Both movies are "about" real people and events; in one case, Wolfgang Mozart and his relationship to a fellow musician, Antonio Salieri; in the other, Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Sean Parker, and the launching of Facebook specifically and the modern social media phenomen more generally. And in both cases, there is more than ample evidence to argue that both films are more fiction than fact, with their narratives and even the personalities of the characters as depicted bearing either little or zero resemblance to reality.

               In the end, though, the discourse surrounding what is true or not true in either is immaterial. The narrative inaccuracies of the movies are real, but far less important than why those inaccuracies exist in the first place. Both movies use these people with famous names merely as jumping-off points to tell far deeper, more complicated, and ultimately, more real stories about human nature and how our greatest passions so easily couple themselves to our worst instincts, like jealousy, pride, and the desire for revenge. In the case of The Social Network, this goes even deeper in showing how profoundly these universal and timeless fallacies of the human spirit have defined our current digitial age. The foundational stones of the current cyberwars against human rights, democracy, and even truth itself that are increasingly consuming cultures and societies around the world were first laid in the early days of social media, and will forever be the central legacy of Mark Zuckerberg and his contemporaries, no matter how hard they try to deny it.

               The tone for both the movie itself and its wealth of insight into our current digital sickness are set right from the start, in one of the all-time great opening scenes in film history. In every aspect of his performance, from his mannerisms and tone of voice to the rapid-fire way he shifts focus between and even within sentences, Jesse Eisenberg grips us right from his first line with what remains his best performance to date. Nitpicking in the worst way, refusing to engage seriously with any one topic, endlessly distracted, seemingly incapable of responding to anything with genuine, human emotion, focused on the exultation of himself to the exclusion of all else; Eisenberg isn't playing Zuckerberg so much as an internet comment thread that somehow obtained sentience.

               Sorkin has always been known for sharply witty, back-and-forth dialogue, but he outdoes himself here with line after line that sets up the arc of the film's main character in ways that pay off beautifully by the end. And it all reflects the crux of what drives not just the movie, but so much of the worst that internet culture has brought out in us; an immature man-child feels wronged, and reacts out of basic instinct, resulting in a cascading series of hurt and damage that soon snowballs beyond anybody's ability to control or turn back.

               As masterful as Eisenberg is, though, the scene does not work without Rooney Mara balancing out the walking 4Chan page in front of her with the film's most sympathetic and human character. For someone who, after this, only speaks in one other scene and is briefly glimpsed in just two others, Mara defines the contour and shape of the film just as much as Eisenberg. While the rest of the movie could be summed up with "dopey frat boys too smart for their own good try to get rich and one-up each other doing it," Mara gets two absolutely essential moments to speak with the dry, sober clarity of someone able to see beyond the petty childishness that drives so much of our online and civic culture in the age of social media. The movie famously begins with her saying the line "You're an asshole," and ends with someone else telling Zuckerberg, "You're not an asshole. You're just trying so hard to be." But if you've been paying attention to all that happens in between, by that point you'll realize that there is no sunlight to be found between those two things. Mara has Eisenberg pegged precisely from the start, and every hectic minute that follows only confirms her words.

               She is the film's voice repeating that famous maxim that the anonymity offered by the internet allowed its worst corners to function as windows into the darkest, angriest parts of the human soul, where the quiet parts are not said out loud so much as they are shouted from atop the highest mountains. Sadly, what the past four years have shown us is how easily, given the right nudges, so many people won't even bother with the anonymous part; a depressing segment of the human race is willing to let any and all darkness in their hearts out into the sun if those in power send out the signal that it's ok to do so.

               What internet culture is particularly shaped by goes far beyond generic human capacity for cruelty, though, since this is a world shaped specifically and overwhelmingly by men. Appropriately, The Social Network has all flavors of toxic masculinity dripping out the edges of every shot. Arnie Hammer perfectly embodies the classic jock in his dual portrayal of the Winklevoss twins, so accustomed to a life of every privilege imaginable that they never once thought to ask their girlfriends (who don't appear on-screen) if they were offended by the FaceMash scandal that the movie opens up with. Their plan for a glorified Harvard dating site might sound more refined than Zuckerberg's FaceMash idea, but only on a purely surface level; the attitude of general sexual objectification towards women driving both ideas is exactly the same.

               One particular scene stands out to me in this regard. After hooking up with two ladies in a bar, Zuckerberg and Saverin return to their dorm to plan an expansion of Facebook's operations into more universities across the country. Zuckerberg, about as animate and passionate as he ever appears in the whole movie, hands out a bunch of goals with specific tasks for all the guys there. One of the women raises her hand and, voice filled with team spirit, asks what she and her friend can do. "Nothing," is Zuckerberg's response. It is a moment so on-the-nose that I have a hard time Fincher actually intended it as gender commentary, simply because it strikes me as far too direct for him.

               The film even manages to have a character there to portray how snake-eats-tail and self-destructive these types of behaviors are. I am speaking, of course, of Justin Timberlake's endlessly entertaining and memorable performance as Sean Parker. Like Eisenberg, this is less of a take on a real person and more an embodiment of a character archetype, the Mephistopheles to Zuckerberg's socially-stunted Faust. They obviously couldn't have known this at the time, but his last, wild speech at the party (fueld in equal doses by cocaine and ego) essentially predicts the later rise of live-streaming, further reducing the lag time between something in the world happening and it making the internet rounds down to absolute zero. It is the epitome of the high-strung, move-fast-and-break-things mentality of Silicon Valley; nothing can be appreciated or enjoyed for more than a moment before every thought is directed to what comes next. Keep growing, keep expanding, keep breaking things, even though the list of things in our world left unbroken is vanishingly small.

               Another scene with Timberlake's Parker that has only grown scarier in hindsight; in a part of the restaurant scene where Parker and Zuckerberg first meet, Timberlake describes in whispered tones how Zuckerberg will always have enemies of some sort, sniffing around for dirty laundry to be aired, and if all else fails, "they" will just make stuff up. Again, obviously Sorkin and Fincher did not have some mystical forknowledge of deep fakes, or of the rise of wholly invented, paranoid, reactionary conspiracy theories like Qanon. Obama Birtherism was still in comparative infancy at the time of the film's production, and for years afterward most of us remained content to assume it was a lone, fringe, freak idea that would soon fade. And despite this, the scene manages to feel like it could have been written out, word-for-word, just last week.

               For me, The Social Network encapsulates so much of what helped give birth to the modern reactionary movement, of which Trump is merely one, particularly repugnant symptom. The fight against these dark tendencies within ourselves is the battle of a lifetime and it will not be over anytime soon. This one era of darkness is, mercifully, about to come to a close, but the next is always waiting, just around the corner, if we do not remain active and vigilant.

               The Trump years are over, and so Films for the Trump Years has come to its end as well. But the fight goes on.

               Death to Fascism. Life to Not-Fascism.

-Noah Franc

Previously on Films for the Trump Years: 

Part 1- Selma

Part 2- Good Night, and Good Luck 

Part 3- 13th 

Part 4- Get Out 

Part 5- Chasing Ice/Chasing Coral

Part 6- The Big Short 

Part 7- Human Flow

Part 8- Moonlight/Winter's Bone

Part 9- Black Panther

Part 10- Arrested Development

Part 11- Bowling for Columbine

Part 12- [T]error

Part 13- Angels in America

Part 14- Do The Right Thing

Part 15- All The President's Men

Part 16- Ken Burn's The Vietnam War

Part 17- Malcolm X

Part 18- Songs My Brothers Taught Me

Part 19- Totally Under Control

Star Wars, Duel of the Fates: Chapter 7- The Signal

**for previous chapters, please refer to the Table of Contents**

               Rey wasn't sure how long she stood there, looking upwards out of the alleyway she was standing in while awaiting Finn and Rose's return. There wasn't anything in particular she was looking for, and she could sense no incoming danger; she just soaked in the endlessly varied colors and lights reflected off of the gleaming metal surfaces of Coruscant and its ever-full airways of traffic, line upon line upon line of ships stretching all across the planet. She still remembered the thrilled awe she felt when she first gazed on Takodama from the cockpit of the Falcon, covered in greens at a size and scale she'd never dreamed of. But Coruscant- Coruscant topped even that. All the stories and descriptions she'd heard throughout her life of the city that covered an entire planet could not begin to convey the feeling of being there, of feeling the hectic crush of city life and its unending sensory overload. If she hadn't had the Force to steady and center her, she didn't think she could have handled it.

               Reflecting on all this, she craned her head around the building once again to take in the huge size of the Jedi Temple , rising up from the other end of the plaza. It was radiant in the Force, but a radiance tinged with the sadness and loss that had plagued the Jedi and the galaxy the past few generations. It was huge and overwhelming as well, but in a much different sense than the city around it.

               While researching everything about the Temple she could draw from the texts, Rey had started to think about later on, if they pulled this crazy plan off and actually won. Would she- the simple, uneducated scavenger from a backwater desert- relocate to Coruscant, occupy a massive, ancient temple on her own, and restart the Jedi Order there? Or was there another way, another place, where she could start over, really separated from the ghosts of the past? Had Luke reappeared to her at any point, she would have immediately started peppering him with these questions. But there had still been no visitations by her Master since she'd snapped at him back at the base.

               A warble from around her leg broke her reverie, and she glanced down to see BB8, its head swiveling up to examine her in an expression of curiosity (at least, she knew the droid well enough to know it was curiosity- most beings were not so attentive where droids were concerned).

               She smiled, "Just thinking, BB8. Don't worry about me."

               Another warble, this one not directed at her, was the response.

               "They're alright too. They'll be here shortly." In fact, she could already feel the approach of Rose and Finn from behind in the Force. Assuming they spotted no guards or other obstacles on their reconnaissance, this was it; the mission to infiltrate the Jedi Temple and- hopefully- spark the last battle of the war was about to begin.

               In mere minutes, her sense of them solidified as they turned around the other corner of the alley. Neither Finn nor Rose, nor Rey for that matter, were wearing anything significant in the way of disguises. Coruscant was such a melting pot that people who consciously tried to hide tended to stick out all the more. And besides, if Kylo Ren were around and consciously searching for them, no physical covering could mask them in the Force. But that had not happened yet, nor was it likely to; from the moment they'd landed, Kylo Ren's presence was not to be felt anywhere on Coruscant. Rey didn't know yet whether this was a stroke of good fortune, or something more ominious.

               Poe had done a top-notch job hiding them out in the trick parts of one of the rebel's older, more scanner-proof ships. Landing them on the surface alongside crates of assorted goods, they'd only had time for a quick round of "Force be with you"s before he lifted off again to join Lando and the Falcon in a nearby sector, there to wait for any response to the Force beacon once they'd managed to activate it.

               The plan, based on both the diagrams available in Rey's books and the various schematics of the government sector of Coruscant available to the Rebellion, was to make use of the endless series of underground tunnels crisscrossing that part of the planet- so many that no regime had ever managed to track them all- to enter the Temple from beneath, since they assumed (correctly, as the three of them discovered after arrival) that such an important building would be surrounding and sealed off to the public by the First Order, at least on the surface. Should they manage to find an unguarded tunnel with an entrypoint far enough away, however, they figured they could literally sneak in under the First Order's nose to get inside, and then be able to seek out the Beacon at their leisure.

               So went the plan, anyway. But they all had Kuat at the back of their minds. The question wasn't if something would go wrong, but what and when. Well, no sense worrying about it beforehand, Rey thought to herself, as she listened to Finn describe the unused maintenance route he and Rose had found and selected as their best way into the Temple. We'll face whatever it is when we come to it.

***

               Rose listened as Finn finished describing the tunnel they'd just finished scouting out. When he finished, no one seemed to know what to say next. For a moment, all three simply looked at each other. Then, without speaking, they reached out and clasped each other's hands. They all wanted to hope that this could be it, but were afraid to admit it out loud, as if to truly say would doom them. Rose could almost physically feel the depth of emotion between them permeating the air. She wondered, for a moment, if this was something like what using the Force felt like.

               Rey was the one who finally broke the silence; "I want you both to know; there's no one in the whole universe I'd rather be here with." There was no hint of the tension Rose knew she must be struggling with inside. "The Force is with us. I know it is."

               As she said this, Rose noticed that something seemed to flick across Finn's eyes. Something that made her think of their conversation a few weeks ago back on Talrezan Four. They had more important things to worry about now, but she made sure to file it away for later when the two of them could properly talk again.

               "So," she then said, putting her worries about Finn aside,"A patrol passed by the entryway we found about ten minutes ago. Not sure if they even know it's there. Our window to get in unseen is probably during the next half-hour or so before the next shift passes through."

               "Alright then, let's get to it," Finn said, his eyes no longer betraying whatever it was that had been on his mind. Less than five minutes later the group was standing in front of a door that was more rust than metal, with it and everything around it so thoroughly grimy and brown that you could only notice the handle if you knew exactly what you were looking for. Finn grabbed the knob and turned. A short, extremely dark hallway yawned open before them.

               Activating a glow rod apiece, they slowly stepped into the entrance, Rey using the Force to lift BB8 over the uneven bottom of the doorframe to avoid unnecessary noise. About five meters in, Finn identified another door to the right that revealed a flight of steps that disappeared rapidly into the darkness below. After going back to shut the first door, just in case a patrol did notice it and decide to go inside, they began a careful descent, with Rose carrying BB8 in her arms.

               Before too long, a greenish glow began to seep up from below them, and they soon found themselves in a long hallway running eastward in the direction of the Temple. Somehow, most of the green-hued glowrods installed in the ceiling still functioned enough that their own lights were no longer needed. It was tight- the tunnel roof was less than half a meter above their heads- but manageable. The ground was also smooth enough that BB8 could move about on his own.

               "It's a straight shot from here." Rose whispered to Rey as Finn double-checked the settings on his blaster. "Once we've gone about 300 meters we should be directly beneath the main hall of the Temple. I don't think there are any direct accessways to the Temple from here, but I figured we could make some, right?"

               "Yeah," Rey whispered back, "No problem." Rose checked her own blaster as well, just to be on the safe side, and the trek towards the Temple began.

***

               The sickly-green glow on dim, metal piping above and beside them. The faint clack-clack of their footsteps and the whir of BB8's metal frame rolling along the ground. Other than that, dead silence. Any other noise, even the simple drip of water, would have been a comfort, but whoever had built this particular pathway, whenever that was, had sealed it off well enough that not even groundwater had yet found a way inside. It was the stillness, more than anything, that unnerved Finn, because it was the times and places like this when he found it that much harder to distract himself from the beehive that was his mind.

               He hadn't been lying when he said to Rose, back at base, that he was genuinely unsure what was going on with him. He knew she meant well and loved her for that, but the hard truth was that trying to articulate it then had only made it worse; a humming sensation in his brain, in his veins, right beneath his skin, something bordering on the sheer panic that had almost led him to flee the rebellion on more than one occasion. It was as if every sense in his body was somehow set to permanent overdrive, every day, all the time. It wasn't terribly dissimilar to what he recalled feeling after those many sensory-enhancement "exercises" the First Order required all stormtrooper trainees to undergo, so as to make them more effective killing machines. And that very association with his excruciatingly painful past made it even worse, adding another layer of worry to his overflowing headspace.

               Was he just afraid? He wasn't sure. He certainly feared losing Rose, or Rey, or Poe, but it wasn't like before. Was it regret? No. That wasn't it either. He knew now that this was where he needed to be. Was it Rose? No again. She, as well as Rey and Poe, was one of the few people whose mere presence made the buzzing fade, just a little bit.

               Before Finn could lose himself further in his thoughts, a whistle from BB8 announced that they'd gone the requisite distance and were now directly beneath the Temple proper. Finn looked over at Rey, who stood with her head tilted upwards now, eyes closed. After what felt like a minute, she opened them again and look at Finn and Rose.

               "Alright," even when barely above a whisper, the emptiness of the place made Rey's voice sound all the louder. "We're beneath the main entranceway. No soldiers or Knights."

               "What's the best way for us to get there?" Rose asked, glancing around. No door or access hatch leading out of the tunnel was anywhere in sight, either before or behind them.

               Rey unclipped her lightsaber, "Straight up. This tunnel might not connect to the Temple, but I can feel some kind of lower chamber above us that does. The ceiling isn't that thick, so if we cut a big-enough hole in it we can go right up and find our way into the Temple proper."

               She tossed her saber over to Finn, "You cut, I hold?"

               Finn nodded, happy to finally have something to do again, "Sure."

               He thumbed the pressure pad on the upper half of Rey's lightsaber, igniting just one of its twin blades. Reaching up carefully, he began to walk the blade around in a circle above his head, leaving a curving line of melted concrete behind him. Rey stood off to one side, hand stretched out and her face a mask of concentration, making sure that the growing slab Finn was cutting away didn't suddenly topple down onto his head. When he was finished, she began to slowly lower the cut-out piece down and back away from them before slowly settling it on the ground.

               Once the glowing edges had fadede and cooled enough, Finn jumped up, grabbed the edge of his freshly-made opening, and hauled himself into a place of utter darkness. Whatever power source kept the lights on below them clearly wasn't connected to this room. He lit a glow rod and placed it beside him, casting a gentle golden glow that didn't extend far enough to give him a proper feel for the dimensions of this new space.

               He reached back down and helped pull Rose through after him. Rey leapt through the hole on her own, and like before used the Force to pull up the droid after them. After collecting their things together, Rey glanced around a moment, shadows cast by their lights looming and shifting all around them, before she pointed off into darkness and said, "This way."

               Trying his best to suppress a shudder of emotion that, yet again, he couldn't quite place, Finn following Rey and Rose and the droids into the darkness and uncertainty that lay before them.

***

               A series of pathways and doors, all without power or light, each one taking them just a little bit further up towards the ground above them. There was no sense in trying to track the time, but Rey felt like it couldn't have been more than about 10 minutes later when, at the top of a short flight of steps, she and Finn pulled open an especially heavy two-sided door and all three of them were almost blinded by the flash of natural light that suddenly hit their unprepared pupils.

               Blinking away the stars and flashes of pain, after about ten seconds Rey's eyes adjusted, and she turned to behold the grand hallway of the Jedi Temple. Exiting the subterreanean levels at what appeared to be around the middle of the grand chamber, Rey looked around in quiet awe at the rising pillard of carefully-crated stone pillars that lined the central walkway through the chamber, with a series of doors on both sides leading to hallways and rooms that made up the rest of this first part of the Jedi Temple. Given the lights and sounds and smells of the city around it, Rey had not expected any building on this planet to feel so quiet and tranquil as the Temple did; as if the Force itself shut out the outside world, turning the Temple into an oasis of calm amidst a desert of noise.

               And yet, that tinge of sadness in the Force she'd felt from the outside was all the sharper now that she was nearer to its source. Rey could feel the weight of a thousand generations of history present in these walls, and she once again found herself feeling like a small, backwater scavenger girl way out of her depth.

               "Rey." The voice seemed to come from a great distance away. Rey's thoughts had begun to blur, carried away in the tide of powerful feelings that surrounded her in the Force. But there was a reason she couldn't lose herself to the flow....a mission....a signal....

               "Rey." The voice was sharp and clear this time, and Rey could feel her mind returning to her body. She glanced over at Rose, who looked at her with slight concern in her eyes.

               "Sorry, it's just..." Rey struggled for a moment to find the right words, "...a lot of memories are here. A lot of them bad."

               Rose nodded sympathetically, "Makes sense, I guess." She raised her eyebrows slightly. "Are you okay?"

               "I think so. Just need a moment." Rey closed her eyes as she said this, willing the jumbled thoughts and voices assailing her consciousness to the back of her mind. Later. Later she would have the time to sift through it all.

               "Hey, tell you what." Rose laid her hand on Rey's shoulder and smiled, a beacon of warm life amidst the desolate hallway. "When this is all over, and you've had time to read up, you give us both the grand tour."

               Rey smiled back, her mind focused once more. "Deal."

               They both turned back to Finn, who was staring down the other side of the chamber with a look of peculiar intensity. Rey waited a second, then cocked her head and called out loudly, "Alright Finn, where do we go next?"

               "Hm?!?" Finn turned his head so sharply his neck cracked. "What, I....me?"

               "Well, you just..." Rose was suddenly stifling several giggles with her hand over her mouth. Rey was having a hard time keeping her face straight herself. "You just looked so....resolute just now, like you knew exactly where to go, so, lead on."

               Finn opened his mouth, his eyes wide as dinner plates, but a moment later they narrowed and the tension lines around his face vanished, "Aw come on Rey, not now."

               Now Rey stopped holding it back and let her shoulder shake with silent laughter, while Rose stopped bothering to hide the grin on her face. Even Finn had to smile. For just a moment, they were once again just good friends enjoying a joke, not soldiers on a desperate and possibily suicidal mission to save the galaxy.

               It couldn't last forever, but Rey felt a sense of serenity return to her heart and could sense the same happening in the others. They took a breath, picked their gear back up and, droids in tow, Rey began leading them down the hallway further into the Temple interior.

***

               Another series of hallways, these ones with either windows or at least still-functioning lights in them, that once again led them back below ground, drawing ever closer to what Rey could sense was the heart of the Temple itself. She'd checked and re-checked and triple-checked the ways to get to the beacon below the apex of the structure. The fact that many of the doors in their way were clearly disguised or hidden, even within the Force, proved just how old this secret had apparently been, even for the original Jedi; without the exact instructions she'd copied out the ancient book, Rey soon realized she would have been hopelessly lost had she tried to find the beacon on her own.

               Finally, they stood in a short antechamber that, by their estimates, stood some 50 meters below the main ground level of the Temple. The last 4 or 5 rooms they'd gone through had been filled with dust and stale air, suggesting they were the first living beings in, most likely, centuries to tread here. This final chamber was no different, with the doors in front of them not made of durasteel or any other artificial source, but rather exquisitely crafted wooden beams, the frames above and to the sides carved with calligraphic symbols Rey recognized, but couldn't yet read, from the more ancient pages she'd gotten from Luke.

               She, Finn, and Rose glanced at each other at the same time. Without Rey needing to say anything, they knew this was it. Reaching out with the Force, Rey bid the doors to open, and, for the first time in countless ages, they opened towards with a long groan.

               Stepping into the main chamber, a perfectly round room 20 meters high, the three comrades took a moment to take in the Force beacon. An octagonal array of consuls sat in the exact center of the room, a line of lights stretching from each edge to the wall. Within the ring of consuls, transparasteel frames rose all the way to the ceiling, lined and crisscrossed with wires and cables of every imaginable color. And in the center, within the entire device, glowing just brightly enough that it was impossible to see what, exactly, was causing it, a purple ball of light pulsated gently. Reaching out once more with the Force, Rey could get only a vague sense of the mystery that was the beacon, something that combined hard tech with sheer Force power. Clearly one of many old arts lost through the ages.

               "It's beautiful." Rey said, gazing intently at the array before her.

               "It's unbelievable." Rose said, her eyes running over the antiquated buttons and displays on the consoles.

               "It's creeping me out," Finn said, his voice filled with unease. "I'd rather not stick around any longer than necessary.

               "Jeez, Finn," Rose shook her head in feigned exasperation. "What is it now? There's no one else here."

               "I guess, but.." his voice trailed off for a moment as he gazed up to where the beacon met the metal ceiling. "This whole places just gives me a weird vibe."

               "Well, if I read everything right, this shouldn't take too long." Rey turned her eyes to the consoles and stepped forward, pulling out the piece of paper she scribbles the steps to send the message onto. She turned back to the others, "So let's do it. Give the First Order one last surprise."

               Despite the age and the fact that a few of the panels needed extra pressure applied before they started responding to their touch, it was, in fact, a matter of just five minutes or so before they had the system up and running, the message coded in and ready for transfer:

               A call from the Rebellion to all sentient beings who value freedom. We ask for your help one last time. Join us at Coruscant to put an end to the rule of the First Order. The Force is with us.

               Now came the tricky part, one Rey had no choice but to improvise on the fly. The signal would be sent out in every radio frequency imaginable, but according to the ancient books, with the right touch through the Force, this beacon could transport the signal instantly to every corner of the galaxy. Every living thing was bound together through the Force, and so the beacon could send to everyone the same message at the same time, ungarbled by time or distance. She would have felt more confident in her abililty to do this had the texts not, once again, been frustratingly vague as to what, precisely, she needed to do. And yet, this was her plan and the chance she had to believe the Force was giving her, so one way or another, she'd figure it out.

               She glanced over at Rose and Finn, both of whom had their fingers ready over consoles at opposite ends of the device. Both watched her intently, waiting for a sign that the beacon was ready to be activated. Turning back to the strange light, still pulsating in the middle of the structure before her, Rey began to reach out through the Force, the array before sharpening in her mind as the rest of the room around it faded away. For a moment, she merely contemplating it; within the Force, the beacon had something of warmth to it, as if Rey was standing a short distance from a gentle bonfire of the sort she'd make for the colder desert nights on Jakku. As she drew that familiar feeling to herself, she felt the beacon start to respond, seeming much like the Temple above it to have a life presence of its own, a thing unimaginably old that stored the memories of generations beyond anyone's ability to count.

               Only barely conscious at this point, engaging the device not through a series of technical steps, but rather through sensations within the Force, Rey felt herself pulled into the light before her. The glow had been a gentle shade of violet, but now began to unfold itself before her, over and over, like a flower with endless waves of pedals in ever color she could ever dream of, unwinding itself before her.

               Now, entirely ensconed within the power of the beacon, Rey felt, rather than heard, her lips open and speak a single word; Now.

               After that, she sensed, rather than saw, Rose and Finn nod and through the switches that should activate the beacon and send the message to the furthest parts of the galaxy. Having unfolded all its colors, the light became pure white and filled the air around them. Rey felt as if she could lose herself forever in its majesty....

*****

               The intensity of the white flash lasted only a second, but Finn still felt himself blinking back spots for a good minute before he was finally able to open his eyes. Finally, he was able to see the screen before him, showing a schematic of the entire galaxy. Everywhere, the dots that represented major worlds and systems were blinking furiously.

               "Guys...." he said, hardly daring to believe it, "Are you seeing..."

               "Yes!!" Rose's voice trembled with excitement. "Yes I am!"

               They glanced up at the same time and locked eyes. "It worked!" Rose whispered triumphantly.

               Elation surging within him, Finn felt a great whoop beginning to rise inside him, but it quickly died when he glanced towards the door to share the moment with Rey, and saw....nothing.

               "What...." his breath caught in his throat.

               Rose now turned towards the entrace as well. "Rey?"

               For a moment neither of them could say anything. Then BB8 started whistling with a panicked sound, rolling quickly through the still-open doorframe, then back inside, swiveling his head back and forth between Finn and Rose.

               Finn felt all the joy that had filled him just moments ago drain away. They couldn't see her, and BB8 couldn't sense her.

               Somehow, just like that, Rey had vanished.

The Cincinnatus Trap: Kipo, Steven Universe, and the Necessity of Power

**the following articles contains some spoilers for Kipo and Steven Universe**

               Recently, I sat down and watched all three seasons of Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, one of the few unabashedly good things to come out of 2020. A new animated series created by Radford Sechrist and based off his own webcomic of the same name, the show is the latest team-up of Netflix and Dreamworks following the massive (and wholly earned) success of the She-Ra reboot. It is also, alongside She-Ra and other recent works like The Dragon Prince (also Netflix) and Steven Universe (Cartoon Network), part of a refreshing trend of American animation breaking all sorts of glass ceilings by featuring significant numbers of characters who are non-white, queer, disabled, or some combination of the three. All else aside, the mere fact that these years have been truly groundbreaking in terms of broader represenation in children's television is a joy to behold.

               Most of these franchises wander the realms of sci-fi and fantasy (and often blend the two), but Kipo is a solidly Earth-bound, post-apocalyptic tale. It is several hundred years after the present and an unknown event (or events) in the past led to mutations among many of Earth's animals, with many species developing cognitive, speech, and motor abilities to match humans. All of these newly evolved creatures are referred to as Mutes. The grandest examples, like massive dogs, monkeys, or bunnies the size of large buildings, are dubbed "Mega Mutes." We learn quickly that, as a result of these mutations, humans long ago ceased to dominate the planet; while some still live on the surface in isolated patches, most were eventually driven to create hidden cities underground to survive in, dubbed "burrows".

               The main character, Kipo, is one of these "burrow people" who is swept out to the surface in an accident of some kind, forced to try and fend for herself in a hostile world she's never before experienced, and as a result picks up a crew of other main characters who agree to help her find her people again. However, Kipo is not just a typical girl and by no means as defenseless as she first feared; we learn in bits and pieces that her parents, as part of their scientific experiments, combined Kipo's DNA with Mute DNA, giving her incredible physical powers and even the ability to transform into a giant, hot-pink jaguar.

               This sets up Kipo's very existence as a key part in determining whether or not humans can leave the burrows and coexist peacefully with the Mutes on the surface, which defines the overall narrative arc of the show. It also means that Kipo has a number of special powers and attributes about her that give her a leg up on the show's villains; the first villain, a Mute Mandrill called Scarlemagne who seeks to dominate humans the way they once dominated animals, has special pheremones that allow him to basically control minds, but Kipo, given her uniquely-mixed DNA, is unaffected. The second, Dr. Emilia, a human scientist who seeks a "cure" she can use to eliminate all Mutes, does in fact develop an effective drug in the final season, but here again, because she relied on Kipo's genetic information to create it, Kipo is the one Mute immune to its effects.

               These are attributes unique to Kipo that, ultimately, she only has by chance; she herself did no special training or uncovered some new secret to give her these abilities. She simply has them by virtue of her existence. And in both cases, these repeatedly allow her to overcome or avoid dangers and obstacles that would otherwise have derailed the plot and allowed the villains easy victories. Scarlemagne gets a chance fairly quickly to douse Kipo with his pheremones; if she hadn't been immune, game over man. Similar story with the vaccine; her massive size in Mega Mute form makes her an easy target for bows shooting the vaccine, but she's also immune, so here too, a major risk is immediately avoided. In more than one instance she literally uses her body as a shield to prevent other Mutes from being "cured."

               Now granted, this is nothing new. Fantastical stories almost always rely on some sort of special characteristic of its hero (or heroes) that give them a way to triumph over evil. What I find fascinating is how this intersects with how Kipo is framed as, basically, an über-pacifist. She has incredible strength, but is genuinely reluctant to use it to fight, even when she has a clear opening to take down or eliminate an opponent. She only resorts to direct violence when repeatedly forced to. Otherwise, her character is defined by an overwhelming earnestness and a very pure-of-heart desire to create a society of perfect peace, where none of the old conflicts and rivalries between humans and Mutes remain. The show even has a scene commenting directly on this, where one character asks in confusion who could ever be gifted such power and NOT want to use to gain even more power. To which the others simply pause a moment before lowering their heads and saying, in a bemused tone, "Kipo..."

               Steven in Steven Universe operates in a similar vein. Steven has a whole slew of powers he inherits from his mother, including flight, super-strength, a shield and sword, and saliva that can literally heal the Earth itself. Plus, like Kipo, his mixed human-non-human heritage brings its own special sets of abilities beyond what either a regular human or typical Gem can accomplish. And yet, here too, though he could focus on developing into a fighter of incredible ability, his character is consistent in seeking to avoid, prevent, or refuse violent conflict as much as possible. Like with Kipo, he does ultimately succeed, but here too this is in no small part aided by the fact that Steven has a number of unique abilities on hand that give him a leg up on avoiding or defeating the schemes of the show's various villains.

               What I find interesting about instances like this is how the narrative and the presentation of the main characters intersects with their special powers. The framing in both shows is that Kipo and Steven are genuine heroes, whose goals and motivations are good things worth fighting for, and both shows ultimately end with the character achieving their desired ends. There is, in the end, no real subversion within either show to suggest that the characters are ignorant or naive, or that blindlessly pursuing the peaceful solution in EVERY instance doesn't carry some real dangers.

               Now obviously the salient reason this is the case is the simple fact that these are shows aimed primarily at children (and, full disclosure, I myself am about 6 years old at heart). There are plenty of more adult-oriented takes on this sort of material that make deeper use of nuance, complexity, subversion, and even cynicism to great effect. A product designed mainly for kids will usually be more straightforward.

               Which is fine! These are two great, well-made shows that have great lessons for kids to teach and a lot of artistic talent to appreciate. I simply can't help but ask myself the question- what happens when you take away the special powers of the main characters? What if you take the exact same approach used to achieve peace in the show and try to implement it in our world, where no one has the power to literally shield the bodies of the dispossessed, and global warming can't be mediated by kisses?

               It is an old quandary and one that I don't have an answer for, at least not in this short article, but it is something important to consider even while we celebrate great stories like these; how do we take inspiration from characters like Kipo and Steven and make it real in our world? The principle of disdaining power for its own sake, for being aware of its ability to corrupt, and to cultivate kindness, compassion, and tolerance in its place, are all great values worth teaching to kids. But even in the stories where our heroes win in unambiguous fashion, we can't seem to avoid enabling their victories, in part, by assuming that a) the good guys are able to access physical power inaccessible to others, and b) they are pure and good enough that we never worry about them one day abusing it. And I wonder- is there a danger in letting kids believe in that sort of thinking in their formative years? Does that set them up to be more passive in the face of injustice as adults? Or are my concerns unfounded, and is the opposite more likely to happen- that kids raised on these shows are more likely to see them as inspiration for fighting for tolerance and peace in our own world, and less likely to worry about the contradictions inherent in ideas like super powers?

               Maybe this worry is only a demon of my own mind and 2020 has finally driven me insane. But I do feel the question is worth considering.

-Noah Franc

Star Wars, Duel of the Fates: Chapter Six- The Reckoning

 **for previous chapters, please refer to the Table of Contents***

               Something was very wrong. Kylo Ren slammed his fist into the side of ship in furious irritation. He was surrounded by the shredded, used-up bits and pieces of just about every type of medical supply he'd packed in his ship. Nothing had worked. The wounds in his face and side remained open, raw, and weeping.

               Even though he quickly remembered the way back out of the valley, everything from his injuries, to the steepness of the slope, to the loose and crumbly nature of the rocks and soil beneath his feet had made the return up to his ship feel immeasurably longer than his descent.

               The gashes themselves left by the shadow attacks burned as if he'd been lit on fire, and it had sure felt like he'd been torn through when they hit him, but in spite of all that, cuts did not appear to be terribly deep. The bleeding was a constant trickle, but blood loss never overwhelming enough that he wasn't able to keep moving.

               This apparent shallowness, however, made it all the stranger that they simply were not healing; despite the time it had taken him to return to the ship, in no part of any of the cuts had any clotting or scabbing began. The sense of bloody rawness, the ever-steady dripping of his life force, stayed at the same level the entire time, as if the wounds contained some strange poison that held back the ability of his body to mend itself.

               After finally making it back up to his ship, he'd immediately pulled out every med pack he'd had on board and starting applying anything, everything, to the wounds. Bandages or gauze of every sort blackened and dried up, and any liquids he tried to apply to disinfect the wounds and clean them of the red dust caked into them turned to hissing steam. This was no passive poison; whatever had attacked Ren was still shadowing him, malevolently refusing to let him heal. Sheer determination and strength of will had kept him going, but he knew that his body would give out eventually if he didn't get some answers.

               And that meant he needed Palpatine to explain to him what sort of sadistic trap he'd led Ren into. Treachery is the way of the Sith.

               Steadying himself once more, the stone in his left hand and his lightsaber in his right, he once more stepped out towards the ruined temple, walking back under the yawning scars that made up the remainder of its doorframe and roof.

               The holocron still sat, silent and dark, in the center of the room, but once Ren drew closer the lines of starlight appeared again. In moments, the visage of Palpatine, Lord Sidious, was once more before him.

               I see you retreived the necessary material, Kylo Ren, the voice intoned. Well done.

               Ren was about to respond when a fresh throb of pain shot through his face and side. Grimacing, he bit back against it until it began to fade before speaking.

               "And what about these?" he asked, gesturing at the gash on his face. "What was that that attacked me? What sort of power leaves injuries like this, and how can I heal myself?"

               A cruel, almost sarcastic, smile stretched across Sidious' face.  My dear boy, anyone who cannot overcome mere scratches is someone who can never ascend to the Sith mantle.

               "Enough!" Ren could hold back his fury no more. "I came to you asking for help, asking for your blessing and your teachings so as to ensure the Jedi remain dead, and all you do is play your stupid, inane mind games with me, and lure me into a death trap, only for the purpose of finding some blasted crystal!"

               With this, he raised the fist clutching the blasted stone and contemptuously hurled it towards the hodded figure, who remained silent and unmoving.

               "Here. I got your damned crystal, now tell me. How. To. Heal. This."

               With the end of his rampage, a silence even deader than before descended within the chamber. The figure waited a moment longer before it spoke again.

               The true power of the Sith resides in the single-minded will to bend everything in the universe- the Force, the stars, air, water, even individual atoms- to your own ends. If you desire it strongly enough, the hardest of rock must yield to your power. That you fail to see this disappoints me greatly, boy. For a moment, I really did believe you had the spirit of your grandfather within you. I now see I was wrong. Clearly, you will never be another Vader.

               At the moment he spoke that final word, an unmistakable snap-hiss rang out behind Kylo Ren. He turned, and beheld the midnight-black figure of Darth Vader, the hum of the lightsaber blending with the drawn-out, mechanical rumble of his breathing.

               Another Force vision, Ren thought immediately, but like his father earlier, this seemed all too clear and solid to be just a vision. This worrying thought was confirmed when he felt power whirl around the figure and it charged straight at him, a hammer in the Force seeking to pound him into nothingness.

               Giving over to fighting instinct, his own saber lept into his hand, ignited, and with every bit of fading strength he had left he met the charge head-on, the power of their first impact causing the temple remains around them to shake and moan from the tremors that rippled out in the Force from where their blades dug into each other.

               "Are you another ghost from my own head, then?" He spat at the figure through teeth gritted in concentration and pain.

               The robotic voice of his grandfather, that gutteral noise he'd only heard about from others who remembered it with dread, filled the cavernous hall.

               I...am your reckoning. If you cannot embrace the darkness, you will be condemned to it by others. If you cannot fulfill my legacy, then I will cast you down in judgment.

               Ren gritted his teeth. Not here. No way.

               "Try it then, old man," he spat through gritted teeth.

               With a flash they unlocked blades, each swinging an arc over their heads each other at the same moment. Their blades locked once, disenganged once more, and the next minutes were filled with blows and counter blows as each figure poured their rage into each strike.

               Even with his newfound fury feeding him, Ren could still feel the burning in his injuries; even now, in the heat of battle with the figure that had been everything he'd sought to achieve, he could feel his body slowly giving way. One step back from an incoming blow became another as he found himself injecting less and less power into each exchange. Sweat began to pour down his face, mingling with the grime in his wounds and further inflaming the pain that was slowly consuming his consciousness.

               The next blow from Vader he saw coming almost too late to respond to. Ducking beneath the hissing wave of fire, he summoned a burst of energy enough to fling himself backwards to gain enough distance to breath, just for a moment.

               For a second, no one moved, and no one spoke. The slow burn of the lightsabers was the only sound. The figure of Palpatine was motionless and silent.

               Then, the voice of Vader returned; If that is all you are capable of, then you truly are a failure. You can never carry my mantle.

               Ren began to open his mouth to respond, when another voice, from earlier, once again appeared behind him.  "I told you to leave all this be, kid."

               He turned to see the image of his father, once more, standing behind him. For another moment, silence descended. Even the still-activated lightsabers seemed muted. Ren stood between the three figures, the three people whose legacies and histories and desires had been suffocating him since before he had even been conceived.

               Then, something like a whisper brushed at the back of his mind. Turning in the direction he sensed it from, he spotted the red crystal he'd thrown on the floor earlier, still lying where it had fallen. Now, looking closely at it, the dull metallic glow seemed to brighten from within, as if it were carrying its own light. And as he regarded it in the Force, suddenly the worries and rages that had been filling his head this whole time seem to crystallize along the atomic structure of the shard, like it was the long-lost missing piece of a puzzle he'd been struggling his whole life to complete.

               Steadying his breathing, pushing back once more against the pain that still enflamed his left side, he looked back towards his father, one last time.

               "I already told you. I'm not like you or Leia. And I never will be."

               He then turned back towards the figure of Vader, still standing with its lightsaber in a guarded position.

               "And you. You never overcame your weakness. In the end, you let love bring you down. I won't make the same mistake."

               And then, taken over by an instinct he only dimply understood, he reached, deep into the Dark Side of the Force, and held his hand out towards the shard on the ground. With a screaming noise, it light up like a supernove and disintegrated into a stream of molten, red liquid that rushed in an arc through the air, striking into the gashes in Ren's side and face, burning away the dust, the blood, the poison that threatened to set in. In a searing moment, the open, bleeding, red injuries turned into black scars running up and down his body. Finally, Ren felt his body knit together, whole and in command of his full power once more. Refocusing within himself, the pain that had dogged him slowly fading to a dull, distant ache, he turned back towards Vader. The image of his father had vanished entirely.

               "Now," he said, his voice filled with the confidence of purpose he'd been seeking for so long, "you were saying something about being my reckoning."

               Without waiting for a response, he raised his saber, drew the Force about him like a black shield, and hurled himself towards Vader. With renewed vigor he struck into the mechanical shadow. This time, it was his pace that defined the blows, with Vader slowly finding himself forced back a step or two with each exchange.

               A counterblow came from Vader's upper left side, driving towards Ren's right shoulder. Seeing the sequence coming as in slow motion, he leaned into the strike to stop it. Bringing his blade up from beneath, he caught the top of Vader's hilt, right beneath the blade, with one of the guard parts of his own saber. In an instant, the blade vanished, as if it had never existed. The figure of Vader before him suddenly seemed smaller, dimished, weak, both physically and within the Force.

               Triumphantly, Ren grinned, "I did want your mantle for myself. Yes.....for so long, I wanted that."  He paused for a moment, reflecting on everything that had led him to this moment.  "But not anymore. Who cares about your mantle. You're dead. I will create my own legacy."

               With that, he raised his saber to strike a final blow, but in an instant, the figure of Vader hd vanished, leaving Ren staring at empty space.

               Behind him, at long last, the figure stirred.

               Excellent, boy. Most excellent.

               Ren turned around to face the holocron again, seeing a greedy smile beginning to form on Sidious' face.

               This was your ultimate test. I admit I doubted, but you have indeed shown your mettle. You will not be stopped. You will bend the elements themselves to your desires. You will strike anyone down; even your own blood.

               The yellow eyes seemed to glow with increasing fervor, making the image seem nearly alive.

               Yes, Kylo Ren. I believe you have the makings of a Sith Lord within you after all. Take one hour in your ship to rest your body and recover from your trials. After that, we shall begin.