Queen's Peril Needs to Take its Audience Seriously.

Padmé has always been one of my favorite characters from Star Was. While I enjoyed the previous book in this "Padmé Trilogy" of YA novels, Queen's Shadow, I did find it far from perfect. However, I was still interested enough in Padmé's early adventures in the Galactic Senate to keep reading. Queen's Peril is a prequel that is set just before the events of Star Wars The Phantom Menace and is meant to focus on Padmé's early days as queen of her home planet.

However, I was very irked by the way Padmé is portrayed in this story. Instead of showing how a teenage girl can still be a good queen despite her age and inexperience, this book shoes how a queen can still be a (stereotypical) teenage girl in spite of her responsibilities. The first 75% of this book follows Padmé and her teenaged handmaidens sneaking off and getting into shenanigans and spends more time focused on these misadventures instead of how these young ladies participate in the government.

Padmé does call a summit to meet with ambassadors from neighboring planets, but this quickly turns into a romantic subplot between one of the handmaidens and a teenage ambassador. (This ambassador also flirts with this handmaid during the summit in front of several other diplomats, which I found to be a bit awkward).

In The Phantom Menace one of Padmé's handmaidens switches places with the queen to act as a decoy during the invasion. That handmaiden in question is named Sabé, and this young woman was ready to die in her queen's place so I never found it hard to believe this was meant as a last resort. However, Queen's Peril treats this "decoy procedure" as a common convenience.

They employ this whole switcheroo several times before Naboo is invaded by the Trade Federation and everytime is for a stupidly trivial reason. The first time Padmé and her handmaiden switch is because Padmé was having some menstruation cramps and was not feeling up to making any public appearances so she had Sabé stand in for her. The second time the two switch, was because Padmé's hands got covered in glitter during a concert that she and the handmaidens snuck out to with the teenaged ambassador Sabé was flirting with. This glitter could not wash off and apparently it would be insulting to a certain ambassador if she showed up to the summit with this glitter, but it would be offensive to another ambassador if she wore gloves to cover this up, makeup is not working, and none of he official royal gowns have sleeves below the wrist.

To circumvent this Sabé and Padmé switch places and no ambassadors are offended. That is until that afformentioned teenaged ambassador approaches Padmé thinking she is Sabé and tries to kiss her so Padmé panics and quickly runs off. This ambassador thinks Sabé doesn't want to be with her and breaks things off with Sabé so now Sabé is angry at Padmé and doesn't want to be her friend anymore. Now, I know these characters are teenagers, but they are also teenagers who are participating in a planet-wide government, this just makes these kids come across as immature with terrible priorities.

Also, the last third of this book really relies on the reader having already watched and be very familiar with the plot of The Phantom Menace to understand what is going on as it really jumps around the plot. I think this book could have been much better if it were a story that stood on its own and ending as The Phantom Menace begins. It could start just before Padmé becomes queen and ends as the blockade is build around the planet.

As for the plot, I recall from previous Star Wars books, Padme's predecessor was very corrupt. This would have been an excellent challenge for a young queen to overcome, especially if an invasion from outside the planet arrives just as she is making progress with the problems at home.

However, instead of the tension of the story being whether or not the girls will be able to sneak off to concerts with ambassadors or if Padmé and Sabé will be able to reconcile their relationship following the ambassador drama, the tension would be from Padmé trying to restore sanity to a government that had spent a little bit to much time not functioning due to corruption. It would also have been a good mirror to the situation of the Galactic Republic at the time.

I have read in other reviews, that since Queen's Shadow is a YA book, the more childish elements of the story are understandable and that teens will not mind them. I disagree. I promise as a former teenager, that teen girls will be interested in stories that do not have dating drama and fallouts between friends because of said drama. Books that take their target audience seriously regardless of their age can and should be written. Both teenagers and Padmé's character deserve better.

Spoiler Talk Part Two: What Counts as Spoilers?

 This is a sequel of sorts to another article I wrote, Whose Responsibility is it to Avoid Spoilers, if you missed out on that one you can check it out right here, but please finish this one first. :) http://charmingchum.blogspot.com/2018/03/spoiler-talk-part-one-who-is.html

      I and many people really only think of something as spoiled when we hear how it ends. If I learned a little bit about a subplot occurring later in the story, is that also a spoiler? I would say yes, but I enjoy going into a story blind so I can both try to guess what is going to happen next and to keep my expectations under control so what are some guidelines I use to pinpoint spoilers?

    If something isn’t in the trailer of a movie I consider it a spoiler. However, I don’t trust movie trailers anymore so I avoid them. For example, I knew I wasn’t going to see The Last Jedi until after Christmas and I had to quite the internet until then. I suppose I went a little too far as I refused to even watch the trailer until after I saw the movie. After seeing the trailer, I wondered why I thought it was going to spoil me because they did a good job not revealing important events from the end of the film. However, I am still not a person to watch trailers if I’m not forced to because I am at a movie theater.

  

  My personal opinion about what counts as a spoiler for books is if it isn’t in the synopsis and/or the first 20-45 pages (this is the length of most previews give or take a few pages) of the book then I consider it a spoiler. Although, this ground is a little shaky because sometimes a book’s synopsis will have spoilers. Spoiler Warning for Flames in the Mist if you haven’t read it yet I recommend you skip the next several sentences. The synopsis stated Mariko, the main character, was going to find love that will challenge everything she believes in. Although the character who Markio ended up falling in love with was introduced early in the story (within my 20-45-pages rule) there wasn’t any sexual tension until about 50 pages later and actual romance doesn’t begin until well over the second half of the book. This romance was an important plot point but doesn’t occur until the story is coming to a close. Because I knew Mariko would find love when I opened the front cover I continued to anticipate it, but I think I may have enjoyed the story more if I didn’t know what was going to happen. I would rather the question not be “When will Mariko find love?”, but “Will Mariko find love?”

Top 5 Science Fiction/Fantasy in Other Media

     The first list I constructed for this topic was much longer than five. At first it was difficult narrowing my favorite movies, video games, and TV shows down to only five until I realized many of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride, The Wizard of Oz, and others were all adaptions of books. Although there was no rule against this, I decided putting adaptations on this list was cheating. After removing anything the creators had to buy rights to produce, I was able to easily shrink my list.

5. Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitsu

      I never thought that A. a show about Lego people could be any good and B. a show about teenaged ninjas could be any good. This show isn’t a grand cartoon masterpiece, but it isn’t supposed to and doesn’t try to be one. Ninjago is an action comedy with a tiny amount of romance and that’s all it needs to be. Each of the four main ninjas are unique and have their own quirks, how Zane has trouble understanding jokes, and Cole acts like this big tough guy but loves, and is very good at, dancing.

4. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

       I love colorful games with fun images to look at. With its adorable cartoony cell-shaded graphics Wind Waker is one of the most visually unique Zelda game. Another nice touch is how Link has a family in this one. His grandmother and sister definitely add to and drive the story. The sailing mechanic really sets this game apart from other ones in the series, and I admit to spending more time exploring the ocean and searching for new islands rather than on the main quest. (I also love how you can chase pigs and carry them around.)

3. Fire Emblem Awakening

     I wasn’t exactly a fan of strategy games before I got into the Fire Emblem series, but now I have warmed up to them and it’s all thank to Fire Emblem Awakening. I do appreciate how units stay dead if they are killed because it makes the game even more challenging. Although, this can be infuriating at times. I will almost be finished with an objective, but an enemy can get a critical hit on one my favorite units/characters, and I have to start the entire thing all over again. There is also a marriage system so if I ship two characters I can, at least in the majority of cases, make it happen. I did find myself spending large amounts of time trying to figure out which characters had the best chemistry together.

2.  Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

     This is my favorite out of all the Star Wars movies. The soundtrack is amazing, and some of the locations, especially Endor are beautiful, and it was an excellent finale to the original trilogy. Also, I actually like the wickets. I find them absolutely adorable even though they could probably kill me. (Spoiler Alert, if you haven’t seen Return of the Jedi, I advise you don’t read the following paragraph)

     I felt everyone’s character arc had closure. Han no longer has to worry about his debt to Jabba, Yoda has passed the future of the Jedi Order to Luke, and Darth Vader finally sees the light and reconciles with his son even if it wasn’t long before his death.

#1

  Earlier I said Ninjago wasn’t a grand cartoon masterpiece, but Avatar the Last Airbender is. This isn’t only my favorite fantasy cartoon. It’s my favorite show of all time.  The animation and soundtrack are breathtaking and the plot doesn’t drag at all. In fact, a few episodes into season 1 a strong sense of urgency is established. All the main characters are memorable and although the show has many serious topics, war, genocide, destruction, there are still a huge number of hilarious moments. There is one thing I also applauded this show for. Character development sticks. I noticed many of the cartoons I was watching around the time Avatar first aired would have a character learn a lesson in a very special episode and then in the next episode he/she would go right back to his/her old ways. Here people do change and if they end up changing back there is an explanation for it, and it’s not glossed over which stood out to ten-year-old me.