3963 BBY: Kights of the Old Republic Volume 3: Nights of Fear, Days of Anger

I was lying in bed in late July when the full idea of the Star Wars Chronology Project came to me.
I had always wanted to read everything Star Wars, but the idea of making it a “PhD”, and blogging about my journey was the novel element to this scheme. As I was lying in bed I thought, ‘I’m sure there are people out there who have already done want I want to do. I’m also sure there are people out there who have already read everything with a Star Wars title on it. But how can their claims be verified?’ (And by ‘people’ I meant people like me, regular fans, and not folk like Leland Chee or Sue Rostoni or other epic Star Wars writers like Timothy Zahn) That’s when I decided to document my journey by bringing it into the public realm and going online with my quest.

Blogging about my little Star Wars project became a necessary component for me in order to show to my fellow fans that I have, in fact, completed what I set out to do, and I can verify through the written word that I have engaged with every text, game, or other such Star Wars media. I also felt this was necessary to do because other fans could guide, correct, agree, or otherwise discuss in a living document my reactions and findings.

Lately I’ve been lax about my updates. There are a lot of reasons for this, reasons I alluded to in my last post. Work is rather hectic right now, and my family is very important to me, and therefore both require a great deal of my attention. But I’ve neglected to take advantage of the small moments that did crop up in my life where I could further my project. I realized why this was:

Summarization is boring.

I read volume three of the KOTOR series, and I was hesitating on writing my post because I simply did not feel like summarizing the story. To be frank, summarizing narrative is boring to write, and even more boring to read. Yet I feel that some summarization is necessary for this project to demonstrate to my fellow Star Wars fans that I’m not just making stuff up, or reading synopsis on wookieepedia. At some point in my posts I’m going to have to demonstrate some familiarity with the text to prove I actually have read the book, or comic, or whatever the media is I’m looking at.

I’m not sure how I got caught up in the summarization wheel, but for the remainder of this series I’m going to do less summarization, and more commenting on particular scenes I found of interest. What is more, I realized that the KOTOR series is basically one long narrative that is broken up into volumed chunks, and I’m going to have to approach this series the same way I’ll have to approach a long narrative like a book. I really don’t expect that anyone is going to want to read my summarizations of an entire book, and summarizing a book without losing clarity of focus is difficult. Consequently, I’ll simply choose three or four, or for longer stories, five scenes that jump out at me, and comment on them alone.

KOTOR volume three, ‘Nights of Fear, Days of Anger’ was a good read with three scenes I want to comment on. The first being the new Trandoshan character, the second being Zayne’s vision, and the third being Jarael and Camper’s storyline.

Jackson-Miller infuses the KOTOR series with just the right amount of humor. At the beginning of volume three Marn and Zayne find a third member to add to their twosome and in doing so add some comic relief.

The Trandoshan character of Slyssk, a clumsy and naïve ship thief, finds himself life-debted to Marn after a ruse concocted by Zayne went awry. The two were hoping that because Marn “saved” Slyssk’s life, the Trandoshan would owe Marn a life debt, and that would excuse the cost of the stolen ship. It did, but in return Marn and Zayne were now saddled with an approval starved, friend hungry, self-esteem lacking Trandoshan. After a while his company is, of course, welcomed.

I found Zayne’s vision of the destruction of the settlements on Serroco interesting and telling, as more insight was provided into the mind of the Mandalorian collective. I was a little surprised with the ruthlessness of the Mandalorian military in its devastating use of nuclear attacks to prove its point, and force the Republic to engage with it on its terms. I also enjoyed the part when Zayne, like a true Old Testament prophet, was attempting to warn Admiral Krath of the impending doom, and Krath, like a true Pharisee, not heading the warnings.

I love it when the prophet of doom is vindicated.

Lastly, I found the story line of Jarael and Camper a little dull. I only read through those parts hoping to get back to the conflict of Zayne and the five Jedi Masters. The inclusion of the giant space worms at the end of the story was pretty cool though. I look forward to seeing that little bit of the story re-tied into the larger narrative.

I have picked up the project once more. I just need to dedicate some time to myself more often, and do what I love to do.

For my next post I’ll be moving on to KOTOR volume four, “Daze of Hate, Knights of Suffering”, and until then my friends, may the force be with you.