so one of my favorite podcasts is Dark Side Divas. they are going through the entire visual story of Star Wars in chronological order, and they only cover finished projects so even though the thing they finished most recently was Rebels, they are currently going through The Bad Batch right now, but that’s not the point of what I wanna talk about right now (but if anyone wants to listen to a woman and a gay man talk about Star Wars and do their absolute best to be a positive influence within the dumpster fire that is the Star Wars fandom, while also being SO THIRSTY for all the characters and be really funny while doing it, and also at the same time having amazing discussions about pieces of media that they love, go ahead and check them out, they’ve done the entirety of the prequel trilogy movies as well as the entirety of Clone Wars, Rebels, the Obi-Wan show, and Solo, so they have a wealth of content to dive into)
they were very vocally supportive of the WGA and SAG AFTRA strikes during mid to late 2023, so during that time, they covered some of the High Republic stuff. at the time that they were doing that, I wasn’t quite ready to dive into the High Republic, so I basically just skipped all those episodes until I myself was in the mood to start it up, which ended up happening a little under a year ago. but the thing is, when the strikes ended, they had finished the first adult book, Light of the Jedi, and they were in the middle of the first YA book, Into the Dark, and they hadn’t touched the comics, and I didn’t really put together a comprehensive reading list for myself at the time so I ended up reading a handful of the 2021 run of the High Republic comics, and then I read The Rising Storm, but because I didn’t have a good list for myself, I kinda lost steam after that because I couldn’t decide what book I wanted to do next
now, for the past few months, I have been relistening to the entirety of Dark Side Divas (and I plan to also relisten to their Star Trek podcast from the beginning as well, that one’s called Holodeck Divas, the biggest difference with the Star Trek show is that because of all the time weirdness that can happen in Star Trek, they’re covering it in release order instead of chronological order, they are currently in the middle of TNG right now and I’m real far behind on that but anyway). the reason why I’m relistening to the podcasts is because I wanted to make a (sort of) comprehensive list of the counters they make up for the show. I’m making a list of the counters themselves, and which ones pop up in each episode, but I’m not actually like, keeping an accurate number count, I was trying to do that at first but it fried my brain real fast so yeah.
now, a few days ago, I got to the point where they were covering the High Republic books and, god, just the thought of listening to them talk about the books again made me wanna go back to them. so, since the High Republic content has officially wrapped up (at least the stuff that they had planned, who knows what might come in the future), I finally sat down and made myself a good reading list to follow, because here’s the thing. Into the Dark, the first YA book, it’s great and I liked it a lot. I wouldn’t call it one of my favorite books of all time, and I would honestly chalk that up to just my own preference because I don’t typically do YA stuff anymore unless it is very specific series like The Hunger Games (which at this point is barely even YA anymore because holy shit that series is so fucking dark) or the Percy Jackson books, really anything fantasy related tbh, and Star Wars is something that I am willing to dip into YA for because I love it so much. and Claudia Gray who wrote Into the Dark is an author that I’ve enjoyed in the past so that also helped my enjoyment of the book, and while I am going to reread it as I go back into the High Republic (because I’m 100% starting over), Into the Dark probably won’t be a book that I’d revisit on its own
but Light of the Jedi and The Rising Storm? holy SHIT did I love those books. I’m someone who is always listening to stuff while I’m working, so I’ve done the audiobooks for them (though I do eventually wanna physically read them if only to like, take notes and shit like that) and MY GOD they’re so good, I love them so much. so it’s such a treat for me right now to dive back into the High Republic. and now that I finally have a goddamn library card again, I don’t have to spend a fucking fortune on audible and amazon just to be able to read the books I wanna read.
but diving back into the High Republic has reminded me of the fact that I began to take notes on the characters because holy shit. I think the number one most valid criticism I’ve seen of the High Republic series, and especially of the first book, Light of the Jedi, is that there are just SO MANY CHARACTERS. so I was reviewing those notes I took and I totally forgot that I also wrote down my own personal fancasts of certain characters, and I don’t know, I guess I felt like sharing them 😂. I’m sure some of them are gonna be common choices in the fandom, just based off of things that I’ve heard from the podcast, but the thing is because I knew I eventually wanted to go through the High Republic content myself, I’ve basically avoided all fandom talk of the books so outside of a couple of exceptions from the Divas themselves on the podcast, these fancasts are all just my own choice and who I decided to picture in my head as I was originally going through Light of the Jedi, Into the Dark, and The Rising Storm. (also I’m going to list these in alphabetical order because of who I am as a person.)
Jedi Master Avar Kriss: Natalie Dormer
Jedi Master Cohmac Vitus: Dev Patel
Jedi Knight Dez Rydan: Booboo Stewart
Jedi Master Elzar Mann: Oscar Isaac (this was Stef of the Divas Podcast idea first, and it just works so well okay)
Leox Gyasi: Matthew McConaughey (this one is super obvious considering the fact that Leox is literally inspired by the man himself)
Jedi Master Loden Greatstorm: Abubakar Salim
Marchion Ro: Jacob Elordi (this one is subject to change, I picked him at the moment mostly because I know that Marchion is super tall and he was the first person that came to mind, and he’s also a very recent choice because I only decided on him like, yesterday when I was finishing up my reread of Light of the Jedi)
Jedi Padawan Reath Silas: Walker Scobell (also a very recent choice, and was chosen because of how he keeps reacting to Geode in the beginning of Into the Dark, I was just getting big Walker vibes so)
Samera Ra-oon: Lupita Nyong’o
Jedi Master Stellan Gios: Ben Barnes
not a whole lot, but still I wanted to share these. I also really need to figure people out for Bell Zettifar, Lourna Dee, Affie Hollow, and Orla Jareni, so hopefully some inspirations for fancasting them will come to me soon
