Rev Recaps Hard Contact (Chapter 9)
CW: idk if “emotional abuse” is the right term here, but I can’t think of the more appropriate one.
TL:DR Recap: Etain is having a hard time dealing with her sudden promotion to officer, so Jinart chews her out. Darman, on the other hand, does his best to reassure Etain, and they start to develop a plan together. Eventually, they leave Birhan’s farm. Omega gets nervous when Hokan’s people start burning more fields, but eventually meet up with Jinart. Hokan plays games badly.
This post is super long, even compared to the other recaps, because I have to deal with Jinart’s bullshit.
Beginning Kal Count: 13 Ending Kal Count: 18
We open with a quote from Ki Adi Mundi that reinforces Traviss’s position about the unfairness of the clones lot, but most of you already agree with that, so we’re not going to waste time with that now.
Darman has pinned Jinart to the wall with a blaster to her head. Etain is horrified and tells him to let up. (Etain’s feelings about Jinart seem to go back and forth. Mine do not.) But Dar doesn’t let Jinart go until Etain mistakenly tells him that Jinart is a Jedi. (Because Jinart has Force-like telepathy abilities but still has refused to give Etain another explanation, if you’ve forgotten.)
Jinart insists she’s not a Jedi again, then asks Dar if he would be willing to shoot an old woman. When he insists that soldiers can look like anybody, Jinart praises him and tells Etain to follow his lead, despite the fact that just last chapter she was chewing Etain out for being too suspicious.
I fully admit that a large part of my dislike of Jinart stems from her treatment of Etain, but she also comes across a lot as an authorial authority in support of ruthless pragmatism, and I find it unsettling. It’s not necessarily that’s she’s wrong in this case, so much as that this viewpoint seems unfairly weighted over time.
Jinart revels that Omega is alive and safe for the moment, which has Darman anxious to rejoin them. As she stares at Darman, we get this weird little aside from Jinart:
Again, there’s not any real reason to think that non-Mandalorians, much less non-Mandalorian shape shifters on a backwater world like Qiilura, ever had much reason to know what Jango Fett looked like before his clones descended on the galaxy. So I genuinely want to know when Jinart might have encountered Fett before. It isn’t a question that will ever be answered, of course.
Jinart finally decides to reveal that she’s a shapeshifter after refusing to tell Etain anything for the last several chapters. Etain is frightened and ready to fight, but Dar is delighted because he’s seen gurlanin before and think’s she’s Valaqil. Even after she explains she’s Valaqil’s “consort” he’s intrigued, and Jinart finally explains to Etain that she’s a telepath, but primarily among her own species. Any time she’s been “transmitting” to Etain or Dar, she’s been shapeshifted as an inconspicuous object nearby. She also starts giving them a tactical update, and explains that she and Valaqil can act as a rudimentary comlink between the Republic and Omega.
Again, the only reason I can think of for Jinart to reveal any of this now that Darman’s here if she was unwilling to loop Etain in earlier is that Darman already knows about the gurlanin. But Etain is still out of her depth and not sure whether any of this information can be taken at face value now.
“His” in this scene is Hokan. Again, Etain implies that Fulier was kind to her, which is as close as she gets in this book to the kind of emotional reminiscing Omega has for Kal, but believes that she ultimately disappointed him- and that makes her worthless as a Jedi.
After all the status updates and Jinart’s warnings about the locals and Hokan, Darman turns to Etain, expecting the direction that he’s always been taught that the Jedi will effortlessly provide. Except Etain is still caught up in her sense of uselessness, and kind of... implodes instead.
Again, is it a useful or practical reaction? No. But is it one I can relate to? Yeah, by a lot. Especially when it’s called out as the extensive culmination of years worth of dismissal by the Jedi and months of hunger/danger/paranoia. Notice how Etain immediately regrets it though -- and adds it to her list of failures.
Darman is upset, which again, is perfectly reasonable in the situation. He doesn’t call Etain out on it, and he acquiesces to her “order”, but Etain can tell he feels disillusioned/”forlorn”. Jinart kicks him out so that she can yell at Etain, and we get to the scene that makes me both hurt and rage.
Okay, it feels like Jinart is taking out both the galaxy’s predilection with Jedi and Omega’s social conditioning to obey Jedi out on Etain, but the line “that soldier may think a Jedi’s word is a divine pronouncement, but I don’t.” That would make sense for Jinart to say if Etain was trying to use her newfound authority in an injurious way or was puffed up with self importance, but literally everything objectionable Etain has done so far has been to reject her own worthiness of that authority?
Also:
I’ve seen people before who read RepComm but didn’t care for it scoff at how quickly Etain falls for Kal’s manipulation. But besides the fact that she’ll come to love Dar and Kal is important to Darman, this is why she’s ultimately so easy to manipulate. She desperately wants the purpose that the Jedi raised her with the promise of, but also she’s had literal years of being rejected/feeling worthless. Kal is good at manipulating people’s need for affection/belonging/purpose. He’s just somewhat kinder about it when he does it to Bardan and Besany, at least at a very surface level.
then... then we get to this.
Look, I get that Etain’s personal psychological troubles are not useful to Jinart right now, and that yes, they’re probably an impediment to the mission. I’m not saying that Etain doesn’t need a conversation to shift her focus.
But Jinart literally saying that Etain is so worthless that Jinart would murder her if it woudn’t go against Darman’s social conditioning, a conversation that literally leaves Etain falling to her knees in the middle of a break down... not only is it unfair (yes, whatever “life isn’t fair” saying people. shut up.) it’s also demonstrably counter productive.
Imagine if Jinart had just like... been up front with Etain. Or tried to talk to her rationally about the fact that yes, it’s unfair what she’s been through but they still have the job to do and x, y, and z are the specific ways Etain needs to contribute. Instead Jinart just does her best to verbally destroy Etain, which doesn’t achieve anything, and moves on.
Darman pops back in only seconds later, and I kind of wonder if he was listening to the conversation. If he was, I’m sure it’s unsettling given he was raised to believe the Jedi were infallible. But he also does a remarkable job of showing her the compassion that Jinart won’t in this, scene, and I wonder if anything he might have overheard plays into that.
He’s doing a balancing act, and in all fairness, this has to be awkward as hell, confusing, even painful for Dar. Etain really isn’t the officer he needs right now. But he still opens with “are you okay?”. And when she clearly isn’t ready to have that conversation, he tries to deflect the conversation to something useful. When he eventually gives up and goes silent, it’s Etain signal that she’s gone too far and she’s acting like an ass. So she tries. She apologizes, and she tries to move on, for his sake if not hers.
“He was the only person in many years who had shown any degree of confidence in her, and the first since Master Fulier who had shown her real kindness.”
Etain is desperate for not even real affection or love, though she’s badly starved for those things too, but just simply casual kindness. And the line about confidence gives me all sorts of questions- I am going to have to sit down at some point and figure out how much of that I think is really, truly Kast Fulier not believing in her as his Padawan, and how much is Etain’s own psychology and bias interpreting things in the least favorable manner to herself possible. But for the moment, all that matters is that it shows exactly why what Jinart just did was useless.
Because Etain doesn’t start to respond until Darman tries to treat her, at a bare minimum, with respect and a belief in her potential. And once he does that.... she decides to do the best she can in that moment to be the thing that he needs her to be. First by apologizing for her lack of control/ the way she’s hurt him unfairly, and then by acknowledging her faults and his superior knowledge while still tacitly agreeing to help him on the mission.
Which is the thing that Jinart wanted in the first place, right?
Dar shows more compassion and understanding towards Etain from the get go than she gets from pretty much any other character in the entire series, if we’re being honest.
We break for a moment from that scene to Niner and Atin discussing dinner, but really there’s nothing super important to recap for most of that page. Omega starts talking about their Sergeants, and Niner is singing Kal’s praises. Kal count raises to 14.
It’s a lot of praise for someone not yet a character. And then --
I’m gonna count that as a separate mention, even though they’re close together, so the Kal Count is now at 15.
Anyway Niner wakes up slightly when Omega realizes the Separatists are burning the fields in an effort to drive out Darman. There’s not much to say about it honest, because it gets little page time as compared to Kal. We do get a nice peek at Atin slowly integrating into the squad -- “he didn’t want to show dissent any longer”-- but it’s fleeting, and then we’re back to Dar and Etain.
Darman and Etain are using her holomap to go over the intel on Separatist positions and using crusts of stale bread and drawing in the dirt to make a map. It’s exposition that’s not too important to characterization, so I won’t bother recapping it, but Darman does mention when Etain asks why they’re drawing in the dirt rather than on the holo that Kal taught him to do it that way because tactile is better or whatever. Which raises the Kal Count to 16.
Jinart inserts herself again to warn them about the fields/farms being burned to flush them out and warns them that they have to run. Darman says he can’t go with out his gear. Jinart throws disguises at them. Dar’s going to have a hard time blending in, but Etain fits in with the “undernourished” locals. Jinart overrides Dar’s objections: no, you can’t go straight to the RV zone, find a safe house off this USB drive I’m giving you instead.
Again, I actually do love that Etain is clearly observing him intensely, but while in another time in place everything she points out might be a sign of attraction, here it’s explicitly her being afraid that he looks too well fed to blend in.
Jinart makes her take out her Padawan braid, which Etain objects to but does, and again, it’s a small but good characterization thing:
She and Dar take off, but Etain is still putting herself down in front of him.
Listen, I’m sure someone somewhere is going to argue that it isn’t Dar’s job to emotionally reassure Etain here, but that’s the situation they’re in, for better or worse, and he does a pretty good job of it, even to the subtlety of calling her “commander” there.
We very, very briefly jump to Hokan, and honestly the only thing worth noting is how terrible a manager he is:
Underling: *makes a good suggestion* Hokan: I should punish him for back talking me, even though I admit that he’s right! 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Finally, we get to Niner. Jinart has found Omega, and they almost shoot her until they recognize her as a gurlanin. She gets them caught up to speed, and we get this kind of sweet, kind of heartbreaking moment from Niner, whose biggest character strength AND flaw is honestly his loyalty:
Jinart explains they’re headed for the wrong target. Fi is sarcastic but cheerful.
Oh, fuck you, Jinart.
Jinart notes that the commandos have lost a lot of weight, and Fi confirms they’re burning more calories than planned. Jinart offers to hunt them merlies as long as the squad doesn’t shoot any, arranges to deliver new rendezvous coordinates with Darman, and then starts to help Omega with what in future chapters will develop into a plan to use local mining explosives to take out the local airfield.
This chapter then FINALLY ends, which is good, because this post is huge and I’m still pissed at Jinart
Retroactive Edit: I realized I missed another incident of Skirata-mention from Niner talking about the “mark one earhole” or whatever the fuck, when Jinart shows up and then a second one about how not even Kal would have known how to deal with Gurlanins, so the Kal Count was updated to 18.