Monday Review: Kanan: The Last Padawan

I likely wouldn’t have noticed this comic if not for the kids who are currently, and I hope will remain, enamored of anything and everything Star Wars.

For those of you who aren’t up on the lore, Kanan Jarrus is a character on Star Wars: Rebels, an animated series that serves as a sort of microcosmic origin story for the Rebel Alliance.  Among the main characters is Kanan Jarrus, once a smuggler, now a revolutionary and, always, an Order 66 survivor.

image via starwars.com

Now, I can forgive you for not knowing what Order 66 is.  It was first mentioned in Revenge of the Sith and I would never, ever, ever, ever fault anyone for not wasting an iota of brain power on having that piece of crap forced down your throat.  I’ve never seen it.  Here is the essential data: Order 66 was a code implanted into the DNA of all of the Clone Troopers created to fight the War against the Separatists. It was activated by Darth Sidious (Palpatine) once he went public with the whole Dark Lord of the Sith thing.  The Code forced the Clones to turn on Jedi commanders, Jedi friends, in fact all Jedi, and to kill them by any means necessary.  Even the younglings were slaughtered.  No one was to have survived.

So far as we knew for a very long time, Obi-Wan and Yoda were the only ones to escape, though we knew it was possible there might be more.

One such was Kanan Jarrus, then Caleb Dume (look, I don’t make up the names, okay?), padawan to Deepa Bilaba, a Master who had, at one point either left or been suspended (unclear) but has returned to assist in preserving the Republic and to mentor Caleb.  When Order 66 is enacted, they’re sitting in camp with their Clone companions, fellow soldiers and friends, who suddenly open fire.  Deepa Bilaba survives long enough to cover Caleb’s escape allowing him to seek shelter in the anonymity of a large city.

image via boards.theforce.net

The problem is, Caleb has always been a Jedi.  He went to the Jedi Temple as a youngling, was trained there, and then became a Padawan.  Fighting in a very real war, but always under the watchful eye of his Master.

He has can survive a war but he has no idea how to scrape together enough life to survive existence.

And he has to learn very quickly.

On my kids’ level, it’s a great adventure story about a super-smart kid who can do anything he sets his mind to.  It’s a story about coming home as Caleb/Kanan finds a lost padawan in turn, in the form of his Rebels companion Ezra, who, at the beginning, has no idea he can even access the Force.  It shows them that, while loss is terrible, life does go on eventually and that there are always other people who love you and will be there for you.

On a more adult level, it’s an incredibly affecting tale of survival.  We, most of us, have found ourselves homeless, rootless, friendless (figuratively or literally).  We have felt that fear, that hopelessness, that helplessness.

And, if you’re reading this, you, like me, have survived it.

The Last Padawan is a reminder of how desperate and frightening life can be, but it is also a really, really good reminder that there is another end to the tunnel.  That when we lose one home, we can make a new one.  That while there is so much hatred in the world, there is also an abundance of love and friendship and that it’s waiting.  We may have to crawl through fire to get there and we may be scarred but scars just mean you’ve survived.

image via ibtimes.com

*Ahem*

Anyway.  I wasn’t expecting all the feels but there they are.

It’s an awesome book and you should read it.