As Shadow Fall exhibits, Quell’s life was at its most secure below the Empire. Her early relationships have been chilly or ended abruptly. This implies with out the framework of the Empire she obsesses over how she seems to others. She’s described as responsible and ashamed, though not of the precise atrocities she’s dedicated, and “she at all times scratched her wounds.” She’s disconnected from her perceptions of herself: “She questioned how honest she sounded — she’d by no means been good at conveying empathy, irrespective of how actual.” Even when she is mendacity to others, she has a fancy relationship with whether or not she’s mendacity to herself.

It’s arduous to inform precisely what her core is, however one chance is ambition: even when she doesn’t imagine in her trigger, she believes in the impetus to do one thing. However this could’t simply be learn as a narrative a few dutiful particular person searching for a trigger to affix, as a result of in Quell’s case, the trigger she selected was the Empire. Neither is this the story of an anxious pupil attempting to reside as much as a tough workload, or related challenges that may make a median particular person into an analogous brittle shell. Her Imperial previous additionally robotically makes her a villain in want of redemption. However as a result of the e book is about shifting ahead one step at a time — and lacks the metaphorical cosmic ethical weight of the Pressure — that exact story is completely different than it has been elsewhere in Star Wars.

In Shadow Fall, Quell is pushed to her restrict and has misplaced every part. She learns to only hold shifting ahead, however that doesn’t translate to a morally upright choice. Quell decides to return to the Empire. (Maybe this isn’t stunning, as a result of the method she discovered this lesson is thru a Sith Temple. Was it influencing her by means of the Pressure the entire time in a method she couldn’t sense? Extra importantly, is it an announcement about how platitudes in service of merciless causes aren’t inherently wholesome?) Her Alphabet squadmates wouldn’t perceive her choice, she thinks, and she’s proper. The Empire remains to be evil, in any case, and chasing what little psychological peace she ever had leads Quell proper again to them.

Her choice in Shadow Fall expertly builds on her characterization in Alphabet Squadron. Even when the Sith temple was influenced her choice to defect from the New Republic, it preyed on current issues.

Quell’s morality has been skewed since her days with the Empire in the first e book. Of her commanding officer in the TIE Fighter corps, she thinks: “After all, she is also shot if she ejected. Main Soran Keize was a great man, an admirable man, however she knew there can be no courtroom martial.” She sees no contradiction in the thought of a great man executing his personal troopers. All through the e book, she’s attempting to reside as much as Keize, who believes in the skill of the Empire to carry order and cease the slaughter of individuals he thought of good troopers. (At one level Keize “agreed for causes he couldn’t totally justify.”) Like Quell, he doesn’t imagine in the establishment of the Empire, however somewhat finds that means from the individuals inside it. Serving to Quell from the different route is New Republic Common Hera Syndulla, who tells her she must depend on her squad and make certain they know they'll depend on her. Each philosophies sound fairly related when you break them all the way down to the platitude about being loyal to individuals.