Title: The Shadow of Vader
Author: Darth Vastor
Rating: T
Fandom: Star Wars
Genre: AU
Chapters: 68
Words: 500,682
Updated: March 15, 2009
Published: April 17, 2006
Status: Technically Complete, but missing an epilogue
Summary: A ROTS AU. Darth Sidious, desiring to have both Anakin and Obi-Wan as his servants, sets in motion a plan to bring them both under his sway. Alone, betrayed, and misguided, Obi-Wan falls. Now Anakin must find a way to save him, before he succumbs himself.
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2897153/1/The_Shadow_of_Vader

Firstly, don't let the word count phase you; this story starts as a canon divergence from ROTS, but quickly becomes a story that goes beyond the film. It's meant to take over the course of several years. I prefer to divide the story up into four parts in my head - The Shadow of Vader has time-skips anyway, so it can be easily separated into multiple fics/stories.

Normally, I prefer ANH/Original Trilogy-era stories which concern Luke and Leia. The prequels aren't my usual cup of tea. However, this story has caught my eye. I will admit that I haven't read the entire thing yet and so am not the best judge of its quality (I'm reading Chapter Twenty currently). What I've read, though, is extremely interesting. Darth Vastor uses a simple divergence point in Star Wars (Anakin's choice not to kill Dooku in ROTS) and creates a credible path of simultaneously preventing Anakin's Fall, while triggering Obi-Wan's descent. Side-characters such as Mace Windu and Palpatine are especially well-rounded in this story.

The character of Sabé irked me, since she felt tacked-on, but I can understand her role in the story. You'll also like the subtle changes to the ROTS story-line, mainly in Anakin's more cautious actions, before the massive divergence during Obi-Wan's fight with Grievous in Chapter Eleven.

Somehow, Darth Vastor has made Anakin's angst far more tolerable (it helps that the new cautious trait in Anakin has made him less whiney and more likeable) and has believably made Mace Windu somebody who isn't a conservative zealot. Vastor has also integrated EU details into his story in a way that is non-intrusive to less experienced SW fans. These EU details actually make Obi-Wan's descent far-more credible, if you consider his prior relationship with the EU character Siri Tachi.

tl;dr, I haven't read the fic in its entirety, but I've read enough to recommend it to others. Unless it turns into an utter trainwreck during the purported Five Year time-skip, I'm sure you'll find some merit to this story.

3.5/5

EDIT: I did find one reference to this fic on DLP. However, there still doesn't seem to be a thread on it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

EDIT2: Now that I've read all 500,000-ish words, I have lowered my rating accordingly. The ending makes me wince a little, and the resolution to the Vader/Palpatine conflict was poorly executed. Still, the interesting portrayal of Anakin and the competent writing style makes it a good read - if you have the time and energy. It's a pity, because the beginning/ROTS parts were stronger than the second half/ANH-era portions. =/



Checked by Minion, March 20, 2013

 

I remember this fic. It became too long for me, any plot can reasonably be brought to a close in less than half a million words. It is a solid investment of time if you're interested in a fanfic to take up your time.

 

Sorry man, I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this quality of this fic and the credibility of its point of divergence.

First of all, I think that it's important to note that, in my opinion, there are two true points of divergence in this fic, the first being Anakin not killing Dooku at Palpatine's behest, and the second being Obi-Wan's unexpected and poorly explained anger towards the Jedi Council. The second PoD is so wildly out of character for Obi-Wan it's not even funny. Keep in mind that, in Obi-Wan's eyes, nothing has changed in the fic compared to the movie up until that point; he didn't witness Anakin's restraint when it came to Dooku's death (he was unconscious), so everything would have been exactly the same from Obi-Wan's point of view. Why then, would he "seeth with rage" towards the council when in the movie he didn't seem to have any problem with it? The explanation given is that he finally "realized" that the council did not treat Anakin as anything other than a weapon and that they "critiqued" him while he wasn't there. Why this is the first time that he realizes this, I don't know, because Anakin has definitely been criticized by the council without him being present before. It almost seems as if the author knew that he wanted Obi-Wan to hate the council and then just arbitrarily shoved that story element in, without regard to the Obi-Wan's previous actions or character traits.


Anakin's actions later on in the story are slightly more justified, but I still consider them kind of unlikely. The most glaring of these was when he suddenly matures in front of the council and uncharacteristically takes all of the criticism given when he is appointed a seat. Not only that, but he goes to say that:

"Master Yoda, I did not ask to be placed on the Council. Nor did you recommend me for it. I will do my duty, but I don't feel like I've earned a place here, or if I should be made a Jedi Master."

You can read the story and decide whether you feel it's justified or not, but to me, it almost feels like an Embers-style character change. Honestly, it feels almost as if the author started writing the story with the idea of "Hey wouldn't it be cool if Anakin stayed on the light side and Obi-Wan went to the dark side," without actually thinking through what kind of reasoning that kind of story entailed.


And Sabé. Don't even get me started on Sabé. The entire point of her character was to provide a romantic partner for Obi-Wan in a weak attempt to parallel the Anakin-Padmé relationship and to turn Obi-Wan to the dark side when she inevitably is killed by Palpatine. Her character is also extremely flat (from what I've read so far; I dropped this fic by Chapter 7), and she just seems to be the "perfect match" for Obi-Wan, who, of course, falls in love with her after a day or two.


There are a couple of things that annoy the fuck out of me whenever I try and read some Star Wars fics. When the author mentions and describes the form that the Jedi use in combat, I'm instantly kicked out of any sense of immersion I was in while reading their story. It's like writing a Naruto story and in the middle of a combat scene you have:

"Naruto was a master of Type III taijutsu techniques, which was an aggressive style used to keep the opponent off balance. Keeping this style up long enough would usually force an enemy to make a mistake which Naruto would soon capitalize on. He used to prefer the more defensive Type IV taijutsu, but since the death of his mentor he found that attacking was his forte."

Seriously, what better way to kill an action scene?


The second thing that makes me hit the red x almost immediately is when they spell "dark side" and "light side" as "darkside" and "lightside". Holy fuck, it's really not that difficult. It's two goddamn words. Spelling it as a single word just makes it look incredibly juvenile and retarded.

In any case, I can't really give this story more than a 2.5, rounded down because of all of the stupid shit in this story.