Claudia Gray has written some of my favorite Star Wars: Lost Stars (the stories of Imperial loyalist Ciena Ree and Imperial pilot turned Rebel Thane Kyrell, their childhood friendship, and their unbreakable bond), Leia: Princess of Alderaan (the tale of Leia’s teenage years, her burgeoning friendship with Amilyn Holdo, and their introduction to the Rebellion), and Bloodline (in which Leia’s relationship to Vader is revealed to the galaxy).

Her most recent novel, Master and Apprentice, may, however, be her best to date.

Turns out, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan weren’t always as close as their relationship in the prequel films would lead us to believe, which, in my mind, makes it both more meaningful and more interesting. In the way back, the Jedi Order was presented to Luke, by Yoda and Obi-Wan, as a monolith. It was perfect and pristine; masters and padawans flitted about in absolute harmony.

In the new canon novels and animated series, however (and in episodes VII and VIII), we learned that perfection was an illusion, the remote nostalgia of lonely old men. In reality, the Jedi Order was made up of people, mostly well-intentioned people, but still people. And, as Steve Rogers so astutely observed in Captain America: Civil War, “People have agendas.”

In Master and Apprentice, we learn that Qui-Gon was once desperate to divest himself of his padawan, to whom he feels he has been an inadequate master, and take the seat the Jedi Council offered him. Obi-Wan, though still a padawan, is no longer a youngling and an inflexible adherent to every Jedi tenet. He and his more free-thinking (and acting) master find it nearly impossible to communicate let alone find common ground. And yet…

Well, I’m not going to spoil anything, but it’s a fascinating tale and I highly recommend it.

Beyond enjoying the story and characters so much that I blew through the 300+ page novel in a single day, which is not a thing I’m able to do very often, Master and Apprentice kicked my storyteller brain into gear. Even knowing that a great deal of the new canon is retconned (it’s impossible all of this massive, interwoven legacy was outlined 30 years ago), this particular novel cements connections down an ideological line marking so many points at which the galaxy could have been saved from the ravages of the Empire, from the genocides wrought by Vader, if a single individual had made a different choice.

That choice would likely have been a small one.

We still don’t know much about Yoda’s history, but we do know that he chose to train Dooku a certain way despite the darkness he sensed in his padawan, despite his knowledge that Dooku was investigating Sith artifacts and prophecy with other masters, and that he was inexorably drawn to his family. (Did I mention you should also listen to Dooku: Jedi Lost? You should.) Was that trust or a test? It’s hard to say until you compare Yoda’s interactions with Dooku to his interactions with Anakin.

A test, then.

So sure was Yoda in his path to the chosen one – in his own judgment – that he risked billions of lives to make a point. A series of seemingly insignificant decisions. Poor decisions. That culminated in the Empire. If Dooku had been a little less literal. If Qui-Gon had followed one more rule. If Obi-Wan had disobeyed one more. If Anakin had been a little more honest and Luke a little more trusting. If Leia hasn’t been kept in the dark or had the opportunity to stomp through the swamp on Dagobah and say, “Hold on just a freaking second, you little gremlin…”

From Dooku down, every padawn in the line considered leaving the Jedi Order. Their reasons differed but the results were the same: those who remained became great. None of those who left were able to do so without going to the Dark Side with the exception of Ahsoka Tano. Which suggests a couple of things about the Order.

First, it was absolutely terrible at training their Knights and Masters to be teachers, and it allowed people who were either unprepared or unsuited to train the next generation to do so. Good masters would have listened to their students’ concerns – really listened – and done what was best for them rather than what the Council ordered. (Looking at you, Obi-Wan.)

They would have been clear about attachment rather than sending mixed messages. You can’t hand a child over to a single adult to train and raise them and expect them not to form an attachment and then tell them that attachment is wrong. They wouldn’t have sent children to war. They would have taught their students to survive out in the galaxy so that, should the worst happen, 11-year-olds wouldn’t be roaming the galaxy without any idea how to survive outside the Temple or army.

And yet? Most of them did the best they could.

Second: That Ahsoka was the only padawan to leave the order without going to the Dark Side, despite the circumstances, suggests that Anakin was the best teacher of the line, which is an interesting twist, considering. This isn’t a suggestion of redemption for Anakin – he chose to become a genocidal maniac and there’s no coming back from that, really. Ahsoka did her own work, but Anakin did help her learn her own strength and taught her own to survive out in the wider world, which none of the other masters did. He trusted her. He loved her. And she remade herself into something new on the basis of those foundations.

I know there are folks out there who are disappointed in this more nuanced portrayal of the Jedi. They feel that by showing the darker side of those who comprised the Order somehow detracts from all the good the Jedi did over the course of their history. In my mind, it makes the peaces they kept, the treaties they brokered, and the lives they saved all the more remarkable for having been kept, brokered, and saved. By people. Conflicted, confused, fallible people.