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pianostrings · 4 months

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Rebel Moon Novelization

Some interesting parts from the novelization! Contains potential spoilers for Rebel Moon under the cut.

The novelization opens with the destruction of King Heron's world, as punishment for aiding the Bloodaxes. Noble forces Heron's son, Aris, to kill his father with the bone staff to protect his family before he is conscripted into the army. Noble beats the rest of his family to death anyway.

Kora's sex scene with Den is fleshed out (wink). Inwardly, she admits to liking Gunnar, despite his shyness, but has issues with intimacy and the idea of starting a family.

Hagen, a villager whose wife and daughter died, was the one who found Kora and took her in. He is something of a father figure to her.

Slightly longer dialogue scene with Sam & Jimmy. Features Jimmy's line from the trailer that a 'A king is a man, and a man can fail or betray. But a myth is indestructible.' He mentions that Balisarius had the Jimmies separated from Princess Issa, despite their vow to protect her, and that most of them had never set foot on the Motherworld.

Sam thanks Aris for saving her (❁´◡`❁)

Den takes over as the village leader after Sindri and his wife are bone staffed to death 😓

Before Kora leaves, she asks Hagen to task Private Aris to fix the guns on the dropship she crash-landed on Veldt in.

In Kora's flashback scene, we learn Kora's family lived above the tea shop they owned. She had two older siblings. They are killed by Imperium soldiers while she is upstairs packing.

Kora's scene with Balisarius has dialogue. He introduces himself. She tells him her name is Kora. She believes he is impressed she had the guts to pull the trigger. He renames her on the spot 😒 and takes her as a 'a gift to himself and his legacy' 😒 because 'every leader had an heir'.

Kora's life on the ship is briefly detailed. Balisarius brings her to a surrendering planet and makes her watch the soldiers open fire on its people. She is sent to train at the Imperium military academy and doesn't see Balisarius for years. Before she leaves, he tells her she can't tell anyone about her past or where she came from. She graduates with top marks and her final test is orchestrated by Balisarius: it involves her executing a man without question.

More scenes in the village. Aris keeps his Imperium uniform to keep up appearances for transmissions to the Motherworld.

While trying to fix the ship, Aris and Sam share how their parents died. It's giving young love over shared trauma 🥰 They wake to find there is a deer with antlers removed (important!) roasted on a spit and the ship has been repaired. Aris guesses it was Jimmy who did it.

We hear from Jimmy's perspective that he ran to save Sam because he felt the same connection and loyalty to her as he did Princess Issa (interesting). He decides to make his own choices, carves his own staff, cloaks himself with a robe, and a pair of fashionable deer antlers to go into the wilderness.

Hickman hints at Tarak's backstory-- he says Tarak runs when given the chance and that he let his own people die at the hands of the realm.

Cassius takes a call from someone who makes him more uneasy than Noble, a high scribe named Enoch with abilities that defy logic. Cassius finds Noble predictable in his brutality.

We learn more about Cassius: he doesn't have the implants the realm's upper classes and high-ranking officials make to their bodies because it would leave him open in ways he didn't want. Cassius's family isn't native to Moa (the Motherworld) but had been there for generations and became affluent. His mother's penchant for opulence mounted debts for his father, a senator, and her modifications revealed their circumstances to another senator who blackmails them. Cassius's father trades him to serve with the priests who tells him that silence and observation are powerful tools (interesting).

Sexy scene with Noble and the Octopus, called the Twins. They were gifted to him by a warlord and are one of the few things he actually likes. Not shockingly, he is really into tentacle shit and BDSM. Cassius interrupts and Noble offers to let him go a round with the Twins. Cassius, grossed the eff out, politely declines. It's TMI, even for him.

More Cassius backstory: his career in the priesthood doesn't work out; after his family is ruined and executed, he joins the military order where he meets Noble, who confirms his father was responsible for Cassius's family's downfall & execution. In the academy, Cassius sees Noble's cruelty up close. He thinks of Noble as someone charming and cruel, surrounding himself with slightly smarter but less ambitious people. Good at working his way into the right circles.

Daggus is known throughout the galaxy for its cobalt mines. The land was leveled and indigenous life died out. Workers, mostly refugees, move there with the promise of wealth only to be exploited and live in poor conditions.

Kora offers to help Nemesis with Harmada, but she declines. She says: 'Harmada has grown accustomed to the pain of her grief. I know her rage intimately. We are not enemies.'

After watching Gunnar save the child, Kora thinks that even though he isn't a seasoned warrior, he has the heart of one. She's catching feelings.

In a flashback scene, she watches Princess Issa play in the snow at the winter castle. There is a frozen lake with giant fish and creatures swimming underneath (important later).

Kora witnesses Issa bring the bird back to life and warns her not to show anyone her power. Issa recounts that when she was born she almost killed her mother but when she was placed in her arms, the Queen was miraculously healed. Everyone present was sworn to secrecy. Unbeknownst to them, the King watches this scene from the castle window.

The King approaches her later and tells Kora that Issa likes having her as a guard and expresses his happiness at her new role. He asks if she misses her homeworld, but Kora doesn't respond. Balisarius told the King that Kora was abandoned as a child.

King Levitica agreed to help the Bloodaxes because he finds the Imperium's notion of 'homogeneous purity vile' and because 'they neither respect nor value anything that doesn't serve them at the expense of their own lives.' His comfort and kindness remind Kora of Hagen, her father figure on Veldt.

While waiting for the Bloodaxes, Tarak tells the others of how the people of his home, the Samandrai system, were killed or enslaved by the Imperium. Kora asks why he wasn't taken and conscripted to be made an example of. When he doesn't respond, she surmises he left before that could happen. Kai calls him a coward and ribs the other men. He and Titus almost get into a fight. Gunnar tells Kora he thinks Kai is a dick.

Darrian tells Devra that "people need a revolution they can see". When he refers to not allowing another world to fall in their name, he is presumably referring to King Heron's world at the beginning of the book.

A dying King Levitica tells Noble that "goodness will return to the universe. Endless war and needless death will end in the universe., There will be one to bring it back." So sad to see the end of his squidgy face.

Kora and Tarak speak; Tarak doesnt trust Kai, but she brushes it off. Girl, there are SO many alarm bells ringing.

Kai's betrayal reminds Kora of the "first monumental betrayal in her life."

There is more dialogue between Noble and the team as they are bound and about to be transported. Noble mocks Nemesis's dead children (seriously, fuck this guy!!!). The spine machines are meant to paralyse them for transport.

Noble asks if Gunnar will be a problem being transported unbound but Kai laughs it off, saying Gunnar is a coward. Oop. That was a bad read.

The fight sequence actually has them fighting together. Titus acknowledges Nemesis saving his life. Tarak and Titus fight happily side by side.

Darrian's death scene is vague; it says his body 'shut[s] down like the hunk of metal he clung to' while screaming 'Death to the Motherworld! Death to the Realm! For Shasu!' while hysterically laughing.

More dialogue when Noble and Kora fight. When she looks over his (presumably) dead body, she wishes it was Balisarius instead and is sad to know that she'll likely never be able to confront him in person.

There's a "who's going to fly this thing" moment with Kai's freighter. A crime this was left out. (Also, they don't answer this; the freighter apparently just lands itself when they arrive back in Providence.)

Back on Veldt, Sam invites Aris to stay in her home. She loves sewing and quilting, which she learned from her grandmother. Aris likes the quilts, which is good because she has so many.

After the company arrive in the village, they are followed by two Hawkshaws at a distance. They are watched, in turn, by Jimmy.

Devra commands her ships return to 'Base One'.

The astral plane setting where Noble meets Balisarius is confirmed to be the winter gardens of the royal palace where the Princess Issa scene was set.

Balisarius' face is noted to have been kept young with 'fortune and science' (yeah, and bad CGI 😐)

It's explicitly confirmed that Kora is responsible for the assassination of the royal family, or at least is being blamed for it. Noble says: 'I have found her. The hated other who murdered in cold blood that which we held most dear.' He also calls her 'the ethnic impurity, the monster, the Scargiver, the enemy of us all.' Balisarius says Arthelais is the 'assassin of the royal family, she who killed the king and queen, as well as her charge, the Princess Issa.' - From Rebel Moon Part One - A Child of Fire: The Official Movie Novelization by V. Castro Other interesting parts:

The scribes extract the teeth of their victims and put them on their masks in front of an image of Princess Issa to 'honour her.' The effect is, not surprisingly, extremely horrifying.

While Kora is living on the ship, she sees a Kali in a giant metal encasement with 'thick tubes of red and blue energy' and 'something alive in there'. She feels sorry for it, and thinks it is the only other thing on the ship who understands the feeling of being trapped.

Kora's off-worlder status is being made a big deal of, and I'm still not sure why. Balisarius apparently gets no heat for raising the assassin that murders the royal family?

Cassius is given way too much backstory for him to just be a random henchman. I suspect he may be collecting information to overthrow Noble at some point.

I am outing myself as a Sam is Princess Issa truther, even if it doesn't make any sense at all. But I think it's neat.

Sam and Aris ❤

Jimmy ❤

#rebel moon #rebel moon spoilers #a child of fire #rebel moon novelization #kora #gunnar #tarak #atticus noble #cassius #balisarius #Princess Issa #sorry if there’s typos! I will not be bothering to spellcheck this

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