The Broken Well Trilogy by Sam Bowring

What's there to say about Sam Bowring's Broken Well trilogy?

'Go and read it!' is a start. However, since that would make a pretty short review, I'll try and go into more detail.

Think of the Broken Well like "reverse Star Wars".

At first glance, these two works appear to follow the same rules - and not just because Star Wars is high fantasy set in space. Both have a literal black-and-white religion where you're either following the pretty gods of light (the 'light' side) and are good, or you're following the dark creepy gods (ie, the dark side) and are unrepentantly evil. No backsies, no do-overs, do not pass go or collect $200.

If you didn't know this was high

fantasy, clearly you need to go 
back and watch again.

They also revolve around a prophesied Chosen One that will decide the battle between light and dark... blah blah savior... blah blah destiny. You know the drill. Literally fifty percent of fantasy has this premise.

The Anakin Skywalker stand-in of Bowring's universe is a blue-haired infant born on neutral ground. Upon discovering this, the light side does the obvious ethical thing and sends agents to protect the family from the machinations of the-

- Holy crap, did they just steal a baby?! 

Yep, they totally just stole a baby. While fighting darksiders with the same idea. And just to rub in that light emphatically does NOT equal good, they also had a magical tug of war. Using the baby.

Fortunately, this being a magical tug of war, instead of a splatter of gooey insides we get two whole infants, each with a separate aspect of the original kid's personality. Losara is stolen by the "bad guys" while Bel is stolen by the "good guys". So within the first chapter, we have a protagonist literally torn between light and dark.

And more importantly, we learn that everything I just told you is a lie. Nothing in this world is as
simple as it looks. Dark and light have nothing to do with morality, faith is a poor replacement for strategy, and no one's hands are clean in war.

Sadly, the old 'beard or no-beard' test has proved unreliable.

Remember this because it's the overarching theme of the trilogy.

That's great, you may be thinking, but what does that have to do with Star Wars? This isn't the first fantasy novel to challenge black-and-white coded morality (Sara Douglass and Ann Bishop are two of a few million examples). So lets look at the protagonists.

Our light-sided warrior Bel has a lot in common with Anakin Skywalker. He's a magnificent fighter, ruled by his passions, and romantically devoted to a woman he has nothing in common with. And just as Anakin has a bad habit of dismissing any opposition as "evil", Bel blindly assumes that everything dark is an abomination.

Yet this is just a symptom of a deeper problem. Bel, by his own admission, possesses no higher convictions or ideals. He couldn't tell you specifically why the light is better, because deep down, he doesn't care what side he fights on. The only reason he fights for the light is sheer chance. Had he been stolen by the dark, he'd have fought just as passionately for them.

The one on the left has blue hair.

That's how you tell them apart.

Anakin also had a dim understanding of what he was fighting for (recall his arguments for dictatorship during that schmaltzy romance scene in the meadow) and was only committed to the Jedi insofar as they didn't stand in the way of getting what he wanted. He had zero problems lying to them or violating their rules, and the moment they became an obstacle, he turned on them.

So what does this mean? Aside from Bel's idiocies being a bit more justified than Anakin's?

Well... maybe it's a pointed commentary on what happens when you demonise your enemies.

See, both Anakin and Bel were born balanced between light and dark. Bel was initially unified with Losara. Anakin was told his purpose was not to fight for either side, but to keep both sides in check (see the brilliant Mortis arc of The Clone Wars cartoon series). However, they were both recognised as Chosen Ones and taken to be raised by the light, which is where things go wrong.

Both children were taught a very simple life philosophy: light is good, dark is bad. Losara was a "dark worm" that Bel is better off without, and Anakin's ordinary human emotions (fear, anger, love) must be purged. Understandable when you're raising the Chosen One, and you don't want him having doubts at a critical juncture. Yet utterly inadequate when dealing with real-world situations.

And predictably enough, when dealing with the complexities of adulthood, these simple codes completely fail them. Neither youth has any idea how to deal with a situation that's not black and white. Bel throws a tantrum when his girlfriend and father are (justifiably) arrested for committing crimes, while Anakin falls to pieces when he believes his wife is going to die and the Jedi either can't or won't help. And before you say anything, Vader isn't any better. He's simply Anakin adjusting his moral code to suit himself; if the Sith can help him, then the Sith are good and the Jedi are bad. He just swings from one kind of extremism to another.

It's only in Losara that we see any kind of balance, and that's only because he has an advantage the others don't. Unclouded, unbiased logic.

The dark sorcerer who performs human sacrifice and
political assassination...and is the only guy 
who seems to know what he's doing. 

See, because Bel got all the passion, Losara is physically incapable of reacting with strong emotion. This lack means he immediately sees the contradiction between what he's told and what he's observed. He can't hate or fear, so he alone can see both sides for what they truly are. And while that doesn't stop him from doing what he must (seriously he does some scary shit), he's also the only person who makes any effort to avoid the war.

Perhaps the scene that best encapsulates Losara is his meeting with the dark gods. They demand that he serves them first, over and above even his people. He considers this - bearing in mind he is physically in front of the gods at this time - and replies "I'll serve you as well". Not an outright rejection, but an offer of compromise. Later he even suggests to Bel that they withdraw to their respective lands and ignore the prophecy.

That's Losara in a nutshell. Balance. Compromise. Coexistence.

Of course he'll murder your allies in an unholy ceremony and unleash an unkillable monster on your army if you insist on war. But the point is, he gave you an out. It's not his fault you didn't take it.

On the one hand this could imply the Jedi were right - lack of emotion is the way to go - but actually shows how wrong they were. Rejecting and demonising an entire aspect of one's self, religion, or country leads to ruin. The Jedi and Sith have been fighting the same war for millennia, in the same vicious cycle of retribution and counter-retribution. Bel and Losara's gods didn't do themselves any favours when they parted ways; they just made it possible to destroy each other.

Losara and Bel eventually both acknowledge this, that neither of them are whole and that a great wrong was done to them. Whatever you think of the ending (which I won't go into detail on) it's at least suggested that the cycle of violence has been broken. Whereas Luke Skywalker, who won by utterly rejecting the dark side, saw the same cycle start up again a few years down the road in Force Awakens.... Man, this article gone in a depressing direction.

Anyway, this leaves just one last question.

Is there a second version of Anakin Skywalker running around the Star Wars universe, maybe trying to fix everything his double broke?

Someone who encapsulates everything Anakin is not. Someone utterly brilliant, devious and genre savvy. Someone immune to manipulation and strategically unparalleled -

Holy crap. It's Admiral Thrawn.

Admit it. It's all starting to make sense now.