Because I'm always up for a little Paige Tico appreciation, a short thread about her role in the TLJ novelization.... 1/a few https://twitter.com/starwarstuff/status/1338824959108517888

That started with both a need and an opportunity. I'd written about Paige and Rose in Bomber Command and Rose Tico: Resistance Fighter, for StudioFun, and my pal @ewein2412 had told their story in Cobalt Squadron. I wanted to bind those books together in the novelization. 2/

So we'd get Fossil, some bomber lore, but most importantly we'd get a sense of the sisters -- of the loss Rose is struggling with when she stumbles across Finn, and how she's channeled her grief about Paige into an unswerving, dedication to the Resistance cause. 3/

A dynamic I tried to bring out in the novelization is that Rose and Finn spend a big chunk of the movie talking past each other. She's lost her sister and turned that into devotion to a cause. He's escaped a cause and turned that into devotion to a person. Opposite traumas. 4/

They then course-correct the other way: Rose risks her life for a person at the expense of a cause, while Finn embraces a new cause and is willing to die for it. It's messy -- as middle chapters are -- but also very human. Two amazing folks struggling but doing their best. 5/

Paige is the key to that for Rose. So I started with those StudioFun narratives, and decided to lean into their common ground, reprising Elizabeth's farewell scene from Cobalt Squadron in the TLJ novelization. Plus presenting that material anew felt like a fun challenge. 6/

And Paige let me have fun with pilot stuff, another thread I tried to weave through the novelization -- whether it's Tallie and Starck, or BB-8 arguing with Poe's X-wing, or the stiff muscles and full bladders of pilots and bomber crews waiting anxiously for zero hour. 7/

What I *wasn't* prepared for was actually seeing Paige's bomber run on screen. And that ... whoa. The kinetic crunch and sense of peril as the bombers start to fall. The shot of the lone bomber above the Star Destroyer. The slow-motion tick tick tick of the falling remote. 8/

And that amazing, immediately iconic shot of Paige's face as the bombs rack out around and below her. I was speechless, except to think, "oh my God, I hope I did that 1/100 of the justice it deserves." 9/

Anyway, to Paige Tico! And her amazing sister Rose! And Finn, the conscience of the ST! And Tallie! And all the characters brought to mind by their connections. Love these characters, and hope I get to read and see (and maybe even write) more of their adventures soon. 10/10