Move over Poe and Finn, there’s a new bromance in town! Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang were show-stealing additions to Rogue One. Now fans will get to learn more about their origins in an upcoming novel, Guardians of the Whills.
Where There Are Whills, There’s a Way
The title refers to Chirrut and Baze‘s job before they met Jyn and Cassian. In the movie, they identified themselves as Guardians of the Whills, protectors of the Kyber Temple on Jedha, from which the Empire pilfered thousands of the crystals to power the superlaser on the Death Star. Beyond that, we got to see only a little of the rich culture and history of this planet with such close ties to the Jedi.
The Guardians of the Whills take their name from an early draft of Star Wars. George Lucas invented the Journal of the Whills as a frame narrative to tie his Star Wars universe to our own. In The Making of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Lucas strongly implies that he intended R2-D2 to relate the story of the Skywalkers to a “Keeper of the Whills.” It gets to the heart of Star Wars as a saga, a retelling of the deeds of heroes long gone. In the recent title reveal for Episode VIII, Lucasfilm rebranded the numbered sequels as the “Skywalker Saga,” which means that any revelations about the Whills could be more important than ever.
Spin-off novels for ancillary or supporting characters are nothing new in the Star Wars universe. Even minor characters from The Force Awakens, such as the Crimson Corsair, got their own stories before the movie even hit theaters. This story about Chirrut and Baze promises to peel back the veil on some intriguing lore. Just one glimpse inside the crystal-bedecked temple will bring one of the enduring Star Wars mysteries into better focus.
