Loftwings and Demons

The audience for Heart of Shadow is people who like redemption stories. This is the big one in terms of audience requirements here: if a person hates redemption stories, this is probably not the story for them. A lot of the other stuff in this story is incidental and could have been changed without significantly changing the story, but not the redemption part. It's not the same story without that.

Given the above, it's perhaps not surprising that the story is also very villain focused--this is a common thread in my stories. I love to write about villains.

Furthermore, while there are a lot of redemption stories in the Star Wars fandom, I believe the vast majority of them are focused on Darth Vader. It's also common for redemption stories to focus on the 'less evil' villains. 

This is not that kind of redemption story. This is focused on Palpatine and Plagueis. And they're the worst. The worst of the worst. That's the point. I don't feel like it's much of a redemption story if the villain is just misunderstood.

Lastly, to me redemption is about a character actually doing something to help repair the damage they've done and make the world a better place. It's not about being sad or mopey enough for their victims to forgive them. 

This story also has a Sidious/Talzin romance, so if a person doesn't like romance, that could potentially be an issue. It could also be an issue if the person is incredibly averse to that specific pairing for whatever reason. It's also kind of a rarepair (to my knowledge I am the only person particularly invested in this pairing), so I don't expect it to be an actual draw for most people.

Hmmmm...what else? This story does have quite a bit of...I guess you could call it humor, however, it is not intended to be a solely humorous story. It is also not intended to be a comedy or parody. Some scenes may be inappropriate for those averse to satire. Okay...maybe quite a few scenes.

You will encounter politics in this story, both of the specifically Star Wars variety and those referencing real life. You have been warned.

The Darth Plagueis novel gives a lot of background on the Sith, and one detail we learn from it is how Darth Maul becomes a Sith.  And how that happens is that his mother Kycina gives him away to Palpatine as an infant.  Here's the scene in the novel where this is explained:

“Clearly I am not, as I suspect you have already intuited. But you still haven’t answered my question. Why are trying to rid yourself of the infant?”
“To spare the one for the sake of the other,” she said after a moment. “Half a clan pair, this one is. And I want one to live freely, since the other can’t.”
“Who poses the threat?”
“Talzin is her name.”
“Who is Talzin?”
“The Nightsister Mother.”
Palpatine filed the information away. “Where is the infant’s father?”
“Dead—by tradition.”
He snorted. “Will the infant not be missed?”
“Talzin knows only of the one, not the other.”
“You delude yourself.”
Gently, she pushed the shoulder bag toward him. “Then take him. Please.”
“What would I do with him?”
“This one is strong in the Force. In the right hands, he can become a powerful asset.”
“Servitude of a different sort.”
She ignored the remark. “Take him. Save him.”
Palpatine regarded the newborn again. “Have you named him?”
“Maul, he is called.”

Of course Palpatine is the worst parent ever, so Maul never really gets the life his mother wanted for him.  Maul is unusual in that he's the only known Rule of Two Sith who was explicitly raised to be one from infancy.  Which is a pretty horrific childhood to imagine.  This seems like a pretty tragic situation to me, because it sounds like either way his life was going to be pretty awful.  

One thing I noticed reading this over again is that Maul is supposed to be half of a clan pair.  So is that supposed to mean he has a twin?  Who knows?  That never comes up again in this novel.  I guess if you wanted to tie this into The Clone Wars continuity you could say that the twin was supposed to be Savage, though my understanding is that when that character was first conceived, he wasn't intended to have anything to do with Maul.  At the same time, given when this was written and the fact that Legends EU often tied in things from other stories, I'm guessing that probably was the intent.