The Ewok Who Was Afraid: An Ewok Adventure

The Ewok Who Was Afraid

Author: Helena Clare Pittman

Illustrator: Ron Fritz

Medium: Picture book

Publication Date: January 1986

Timeline Placement: 1 ABY

 

Finally, a book about everyone's favorite Ewok, Wicket's brother Willy. Widdle "Willy" Warrick is a cowardly, dimwitted, lazy, gluttonous fatass. So it's understandable why his older brother, Weechee, balks at having him as a partner in the Ewoks' annual subterranean whitewater rafting competition. Willy promises his brother that he can be brave, but just looking at the mouth of the cave where the race takes place makes him shit himself in terror. Not of being lost forever in the dark or being bashed into shapeless pulp against rocks or drowning, but of "cave spirits." 

 

With his regular partner, Paploo, in the infirmary after being trampled by a space horse and his brother useless, Weechee decides to pilot the raft by himself. It immediately smashes itself into shapeless pulp against rocks, leaving Weechee lost forever in the dark.

Meanwhile, Willy randomly finds a magic blue stone lying on the ground. He recognizes it as one of the rocks that Logray gives to the village warriors to fill them with courage. Weird, that kind of rock is usually white.

The newly brave Willy goes to the cave exit to wait for his brother. All the other contestants finish the race and start asking one another "Hey, what happened to Weechee?" "I don't know." "I thought he was right behind me." "Well I know that there wasn't anyone left behind me." Then they all go home without a second thought. Weechee is clearly hated by his fellow Ewoks, and I can't blame them.

But Willy decides that something must have happened to his brother, so he pulls a log into the river and rides it through the cave. He finds Weechee lying on the riverbank and tells him to hop onto the log. The two brothers then ride the log through the rapids and out of the cave without dying, so Weechee probably could have just swum out and been fine. 

Chief Chirpa is waiting with Mr. and Mrs. Warrick when they get back to shore. Willy starts to tell them about his magic courage rock but when he goes to pull it out he realizes it must have fallen into the river at some point, meaning he really didn't need it to be brave after all. This is a stupid ending because there's no way to know when he lost it; he could have dropped it clambering off the log five seconds ago. What should have happened is he pulls it out to show everyone and Logray says "that's not one of my magic rocks, that's just a regular stone," showing that Willy's bravery was always inside him all along. 

But since they didn't do that, instead Chief Chirpa bestows on Willy the sacred fire shell, the Ewok symbol of bravery, apparently. If he was truly brave, he would have left this black-hearted son of a bitch to die.