do you think leia felt everyone on alderaan die but because she didn’t know she was force sensitive she thought it was all her own pain, do you think unknowingly force sensitive people all over the galaxy in the middle of sleeping or cooking dinner or kissing their children goodnight suddenly felt their hearts torn out and had no idea why
Adding a thing that slapped me in the face this morning thinking about this:
This explains Leia’s behavior on Hoth, too.
Her twin brother is in mortal danger. While the argument (the more I think about that scene, the more I want to caveat “argument” with some major footnotes, tbh) with Han is going on? Luke has gotten himself strung up like a piece of meat in a Yeti’s cave and is waiting to die, save for his resourcefulness in using the Force and, later, Han’s refusal to follow protocol.
Of course she’s going to be freaking out and on the defensive – just like in Cloud City, mortal danger is afoot, and it involves a member of her biological family, even if she isn’t aware of that link yet.
Leia’s Force sensitivity is shown and stated over and over to be incredibly strong (and is incredibly untrained and uncontrolled, because apparently Obi-Wan and Yoda can’t be bothered to give a shit about Anakin’s daughter, only his son). When it’s in check – and it is 98% of the time – Leia’s actually extremely even-tempered and rational. Look at her behavior in ROTJ – she might as well be a different character. Pretty much the only other time she raises her voice, other than dealing with the extreme stress of the situation in New Hope, which takes its toll on all three protagonists equally, is when she’s trying to be heard and taken seriously in the Rebellion – among troops who surely think of her still as Bail’s little princess playing war-hero dress-up.
But when her Force sensitivity acts up – and it’s only really shown to flare up when the actions of a family member are about to cause imminent death or destruction – we need to treat that with the respect of someone with unique mental health needs, not discuss her “anger issues” or laud it as proof of the sass of Strong Independent Feminism.
We all know that Hoth was a simmering mess of hormones and stress and I would pay good money for a soap opera about them. Here are some things which Definitely Happened:
There’s a betting pool going on who takes Luke’s virginity. The favourites are Han and Leia, but Wedge Antilles has pretty good odds, and there’s a small contingent of aliens who are convinced it will be Chewie (after all, who could resist that Wookie musk? Headcanon: most alien races consider humans soft and gross. Most alien races find Wookies absurdly attractive. Han Solo isn’t the ladykiller; Chewie is.)
Leia and Han scream at each other in every corner of the base. Everyone is desperate for them to fuck. They do not. The sexual tension is so thick that it could be cut into blocks and sold as wall insulation. More than once they are ‘accidentally’ locked in a supply cupboard in the vain hope that claustrophobia will act as the catalyst that enables their frustration to spark into true love – or at least nasty raunchy cupboard sex. It does not. All that happens is that the offender has legally changed their name to escape the Wrath of Organa.
Someone paints a shirtless Han Solo on their X Wing. Leia is furious. Han is delighted: both at the highly flattering portrait (he has an eight-pack, he is shredded) and at Leia’s fury (you’re jealous princess/no I am not/you’re jealous, hey I can pose like that for you if you –). Hoth’s winter had nothing on the chilly silence that followed that suggestion.
Luke and Leia both have very graphic dreams about Han Solo. Han Solo has very graphic dreams about the twins – individually, together, he’s thirty fucking years old, why is his brain doing this to him.(Later on they will, individually, realise that due to Luke and Leia’s Force-bond they probably created a circle of Han Solo Sex Dreams: Leia had them, so Luke sensed her lust for Han which intensified his own lust for Han, which led to Luke having Han Solo sex dreams, which led to Leia lusting – and so on, and so on. For the sake of their sanity, they never share this revelation which each other.)
Luke is SO COLD. All the time. WHY DOES NO ONE APPRECIATE HOW COLD HE IS. He comes from a desert world. Of course he’s cold! What is all this white stuff? It was pretty for the first fve seconds but holy fucking Force it is so cold it burns and what the hell is going on with that? He bundles himself up in so many layers that he waddles rather than walks. Fearsome Last of the Jedi indeed.
Luke tapes a knife to a cleaning droid (disc-shaped things that swish around the base, sucking up dirt) and names it Stabby. Why, says Leia. Luke, the boy from Tatooine, shining and happy despite everything says why not. Why not indeed. Stabby is very fond of chasing Han. Han wants desperately to shoot the fucking thing– but then he sees big-eyed Luke and sharp-toothed Leia cooing over it and, well. A little bit of light stabbing is nothing, compared to those two smiling.
STABBY THE SPACE ROOMBA!
I am torn between wanting Stabby to be grabbed and evacuated along with the Rebels and make it to the next base, and wanting Stabby to get Vader.
Compromise: shortly after losing the Millennium Falcon, Vader, storming through the Rebel base, is startled to feel a sudden jolt of pain from the artificial sensors on his left leg prosthetic: a sharp sensation on his ankle. Surprised, because he sensed no threat–is the limb malfunctioning?–he looks down, and there is a cleaning droid with a knife taped to it, a little painted-on Rebel lieutenant’s insignia, and the word STABBY written on it.
He stares down at it, completely and utterly taken aback for the first time in over a decade. Fearlessly, it chitters back at him, sounding very triumphant.
He picks it up.
Off in the fractal weirdness of hyperspace, Rebels on several ships are surprised to find an update on Stabby’s kill-update feed, and then thoroughly shocked at the accompanying image: the upward-pointing camera has captured an image of Darth Vader staring down at the droid.
It’s the fastest news ever to travel through the Rebel grapevine, the mix of triumph and loss that is, they are certain, Stabby’s heroic last stand.
Until a day later, when the thing updates again, this time showing an extremely confused Imperial officer. And another, and another, and another, day after day.
They cancel the funeral.
Vader hasn’t done much just for the fun of it in two decades. Watching Imperial officers swear and clutch their ankles as a cleaning drone with a knife taped to it, an Imperial emblem, lieutenant’s insignia, and the word STABBY painted on it, bumps into them and then chatters triumphantly, he’s figured he’s earned.
STABBY FIC! STABBY STARWARS FIC! YOU HAVE MADE MY DAY!
But do they send in a rescue unit to reclaim their most honorable POW?
no, the rebels are all too happy to have vader backing one of their most valuable psychological weapons. stabby’s antics are invaluable for their ability to escalate tension within imperial ranks, and vader’s personal amusement means stabby will get to keep running his miniature interference mission for a long time to come
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSS
STABBY LIVESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Grand Moff Tarkin limps into Vader’s quarters. Again. “Lord Vader, enough of this.”
“I have altered the droid; pray I do not alter it any further.”
(If there’s one thing young Anakin Skywalker can appreciate, it’s a hot-rodded maintenance droid, c’mon.)
VADER PUTS A LIGHTSABRE ON STABBY
HE CALLS IT HIS APPRENTICE
MY SON WILL NOT TURN TO THE DARKSIDE BUT MY SON’S STABBY SON WILL
Stabby is eventually recovered and given a medal after the defeat of the Emperor, but his poor little chassis is too badly damaged by then to even hold onto the knife anymore. His internal mechanism is removed and upgraded, and then the Master Droid Tech charged with fixing him casts around for a new casing to put him in.
“Hey!” calls a teenaged Poe Dameron, walking into the Droid repair shop. “I got this decommissioned BB-8 chassis they said to bring in here. It needs a new owner. Captain said I can have it if I can find a new mechanism for it.”
The Master Droid Tech looks at Stabby, then at the BB-8 chassis, then back at Stabby. Stabby turns his unsheathed ocular sensor to Poe and beeps adoringly. (This is a common if relatively new reaction to Poe Dameron, who has just graduated from his Awkward Stage.)
“Yeah, I got one for you right here,” the Tech says, grinning.
There are people who tend to criticize the Star Wars franchise on a whole, as being very black and white. But I think the current Star Wars movies have done something really interesting with that:
We see a man, raised from infancy as a Stormtrooper, brainwashed and with no other moral compass, who is ordered to take part in a massacre, but chooses not to. Later, he seizes the opportunity to rescue a tortured prisoner and escape with him.
We see a scientist ordered to build a death weapon, still manage to leak out information to the people who can stop it, and build in weaknesses that can be exploited.
We see a career Imperial choose to defect rather than continue to work for a corrupt regime.
The new movies have given us a number of stories about people who on the wrong side, by choice or by force, but still choose to do what’s right in the end.
And that’s why I get so frustrated by fans who insist that Kylo Ren MUST have a redemption arc, because Star Wars is “about redemption.”
Because they’re right and they’re wrong. Star Wars is about CHOICE. It’s about people who choose to do the right thing, even when it’s hard, even when it’s painful, and even when they might have started on the wrong side. It’s about abandoning the darkness, and choosing light..
Vader didn’t have a “redemption arc.” He had a moment of choice, and despite all of his past evil, when it came down to it, he chose to save his son.
Kylo Ren chose to leave the Light. He chose to betray Luke. He chose to join the First Order. He chose to massacre villagers. He chose to torture helpless prisoners. He chose to aid in a genocide. And when face to face with the same choice that saved Vader, he chose to murder his father.
We do not need this mass murdering patricidal monster to represent the Star Wars theme of choosing light over darkness. We have Finn, we have Galen Erso, we have Bodhi Rook.
That’s where you’ll find themes of the Star Wars Universe alive and well. Not Kylo Ren.
I have little doubts she would have sassed her way out.
Yeah, maybe.
Honestly, though? I don’t get the defensiveness I see on this post. I LOVE that she was in over her head and glosses over it. One of the things I really liked about Leia was she got to be in over her head is an angry impulsive type way. All the girls in the stories I read as a child were know-it-all, ultra-competent sorts or sensible mothers but Leia was the hotheaded impulsive little sister who ran into danger while her brother went “WAIT” and insisted she could handle it. I loved that she got to be dumb sometimes. It meant a lot, as a hyperactive little girl, to have a hyperactive little princess.
And part of the fun was having people around her who’d bail her out and smile about it, because they’re just as stupid sometimes too.
So many Leiafans insist she could handle everything. Naw, she couldn’t handle everything and that was okay. Neither could the other two. But when all three got together they were invincible.
THIS. None of them would have made it out of the Death Star alone. Leia would have died if she hadn’t been sprung from her cell by Luke, Han and Chewie (because everyone always forgets about Chewie but he was a vital component of the rescue too). The guys would have died in the hallway if not for Leia’s quick thinking, Luke would have been killed by the diagona if not for Han, they would have been crushed in the trash compactor if not for Luke, Artoo and Threepio (let’s not forget the droids either). And so on, Ben taking down the tractor beam and distracting Vader, Chewie and Leia piloting while Luke and Han take out the TIEs, etc.
It’s not Leia the badass dragging around two dumb-dumbs making quips and getting shit done while the they cower behind her skirts as I think fandom sometimes likes to believe. They’re a team, they all have their individual strengths and let’s face it would all be dead without the others.
Ooh I agree! Being a Strong Female Character doesn’t mean you’re always in control and rolling your eyes at those Loveable Male Nitwits. If it were a male character saying this line, I don’t think we’d all rush to assure each other that he really did have it under control, we’d fondly laugh at his defensive posturing. I like that Leia is fiery and sarky as hell but that doesn’t mean she has a clue what she’s doing half the time.
The Official Jedi view on politics is that they try not to interfere and do not trust politicians, but if they are running out of options on how to settle an issue they will tell Padme Amidala what is going on and just unleash her onto their problems
Weren’t there like five different TCW episodes about this being a thing?
also palpatine knew leia was anakin’s daughter from the moment she made planetfall on coruscant.
of course, was more generally aware of bail and breha’s daughter; when the threat comes—and it will come, he would not be a sith master if he could not feel the force gathering like a storm—he knows alderaan will be the tip of the spear. accordingly, he has armed himself against it. why else would palpatine have pressured bail to retire from the imperial senate, and send his beloved daughter in his place?
(children are weaknesses, children are the softest, most vulnerable place, where any blunted knife can cut. he has known this since anakin came to him, wracked with nightmares of birth and death.)
but being generally aware of bail and breha’s daughter is very different than knowing leia organa, feeling her drop like an ion bomb through the atmosphere of coruscant, so screaming-loud and shiveringly powerful through the force that palpatine stops dead. it’s been over fifteen years since he last felt that raw, unchecked, untaught power—since anakin skywalker returned to coruscant after so long away, all of nineteen and long-limbed, something animal have taken up residence under his skin. palpatine had taken one look and wanted to leash it.
and now his daughter is here.
(palpatine has been making do with such puny, stunted specimens lately. crippled things, taught in the dark by vader and then presented to him as though they were something to be proud of. but a skywalker daughter, who did not even know enough to shield herself from him—)
palpatine is patient. (he has always been patient.) he does not reach out, he makes no overture; instead he gives her his glittering planet with all its pleasures and strangeness. he even pulls his spies and guards back, to give her more room to run. aldera is hardly a backwater swill, but there is nothing in the galaxy like coruscant.
on the fifth day, the junior senators are presented to the emperor.
leia organa looks so very much like her mother, that for a moment, palpatine is back on naboo, standing before another little girl with a crown of braids. but her expression is all anakin, a badly-hidden contempt behind her eyes.
“leia organa,” emperor palpatine says, extending his hand for her to bow over. “we are gratified by your coming. may you serve us as loyally as your father has.”
Steel Phoenix Studios 