181st Imperial Discussion Group: The Courtship of Princess Leia!

Good morning, TFN!

This month, The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton is up for discussion. Per usual, I'll front a few questions and join in as things get going. But as always, these are starting points for the discussion, anything to do with the book is welcome!

Here's a link to the TF.n Staff Reviews.

- So, this story had to be told. Han and Leia were the big romance of the movies - of course they have to end up together, and of course, we're gonna want a novel that tells the tale. Given that the ending (Leia ends up with Han) was something of a foregone conclusion, how do you think the novel handled the story? Did you believe that Leia would consider a political marriage? That Han would kidnap her?

- The other ingredient in the big three - Luke! Did you enjoy his story? In a novel that's essentially billed as a romantic comedy-adventure for Han and Leia, did the author do a good job of giving Luke something to do, or did he feel like a third wheel afterthought? Was it overly convenient that the Force Using Group of the week Luke is chasing was the same planet as the one Han ran off to with Leia?

- Hapes! By now, the Hapan Consortium is a staple political power in the EU. Do you have any new thoughts revisiting its first appearance? At the time, did you find it overly convenient that this massive political power had maintained independence even during the Empire? Did that undercut the Empire's authority and menace? Or did it widen the EU in an interesting way?

- Dathomir! Never really became quite the EU staple that Hapes did. Probably a large part of this is due to plot-related reasons and simply having more non-villainous or quasi-villainous characters from Hapes than Dathomir. But it's interesting they are introduced in the same novel as the Hapans, and I'd probably be remiss in not at least mentioning the issue of GIRLZ!!1!1!!! Hapes and Dathomir are both societies that make use of that pulp-era tradition of AMAZONS, albeit, in one instance, with a veneer of pretty dresses and a more political fighting style. What did you make of that? Pulp is a grand SW tradition, and one I personally think more of the novels should make use of, but equally, is it overkill to do it twice in the same novel?

Aaaaand, take it away!

Next month we will be discussing Agents of Chaos: Hero's Trial by James Luceno.

 

It was fun revisiting The Courtship of Princess Leia. It's been a long time since I last read it.

One thing that really bothered me was that Leia seemed so "wishy-washy" in this book. I hadn't remembered that. During RotJ, it was obvious that Leia and Han loved each other very much, and the ending certainly suggested that they would eventually marry. Yet in CoPL, I was sort of appalled to find Leia so easily persuaded by Isolder. At one point, when Isolder kissed her after assassination attempt, she kissed him. Isolder said, "Come away with me to Hapes" and the book says, "...at that moment, whatever attachment she had ever felt for Han suddenly seemed to become as insubstantial as fog, as a gentle what mist, and Isolder was the sun, burning it all away." While he's a nice guy, she almost said, "I love you," to him about the third time she saw him. How could she get over Han so soon??? I mean, Isolder was a nice guy and good looking to boot, but it shouldn't have been so easy for Leia to become conflicted, I didn't think.

On the other hand, I could see Leia consider a political marriage. She has always been a slave to duty and responsibility, and by marrying Isolder, she would have been gaining a considerable fleet for the Alliance. The survivors of Alderaan were pressuring her too, so yes, I think Leia might have sacrificed love and married for political reasons.

Han truly showed his love for Leia over and over in this novel. Not only did he risk even the Falcon to win a planet for Leia, he risked everything, including his freedom, by "kidnapping" Leia. When he thought Isolder's ship was a two seater, he wanted Isolder to take Leia away from Dathomir, even though he would have been marooned on the very dangerous planet. And if Leia truly would have decided that she loved Isolder, Han would have been willing to step aside, as he once offered on Endor when he thought Leia loved Luke.

Han's most heroic act, of course, was being willing to turn himself in to Zsinj to save the lives of many innocent people. I really did like Han in this book even though I found it rather far-fetched that he kidnapped her with the Gun of Command. Still, desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess.

As I was beginning to read this story, I thought it was really sad that Isolder wanted to marry Leia, and it turned out that Leia's son killed Isolder, who was his daughter's grandfather.

I enjoyed Luke's story. He was impressive as he floated to Dathomir's surface sitting cross-legged in the air, bringing Isolder and his ship down safely too. Luke found the Chu'unthor with all of those valuable information disks. He was useful in getting into and out of the prison. I especially liked his role at the end where he saved Han at the last moment, flying the Falcon himself and shooting both quad guns at the same time. Then he managed to take out that nightcloak that would have destroyed Dathomir.

It was fun meeting Tenneniel all over again and seeing her "capture" Luke, the "male witch". I had forgotten that he sort of helped her understand about the dark side and the light side and choosing the light.

I had always thought of the Hapans as somewhat brutal and back-stabbing, so I was kind of surprised to read Leia's comments: "You should see what the queen mothers have built over the centuries. Their cities are beautiful, stately, serene.But it's not just the homes or factories, it's their people, their ideals. It feels like...peace."

I guess I've never really thought of the Hapans as all that "peaceful".

Certainly Isolder's mother was a piece of work. She actually had her older son killed; she tried to have Leia and Luke killed; she lied to Luke about a Jedi Academy on a Hapan world; and though she had sent her men to interrogate Omogg. (and remove her mask ), she agreed to have them breathe methane when that was Omogg's request.

I have always been disappointed that Mother' Rell's prediction of "children" for Luke, never came true.

It was also disappointing that Luke was late for Leia's wedding

 

Some thoughts:

Leia has completely forgotten Han for some reason. I understand it's because she's a princess or something, but still?Though I can see her doing so. Leia has sacrificed everything else for others.

King Han Solo? That was weird, as much as I loved Spaceballs.

King Han showed his love for Leia throughout the book, which was cute if nothing else. He'd gotten a planet for her! Then he risked his freedom to just have a chance to talk to her.

Isolder imagining his mom with Luke? DO NOT WANT! Still, the whole thing was funny; 'tis pity she's a murderer.

Ta'a Chume's a piece of work. Killing all her sons except one. Between this, Isolder's Oedipal fantasies, and a planet where men are sex slaves, yeah.

Dathomir is author appeal. (And how! Of the non-sexual variety, a lost tribe of Jedi, written by someone who has some, ah, interesting ideas about my ancestry. Also, Mother Rell's prophecy. And of course in the more traditional sense, Teneniel straddling Luke's torso and declaring him her slave.) Mind, I like Dathomir, but the author appeal's palpable.

Luke floating down and psychokinetically bringing the ship down = awesome.

Luke being Teneniel's slave makes for some interesting Jacen-snark later. Still, it was interesting to see how she saw him as a "male witch". Something tells me he got the Dathomiri equivalent of ess added to everything they called him.

Yoda as a flirt? WANT DO NOT!

Warlord Zsinj is incompetent.

Han's crowning moment of awesome = willing to turn himself over to Zsinj to save Dathomir.

Mother Rell's prophecy. Disappointing that it never came true, but that's what crack!theories and Jedi Truth? are for. (Jedi Truth? version: She was referring to her students. Crack!theory version: As Akanah said, if a Jedi sleeps alone, it surely must be by choice.)

 

To answer the questions yes I do think that Leia would consider a political marriage, but she would have to be pressured into it and it would've had to happen earlier in the time line. Say sometime around Shadows of Mindor time, when she hasn't had 5+ years of being with Han and even though they had been together for a while they were still too busy to really think about settling down enough to get married. But at this time you'd expect both of them to be positive in their affections to each other and would be planning to spend the rest of their lives together. Again it's just that they have been too busy to talk about when a wedding should be seeing as how the marrying of the last princess of Alderaan would be a big spectacle.

It's just like Childofwinds stated she was too wishywashy. You'd expect her to look at everything and analyze it for a hidden deeper meaning. She goes to Hapes and falls in love with it, then she sees Isolder and is smitten with him after only one date (Han took 3 years) and has made her decision on to marrying him only a week after she meets him (at least I think, I read the book recently enough but I don't know the time line of the beginning) on the basis that she likes Hapes and likes the person she's being wed too. Again she decides to marry Isolder after only a WEEK of knowing the guy and possibly only 2 weeks of being on Hapes when she should know that the citizens are putting their best face forward because of who she is. She just got too caught up in Hapes when she wasn't even going thru anything difficult enough in her life for her to make a decision like she did.

Han would definitely kidnap her if he though she was making a bad decision. He was probably the best written character in the book. Putting everything on the line for him to not loose Leia, and if she said that she wouldn't go back to him he would've let her go (harken back to Luke in ROTJ). He is the most admirable of the characters in the book, even though he does go a bit overboard.

Back to the first question it seems that this story was a way to inexplicably put Han and Leia together thru a crisis and get them married. Having the whole Hapan plotline with Leia potentially leaving Han was a bad idea imo. And the fact that Han kidnaps her only to inexplicably go to the exact same place as Luke's next destination was just a way to get the three of them together after having Luke off to the ends of the Galaxy looking for Jedi artifacts. And as much as I liked it, it just seems kind of like a money grabber. Here's an adventure with Han and Leia and there turmoil with trying to get married and then all of a sudden Luke's next destination ends up being the same planet, a way to get the trio together. planet.

Half the time he seemed like he was added onto the story just to say that the big three have an adventure. The other half he has a great epiphany about the force and becomes important. It seemed like he went to this deserted planet and finds something that moves him into plot importance. You know outside of the fact that he's the sister to the person they want to marry off.

 

My tomes on the book in question can be found in the archives of time...

Just to state the case in the simplest of statements:

The best Star Wars book ever written.

 

it was a good book, especially the luke parts, and i will always love the part where the force heals luke, and Luke sees with new lenses

 

Hello! I have never participated in the 181st discussion group before, and I can not for the life of me figure out why. I think I might actually dig up the old threads and post my two cents on last summer's Black Fleet Crisis threads, as well as Cloak of Deception. And since I pushed so hard for Agents of Chaos, it would be kind of jerkish for me to not chime in until then.

Wow... I read Courtship nearly six years ago. Let's see what I remember.

I see the basic plotline of this book as a good idea with poor execution. When Heir to the Empire was released in 1991, Han & Leia were married, and it seemed like they had been solidly together since she had rescued him from Jabba. Three years (our time) later, and more of what's been going on in those five years is slowly being brought to light --- Imperial warlords, political instability, and the good guys fighting continuously to not lose the momentum they gained in the films. The idea of Han being constantly called off to pursue warlords and fight in battles, while Leia has been working non-stop on the political side of things --- that's actually a pretty admirable move on Wolverton's part. Something that small reveals a lot about the much grander scope of things --- if Han & Leia have actually been drifting apart, then you know how hard the good guys have kept fighting for the past four years.

But then Han kidnaps her with the Gun of Command, and the "poor execution" is revealed.

Yeah, I thought it was overly convenient. I feel like there are a ton of things that Wolverton could have done to make it less so, too. Han won Dathomir in a game of Sabacc, and then it turned out that Luke was scheduled to go there too. Hm. Why couldn't Han have talked to Luke beforehand, found out about the witches, and then while playing Sabacc --- seen Dathomir as one of many planets that he could have won --- and then we, the reader, could have really seen Han at the lowest of his lows, desperate to do anything to win Leia, and choosing Dathomir as his prize because maybe, just maybe, having Luke there too would somehow increase his chances of winning her heart... yeah, it could easily have been done differently and been far less convenient of a plotline.

I really enjoyed the interaction between Luke and Isolder while they were traveling to, and after they arrived on, Dathomir. I don't remember anything about it specifically, but I do remember it being good. Characterization of Luke was very good throughout, and from what I've been reading in this thread, some great characterization of selfless Han is brought to mind --- but I still can't really get past Han being like, "Do you love me?" ... "How about now?"

I don't think it undercut the Empire's authority. I don't see it as being a

 

Luke wasn't "scheduled" to go there. He only learned of Dathomir days or a few weeks before Han abducted Leia, and only learned how to find it when he saved Warlord Omogg from the Hapans. And I believe Han and Luke were out of contact during the early events of the book.

Han had no idea the witches were there, and didn't know anything about the planet until after he won it (and it was the only planet he had a chance to win, as that was the only one on the table).

The in-book explanation was that Gethzerion was powerful enough for Palpatine to fear her. Possibly he planned to Death Star the planet, or wait for her to die before taking a few Nightsisters as Hands.

 

This plot was just... stupid. Yes, I could see Leia go for a political marriage to help the Republic. I CAN'T see her fall in love with another guy at the drop of a hat, just because she and Han were seperated for a couple of months. This was utterly bad characterization. Same with Han. Han isn't that insecure - and his activism was just way overdone. What he did didn't prove his love, it was shallow and bad. Pretty much the equivalent of all those romance novels where the male lead wins the female over by raping her. No, just no.

On the other hand, Luke's story was nice. Especially since so many of those discoveries and infos about the Jedi Order still hold up in light of the prequels. I really liked LUke here.

The Hapans skirt a fine line here - between an interesting new galactic player and full on Sues. The idea of essentially breeding a race for beauty made me also shudder - how sexist can Star Wars get? I like the Hapes Consortium by now, but this endless parade of gimmicks they and nobody else have and that never appear again because they'd break pretty much every plot, was WAY overdone. No problem with them being independent of the Empire though - by galactic standards, 60+ planets is tiny.

Dathomir was interesting. After suffering through SO MANY occasions of trophy women, it was really nice to once have trophy men. The witches got on my nerves a bit, when they got too powerful... But all in all it was an interesting force tradition that for once felt utterly different - same Force, same powers, completely different interpretation, and yet the same cosmic constants about the dark side. What annoyed me, though was the implication of PALPATINE being afraid of them. If they really got on his nerves, he'd jsut have glassed the planet and no more nightsisters. ^^ Palpatine certainly would not fear them.

And to add some of my own comments:

I liked Dave Wolverton's work from the first Jedi Apprentice book, and as far as Jedi and the Force are concerned, I was not disappointed. I was also ve

 

First, I'll give my impression in general terms.

I think there was a lot of promise in this novel that was...kind of dashed by execution. I wholeheartedly agree with those saying Leia was far too wishy-washy and her characterisation made little sense.

I absolutely agree that she would consider a political marriage for the good of the Republic, but it would be a difficult decision to put the good of the Republic ahead of her own desires, not some week-long jaunt where she actually falls for the guy despite being in a committed relationship with someone else. And frankly, I would have really liked to see a plot where Leia had to make a tough decision like that and Han was angry at her for putting the Republic first.

Similarly, I agree with Jeff (and yay, welcome, but certainly don't feel bad about not having shown up before! ). I think that there were many, many ways they could have made Han and Luke choosing the same planet less contrived but instead the author opted for simple coincidence.

Likewise, I agree with Liliedhe that the Hapans - by now - are one of my favourite factions of the EU, but looking at them in this novel, I do feel that they are two-dimensional and a little too perfect. Ta'a Chume is well-realised (and a good part of what made the Hapan involvement in the rest of the EU so compelling, I think, taking her as the archetype for Hapan politics rather than an anomaly as Leia's musings on previous Queen Mothers as architects of peace might imply), but aside from her it does feel a little...squicky with the Entire Race of Beautiful Women?

And even the first time I read the novel, when the EU was nowhere near as expansive and therefore Gethzerion didn't necessarily seem so minor a character, I had trouble believing she was anything like an threat to the Emperor.

So, in sum, a novel with some nice elements (Han's characterisation, Luke's characterisation was likewise pretty nifty even if I found myself not quite as engaged by his plot as I'd like, which I suspect is purely down to personal investment) and some fun ideas (Leia having to consider a political marriage, the Hapans, Luke exploring different traditions of Force-users and using that to further his own understanding of the Force), but suffered from an inability to convey those ideas without resorting to short-cuts or cliches.

Indeed! I did love that moment. I do love it when Han gets a chance ot show how much of a hero he is. To be honest with you, had it been any other character I would have found that kind of kidnap pretty unbelievable but with Han? I can totally see him just doing it without really thinking through the implications. Also, in nearly all other circumstances, I think that "I kidnapped you because I LOVE you!" would come across as totally creepy. But for some reason I forgive Han. Go figure...

While I also would have liked to see him have more than one child (though at this point, I do not want him to remarry or have more biological children, though I would not mind if he adopted one or something), I do quite like DarthIktomi's idea that it can, metaphorically, refer to all his students.

YES! Such a great way to describe it.

Absolutely. The guy has basically become a kids' Saturday morning cartoon villain in my mind at this point. Then again, with the new CW cartoon, Grievous

 

beccatoria : But still, after having suffered unimaginable losses, she's basically the only Skywalker to reach adulthood WITHOUT having had a brush with the dark side, which says something in itself.

Well, I think that's really because the authors have given Leia a "free pass" over the years. She has done some things that Luke would have been condemned for, but that don't seem to bother anyone where Leia is concerned. For example, she killed Kuellor in hatred and anger; she went after Viqi Shesh to get revenge; she was pretty brutal and nasty with Alema Rarr; etc. Leia has a fiery personality and a temper not unlike Anakin Skywalker's sometimes, but the authors have not capitalized on it for whatever reason.

As you probably know, I also don't feel that Luke ever completely fell to the darkside either, though he nearly gave in to despair in DE. Fortunately, Leia renewed his hope which probably did save him from falling to the dark.

 

This plot was just... stupid. Yes, I could see Leia go for a political marriage to help the Republic. I CAN'T see her fall in love with another guy at the drop of a hat, just because she and Han were seperated for a couple of months. This was utterly bad characterization. Same with Han. Han isn't that insecure - and his activism was just way overdone. What he did didn't prove his love, it was shallow and bad. Pretty much the equivalent of all those romance novels where the male lead wins the female over by raping her. No, just no.

Sadly, that's what most women find romantic. Look at Twilight. Which is funny, because none of the guys I know find rape erotic in any way shape or form. And we're the gender that is supposedly sexist. LOL

And then there are the ones starring Indians. And by "Indians" I mean a bizarre mixture of ndn, Asian, and white facial features to give the guy on the cover that "exotic but not too exotic" cast.

On the other hand, Luke's story was nice. Especially since so many of those discoveries and infos about the Jedi Order still hold up in light of the prequels. I really liked LUke here.

Well, Yoda being a flirt is a bit odd. But yeah, though I got too much squick out of it. I can just imagine now:

Dear Naboobies:

This has never happened to me before. I was looking for a Jedi ship called the Chu'unthor and went to Hapes. Beautiful sector of space, with beautiful women. The queen tried to seduce me, and is it just me or was her son getting off on the idea? (Sexually explicit content removed.)

And then we got to Dathomir, and I guided us down, only to be find a girl straddling my torso and declaring me her slave. And then she (Sexually explicit content removed.)

So the tribal elder told me I'll have a lot of kids. I'll send you my future exploits fulfilling that prophecy in future issues.

Your faithful reader,
L.S.

Join us next month for some Dathomiri marital enhancement techniques.

The Hapans skirt a fine line here - between an interesting new galactic player and full on Sues. The idea of essentially breeding a race for beauty made me also shudder - how sexist can Star Wars get?

Actually, that's what we do all the time. We don't think about it per se, but you can't tell me you have ever passed up that slim cute guy for the fat hairy balding one.

Dathomir was interesting. After suffering through SO MANY occasions of trophy women, it was really nice to once have trophy men.

To be fair, this is what happens to guys(?) who take trophy women:

[image=http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/b/b1/Jabbachoke.jpg]

I couldn't separate Dathomir from Dave's Mormonism myself. Lost tribe of Jedi? Now, being of American Indian descent, and therefore?something in his religion, pretty much anything about Dathomir had unfortunate implications written all over it. Men as sex slaves? Unfortunate implications, though an interesting point about plains polygamy (and especially some forms of polyandry, such as where refusing sex with a man's wife is an insult) might be made. One with nature? Unfortunate implications. "Good" and "evil" tribes? Unfortunate implications.

(Hey, if you can start talking about media analysis, I can too.)

That said, it is nice to see women pursuing.

What annoyed me, though was the implication of PALPATINE being afraid of them. If they really got on his nerves, he'd jsut have glassed the planet and no more nightsisters. ^^ Palpatine certainly would not fear them.

Not to mention that, of course, the only thing that could kill Palpatine was Vader.

I liked Dave Wolverton's work from the first Jedi Apprentice book, and as far as Jedi and the Force are concerned, I was not disappointed. I was also very impressed by Ta'a chume. What a b****. Her going after Luke just because she could and normally nobody dared to deny her amused me. A lot. She gives Messalina a run for her money...

Not really. Messalina was married, and Ta'a Chume is

 

Well, I can find several reasons for Leia never falling... First of all there's the point that she is the character who lost most - her entire world. If she can see Alderaan being blown up without breaking, with all her family on it, her friends, her pets, EVERYTHING that ever mattered to her, and keeps her head, then it would be mildly unconvincing to have her brush the dark side about anything else, even the death of her children.

Second, there is the fact that she - at least in the early books that I would credit with making an effort about her characterization - is always watching herself about everything, for fear of becoming Vader. This is almost pathological, and limits her alot, but it also should account of her being very aware of where she would step in the wrong direction, so she doesn't.

And third, she isn't cool enough. That's me being cynical now, but since Evil is Cool (see TVTropes), a character who should brush the dark side requires a certain amount of badass potential - which Leia was never given in the Eu.

Well, I would heartily doubt that only men can be sexist - a lot of stuff that made me cringe about the sexism was written by women. In the interest of avoiding flame wars I'll not name names^^.

That's not the point. This isn't about the human instincts that control mating rituals, but about the idea that abducting pretty women for centuries will lead to a beautiful race. First of all there are still fathers, who probably AREN'T that pretty and second, "beauty" is far too subjective a characteristic to get it down to genetics. This is more like Author Appeal than anything else.

 

Well, frankly I agree with you. Firstly that Luke didn't quite fall in DE and secondly that Leia is far more like Anakin (with Luke more like Padme) but very few writers seem to realise it.

But that's kind of what I was trying to get at; because no one really pays her as much attention, the end result is that she's simultaneously never really allowed to do much at the same time as coming across as remarkably uncorruptable.

No, it isn't what most women find romantic.

Firstly I find Twilight to be disturbing in the norms of romance it presents in terms of the stalkerish aspects, but I would note that

a) gender roles and assumptions of romanticism are impressed on both genders from an early age. Oppression can be internalised; just because she's a woman doesn't mean Stephenie Meyer didn't write a sexist novel nor that the thousands of teenage girls who are reading it aren't consuming yet one more piece if sexist media, as we all do, near-constantly.

b) one of the reasons I think that Twilight is dangerous is that it is such an impossibly idealised and sanitised view of brooding romance. Despite the obsession with one's beloved, you can hardly call it a rape-fantasy when one of the key plot points is the boy's refusal to have sex with the girl. In essence, Twilight attempts to have the obsessive-love element while going to extreme lengths to reassure everyone that there will be no rape. Which, frankly, as I said, it at odds with the real world, but the fact remains, if anything, Twilight demonstrates a female desire to be certain that even in these kinds of obsessive love affairs, sex remains an area where one has a choice.

As to your comments about none of the men you know finding rape erotic, well, none of the men OR women I know find it erotic, but the fact remains it is far, far, far more likely to happen to women than men, and, happens with alarming frequency. I only wish that this fact could be more easily broached without a significant number of men present immediately jumping into the defensive posture of claiming that they and those they know are not like that and really, it's just what women want anyway. It's not a personal attack on you or an assumption about your preferences. It's an unhealthy trope present in too much media, and it's about recognising it and being willing to discuss it when it occurs.

Bluntly, this is not the place to get into a fistfight about sexism, but I certainly don't consider the suggestion that women are the cause of their own oppression and the incredibly high rates of violence against them to be a cause to "LOL".

I do not believe you intended to cause offence, and in fact you go on to call out some things I think deserve consideration and discussion later in your post, but the (perhaps unintentional) implications of your words on this area are offensive.

 

What I loved about this book - "Chick Power"!

 

REALLY?

That's...well, that's awesome. But also, do you have a page reference cus I'm kind of stumped at how I missed that since I just reread it. I do confess I sped-read some of the sections I remembered more clearly where there wasn't a lot of action, but I'm surprised I missed something that big...

 

You know, it's just occurred to me that I'm nearly now twice the age I was when I first read this book! My how time flies. Although my general recollection is it did some things incredibly well and others with mind-numbling awfulness...

I seem to recall this was Zsinj's first appearance in the EU in terms of published work, certainly Allston spent a good amount of time showing Solo and Zsinj's war in the Wraith Squadron books where he was far less of an idiot.

In reverse order: At the same time when this book came out there was both Wheel Of Time and Sword Of Truth series running. It's interesting to note that all 3 tended to have some quite brutal women in them and almost be making a point that women could be like this - it's as if the nursery rhyme of What Are little Boys And Girls Made Of is gospel and must be opposed. (Having said that, some teachers at my secondary school did seem to think this! Not surprising the girls ran rings around them!) It's fair to say some strands of feminism have flirted with essentialism, of which my own view is it's such a damn toxic concept for gender that the only thing to do is to get the hell away as fast as you can!

All I'll say on the very hot issue of rape is that nothing I've read of the crime says any notion of eroticism enters into it, it's an act of power rather than love or sex.

As to Leia, there is that strange lack of attention and examination of her acts isn't there? Then again I wonder if Leia is placed in a sort of parental role in relation to Luke and Han, where she has to be the "grown-up" dealing with them haring off on various "juvenile" adventures. (The brackets are because I'm not convinced of this.) As such it could be used to explain how Leia tends to break what she thinks Luke should do ie. It's OK for me to do that because I know better than you - a very parental line. So Leia may well see Luke's act of being Grand Master as setting up a dictatorship while being fine with it if she was in the post, because she approves of a strong executive position.

As to Hapes, couldn't Palpatine have blown up that planet with the Galaxy Gun and the other 59 planets while he's at it?

 

I'll comment more on thsi book later, but one thing...

Palpatine didn't glass Dathomir because of being afraid of the witches. He didn't glass it because he fell in love with Gethzerion. He was trying to figure out a way to ask her out to the Calamari opera.

Sad part is? I can legit see them together...

 

Ben - I'm not an essentialist my self - like you I think it's too...limiting a view of gender issues to have any truck with. That said I also think it's worth at least mentioning in passing that the type of woman you describe in Wheel of Time etc., isn't necessarily progressive. Sugary sweet isn't the only female stereotype; the evil/brutal/manipulative woman is just as established, though these days we tend to get it in the power-hungry evil female Boss stereotype, for instance. Madonna/Whore, and all that.

I'm not trying to write off Ta'a Chume here, who, honestly, I think is one of the best legacies this book gave us for the EU. But I guess I am saying that Ta'a Chume isn't really any kind of groundbreaker, really, in terms of archetype?

As to Leia...again, I'm torn.

Cus on the one hand, I honestly think the reason we don't get a lot of scrutiny on her actions is because she's just not considered interesting enough. As Liliedhe says - Evil = Cool and maybe Leia was never really cool enough to go evil.

So I don't think her ability to maintain her alignment in spite of all she's seen and done is necessarily a conscious characterisation choice and in one way, you could even argue it's unrealistic/unfair to other characters.

That said, as a Leia fan, I do enjoy it as something of a consolation prize? That, kind of like Mace Windu, she's a little dark, strong as steel, brutal, and not at all evil? Even if everyone always forgets and underestimates her?

...and now I'm imagining Leia as the star of Shatterpoint.

And...there goes the half of my brain that wasn't broken by the idea of Leia in Shatterpoint.

 

You know Leia's sarcastic mouth would shred Kar Vastor's very soul.

 

It does explain why he didn't BDZ the planet! He took one look at that withered old hag and fell... in the closest equivelant Sith have for love. Not sure what it'd be called, though. *Shrug*

Search your feeling, becca. You know it to be true.

 

I've always assumed that the Hapans got the same 'semi-autonomous' deal that the Tion Cluster, Centrality or Corporate Sector got - they got to do what they wanted, in exchange for acknowledging the Empire's control and turning over some sort of annual tribute.

 

Maybe Palpatine fell in love with Ta'a Chume instead of Gethzerion?