ok so Leia was heading to Obi-wan before the Battle of Scarif, and before she ever knew she or anyone would have the plans. It wasn’t just a last resort, “vader’s bout to get us we gotta go somewhere” decision. the fact that she was going to Obi-wan is probably the reason she was with the rebels and not on Alderaan.
so think in the context that a) Bail was knowingly sending his daughter, who has the genes of one of the most powerful force users ever, to go get a Jedi, b) Bail knew that he was sending the biological child of Anakin to Anakin’s former master and friend, c) Obi-wan definitely would knows who Leia is, d) Bail knows that Obi-wan is keeping an eye on Luke.
I’m not saying Bail Organa knowingly sent his force sensitive daughter to the only fully trained Jedi he knew how to get in touch with and also her force sensitive brother, but Bail Organa knowingly sent his force sensitive daughter to the only fully trained Jedi he knew how to get in touch with and also her force sensitive brother. Because he and Mon Mothma decided things had gotten to this point.
Someone in the tags said “Bail didn’t send the plans to Obi-wan. Bail sent Leia.”
YES. The Death Star plans were a last minute bonus. Bail’s actual plans for dealing with the Empire and the Death Star was LEIA
Could you imagine being Bail and making that decision, though?
There he is, sitting on basically the last hope of the galaxy. Or rather, she’s sitting on him, because she’s two-and-a-half years old and her adopted father’s shoulders are the very best place in the world. They’re listening from Alderaan as Palpatine announces that the senate will be stripped of even more power, that the never-ending series of emergencies across the galaxy will continue.
Time feels broken, somehow. The planet rotates, the sun rises and sets, but the galaxy is frozen in a slow slide into oblivion.
Not yet, is all he can think. He’s working with the young Senator from Chandrila, spinning the wheels, trying to buy more time. Years and years more time.
~
There he is, introducing his family to a man with a black uniform and absolute control of the sector. Leia is six, and looks up at him suddenly serious, a far cry from her normal mischievous self.
“And my daughter, Leia,” he says, while his thoughts race between please don’t question her adoption and please get off my planet and the Jedi were insane to start training so young, she isn’t ready.
Bail has trouble sleeping. He’s waiting for a signal from Obi-Wan, that the time has come for him to give up his daughter. It doesn’t appear.
~
There he is, watching as his dark-eyed daughter hurls a datapad across the room in a sudden fit of rage. He’s tried to teach her peace and calm, she’s learned the watchful patience and silent stalk of a hunter.
She’s nine. He hasn’t beaten her at Dejarik in a year.
He takes her for walks, out into the parts of Alderaan where the downtrodden live and the refugees gather. He shows her what suffering is, what the Empire means. He tries to avoid thinking about her father. He tries to give her the education he thinks Jedi needed more of.
~
There he is, lying to Tarkin’s face as they walk through the halls of the palace. Leia, thirteen, is following them. Bail knows it. Tarkin does not.
See who he really is, Bail is wishing, even as he says words that toe the line of compliance with Tarkin’s demands.
The Rebellion is starting to rise. He keeps telling Mon Mothma he needs more time, that they’re moving too fast. He doesn’t tell her why.
~
There he is, welcoming his daughter back from Coruscant. She’s a rising star, already accumulating power as a junior legislator. She’s fifteen – one more year before she can run for Senate, and he knows she’s already planning it.
She has staff now, and her pretty smiles and polite manners almost perfectly hide the casuality with which she issues orders.
He’s not sure if she reminds him more of her mother or father.
Obi-Wan remains silent. Bail’s agents tell him that Tatooine is quiet, a backwater, no Imperial activity. He doesn’t find it reassuring. He waits.
~
There he is, talking to Mon Mothma. She’s laughing, charmed by his daughter, the Senator, the rebel. It’s a rare moment of levity – the Senate’s days are numbered, even as the token body it has become. The Empire’s stranglehold on the galaxy is unquestionable now.
And his daughter is nineteen. Her father had been a Jedi by now, roaming the galaxy and falling, falling towards the darkness.
The galaxy is full of darkness now, and Bail makes up his mind. Maybe it’s too late. Maybe it’s too early. He’s not Jedi, he doesn’t know, but it feels right.
“Go to Tatooine,” he tells his daughter. “Find Obi-Wan Kenobi. He can save us all.”
carrie fisher isn’t just princess leia. carrie fisher isn’t just an actress we all admire from a famous series of movies made a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. carrie fisher isn’t just another name on the list of shitty things 2016 has done to people i admire.
carrie fisher is a woman who struggled with addiction and mental illness and never sugar coated it – she spoke honestly, openly, about every ugly truth, and made me so much less ashamed of the things i struggle with in my daily life.
carrie fisher is a woman who fought back against body shaming and misogyny, against agesim, who looked at critics and said “yes, i am a woman who has aged, and had children, and struggled with depression and addiction and my body has changed, so you can just shut the fuck up and deal with it”, and it was absolutely beautiful.
carrie fisher is a woman who was placed in the role of “princess” but didn’t conform to the typical hollywood idea of what a princess should be. she’s loud, brash, crass, and unapologetic for being so.
she’s an idol and an inspiration and she’s a woman who saved my life many times just by being who she was and never shying away from it or feeling the need to say sorry. carrie fisher is so much and more and i cannot begin to stomach the thought of 2016 taking her away from me, from her family, from the rest of the world and those of us who love her so dearly.
i love you, space momma. we all do. keep fighting the good fight.
so one skywalker twin took magic lessons from a frog, killed his dad, and fucked off to an abandoned island in his bathrobe.
the other skywalker twin gunned down space nazis, hooked up with han solo, and governed the free galaxy with snark and hair like a botticelli painting.
and you’re telling me *luke* is the one i should be inspired by?
i decided my favorite iteration of the ‘rey and finn take poe’s last name’ trope is when there’s an emergency on base and leia’s like get dameron up here and her staff is like …ok. which one? and leia’s like wHICHEVER
did the aliens from star wars just enjoy that band in the cantina playing the exact same fucking song over and over again or was it a situation like that diner with Whats New Pussycat on repeat
considering that han solo was in that cantina, I think we all know the answer
and then when i was about to request the song for the seventh time, my buddy chewbacca, genius that he is, stopped me and said “rrrRrrrghghghhHh”. and that is when the afternoon went from good to great.
crying males: “disney is destroying star wars with female leads”
“rogue one also has a female lead? ugh”
“great another mary sue”
me:
I don’t mind if Star Wars has a female lead, as the Star Wars franchise has always been home to strong female characters, I do care if she is another giant Mary Sue like Rey was. Rey was so Mary Sue that it became distracting to the movie. A character with no force training takes down a trained Sith Knight, she flies a freighter designed for two pilots with no help despite the fact she had never left the planet before, and she can also repair said ship with no problem because she had spent years salvaging parts off of a broken star destroyer? The only thing she didn’t do was have all of the male characters try to romance her at once and I thank the force for that small concession.
The only good new character in episode 7 was Finn. The rest of the characterization fell flat or was just used to make Rey ascend to Mary Suedom.
anakin built the worlds fastest pod racer and c3po when he was nine
the first time luke flew a spaceship he destroyed the fucking death star.
Kylo Ren: Not a Sith. Not fully trained. Also? Injured by a bowcaster that we’d seen could take out several stormtroopers at a time.
Rey: Literally spent all of her downtime flying a flight simulator to the point that it could no longer throw anything at her she couldn’t handle. For all kinds of ships. Nor did she solely scavenge star destroyers. She spent her entire life scavenging every imaginable wreck on Jakku, and her survival depended on her learning what ships had what parts and what was valuable. This, while competing with other scavengers, most of them working in teams.
Which meant she had to learn how to fight, or else she wouldn’t have gotten out of childhood.
Basically, Rey had way more in-canon reasoning to be as good as she was than Luke Skywalker did–who basically went from never flying much out of atmo to piloting an X-wing under combat conditions and rocking it… apparently just because of genetics and the Force. Who then went on, only half-trained, into a fight that even YODA thought he was going to die in, and survived, against a man literally birthed by the Force, trained as both a Jedi AND a Sith, with about 25 years of combat experience under his belt, whereas Luke had had a lightsaber for about 3 years. What a Mary Sue he was, huh?
Rey had more reason to be what she was than Anakin Skywalker, who accidentally wound up in a fighter and accidentally destroyed a droid ship. Anakin who was such a Mary Sue he was LITERALLY A VIRGIN BIRTH. How Mary Sue is THAT?
The creators, in short, HAD TO GIVE REASONS for every single thing Rey knew how to do, because of assholes like this person, who would take any special skill she had as proof that she was a “Mary Sue” just because she was a female character. No one bothered to give those reasons to Luke or Anakin. Because they’re the hero. OF COURSE they can do the impossible. But Rey? Jesus, what a Mary Sue.
Reblogged for excellent commentary.
(I’d thought the Rey-hating twerp up there was like sixteen, in which case I’d cut them some slack, but nope turns out they’re in their 40s.)
On top of all that, with a single exception, all of Rey’s extraordinary feats are stuff we explicitly see folks with no Force training do in the original trilogy.
Pulling a lightsabre to her hand? Luke did it before he ever met Yoda. Granted, Luke had a visibly harder time of it, but as he was concussed and suffering from mild hypothermia at the time, he jolly well should have.
Firing ranged weapons with uncanny accuracy? Luke again, in his famous trench run – and again, he was untrained at the time.
Resisting mental manipulation? Freaking Jabba the Hutt pulled that one off, and not only is he not trained as a Force-user, as far as we know he’s not even Force sensitive.
(Yes, the EU tries to wave that last one away by asserting that all members of Jabba’s species are naturally immune to mind control, but come on – that’s the same EU lore that insists that Rodians are literally a culture of bounty hunters because the single Rodian we see on-screen is a bounty hunter.)
Of course, there is one exception – one feat of Force manipulation that we’ve never seen an untrained wielder pull off before: Jedi mind tricking the First Order storm trooper. You know, a brainwashed child soldier conditioned nearly from birth to display reflexive and unthinking obedience to authority – the writers could scarcely have given her an easier target.
In sum, the stunts Rey pulls off are entirely within the demonstrable capabilities of an untrained Force user. You’d think these jokers had never seen the original films!
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