this feels like a good time to jot down some notes about my characterization ( some of this is taken from carson’s most wanted / lafferty’s novelization / my... mind ) -- this contains allusions to a lot of triggering topics so it’s going under a cut.
qi’ra’s time in the silo is not something she talks about ever, to anyone, as her one (1) single coping mechanism is to immediately distance herself from the traumas she has faced ( “ it’s over and done with, and no amount of what if and if only will change that. ” ) and that starts where she had her own beginnings - the orphanage / work camp of the silo on corellia. -- what can be gathered is that she found her time with the whiteworms a privelege and a remarkable improvement from how she lived for seven years.
qi’ra was orphaned at the age of six. she did not know her father but her mother worked at the gilded descent casino who died in a swoop gang robbery. -- she does not have many memories of her mother and has never put much stock in the father ( presumably a patron of the casino ), who abandoned her.
the single thing she will state about the silo is that it is worse than hell.
she’s pragmatic, she plans. she outfits herself with essentials ( a compass, a set of lock picks ) and generally bides her time with most situations. she is not someone who stops to help those in duress and operated as such from the moment she was ‘freed’ to proxima from the silo. qi’ra was quick to pick up on the rules and worked diligently to edge out the competition to become head girl as security, she found, is in making herself valuable.
she is not, and she will never be, a person who can genuinely believe something good will come of her risking herself for someone else. what she learns to appreciate is a person’s ability to remain good-hearted and protect such a willingness. -- it not being a possibility for her, however, is a point of contention and deeply seated anger later on in life.
the fact remains that there is one single person qi’ra is willing to risk anything at all for, though it is never with the intention that she will see a return.
she is ambitious, she is a survivor. she does, in fact, enjoy nice things ( though will later come to realize that it is more in the act of owning rather than being owned, something she is fully unfamiliar with even when all dressed up ). there is no real catharsis in vulnerability for her and she finds herself deeply uncomfortable in situations where she is left in the dark.
after being captured through the course of an escape attempt with han, lady proxima’s punishment ends in being sold to the slave dealer sarkin enneb.
though it was suggested she would have her tongue cut out ( in her defense of han ), she has been told he has insisted it be left in tact.
enneb is another area in which qi’ra remains remarkably quiet, refusing to divulge details other than the vague circumstances she came into dryden vos’ possesion - enneb declaring he had been unable to ‘beat the fight out of her’ and not worth the trouble so he cuts his losses with crimson dawn.
she will later refer to her time with sarkin enneb as a ‘bad situation’ : one she credits dryden vos in saving her from ( more on that later ).
she spends a year attempting to escape crimson dawn met with various levels of failure ( and among her first actual kills ). it is in the punishments for her attempts that the conditioning begins : dryden makes it clear that she has never been and will never be free and the only alternative is death. her attempts to fight him are easily combatted, and eventually she resigns herself to this executioner’s agreement.
kept as a pet, she’s trained as an enforcer not in the least in learning the art of teräs käsi ( though she does not become privy to dryden’s reasoning for learning it until much later ). though dryden has a habit of dressing her and there is a system of rewards given it is never with the understanding these things have been earned. she exists solely because he wills it, she is given only what he allows.
during this time dryden ‘allows’ qi’ra to kill sarkin enneb : it is the circumstances, and less of the act itself, that will later fill her with shame. ( and it is the start of a line of transgressions she is party to in the atrocities of crimson dawn ).
main point being : dryden vos does not love her their relationship is not romantic. it is toxic, abusive, and conditions her to believe she is in any way like him. at all times she is kept vulnerable to him phsyically and mentally, any ‘sway’ she has over him is simply another manipulation technique of an abuser.
“ Seems you already know my top lieutenant. “ He smiled at Qi’ra. Han wasn’t sure if it was a look of ownership or romantic love or fatherly affection. It was complex, and all Han knew was that he didn’t like it. ( me too, han )
qi’ra’s attempts to rationalize dryden vos’ behavior as she becomes his most prized possession is, again, a way of her compartmentalizing the constant onslaught of trauma he inflicts on her in real time. ( his ‘temper’ being deemed ‘the passenger’ / the attempts to soothe him through moments of unbridled rage ). all wrapped up in a moment when han broaches the subject of having been hurt by dryden “ of course he hurt me, han. i was – am – a slave… ”
han, to her, has always represented the careless sort of want that has never had room in her life. so while she may wish in her darkest moments to turn back time, to move a bit more quickly at the port, to do anything to save her from the path she’s on there is resignation in the constantly re-victimization she has endured and feels shackled to. s
qi’ra isn’t wholly ignorant to the force ( having been able to piece just enough from dryden vos to understand what it is he is afraid of ) but in reality she only knows there is someone to be fearful of in who dryden vos served and the scope of which of the who behind it is informed by her own fear of him.
she does not know who maul is, she has never seen the force at work ( and frankly, she wasn’t inclined to believe it at all ).
her decision to leave han is a moment of self-sacrifice and resignation to the habitual abuse she has already been conditioned to believe is part of her now.
first positioned as the enforcer / figurehead of the predecessor, qi’ra proves to be a successful crime boss in her own right ( a careerist through and through ). it is from here that she seemingly turns a blind eye to the activity of enfys nest and the cloud riders ( a very carefully calculated oversight, ind you ) and it is here she orchestrates maul’s fall as the leader of crimson dawn -- an act that costs her life. ( more on this later ).
tldr; qi’ra deserves so much better.
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