#leia meta

[merlyn-bane]

good morning, i am now choosing to believe that while leia got her feral streak and stubbornness from both parents (by which i mean, the fucking organas, if i have to hear padmé and anakin referred to as her 'real' parents one more time im going to lose it), her hater game is all her mother. breha's just had more time to learn how to get away with it.

[getyoursorryasstomine]

What I love about Jeia is that it’s both Jay and Leia's first relationship, but in different ways.

Leia is the first woman Jay ever fell in love with and had a real connection. Before her, he was only ever having casual hookups and would tell girls he loved them to get sex. But with Leia, Jay doesn’t pressure her and asks if she’s sure about it. Because he truly loves and respects her and wants it to happen on her terms.

Jay is the first man Leia ever dated and fell in love with. Before him, Leia had never gone out with anyone or had any relationship experience. The most she ever had was that one kiss, in which Jake didn’t even consent and looked very shocked. Jay understands that and gives her that free space with love with understanding, which in turns makes Leia feel more secure and confident in her relationship.

In conclusion, Jeia is perfect and all arguments against them are invalid lmaooo (jkjk, but still)

[predator-padawan]

yeah GL’s depiction of padme and anakin’s romance was downright scary and uncomfortable as hell to watch but also it does seem like the natural progression for a man who wrote han and leia’s romance too a few decades earlier i just remember as a child when i first saw that scene of han and leia in empire strikes back where he’s cornering her against the equipment and she keeps saying no over and over and he’s just leaning in CHILLS GOOSEBUMPS KLAXONS BLARING we gotta stop as a society congratulating him for that pairing fr

Oh god THANK YOU. I do not like Han and Leia's romance at all and think its so weird when people who are uncomfortable with how Anidala is written don't seem to take issue with Han/Leia. I have a lot of headcanons about Han and write about him in relation to Luke so often the fact hes a womanizer who does not care about consent is very deeply rooted in my understanding of him so its wild when people don't seem to see that in his character?

ANYWAY its very, very clear to me that GL thinks the height of romance is "woman says no ten hundreds times which actually, secretly means yes :)" I hate him. I actually think Han/Leia is a cultural landmark for the "boys who bully and chase you on the playground actually have a crush on you and its harmless and you should humor them" rhetoric pushed on girls. I mean the "I love you" "I know" bit is so important to the cultural lexicon of romance.

I HATE IT!! I HATE GL!! I think I've been using gentler language up until this point because I didn't want to stir shit but no matter what I always end up stirring shit anyway so who even cares anymore. Make no mistake: this is a George Lucas Hate Blog.

[whorevader]

So I’ve been thinking a lot about Obi-Wan thinking Anakin was irredeemable, and it’s significance to both narrative and character. Obviously it’s indicative of his Jedi roots, but there’s more than that. It’s a contrast to Padme and Luke, and aligns him, oddly enough, with Leia. And another thing these two have in common is that they’re military leaders - actual Generals, who fight in actual wars, rather than a Senator and a farm-boy turned rebel pilot, both of whom do have experience with combat zones but unquestionably to a lesser degree. Anyways, it doesn’t seem coincidental.

Obi-Wan and Leia are more often exposed to the cost of warfare, and for prolonged periods of time. (You could say they’re overexposed, that they’re saturated in it.) There’s no question in war that you will see your men fall on the battlefield. (And there’s no question that your loved ones will disappoint you, especially in hard times.) When you get shot in the company of somebody like Leia or Obi-Wan, they’re focused on the fact that the enemy is closing in and the other men will still need a leader tomorrow. Every battle has casualties. Generals can’t afford to go back and take your pulse; there’s no point. 

But when you get shot in the company of somebody like Luke or Padme, they focus on the fact that you’re still breathing. They want to save you. They still think they can.

First instinct might be to look at the way that people like Leia and Obi-Wan think and be unnerved, but this clearly is not the result of some moral failing on their parts. It’s different from the detached, unfeeling calculations of institutional leaders like those in the Senate dealing in hypothetical battles and economic equations, or even those on the Council who never commanded troops. Those leaders get to indulge in a degree of separation between the issuing of orders, untouched from a distance, and the actual execution of them. (Not to mention that many in the Republic treat clones as weapons rather than soldiers.)

No, Leia and Obi-Wan don’t operate the same way. It’s different, because they have to decide how their men will risk their lives. Then, during the battle, if they have to retreat, or push forward, or change course, they have to decide who to leave behind. That isn’t to say they won’t try to save all they can. There will be guilt for those they can’t save (you can see Kenobi’s guilt on Mustafar for his inability to bring Anakin back as well). But commanders understand that the future depends on soldiers that can fight. This is the survival mode that people lapse into after being charged with the responsibility of military leadership. It’s a survival mode which requires one take on the care of a cause, and an army, not just oneself.

Luke and Padme have experience with the military to a certain extent (Padme more so than Luke in this regard) but they aren’t ever responsible for what happens on the battlefield, who dies and who lives. Padme has the small amount of control that being a Senator and a diplomat grants her, but again, this is different from being a military commander. Even Luke’s direct military involvement, throughout the series, is kept to being a pilot, and an independent operative, at least as far as I’m aware, and if we keep to the span of the OT. They had happy enough childhoods, with little to no impact from their respective trilogy’s wars, as Padme was an adult by the time the Clone Wars began, and Luke’s residence on Tatooine in the Outer Rim was the least of the Rebellion’s, and I’m sure, the Empire’s concerns. 

In the face of Luke and Padme, and Leia and Obi-Wan, Anakin is an outlier, which aligns with his role as the one who falls rather than the one who reacts. His situation is much closer to Leia and Obi-Wan’s, but in the face of multiple battles and the exile of Ahsoka, he doesn’t exactly show that same mentality. Sure, he’s an important leader who understood the costs of war and acted rationally (as far as he goes) in handling them. But, despite being a general, he never seemed to truly adopt that military mentality of “you can’t save them all” - he literally falls in his attempt to save his family’s lives. And I’d be willing to argue that this is largely because, unlike Obi-Wan, and unlike Leia, Anakin entered the war with a survival mode already installed - that of a child slave.

Speaking of Anakin’s military history and its affect on his character, it also offers a different lense through which to analyse Obi-Wan’s infamous “certain point of view”. After all, Anakin dying a young, Jedi war hero was, at one point, a real possibility. How does this interact with his real-life fall to the Dark Side? Well, you could claim that in both versions, Anakin was a casualty of war and institutional corruption. After all, it was Palpatine who orchestrated both environments, and in both versions, the Jedi Order failed to save him - does it matter much (outside of the OT) if he fell in combat during the war or to the Dark Side after?

It is interesting also to examine Obi-Wan’s claim that it was Vader who killed Anakin. The meaning in this is obvious - it’s discussed outright in the OT. There’s no need to go over it. However, it does hold implications, upon further inspection, to something crucial in Obi-Wan’s perspective about his former padawan’s fall. Anakin, as Obi-Wan knew and cared for him, was dead, and while Darth Vader may have finished him off, is it so unreasonable to suggest that it was General Skywalker who had chipped away at him for so many years? This is a metaphor that Kenobi could never have used with young Luke, for obvious reasons, but it is, if nothing else, something to contemplate further. Did Obi-Wan consider Anakin’s fall a decline or a sudden drop? Did he consider it inevitable or did he factor in the stresses of the war? Of dealing with Jedi culture? Of being born into slavery?

It’s so easy to forget, in the context of the films, and what we’re shown, that Anakin and Leia were generals before reaching their twenties, that Ahsoka Tano was taken from her home and raised a child soldier, that Obi-Wan was tasked with the responsibility of raising a child that he later had to watch be turned into a weapon for the powerful and unburdened, twice. It’s even easier to miss exactly how much impact their histories have on their characters and relationships. It’s brilliant though, and I suppose the point is that Star Wars, like all important works of media, is chock-full of fascinating characters with histories and behaviors that mirror the real world that we live in, and it’s a shame to see anyone reduce them to anything less.

[politicalpadme]

Somebody has to save our skins. 

I’m celebrating Women’s History Month by posting one historic woman and one Star Wars woman daily. Today, International Women’s Day, I am highlighting the first woman of Star Wars: Leia Organa, and Carrie Fisher.

“George Lucas made Leia awesome by accident,” a friend said on a panel about Star Wars women last May. I can’t speak to George’s intentions and I think everyone agrees Leia is awesome, on screen, on the surface. But the “Skywalker Boys Are Weak” meme throws a spotlight on what she was referring to.

I’ve said, many people have said, that Leia is quite a lot like Anakin. She’s fearless. She’s commanding. She’s angry. But, so the meme goes, she’s never been tempted by the Dark Side despite losing everyone she loves. I have another conclusion.

Leia accepts her anger. She channels it. Leia accepts her fear. She channels it. Leia accepts her love and her hate and her sorrow and her disgust and every other emotion, light or dark, she has and she channels it into her resistance and her persistence. She keeps going and she keeps fighting because of it.

The Jedi would tell her to push down all those dark, scary emotions. The Sith would tell her to let them flow freely. Leia does neither. That’s her secret, that’s her power, that’s her strength. Leia’s not afraid of her dark side.  Leia found the balance that Anakin, Luke, Ben/Kylo, and all the dead Jedi ran away from.

By accident.

Or: by trusting herself, and therefore, because of who she is, trusting the Force. 

[getyoursorryasstomine]

I just love the way this pep talk inspired Leia to put herself out there and make the first move with Jay. And shallow note, but this kiss is so pretty.

insp.

[predator-padawan]

What are your thoughts on the relationship between Luke and Leia? Do you ship them, do you see luke as a better alternative to Han? Do you believe that Luke and Leia only have ever had platonic/familial feelings for one another that got muddled? What are your thoughts on them?

I firmly read Luke as a homosexual and think he was just projecting desire onto the first pretty girl he saw in an attempt to perform heterosexuality, largely to impress Han, perhaps subconsciously, who is his actual love interest.

I think he feels for Leia and can sense a connection with her in the Force immediately, and decides that its romantic/sexual--especially when Han begins to peruse her and he feels jealous. All of my Luke X Leia thoughts and how they play out in the original trilogy is largely through the lens of Hanluke, which is a huge, fundamental part of my reading of Luke as a character (and also my thesis of SW being an unintentional narrative about the Power of Gay Love). But no, I don't think he's a viable alternative for Leia or that their attempt to feel romantic feelings for one another are authentic--I think its all Force messy and gay messy and societal pressure messy. But even despite the messiness, I do see it strictly platonic with a healthy dose of repressed gay farm boy comp het. I also like to think that Leia is bi, or also a repressed lesbian also dealing with comp het, and the only part of the sequels canon I accept is that she divorced Han's ass.

[getyoursorryasstomine]

Thinking of how to write a self-destructive Leia.

I'm planning on writing a dark!Leia fic taking place in between season 1 and 2.

Background:

Leia, at her worst, tends to let other people get into her and question almost everything. And just in general, letting her insecurities get the best of her.

In Summer Storm, Leia is confident in her relationship with Jay and happy about what they have, but it's after a conversation with Nikki that she starts to spiral. She ends up putting her hands back when she kisses Jay.

In Achy Breaky Heart, Leia is happy with Jay at first and just everything, but when she finds out he has a dog, she begins to panic. Right after, she asks Jay about the dogs' names, breeds, personalities. And it only gets worse when she finds out that Jay has a sister, and she starts to wonder what is even means for her relationship.

The way a self destructive!Leia could be written:

Like Donna, Leia dyes her hair, Not blonde, but something more colorful like pink, purple, or blue.

Also like Donna, Leia would start smoking, purposely failing assignments and tests, cutting classes to get her parents' attention (like Donna did when Bob and Midge are fighting)

If she's single, Leia might start hooking up with someone. Not like several people, and she wouldn't go all the way. At best, she'd go third base.

Like Eric, Leia would start drinking more as a way to numb the pain. She might meet a buddy who seems to want to listen, but really just appeals to her vulnerabilities to get what they want.

Also like Eric, Leia would keep her guard up and pretend things are fine. At breakfast or any family gathering, she'd act like she's doing fine and that she has it all together, but soon the truth will slowly unveil.

I used @einsteinsugly's Donna meta & @randomwriter23's Eric meta to help with this!