the Dalaverse

So I was in the shower, where most of my deepest thoughts come to fruition, musing over "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." I've been working my way through the second season, and I was specifically thinking about a question hannahrorlove asked in a post awhile back about "the assumption many people have that everyone is intimately familiar with Buffy the Vampire Slayer." I didn't answer the question at the time, because it's hard for me to be objective about the show I watched from the beginning of middle school to the end of high school, but I was pondering it today after reading the Wiki entry on BtVS last night. I was thinking about how the BtVS fandom gave rise to the now pan-fandom expression "jossing," and what other terms it may have contributed. This is my thought process:

--Well, and there's the idea of the Expanded Universe, which was in the Wiki article.
--Although my first experience with an EU was Star Wars
--Even though I quit reading years ago when they killed up Chewie but Kyp Durron made it through yet another novel unscathed.
--Fucking Kyp Durron. I hated him.
--I hated Kevin J. Anderson too, and the whole Jedi Academy trilogy.
--Especially the part where Han and Leia sent off their children for the first few years of their lives, to protect them from assassins or whatever.

And then I started to ponder this old issue some more, and I was quickly overtaken by blinding rage.

See, I don't remember the details, but I remember the basic concept, as I described it above: Han and Leia sent off their young children (I can't remember if was the twins and Anakin at the same time; I think they were about two years apart) with a nurse-like figure (and C-3PO? Maybe?), who of course was this childhood best friend of Leia's from Alderaan. I believe her name started with a W, I don't have my SW Encyclopedia on hand -- aha, of course there's an online archive! Yeah, her name was Winter, and she kept the twins first on New Alderaan and then on some planet called Anoth. According to this source, "the location of Anoth was known only to Luke, Winter and Admiral Ackbar."

Like...okay, I get where you're coming from, Kevin J Anderson, you stupid hack (and whatever other writers bear the responsibility for this insipid plot device, which directly contradicts earlier novels like The Crystal Star, which was a piece of shit too and I realize continuity isn't the EU's strong point, but STILL). Leia is a very powerful figure with many enemies, her children are constantly in danger, blahblah fortheirowngoodcakes. When I was actually reading the novels, I thought this was incredibly stupid because Leia IS so powerful and has a great many resources at her hands to protect her children, not least of all her Jedi Master brother (and also that Han's position on this should've been as follows: who better to protect Han Solo's children than Han Solo [and Chewbacca]?)

So I always kind of rolled my eyes and wrote it out of my personal canon (in the SW EU, with its plethora of writers whose characterizations and backstories rarely if even remain consistent, this is an easy thing to do). But thinking about it now, I find it incredibly offensive. No matter what the reasoning, they are essentially saying that Leia cannot be both a mother and a strong political figure (they didn't do much with Han for a long time, so mostly I'm talking about Leia here). Let's look at this. First, it's an alternate science fiction reality that has, in the Original Trilogy alone, placed women in positions of great power (namely Leia and Mon Mothma). From what we can see, society among the Rebels/soon-to-be New Republic appears to be fairly egalitarian, sex-wise. And maybe they would've done the same thing if her character were a man, but the fact is, she's not. And she can't have the babies and the power at the same time.

I don't mean to denigrate women who choose or are forced to give their children up, even temporarily (thinking of how fabu's Triangulation series deals with Elizabeth and Will's child, for example), or to place a false premium on motherhood as the be-all and end-all of womanhood. But in these circumstances, Leia is a wealthy, stable, happily married individual who planned her pregnancies and is perfectly capable of providing for the children she has brought into the world (as opposed to Elizabeth, whose straits are far more dire, resources fewer and in whose world the power balance between men and women is wholly unequal). Even if the canon reason for sending them away is valid, I find the solution unsatisfying and misogynistic. This is Star Wars, for cripe's sake; they could've found another way. I'm amazed that I read these novels at such a young age, an age where I wasn't able to pick up on the offensive subtext, though I responded on the grounds of faulty logic and bad writing at least.

This didn't have a point, really. I just got so worked up about it that I had to let it out. I think it's got to replace the elected fourteen-year-old queen as the stupidest idea Lucasfilm has ever produced, even if Uncle George didn't come up with it himself.

Icon!Leia says: fuck you, Kevin J. Anderson!