PRINCESS LEIA HASN’T DATED SINCE THE CLONE WARS…
(That should attract just the kind of Star Wars-motivated traffic I’ve been needing for JDaters Anonymous…and thanks to those people who wrote with suggestions and corrections.)
In yesterday’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd ponders the attraction of powerful men to the women secretaries, assistants, PR consultants, etc who take care of them and determines that they’re all just looking for their mommies.
In the article, she quotes several studies, including the one about intelligence and likelihood to marry. But we’ve covered that here already. More interesting to me was the random celeb she asked for an opinion:
I asked the actress and writer Carrie Fisher, on the East Coast to promote her novel “The Best Awful,” who confirmed that women who challenge men are in trouble.
“I haven’t dated in 12 million years,” [EDK note: this is the approximate era of the Clone Wars, which means she hasn’t dated since before Anakin and Amidala met and mated] she said drily. “I gave up on dating powerful men because they wanted to date women in the service professions. So I decided to date guys in the service professions. But then I found out that kings want to be treated like kings, and consorts want to be treated like kings, too.”
With princesses commenting on the behavior of kings and consorts, no wonder dating’s such a royal pain.
But seriously, taking Star Wars as an analogy for dating, you’ll note that Jedis, the most powerful spiritual forces in the galaxy, tend not to surround themselves with women (I think there were a few women Jedi in Episodes I and II, in what I like to call the Mace Windu Circle of Jedi). But do you remember what they looked like? Not really. Perhaps having many women inside the circle would divert their focus, or perhaps the women are all out chasing the clones, who look all shiny on the outside, but whose innards are robotic and unemotional. (Sarah notes that the clones were actually human on the inside, which shows you that I haven’t fully grasped the lore of the first two movies. Perhaps my understanding was derailed by the shrill presence of the twice-named after a cookie receptacle Mr. Binks. She’ll have to forgive me.)
There’s only two couples in the Star Wars story who get any lovin’ (in chronological order): Amidala and Anakin, and Han and Leia.
In the next (final?) movie in the Star Wars saga, we’ll find out what consequences there are for the sexual union between Natalie–oops, I meant Amidala–and Later Vader, how soon Anakin abandons his beloved when she’s pregnant, forcing her to use Naboo’s food stamps program to pay for food and daycare for her twin tykes until she sends Leia off to Alderaan and Luke off to Tatooine.
Luke has designs on his sister during the so-called “Whiner period,” before he’s aware of the blood tie that makes their love impossible, but gives up romance to focus on a career in the Light Saber Arts. The closest he ever gets to romance is when Han shoves him inside the guts of a Tauntaun on Hoth, and that can’t be very romantic (“…and I thought these things smelled bad on the outside…”).
It is precisely this scoundrel quality that draws Leia to Han: he’s the master of his domain, and by that, I mean he’s manually guiding the rudder of his ship, and by that, I mean the Millennium Falcon. He’s the equivalent of the blue-collar trucker that all princesses want, the man so totally other that it stokes a fire. Worth noting that she herself is an activist princess, with the intelligence and poise to threaten Daddy Vader while she herself is a prisoner, the strength to usurp command of her own rescue mission (“into the garbage chute, flyboy”), and yet lacks the basic smarts to invest in a sensible wardrobe involving basic black activewear.
What’s my point? We don’t know how the Amidalanakin storyline ends up, although given the age difference and the situations that have been established in SW, ESB and RoftheJ, it does not look good. Han and Leia might make it–I guess we’ll have to find George Lucas’s treatment for movies 7, 8, and 9. Maybe Luke finds love. Maybe Mace Windu becomes a Yoda of sorts for a new generation. Maybe the scoundrel/princess union, which has its literary roots in the fire of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler’s Southern romance, is something that burns eternal but is, on a day-to-day level, unlivable.
Whatever the conclusion, it has nothing to do with Maureen Dowd’s article. OK, I’m off to Los Angeles to join the queue for Revenge of the Sith.*
(Hat tip to Steve Silver for linking to the O’Dowd article.)
*No, I’m not. I’m not that insane.
Esther:
Her name is Dowd, not O’Dowd.
In the Star Wars novels, Han and Leia marry and have children (twins Jana and Jacen, then Anakin). Luke eventually marries Mara Jade, a Jedi once assigned to kill Luke.
See, there’s hope for all.
Signed, a jewish nerd.
Wow, Star Wars as a full-blown dating philosophy. I never even thought of that. I am in awe… I will never look at Star Wars the same way again. ‘Course, since I only saw the first three films, and those only once and that only about a kajillion years ago, this isn’t saying much…. But whatever!
Esther, Esther, Esther.
You know I love you, your blog, and Star Wars.
And so, in the interest of accuracy, I must point out that there were plenty of female Jedi knights. At least two are on the Jedi Council in Episode I. It’s just that the Jedi aren’t allowed to date, not each other and not outside the Temple either. They are VERY frum.
Second, the clones, underneath their shiny white armor, are humans. Cloned humans. It’s probably safe to say that they are capable of feeling emotions, but maybe it’s all been suppressed because they were bred to be soldiers. Or because they were bred to be . . . well, I was about to say something snarky about a certain group of men, but will leave it alone. For now.
Lucas has confirmed that he isn’t making the infamous Episodes VII, VII and IX. But there is plenty or EU (Expanded Universe) material that details what happens after RotJ. But Lucas is making two new television due around 2007, one with real actors and the other made with computer animation.
There are plenty of female Jedi as well, as Daphna has already pointed out. For example, in the Old Republic Jedi Order; Tahl (with whom Qui-Gon was romantically involved with before she died), Siri Tachi, Bant etc. And in the New Republic Jedi Order; Jaina Solo, Tenel Ka, Mara Jade Skywalker etc.
The Jedi say it is againist the code the marry etc. But I cannot say anywhere in the code a reason they should not be able to.
There is no emotion; there is peace.
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
There is no passion; there is serenity.
There is no death; there is the Force.
All it says is that they can’t feel emotions, love included, not that they can’t get married, have passionless sex etc.
And indead Han and Leia marry in EU, in a book called The Courtship of Princess Leia.
In later books they have twins, Jaina Solo and Jacen Solo, as well as a single child, Anakin.
Luke and Mara Jade also marry (as has already been mentioned) and have have child whom they called Ben Skywalker.
In the generation after that Jacen (Leia and Han’s son) marries a fellow Jedi, Tenel Ka, and they have a daughter. Their daughter has yet to be named since the EU material dealing with has yet to be released.
In the the New Republic Jedi Order, Luke has aloud Jedi to marry and have child etc. He also allows them to stay in contact with their families, now imagine how Mace Windu would have felt about that…
Oh, and Mara Jade was assigned to kill Luke, but instead kills Luuke Skywalker, Luke’s clone.
May the Force be with you!
Liyina (Bored Star Wars Freak)