1993
capped off Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy
with The Last Command.
Grand Admiral Thrawn has acquired most of the Katana Fleet
Dreadnaughts and thanks to the Imperial storehouse he found in Heir
to the Empire, has an army of
rapidly-grown clone soldiers to bolster his forces. While he prepares
for a grand offensive against the New Republic.
Luke
Skywalker investigates the nature of the clones and encounters the
now-allied Noghri. Leia gives birth to twins: Jaina and Jacen Solo.
Talon Karrde tries to form a Smuggler's Alliance for mutual
protection among freelancers from the Empire. Niles Ferrier bites off
more than he can chew. Joruus C'Baoth finally goes off the deep end.
Disgraced senator Borsk Fey'lya finally does something productive.
Garm Bel Iblis and Mon Mothma put their grudge aside. Leia, her
assistant Winter and Talon Karrde's ace slicer (hacker) Ghent uncover
the information leak on Coruscant. Mara Jade takes several hard looks
at where her life has gone and where she wants it to go.
There's
much that could be said about the book, but that would ruin the
experience of reading it, and read it you should. Thrawn's cleverness
is on display with some of his most creative tricks, and Bel Iblish
shows just how capable he is of keeping up with the Grand Admiral.
Not to
sound like a broken record, but the action, the character
interactions, the traveling, the big crazy ideas that populate the
galaxy, EVERYTHING oozes Star Wars in the best possible ways and the
final showdown with C'Baoth is supremely satisfying in a variety of
ways.
So,
since that was a fairly short review of the book itself (by
necessity, since otherwise it would involve spoilers) let's talk
about strong female characters in the Expanded Universe.
There
were a hell of a lot of them.
Zahn's
trilogy in particular sets a very high bar since essentially every
female he introduces is a supremely competent badass in multiple
ways. Mara Jade is the biggest example: a wanderer coasting along the
fringe after her life as the Emperor's Hand (A spy and assassin
trained in the Force) abruptly ended, she gets drawn back into
conflict and the echoing last command of Emperor Palpatine ordering
her to KILL LUKE SKYWALKER. Through it all she undergoes significant
character development, reconnecting with the Force and rethinking her
hatred of Skywalker. She's her own woman, with her own goals and
motivations, but makes an exceptionally good adventuring partner with
Luke as the more cynical of the two. Mara was so popular among fans that Lucafilm eventually actually went and hired a real model to dress as the character and official art would use her face/appearance as reference material. As far as heroes that the Expanded Universe added to the Star Wars franchise, the woman named Mara Jade sits uncontested at the top.
Leia
Organa Solo's aide, best friend, and long time rebel intelligence
agent Winter is another strong addition. A fellow Alderaanian with
stark white hair and a perfect memory, she appears here as a side
character helping Leia out with intelligence gathering and data
sorting, but the character would end up appearing quite a lot in
other materials and grow into her own (especially in the X-Wing
series).
Even
Garm Bel Iblis' two most trusted subordinates are women: Sena and
Irenez (who feature most prominently in Dark Force Rising).
Then there's Shada D'ukal, a very small role who's introduced as a
space pirate's arm candy, but ends up being a deadly hired bodyguard
in a firefight. Let's not forget Leia herself, negotiating the
defection of a race hell-bent on honoring their debt to the Empire
while she's heavily pregnant with twins.
While
they're all some flavor of “badass warrior lady” each one's
different and has different areas of skill and different flaws. Its
great stuff, and the vast number of clickbait thinkpieces out there
saying that “Star Wars FINALLY has a Strong Female Character in a
lead role!” are, frankly, insulting to anyone who's ever dipped even a toe into Star Wars past the movies. These are good characters. Strong
characters. Strong female characters, and they're being completely
erased by a new continuity and a “Narrative” that can only assert
itself by dumping what came before into the Memory Hole.
But yeah, read the Thrawn Trilogy. Its good Star Wars.
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