I wrote this the night Carrie Fisher died. But my heart hurt too much to
finish it. When her mother, Debbie Reynolds, died the next day, I couldn’t put
my thoughts to words. So I waited until mother and daughter were laid to rest
and put to peace. My heart is broken due to the passing of Carrie Fisher. She
was only sixty years old.
I remember when George Harrison died in 2001. As soon as I heard the news
I called my dad. I knew he would be upset at the passing of one of his heroes.
Of course he was. I grew up knowing how the Beatles impacted his young life and
shaped his musical tastes. They played the soundtrack of his world. I didn’t
feel grief then, but I had sympathy. I knew that someday I would lose a hero.
It’s another type of rite of passage. It’s another moment that changes
us. Maybe people think it’s silly that I should grieve for a celebrity.
Especially one I never knew and, sadly, never got to meet. I know Carrie was
more than a space princess. She was a fierce warrior for mental health
awareness and her openness later in her life about her struggles endeared her
further to me. She was a strong writer with a quick wit and a sharp tongue-
honest to a tooth. She was funny and crass.
My gateway to Carrie Fisher was Star Wars. Princess Leia was my first idol.
She’s been with me my whole life. As a child I often faced difficult dilemmas
with the question, what would Leia do? But that character was just words on
paper until Carrie brought them to life. And she did.
I am an obsessed Star Wars fan who read all of the (now non-canon) books
outside of the movies. And every book I read, when Leia spoke, it was Carrie’s
voice I heard in my head. It was her eye rolls and eyebrow raises I saw in my
visualizations.
Like a lot of fans, I had all the Princess Leia action figures as a kid and
I still have most of them. I played with them liberally, and often all at once.
I gave each version of Leia its own personality. Bespin Leia was the most
refined and princess-like while Hoth Leia was the tomboy. Endor Leia was the
leader/soldier who made all the decisions and Boushh Leia was the
I-don’t-follow-orders badass. The original Leia was always my every person, the
Dorothy/Alice/Wendy character. In my play they were sisters, navigating the
world together.
Early on my favorite was Hoth Leia. I thought her hair was pretty and I
liked her outfit. I liked her so much I took her to school for show and tell.
My mom told me to keep her in my bag but I didn’t. I lost her in the snow by
the mailbox a block away from my house. I was young and foolish enough to wait
until the snow melted, assuming I would find her again. I never did, but a
decade later, my dad surprised me with a loose version of her he found at a toy
show.
I still have her.
My overall favorite by far was Bounty Hunter Leia, dressed as Boushh. I
loved her because she was badass. She snuck into Jabba’s Palace and freed Han
Solo. For the first time in my young life I watched a Princess save the Rogue
Pirate.
It changed my world.
There’s a good book- though no longer canon- called Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry, which takes place immediately
preceding Return of the Jedi,
following the lengths Leia and Chewbacca went to in order to find and save Han.
Tattoine Ghost by Troy Denning
was another good one for me. It follows Leia as she wrestles with the truth of
who her father was as she visits other planets, trying to hold the pieces
together after the fall of the Emperor.
There are dozens of books of the saga of Han and Leia (and everyone else)
including some massive heartache for both of them, and how they struggle
through that… together. When the books were dismissed as non-canon before The Force Awakens was released, it was
hard for me. I lived the literary timeline with and through them and it got
fairly brutal for our heroes. I was in it with them.
But, I am also a Doctor Who fan and I like all things timey-wimey, so a
new storyline where some beloved characters are still alive but other ones
never existed… I came to terms with it. I can love both versions. It’s more
Star Wars world and what can be bad about that?
Last year, along with millions of others, I watched Carrie Fisher breathe
new life into Leia, in a new chapter of Star Wars where we learned what
happened after Return of the Jedi. I
was with her journey, with her heartache. To revisit with my idol in her later
years felt like a homecoming. As someone of middle-age, it felt sadly reassuring
to find that they had destroyed two Death Stars and saved the Republic, but not
even the Princess was assured a happy ending.
After the movie came out I picked up the book Bloodline by Claudia Gray at the local library. It takes place in
the new canon-world, between Return of
the Jedi and The Force Awakens.
It’s Leia-heavy and layered. A lot of the non-canon books brush Leia off as the
Princess, the Senator, the Leader of the Republic… always some kind of
figurehead, stuck in her position (although in the New Jedi Order series, she
trains to earn her own lightsaber). But Bloodline
understands Leia’s place in the Star Wars Universe.
She was the bravery and the heart of the Rebellion.
I know that the death of Carrie Fisher doesn’t mean the end of Princess
Leia. But it’s the death of her face and her voice and that matters. Leia’s
legacy will outlive us all, for a while anyway. I will spend my days grateful
to Carrie for gifting me with Leia. I wish her family space to grieve and peace
when they find it.
Carrie Fisher herself said, “I like Princess Leia. I like how she handles
things. I like how she treats people. She tells the truth. She, you know, gets
what she wants done. I don’t have real problem with Princess Leia. I’ve sort of
melded with her over time.” May the force be with them both.
