Leia Organa as the Gothic Heroine

[tantivewhump]

“Through a dream landscape, … a girl flees in terror and alone amid crumbling castles, antique dungeons, and ghosts who are never really ghosts.

She nearly escapes her terrible persecutors, who seek her out of lust and greed, but is caught; escapes again and is caught; escapes once more and is caught … [and] finally breaks free altogether, and is married to the virtuous lover who has all along worked (and suffered equally with her) to save her.“

-Leslie A. Fledler, Love and Death in the American Novel

The gothic novel is a genre of literature that has grown increasingly compelling to me. Defined by its mixture of romanticism and horror— or “wonder and terror”, with a “loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting”— these stories are known for their forbidden castles, ghostly mysteries, and, most centrally, their heroines, fleeing terrified into the night in a flowing white gown…

Over the years the gothic has become a genre dominated by the feminine and by women writers. And even though the first example of gothic literature, Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, was written by a man, the story is largely focused on its heroines. The central plot thread sees a corrupt tyrant prince pursuing a much younger princess for the sake of marriage and her desperate attempts to escape him, as she flees through his castle, through twisted corridors, trap doors, and all manner of danger.

I began to think of the relation between the archetype of gothic heroine and Star Wars’s female lead, Princess Leia Organa. After all, she is typically clad all in white and on the run from a dastardly Imperial villain of some sort. And it would not be so difficult for the Death Star to serve as an old manor, filled with secrets and danger… trap doors (garbage chutes), gaping chasms, masked phantoms (Sith Lords) and terrible, power-hungry old men.

The gothic heroine is a young woman often characterized by her virtue, innocence and beauty. She may be born into a position of high social status, with a wealthy or aristocratic family, or even be full-fledged royalty. Some time early in the story, however, she loses her privilege and power… orphaned, imprisoned, or otherwise inconvenienced. In Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, for instance, our protagonist Emily St. Aubert lives an idyllic life with her well-to-do parents, only for both to die and her fortune to be lost in the first act, where she is then given into the power of her aunt and eventually her villainous uncle-by-marriage, Montoni. Leia, too, was a happy and beloved child as the Crown Princess of Alderaan, even with the shadow of the Empire looming overhead… but is captured on a fateful mission for the Rebellion and sees her planet destroyed for her troubles.

And while a gothic heroine may be physically frail she has the mental fortitude and agency to be the one who drives the plot forward. Leia, too, subverts being placed the box of “damsel in distress” with her strong will and her active fierce participation in the rebel cause.

The consistent pattern of “escaping and being caught” is another that Leia follows quite clearly throughout the original trilogy… when we first meet her, she is fleeing from her Imperial pursuers, only to be overpowered and captured. She’s taken aboard the Death Star, endures torture, and gets rescued… only for the next movie to involve yet another game of pursuit between her and Vader where she’s eventually caught yet again at Bespin. After another escape, she opens the subsequent film with an attempt to rescue her (not-so) “virtuous lover” from his prison… and she is made a slave. She escapes with her own ingenuity to rejoin the Rebellion, is nearly defeated in the perilous final battle at Endor, but with the help of her allies, wins the day and all is made right. A typical fairy tale ending.

And then there are her villainous persecutors, of which there are primarily three— Vader, Tarkin, and Jabba.

The gothic heroine is often menaced by a powerful man, usually bearing misogynistic or patronizing sentiments. He is dark and threatening, yet can also be alluring… and the heroine strives to escape his oppressive power. So too with Leia, as representative of the Rebellion, seeking to destroy the oppression of the Empire.

In short, Star Wars is a very melodramatic, archetypal tale, and Leia’s journey both illuminates and subverts that.