Can women be friends in space?

by Rachel Cali

Collage from covers of Planet of Twilight and Vision of the Future, cover art by Drew Struzan.

In The Last Command, Timothy Zahn set the stage for a dynamic relationship between Leia and Mara, and gave us some of the first Star Wars scenes ever between two women. But in the following years, the potential in these scenes was ignored. By the time of The New Jedi Order, Leia and Mara have a deep and complex friendship, but one that developed almost entirely off the page. 

It didn’t have to be that way. The Last Command includes two scenes in which Leia and Mara meet in person and speak one-on-one. The first occurs just before Mara rescues the Organa Solo family from Imperial kidnappers. The second takes place a few days later, while Mara is being held by the New Republic on suspicion of facilitating that very raid.

These two exchanges are short but memorable. They set up some powerful parallels between the two women, and throw aspects of their personalities into sharp relief. 

In the first scene, Leia prods for information, offering Mara a chance to acknowledge her background with the Empire without repercussions. When Mara does reveal her past, and her intention to kill Luke, Leia responds, remarkably, with calm compassion. 

Each woman has lost a home and a position of privilege, and on that level, Leia and Mara find they can relate to each other. They have also both felt the residual presence of the Emperor—what Mara calls an “emotional bloodstain” (The Last Command, 124). Because of that experience, Leia is the first to pinpoint that Mara’s drive to kill Luke is essentially an intrusive thought planted by Palpatine in his dying moments.  

These conversations are pivotal in Mara’s emotional journey and decision to reject the Empire. Immediately after her first talk with Leia, Mara begins to question the source of her resolve. In the second conversation, Mara shares critical knowledge about the Empire’s cloning facilities and fully throws her lot in with the New Republic.

Mara speaks to Leia telepathically during the Imperial raid in the comic based on The Last Command, art by Edvin Biukovic, Eric Shanower and Pamela Rambo.

These interactions, and Mara’s rescue of the Solo children, leave a mark on Leia as well. Not long after that second meeting, Leia defies her own government to help break Mara out of detention, convinced that Mara can and must guide Luke, Han, Lando and Chewie to the Imperial cloning center. At this point, both women are willing to trust each other in matters of life and death.

Leia visits Mara in detention in the comic based on The Last Command, art by Edvin Biukovic, Eric Shanower and Pamela Rambo.

In the climactic battle with Joruus C’baoth, the connection that Leia and Mara have built is as vital as the skills Mara has learned from Luke. When Mara must shield her eyes against the debris C’baoth throws at her, Leia telepathically tells her, “Keep your eyes closed, Mara, and listen to my voice. I can see; I’ll guide you” (The Last Command, 459). With that guidance, and assistance from the rest of the team, Mara is able to strike a killing blow against the Dark Jedi. 

So, it’s a disappointment that this is the last time we see Mara and Leia together for years. And Zahn certainly left the door open for their relationship to deepen. In the final scene of The Last Command, Luke invites Mara to become a liaison between Karrde’s Smugglers’ Alliance and the New Republic government. Had this aspect of her work been further developed in subsequent books, it would have offered myriad chances for Leia and Mara to cross paths in professional and personal contexts. With Leia as a high-ranking New Republic official and eventually the Chief of State, their interactions would have had galactic as well as personal ramifications. 

Unfortunately, after the end of the Thrawn Trilogy, Leia and Mara barely interact for the rest of the Bantam era. Del Rey’s New Jedi Order series, which opens with a scene of Leia, Mara and Jaina traveling together, offers a marked change. But what if we hadn’t had to wait for Mara to marry Luke for her to develop a professional relationship, or even a friendship, with Leia? 

We get a glimpse of this dynamic in Barbara Hambly’s Children of the Jedi, when Leia and Han call Mara with some questions about Imperial history, which she thoroughly answers. Later, she calls Leia and Han friends, and aids them in rescuing Luke.  

Mara and Leia’s chief Bantam-era adventure together comes in Roger McBride Allen’s Corellian Trilogy. But in those books, while the two women share some exciting action scenes, the emotional dynamic is off. Why doesn’t Leia trust this woman who has saved the lives of her children, her brother, her husband and herself—perhaps the whole New Republic? Here are Leia’s thoughts when she and Mara meet in the middle of a crisis and need to cooperate: 

“How many attempts had she made on Luke’s life? That was all supposed to be in the past—but suppose it wasn’t? Leia wasn’t sure what to think” (Assault at Selonia, 123). 

Contrast that to Leia’s attitude during The Last Command, which takes place nine years earlier, and before Mara has given up her quest to avenge the Emperor. 

What Could Have Been 

Fans started clamoring for more Mara Jade as soon as Zahn’s trilogy was published. Reader demand for a Mara and Luke relationship started long before the novels picked up that plot line, and it’s easy to see why. Mara and Luke are a study in contrasts and complements. Their differences create dramatic tension from their first meeting as enemies, during their decade as allies, and throughout their marriage. Mara’s character arc in the Thrawn trilogy and Hand of Thrawn duology is among Star Wars’ most compelling. 

I wouldn’t change anything about how Mara’s role in those five books plays out. But I wish we’d gotten to see more of Leia and Mara throughout the ten-year period between them. Where Luke and Mara have prominent differences, Leia and Mara have quite a bit in common. Those similarities go well beyond the shared history of loss that’s touched on in that first scene, and could have been mined for their own interesting dynamics.

These are two Force-sensitive women who both have serious reservations about embracing their powers. Each spent their teens in single-minded devotion to a cause. They’ve both had to shape-shift between official, high-class gatherings and combat roles. I imagine they could trade some tips on blaster concealment in formalwear, and how to send subtle diplomatic signals through the drape of a gown. 

I’m not suggesting that we should have seen Leia and Mara become close friends during this period. Mara’s character arc in Vision of the Future depends on how much she’s resisted being emotionally vulnerable with anyone prior to the events of that book. But there was still plenty of room for them to have more adventures together (or at least be in the same room), and for their respect for each other to grow. 

We could have seen Leia and Mara discussing their reservations about Jedi training, or even debating Luke’s approach to the Jedi Academy. We could have seen conflict between them that didn’t rely on lingering distrust. For example, Mara, taken from her own parents young due to her Force abilities, might have shared some opinions on the Solo children’s early Jedi training. Or Leia, always a strong believer in the New Republic, might have pressed Mara too hard on her choice to remain outside of that government’s sphere. Leia has never been as quick to forgive as Luke is, and we could have seen her internal conflict over how much she was growing to like and respect this woman who used to be the Emperor’s Hand. 

There was that time Mara, Leia, and their friends got together and went wedding dress shopping… but diving into the plot and characterizations of Union would take a whole other post. (Image from Union by Michael A. Stackpole, art by Robert Teranishi and Christopher Chuckry.)

Of course, the Expanded Universe played out as it did in large part because of the quirks of publishing at such a volume, with different authors taking on different stories. Not a single character feels consistent across every book. But I’ve felt for 20 years now that these two scenes in The Last Command are emblematic of the best and most interesting versions of Leia and Mara’s characters, and I want more of it as much now as I did at 13.

AUTHOR
Rachel Cali runs the consulting firm Cali-Xie Marketing Analytics, which she founded after a decade of experience in marketing and communications for nonprofits and businesses. She lives with her husband, daughter, and too many books to read in one lifetime.