Once again, the death of a woman of color in Star Wars kept me from feeling valued or seen within the universe. Summary. As an adult, Tahl is not enough: I need to see disabled and/or WOC heroes who take center stage and are considered whole beings, without the aid of the Force. Feeling clumsy and unworthy, not just of him but of the position of … “I am Amidala, Queen of Naboo. Tahl’s confrontation of her blindness, for instance, was frequently a mirror to my own negative emotions and struggles with my hearing loss. Nostalgia is a funny beast—its rose-colored glasses can make you forget the flaws of something you loved, while elevating its strengths to a pedestal that perhaps it doesn’t deserve. And at the library, I discovered that I could. It’s weeks before Breha can get out of bed, stumble to the fresher on her own, or drink a bowl of soup without dribbling half of it down her nightgown. Traditional two-dimensional (2D) cell culture models have had a profound impact on both basic and clinical research in the pulmonary field. Name: Breha Organa Collection: The Legacy Collection (Basic Figures – BD No. More explicitly, Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy features Sinjir Rath Velus as the first openly queer POV character. The original. The sequel trilogy has improved on the original films regarding race and representation: in casting John Boyega as Finn and Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron, the sequel trilogy created a much more diverse core trio than Han, Luke, and Leia. Work Search: Breha and her husband had many difficulties in … Former and possibly final Queen of Alderaan. Queen of Alderaan, wife of Senator Bail Organa, and adoptive mother of Leia Organa. Then, in 2014, Lucasfilm rebranded all expanded universe books as “Legends” and declared them noncanonical. And it was due to the accident that her parents had elected to adopt a child rather than strain Breha’s body further. Growing up, Legends drew me in with its wide array of nuanced, capable female characters. The writers group still has a long way to go in this sense: at the time of this writing, WOC writers make up a tiny minority of those writing Star Wars properties. Queer characters are taking center stage, and perhaps just as important, are showing up as background characters, painting a picture of a more diverse galaxy where queerness is openly accepted as the norm. And the unexpected, positive consequences of her disability are explicitly laid out in the text: “It was after the accident that Breha’s heart and lungs … Unsurprisingly, my favorites were two women of color in Jude Watson’s Jedi Apprentice series: the Jedi Masters Tahl and Adi Gallia. She sadly has to keep to a strict timetable. I did not get to be Queen by being intimidated.”. Ultimately, I felt let down by a Star Wars story that was, at its core, not made for me. I am not sure if it counts as it is not as extensive as a suit but there is Breha Organa's pulmonodes. I am a Multimuse account with characters from the MMO Pirate101 and my interpretation of the Player Wizard from Wizard101. It’s not perfect, and one hopes that someday, the blockbuster films will write these stories too. She has spoken at numerous conventions on a variety of topics ranging from disability representation in sci-fi/fantasy to comics collaboration. Mixed reviews and nostalgia for A.C. Crispin’s old Han Solo novels kept me away, but curiosity finally got the best of me. This time, when he scans the valley, his eyes catch and hold on an orange glow moving at a brisk pace across the land. Character » Breha Organa appears in 1 issues. He waited, making what he needed to hear known in the Force around him. I could write an entire essay about Claudia Gray’s portrayal of Breha Organa, Leia’s adoptive mother, who is never given a single line of dialogue in Legends. When he dies at the end of the show, his sight is somehow restored, thus “curing” him before his death. Breha Organa is a Character in the Star Wars universe. The films had been at the edge of my consciousness for most of my childhood—how could I avoid them? © 2021 Uncanny Magazine. While we've done our best to make the core functionality of this site accessible without javascript, it will work better with it enabled. Apparently those rumors were wrong, as they often are. It threw me off the show and made me reluctant to go on, despite knowing how prominently Ezra, Kanan, and Sabine would feature. Sie war ein Mitglied der einflussreichen und königlichen Familie Antilles. She is killed in the destruction of Alderaan. The lack of characters of color in Legends and the Star Wars films is particularly jarring given their unfortunate habit of using non-human species as stand-ins for real-world racial oppression, while their human casts and crew remain overwhelmingly white. It isn’t until he sees her hair, done up in a braid crown to keep it out of her way, that he realizes who she is. The novels filled in gaps that the films never could, providing an emotional depth that, with a few exceptions, the original trilogy always lacked. Contrary to popular assumption, it’s Breha who first decides to let Leia play a part in the Rebellion. Of course). Jude Watson penned Queen Amidala’s journal, Princess Leia’s journal, and more than two dozen other middle-grade Star Wars novels that I eagerly consumed over the next three years. One Response to ““We Are What They Grow Beyond”. Breha is also featured … I was delighted to discover that Claudia Gray’s Lost Stars, a young adult novel following two childhood friends on opposite sides of the Galactic Civil War, features a black woman, Ciena Ree, as one of the two main characters. Princess Leia's adopted mother Breha Organa has had a popularity explosion on Tumblr with the release of Leia: Princess of Alderaan,with many comparing her cybernetic pulmonodes to superheroes like Iron … Looking back, the complete absence of queerness in Legends is glaring: of the dozens of novels published between 1992 and 2014, I cannot think of a single LGBTQ character. In Leia: Princess of Alderaan, Amilyn Holdo, the Vice Admiral who clashes with Poe in The Last Jedi, implies she’s attracted to both men and women of multiple species. Furthermore, prosthetics are still portrayed poorly; the novel A New Dawn features an Imperial villain whose numerous prosthetics are coded negatively. Breha war die Herrscherin von Alderaan, die Tochter des ehemaligen Senators Bail Antilles und die ältere Schwester von Captain Raymus Antilles. … "Is Breha unwell?" Breha seemed to have pulmonodes of some type, unhidden by flesh for all to see, and Rey wondered why. It reminded me that it was Legends, far more than the original films, that truly cemented my love of Star Wars and made it such an important part of my life. It really is beautiful. Breha Organa is an example of disability I never thought I’d see in Star Wars, and I want to see more characters like her. After the premiere of The Force Awakens in 2015, I finally returned to the expanded universe of Star Wars, hoping to see some improvement in terms of representation. I met Leia and Han’s children and grew up with them at the Jedi Academy, and I saw Leia’s efforts to build a new government then tried (and failed) to copy her diplomatic skills in debate club. We’ll never know, but the compulsory heterosexuality of both the films and the Legends novels is fairly damning in hindsight, with even such minor characters as Wedge Antilles getting paired off in straight relationships prior to 2014. Most people who received pulmonodes kept them visible temporarily, until they went through the bacta sessions necessary to … Her heart and lungs were removed and replaced by pulmonodes, which do the jobs of those organs … Suzanne Walker is a Chicago-based writer and editor. But after three years of finally, fully seeing myself in Star Wars, whether through Rey and Rose in the films or Ciena and Breha in the expanded universe, a return to the old status quo was a huge disappointment. Click EDIT to update a biography. Pulmonodes were mechanized replacements for the heart and lungs. she shut her eyes, drew in a breath, "set Breha and Bail Organa free." Every week, Breha Organa, crown princess of Alderaan, enjoys a solitary jog outside of the palace grounds on Alderaan. Even as I grew up and the expanded universe timeline went increasingly off the rails (let’s not talk about the Yuuzhan Vong), those favorite books stayed on my shelves through college and my early twenties. Hi and welcome to my Pinned post! It gave, I was furious. She survives until the end of the novel, and though her future looks rather grim, Gray makes sure to infuse her storyline with hope and the promise a stark reminder of just how much had been missing from books of the past. It was also the first time I could remember a woman of color as a lead character in a Star Wars novel, rather than filling a supporting role. There's even references in this book to things spoken of in Leia: Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray--Breha's pulmonodes that keep her alive and Appenza peak where Leia must carry out one of her trials before becoming the true heir of the Alderaanian throne. Through their TV series, novels, and comic books, the new expanded universe gives fans a chance to see themselves. Like the Star Wars films themselves, their casts were overwhelmingly white and completely heterosexual. Perhaps it was the magic of the theater, but I fell in love with Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and especially Queen Amidala. Of course I grew to love the films of the original trilogy (Return of the Jedi, ironically, would become my favorite), but the tie-in books—commonly known to fans as the extended universe—became my whole world. In 1880 there was 1 Breha family living in California. Wedge still becomes romantically involved with a woman in the new canon, but thankfully, other minor characters are heavily implied or stated outright to be queer. She understood the unspoken request, letting out a brief … He stares, befuddled, until the glow resolves itself into a woman striding purposefully through the grass. But they are there, in the pages of novels and comics, and they prove to us that we can be heroes in a galaxy far, far away. Despite the inevitable bumps in the road, the expanded universe continues to provide the representation that the films still lack. Breha deliberately chooses to have her prosthetic heart and lungs on display, rather than hidden. Leia: Princess of Alderaan is a true coming-of-age novel about one of the franchise’s most iconic characters, and seeing a sixteen-year-old … Wedge still becomes romantically involved with a woman in the new canon, but thankfully, other minor characters are heavily implied or stated outright to be queer. Breha is Leia Organa’s adoptive Mother and the Wife of our faovrite Senator, Bail Organa. Unsurprisingly, my favorites were two women of color in Jude Watson’s, The lack of characters of color in Legends and the, Ciena is one of several WOC protagonists who appear in the post-2014, Although the new films are improving regarding racial representation, queer representation still lags behind. They cured the Star Wars universe of its Smurfette syndrome and gave me a whole slew of female characters to love and admire, from Jedi to smugglers to ruthless politicians. I am fourteen years old. Dr. Aphra is openly queer and has multiple ex-girlfriends (one of whom, Sana Starros, is also a main character in the flagship Star Wars comics). I was convinced that nothing could match my love for the stories of Legends, that they would ruin everything I’d loved about Star Wars. This was 100% of all the recorded Breha's in the USA. I am so happy that I gave the new expanded universe a chance, because it has gone above and beyond in ways that Legends never did. I was furious. Description. You can register here. However, there are improvements and bright spots that give me hope. It shows them that they matter in a universe far more vast and varied than our own. The pulmonodes throb … Your thoughts are very similar to mine on the Expanded Universe and the Legends. But prior to the release of The Last Jedi in 2018 and Kelly Marie Tran’s debut as Rose Tico, even the new films were sorely lacking in terms of representation of women of color: both main female characters of The Force Awakens and Rogue One are white. The special editions were re-released in theaters the year I turned seven; though I did not see them then, my sister had plenty of action figures and toy lightsabers that I promptly stole for my own purposes. Despite online fandom’s clamoring for Finn and Poe to get together in the new trilogy, it seems unlikely that Lucasfilm is going to center a queer romance in their flagship films. Click EDIT to update a … …. Through them, I learned of Padmé Amidala’s friendships and insecurities; I felt the grief and horror inflicted upon Leia during her captivity on the Death Star and Alderaan’s destruction. She’s a level-headed QUEEN ( Queen in both the Royal sense and the YYAAASSS … Daughter to Bail Antilles. Disability within Star Wars is an example of the importance of pushing for more and better representation, of calling attention to the ways in which the expanded universe still falls short even as we celebrate the great strides it has taken within the past few years. Their portrayals of disability fed into internalized ableism I’m still struggling to overcome. But the slate of authors is already far more diverse than it was twenty years ago, and one hopes that they continue to hire writers who reflect the diversity they’ve committed to within their fictional universe. While a nine-year-old girl watching Solo might be as ambivalent as I was about Star Wars twenty years ago, the new expanded universe opens more doors for her than ever before. The television series Clone Wars and Rebels improved on this somewhat: Clone Wars frequently featured two of my other favorite WOC Jedi from Legends, Barriss Offee and Luminara Unduli, as well as Mace Windu and Bail Organa. Through these characters, readers—especially young readers—can see themselves in a way that the films are only just starting to provide. Rather than add to her stress, I'll be travelling without them, I'm afraid." The special editions were re-released in theaters the year I turned seven; though I did not see them then, my sister had plenty of action figures and toy lightsabers that I promptly stole for my own purposes. As previously stated, I have a complicated relationship with the disabled characters of Legends. ORGANA PROMISE :When you order our products, be assured that you are receiving the purest materials, made to the highest industry standards.We research and procure the purest raw materials available. "Her pulmonodes have been acting up," Bail … Princess Breha Organa didn't need to make an appointment for an audience with her mother, the queen. She was a disabled woman of color, with skin like mine, and she was everything I thought I needed in a hero. The characters who intrigued me the most were either killed off or shunted to the side (all women and/or people of color). It’s equally important in this context to push for representation behind the scenes and for Star Wars to hire marginalized writers to tell the stories of POC, queer, and disabled characters. It’s a disappointment, though sadly not an unexpected one, but unlike twenty years ago, the expanded universe has tasked itself with providing queer representation that, prior to 2014, was unheard of in Star Wars. Although his relationship with another man is not the main focus of the novels, his openness about his sexuality is light-years ahead of the Legends I grew up with (and was enough for a bunch of right-wing trolls to get Chuck Wendig fired from Marvel). Ciena is one of several WOC protagonists who appear in the post-2014 Star Wars books: Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy stars Rae Sloane, an admiral struggling to take control of the Imperial Navy following the events of Return of the Jedi; one of the most popular comic series, Dr. Aphra, follows a scientist recruited by Darth Vader before she strikes out on her own; Leia’s adoptive mother, Breha, features prominently in Leia: Princess of Alderaan; and Justina Ireland’s middle-grade novel Lando’s Luck features a princess named Rinetta who proves to be more than a match for Lando Calrissian. California had the highest population of Breha families in 1880. And the unexpected, positive consequences of her disability are explicitly laid out in the text: “It was after the accident that Breha’s heart and lungs had been replaced by the pulmonodes that still glowed faintly in her chest. She can discover the wonder and possibility that is synonymous with Star Wars, through stories that were written for her. That being said, I was also viscerally turned off by Rebels when one of the first episodes in 2014 featured the death of Luminara Unduli in a very intense, disrespectful sequence zeroing in on her dead body. 27) Status: Breha Organa is an all-new … Daniel José Older’s novel Last Shot features a nonbinary character, Taka Jamoreesa, as a hotshot pilot who lost their family on Alderaan and teams up with Han and Lando while working as an agent for Leia Organa. In this way, the Star Wars expanded universe can deliver on a promise it has implicitly made to new readers: here, you are seen, and you belong. Tahl, especially, meant everything to me. Use census records and voter lists to see where families with the Breha … After having so long been sidelined to barely an appendage to Leia’s history, Breha finally gets to shine as the badass, strong, intelligent queen she is. Breha Organa. I was convinced that nothing could match my love for the stories of Legends, that they would ruin everything I’d loved about, Nostalgia is a funny beast—its rose-colored glasses can make you forget the flaws of something you loved, while elevating its strengths to a pedestal that perhaps it doesn’t deserve. I will always love Legends for what it gave to me as a child and teenager, but there were limits to its forms of representation. I will always love Legends for what it gave to me as a child and teenager, but there were limits to its forms of representation. Organa Labs certified oil is infused into a variety of products & brands that meet an array of consumption method needs. Leia was still not sure if she would be able to talk to the real Breha Organa, the loving kind and funny woman who loved … Bail watches her move, her simple pants and tunic taking nothing away from the dignity of her posture. 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