Looking for Love in Alderaan Places: Luke/Leia Before and After Return of the Jedi
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| Title: | Looking for Love in Alderaan Places: Luke/Leia Before and After Return of the Jedi |
| Creator: | Claire McBride for SyfyWire |
| Date(s): | September 14, 2017 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | Star Wars |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | Looking for love in Alderaan places: Luke/Leia before and after Return of the Jedi, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Looking for Love in Alderaan Places: Luke/Leia Before and After Return of the Jedi is a 2017 essay by Claire McBride.
Its focus is the Luke/Leia relationship.
Some Topics Discussed
- Luke/Leia
- Game of Thrones
- incest
- The Han and Luke Wars
- Harrison Ford and Star Wars zines
- letterzines
- the Star Wars Open Letter issued by George Lucas banning adult fanworks in the Star Wars fandom
- clever, dubious, and stalwart fans
- how Leia was originally not supposed to be Luke's sister (a character named "Nellith" was) -- "...you have to understand that between the years of 1977 and 1983, nobody had any idea that Luke and Leia were siblings. Especially George Lucas."
- early promos hinted at Luke, Han, and Leia as a possible threesome
- George Lucas "pulling stuff out of his butt"
- some specific fics: Kinmeet, ThousandWorlds, Novitiate
Excerpts
The recent revelation that Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow are, in fact, aunt and nephew has caused some pearl clutching among those horrified to have discovered that they’ve been shipping incest for the past eight years. (Or twenty years, although that contingent seems much less phased.) I personally find that reaction a little odd. This is, after all, a show whose pilot episode features a couple vigorously committing incest and child murder at the same time, although they’re only successful at one of those things.
There seemed to be at least one or two Luke/Leia fics after Return of the Jedi, such the pre-Return of the Jedi-set “Novitiate.” But Tim Blaes presciently pointed out in Southern Enclave #3 that if Lucasfilm hated slash and smut to the point of threatening legal action, then they would definitely hate incest. It’s likely that any such Luke/Leia material if it existed after Return of the Jedi, went underground for fear of legal repercussions. Still, it was present enough that a fan in Southern Enclave #5 exclaimed, “Have you guys read the zine stories yet? You may be talking about Force-bonding; they are talking incest! Isn’t it amazing how, in one swell foop, Lucas has made that a viable alternative for any number of fans."
After Return of the Jedi, Star Wars fandom, like any fandom without an influx of new material, experienced some lean years. (Yes, Virginia, there was a time before Force Friday, when the Star Wars faithful had to warm themselves with repeat viewings of Caravan of Courage. How barbaric.) Luke/Leia, accordingly, fell to the wayside and out of view, if it existed at all. When the next generation of fans, reared on the Special Edition screenings and the prequels, picked up the torch as the fandom moved online, they weren’t really interested in what would now inherently be a dark and taboo ship. To this day, the Archive of Our Own lists only 117 Luke/Leia fics, which is a fraction compared to the 2,311 Han/Leia fics available.
As much as this ship is not my cup of tea, I do find something very heartening about this strange history. Early Luke/Leia shippers, when faced with a reveal they felt came completely out of left field, basically looked George Lucas in the eye and said, “Okay, Georgie, let’s dance.” If Lucas was going to so obviously pull a familial relationship whole cloth out of his butt, then they were going to take him at his word and actually explore the repercussions of how this revelation would affect their favorite characters. Such a defiant stance doesn’t make for a long-lived ship, but you have got to admire that guff.