General Leia Organa Is The Hero We Need Right Now

By Anne Theriault

Carrie Fisher made Princess Leia into something so much greater.

The first Leia Organa that I knew and loved was a princess, although she wasn’t like any of the other princesses I’d seen in movies. She was smart and funny and loud and strong, and she had a true gift for getting in savage digs against anybody who looked at her crosswise. She didn’t need rescuing, and she had cool hair. For 9-year-old Anne, that Leia was basically perfect.

But in the wake of Carrie Fisher’s death, I’m not thinking about Leia the princess. Right now all of my thoughts are of the woman she became in 2015’s The Force Awakens: the older, wiser, battle-scarred leader of anti-Empire rebels. The Leia I need now is General Leia Organa.

General Organa doesn’t have the same glamor she did when she went by the name Princess Leia. She’s not young anymore, and she’s traded in her snowy white robes for a more serviceable outfit in drab earth tones. She doesn’t wear any insignia or other obvious indication of her rank. She’s given up her fancy updos for a more matronly hairstyle. She could be any other middle-aged woman, except for the way that she carries herself: with the swagger of someone who has grown accustomed to being in command.