Back in July of 2015, the Full of Sith podcast (of which I’m a co-host) did an episode about gender diversity and sexism and a number of other topics in “Star Wars.”
You can listen to that original episode here.
Afterward, a listener named Angie (@Tonks17) tweeted to us, asking if fans ought to start calling “Slave Leia” the “Huttslayer” instead. It was empowering to what Leia did, rather than defining her on Jabba’s terms.
I doubled down on it and the response on twitter and tumblr was huge. To date, close 75,000 people reblogged it there.
It’s inspired fan art in a number of places, and even on T-shirts and unlicensed apparel. (Here, here, here, for example).
When we covered it here at Big Shiny Robot! initially, we wondered if Lucasfilm and its licensees would follow suit at the point where such a large segment of fandom had embraced the idea.
Well, we have an answer now.
In the upcoming novel Star Wars: Bloodline, written by Claudia Gray, Senator Organa has a very sensitive mission and encounters a character who has a great respect for her. He’s heard the story and seen the holos of her Jabba-killing exploits and refers to her as “The Huttslayer.” He claims many around the galaxy call her the same and revere her for it.
There it is. Plain as day, in the first third of the book.
Seeing this brought the biggest smile to my face. It was so great to know that Lucasfilm listens to the fans and are moving in this direction. It’s been in much more common use by the media in reference to the gold bikini costume, but to see it from an official, canon source, is something fans should be terribly excited about.
They should also be excited that Claudia Gray is such a great writer. We’ll have our review of the book on release day next week. But we can say this: if you have any doubts about buying it, forget about them. Pre-order it now.