Your Turn: Leia Organa
From the Star Wars films, created by George Lucas
Nominated by Amy Hale-Janeke
I first encountered Princess Leia Organa when I was five years old and sitting in the front row of a theater watching Star Wars. Leia was everything that I wanted to be when I grew up: a smart (and smart-mouthed) leader who refused to be condescended to even by someone as good-looking as Han Solo. She didn't have kids. Instead, she had a career and a cause.
Leia also gave me the first inkling of the responsibilities that go with being a leader. Leaders get tortured. They get shot at and sometimes, they get dumped into sewers. But Leia demonstrated that it is your response to those situations that defines you as a leader. She also showed me that sometimes you are powerless to stop the suffering of those you love, and sometimes you fall in love when it is inconvenient. She is still my favorite heroine.
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SPOILER! So basically she is the daughter of Jesus, if Jesus were an immaculately-concepted Tatooine slave boy who joins the Jedi Order and then destroys it after becoming a Sith Lord, and who also happens to entertainn incestuous feelings towards her twin brother until it is conveniently forgotten about in the final movie.
Thanks for a great articulation of how I feel about Leia too; I just couldn't put it into words. I just knew she's always been a favorite enduring character of mine, and it sure wasn't for the darn bun hairdo. :-)
Darn! You beat me to it. And did a better job of it, too.
I would add that she was also the first heroine (in my 6 year old memory) who wasn't a blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty. And thus it was the first time I felt ok that I wasn't either.
