One thing about ROTJ that’s often overlooked is how it thematically sets up Luke and Leia’s sibling relationship.
In ESB Luke rushed off hotheadedly on his own to save his friends, and got his right hand cut off by Vader as a result. In ROTJ Leia rushes off hotheadedly on her own to save Han, and is unmasked and implicitly raped by Jabba as a result.
Skywalker hotbloodedness in both cases. But since the Leia bit of that parallel is told mostly through implication, few viewers pick up on it.
Can’t say I ever picked up on any implications that Leia HAD been raped, sure it could be an extrapolated possibility if you took that view that at some stage she would be but by whom I don’t know as looking at Jabba he doesn’t seem compatible with humans and being her captor and master of the palace, it’s not like anyone else has access to her without his permission and there’s no implication in the movie as to any of this.
Basically I am saying - what makes you think (from in movie implications and cues) that she has or would be raped simply because she is sitting there in a bikini? It’s a possibility if your mind really delves down that line of thought but I don’t feel the movie allows for this, ultimately just showing as another part of Jabba’s entertainment in humiliating his captives and displaying his power over them (like carbonite Han hanging as a wall display).
.Val
It’s in Kasdan’s second-draft screenplay, which contains everything in the finished film but also uses the phrase “fate worse than death” to describe what happens to her offscreen.
That isn’t any evidence to say it is rape. Rape alone isn’t worse than death as after rape there is still life no matter what trauma came beforehand. Death is final, there’s no going back or alternative outcomes…though I suppose the topic is somewhat debatable for Jedi Knights that become force ghosts 😉
Be that as it may, the phrase “fate worse than death” is a traditional euphemism for rape/sexual assault/etc. Kasdan using it in dialogue in the script indicates that he, as the film’s writer, understood that to be what happens in that scene.
ATMachine said:
The nuEU also apparently had this in mind, because it specifically invalidated the Legends claim that Hutts were all hermaphrodites.No offense if you do, but I really don’t care what any sort of EU has to say on original OT canon and I never will.
This is an admirable approach. Of course I personally am one who prefers to throw out the idea of a single rigid “canon” altogther.
Maybe if this had been more Kasdan’s movie than George taking back the tiller somewhat after ESB, then that may have come through in the movie and been what people naturally inferred. Such is not the case though with ROTJ being swung back to more kid sensitive themes and what you are referencing with Kasdan is external to the movie experience itself and therefore in my opinion it does not count as I’m basing my take on the scene primarily from simply watching it in the course of a full theatrical viewing.
It’s interesting that Kasan had a much darker intent for that part of the story but it’s not in the movie as far as I can see so it doesn’t change how I see the scene itself.
As for canon, I’ve only ever known that of the OT before the PT times (which Id just as happily discount and forget) and therefore it is self contained, almost frozen in time if you will and I’m not interested in the EU so for me all that matters is what is in the OT and how it is perceived through those movies.
.Val