Leia vs. Vader

We’ve all learned that Star Wars fandom is a painful minefield of missed opportunities. But one rarely discussed missed opportunity - one that for me seems particularly tragic - is the relationship between Leia and Vader. In A New Hope it’s implied that Leia and Vader CLEARLY have some prior established relationship. She’s not afraid to stand up to him and mocks him to his face. This is when Leia is in pure ANH “sassy Leia mode”. (This quickly disappears though).

Leia’s relationship with Vader develops further. Vader tortures her, and she manages to survive the torture without cracking. Vader may even respect this, it’s unclear, but the radio drama implies he does. But the point is, Vader has a closer relationship with Leia than he does even with LUKE in A New Hope. And moreover, it’s an INTERESTING relationship. Leia is unique in that she’s not afraid to stand up to Vader.

But this changes FAST. Both Leia and Vader in A New Hope are not QUITE the same characters they turn out to be in the next two films. The “real Leia” is more like the Leia we see in Empire Strikes Back, apparently. But a tragic consequence of shifting narrative focus is that the relationship between Leia and Vader is tragically DROPPED. And by the time we get to ROTJ, you barely notice, because the narrative focus has shifted entirely to Luke’s arc.

But as I’ve pointed out before, the Leia/Vader relationship has ONE more tiny bit of acknowledgement. It shows up somewhat vaguely in ESB in the carbonite freezing chamber. Chewie flips out and starts attacking Stormtroopers. Boba Fett nearly blows him away. Then it happens: Leia and Vader briefly lock eyes, staring at each other. They come to a strange non-verbal agreement: Leia deescalates the situation by calming down Chewie. Vader keeps his minions in check. No dialog is even exchanged. It’s like the final acknowledgement that Leia and Vader used to have an interesting relationship, with non-conventional power dynamics.

The whole Vader/Leia dynamic is basically dropped ENTIRELY in ESB, except for the above-mentioned brief “cameo”. And it’s not like there wasn’t opportunity. When Leia and Han walk into the dining room on Cloud City, they come face to face with Vader. If this were A New Hope, Leia would be like “Oh, Lord Vader. I knew it was you. I could smell you from outside.” But this is not that kind of movie, and this is not that kind of Leia anymore. ESB Leia is more reserved, less confrontational, even seemingly a bit more scared, perhaps not so confident without legit diplomatic cover. But it’s still a missed opportunity. I’m not saying I necessarily wanted “sassy Leia” to make a comeback, I’m just disappointed that the Vader/Leia relationship disappeared almost ENTIRELY from these movies.

And the final insult: in ROTJ Leia discovers Vader is her father! The man who tortured her, tortured Han, and blew up Alderaan is her actual father. And she has ZERO onscreen reaction to this information (she cries but that’s emotionally conflated with Luke’s issues). How awesome would it be to see Leia confront her father? But there’s just no room in the movie for this. Leia is needed elsewhere for Ewok-related reasons.

BTW I’m not insinuating some kind of underlying sexism here (although that probably existed in some diffuse form throughout the OT production process), just that the story was always about Luke (as it should be because that was what spoke to George Lucas), so sadly there just wasn’t room to explore this very interesting relationship between Leia/Vader. I feel like this may also be another casualty of the compressed production process (compressing hypothetical future sequels into a single Episode 6). But for me, this feels like the single most painful missed opportunity in the OT.

Yes, another very interesting aspect of the ever-evolving SW narrative back in the day - thanks for a fascinating read.
For me the biggest disappointment was making Leia the ‘sister/other hope’ - apart from making no sense generally, I felt it robbed her of her agency somewhat.
I do recall she got a shot at Vader in Splinter of the Mind’s Eye but I don’t remember if it was handled well.

I don’t really care and I don’t think this is something I would have wanted to see.

Shopping Maul said:

I do recall she got a shot at Vader in Splinter of the Mind’s Eye but I don’t remember if it was handled well.

Splinter is generally a strange artifact of the pre-ESB expanded universe. It’s very entrenched in a ‘70s kind of sci-fi writing and none of the core stuff ESB established is anywhere near Foster’s mind. It also has Vader’s defeat coming from him tripping over his own severed arm, so that’s kind of a weird moment.

BedeHistory731 said:

Shopping Maul said:

I do recall she got a shot at Vader in Splinter of the Mind’s Eye but I don’t remember if it was handled well.

Splinter is generally a strange artifact of the pre-ESB expanded universe. It’s very entrenched in a ‘70s kind of sci-fi writing and none of the core stuff ESB established is anywhere near Foster’s mind. It also has Vader’s defeat coming from him tripping over his own severed arm, so that’s kind of a weird moment.

Yes, that makes sense. That’s why I thought it might be pertinent to the OP’s point in that, in canon terms, it’s a continuation of '77 Leia rather than post-'80 Leia. Like I said I don’t really remember the details (I was kind of ambivalent about the book back in the day) and, if memory serves at all, I feel that Foster pushed Luke’s confidence at the expense of Leia’s prior assertiveness. I certainly don’t remember Vader’s severed arm incident!

Leia Vs Vader in the Third Law in Marvel comics, and Leia getting caught up with Vader in the radio drama. Welcome Princess Leia to Ralltir, once again you show up where Rebel activity is rampant. You should be more prudent. You might come to harm someday. - Darth Vader voiced by Brock Peters.