According to Joseph Campbell, the hero’s journey is not without a road of trials. Among these trials sometimes comes the meeting with the Goddess, who gives a purpose and meaning to the hero. However, the Goddess can sometimes turn into a temptress, a woman who distracts the hero and sets his journey astray. The Empire Strikes Back is the chapter that focuses on Luke’s trials and challenges, his initiation as a hero. In this film, both the Goddess and the temptress is Princess Leia.
In A New Hope, Leia was Luke’s Goddess, but in Empire, she is Han Solo’s Goddess. In the first film, Han Solo was only interested in himself. He even had little interest in the Goddess herself (Leia). At the end of the film, Han Solo comes back to save Luke perhaps out of guilt and because of his sense of obligation, but not because of the Goddess. In The Empire Strikes Back, he finds a new reason and purpose to stay around, to keep Leia safe.
In Hoth, he stays with her until the very end and finally takes her on the Millennium Falcon. At this point, his purpose is to escape and keep her safe from the empire. According to Campbell, the Goddess is what makes the hero whole. It unites his feminine and masculine nature. While there is a lot of tension between them as the run and escape from the empire, Han Solo eventually learns to love and forget about his machismo. He becomes a whole person, one that can love and sacrifice himself for others.
While Leia was Luke’s Goddess in A New Hope, in Empire, she becomes his temptress. It all begins with the kiss, a forbidden pleasure for the hero and a clear distraction. Leia becomes a possible love interest for Luke, a character who doesn’t have the time to focus on love. (Whether they are brother and sister is irrelevant at this point in the story because they are not aware.) Furthermore, Leia becomes a damsel in distress later in the story when she and Han are captured by the empire. While she is not the lustful temptress described by Campbell, she is still a distraction that sets the hero’s journey off course. Instead of focusing on his training, Luke stops his training in order to save his friends.
In A New Hope she is a Goddess, in The Empire Strikes Back, she is both a Goddess and a temptress, and in Return of the Jedi, she also becomes a hero. Because of her multiple roles throughout the series for the two heroes, Princess Leia is one of the most interesting characters in Star Wars.
Very good comment. Your point that, as Luke becomes closer to Leia in Empire, the further he strays from his task. He leaves Dagoba against the advise of Yoda and Obi Wan to save Leia. When he learns she is his sister, the tries to tempt him not to face Darth Vader (in Jedi). Very nice post.
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