Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Triay - Leia as a Goddess/Temptress


In the original Star Wars trilogy, Princess Leia serves a duel role as both Joseph Campbell's Goddess and Temptress. One could argue that there are two heros in the Trilogy, Luke and Han; however, there is only one heroine, Leia. Leia as a Goddess has unconditional love from the hero. This is demonstrated in A New Hope by Luke's compelling desire to seek out Leia and help her after receiving her distress call. She becomes Luke's initial goal in Episode IV, to save the damsel in distress. This unconditional love for our hero changes over the next two films. It is revealed that Leia is Luke's sister. The Campbell idea of unconditional love shifts to an unconditional sibling love, binding the two together.


Leia is also seen as a temptress, particularly in regards to Han Solo. Leia understands the necessity of having Han Solo on the rebel's side. She engages in a cat and mouse, "playing hard to get" game with Han. As a temptress, she inspires Han to stick around and stay on the Rebel side. However, they begin to truly fall for each other, developing yet another Campbell sort of "unconditional love."

1 comment:

  1. I'll give you partial credit for getting this work in, but this blog needs more development.

    ReplyDelete