So
the second round of review copies are now making their way to a select group of
bloggers, podcasters, and websites. The Star
Wars Heresies has been charmingly referred to as “heretically dazzling” and
“a new beginning for serious Star Wars
scholarship” thus far. People are buying and reading and enjoying and that
means a great deal to me. More will be posted on reviews in the upcoming
months.
For
the time being, my modest little promotional campaign continues. As noted, The
book itself is divided into three parts, with each section dedicated to Episodes I and II and III respectively.
Aside from an overarching theme for each film, chapters are based on a single
character, delving into whatever themes, symbols, and philosophies may best be
dissected using them as a template. This except is coming to you courtesy of
chapter 3, with a singular focus on Queen Amidala in The Phantom Menace -
Long before Princess Leia ever wove her hair
into buns and challenged an Empire, her mother sat on the throne of Naboo. The
galaxy was “a more civilized age” then, not yet ravaged by civil war nor
brutalized by a tyrannical government. Like Amidala herself, the planet she
ruled appeared young and beautiful, as though always fresh with morning dew.
Dressed in elaborate gowns and ornate
headdresses, the geisha-faced queen cut one of the most instantly iconic images
from the prequels. Slipping from one regal outfit to the next, her entire
wardrobe was a celebration of beauty and color. But, as with most things in the
saga, the look also carries with it whispers and echoes of a mythic past only
subconsciously remembered.
When The Phantom Menace begins, Naboo is a world rich and green and bursting with potential, a
dream landscape of sweeping grasslands, bright open fields, and vast blue
lakes. It boasts a wisdom and an aesthetic, one of the few places in the galaxy
where the organic and the mechanical have struck a harmony rather than a
tension. All of this speaks of a people in tune with nature and themselves, not
to mention in touch with the timeless cycles of life and fertility.
Ruled over by a young queen, the Naboo
people reflect back to the matriarchal societies of our own culture, when the
female was the primary image of the divine. In World Mythology, Donna Rosenburg writes of this time in our
prehistory: "The queen personified the Great Goddess, and she wielded
great political, economic, social, and religious power. Other women were
considered daughters of the Great Goddess. Thus, all women in the matriarchal
society were highly valued, and many of them held important positions." As
we shall see by the time of Darth Vader and the patriarchal Empire, the
situation will have completely reversed itself.
But at the start of the saga, Naboo shines
bright, as does her queen. Her planet itself named after Nabu, the Babylonian
god of wisdom, Amidala brings with her shades of the female deities who were
once imagined to rule that part of the world. Inanna, the great goddess of
Sumeria, was sometimes known as "The Green One," a title also fitting
for a ruler of a planet that looks ripe and emerald-green, even from space.
The ornate costumes the shape-shifting
Amidala wears likewise evoke the divine feminine, particularly the headdresses
and hairstyles worn in her palace as well as in the Senate.
"Some figures of Astarte have two
horns emerging from her head," Anne Baring and Jules Cashford wrote,
citing another Babylonian deity in their definitive The Myth of the
Goddess, "Linking her to Ishtar and
to Isis-Hathor in Egypt, for both wore the horned headdress." Indeed,
Queen Amidala's image would have looked in no way out of place had it been
discovered carved on a bronze seal, or chiseled in a burial chamber, or cast as
a marble statue thousands of years ago.
As a fertility goddess incarnate, Amidala
would have close ties not only to the people of the land, but to the land
itself. As Baring and Cashford explained, "The many different kinds of
trees sacred to the goddess ... invoke the courtyards of her temples, where the
tree and pillar belonged to her as long ago as Neolithic times." This
trend continues in the city of Theed, with courtyards and fountains and pillars
and sprawling vines an integral part of Naboo architecture, as well as
inexorably tied to the goddess symbolism of the ancient world.
Outside the steps leading up to the Theed
palace, twin statues of figures from Naboo mythology tellingly stand. Obviously
female, they are sporting long robes as well as spears of some kind. From a
distance, they look startlingly like avatars of Athena, maybe the patron
goddesses of this capital city. Two similar statues of female deities stand
outside the massive hangar complex, perhaps to ensure safe space travel.
While peaceful, Naboo is nonetheless
blockaded by the Trade Federation, cutting it off from the larger life of the
galaxy. This is the first attack on the values of the queen and the Naboo, an
affront to what they truly stand for. In The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, Sue Monk Kidd corroborates this,
explaining "Goddess is that which unites, connects, and affirms the
interrelatedness of all life, all people." As previously noted, the
actions of the hidden Sith and the greedy Neimodians immediately sever this
fundamental unity.
Though poised and strong against the
Federation aggressors, Amidala nonetheless fails to anticipate a full scale
invasion of her planet. The moment the enormous ships land and deploy troop
transports and armored assault tanks, the entire ecosystem is disrupted.
Animals scurry for cover, foliage is bulldozed out of the way, and ancient
trees are felled. The links of connection are broken piece-by-piece until Theed
falls to the invading droid armies, and the queen is usurped from her own
planet, fleeing to Coruscant to plead with the Republic for help.
I
would also like to add that, while it is so cool the quality paperback version
on Amazon seems to be selling reasonably well, a much more affordable version
is now available thanks to the Kindle –
