I actually wasn’t going to make this post because I didn’t want to start any kind of fandom drama. But this is just…absolutely eating at me, and I can’t seem to let it go. So here we go.

I want to take a few minutes to talk about Leia Organa’s story–and those whom it is for.

Every female character in the Star Wars ‘verse is different–a fact which I really appreciate, even if they’re not always (read: rarely) treated well. Padme’s story is of a young woman fighting for what is right, fighting for justice, fighting with and for people in a way that no other character does. Ahsoka’s is about choices, about growing and learning, about facing hard situations and making the best of it. Shmi’s is the story of a mother. Hera’s is a story of a rebel, of making hard choices for the right reason, of the grayness of morality.

And Leia’s? Leia’s is that of a broken woman fighting for justice with nothing but broken bones and burning rage, of learning that she can–and has the right–to heal and be whole.

Hers is the story for the broken.

Hers is the story for those who were abused: those who have been beaten, locked in dark rooms, raped and all-but-raped. Hers is the story for those who have had to climb out of black pits of despair, who have opened their hearts to death but still said No. Hers is the story for those who have been shattered, and who are piecing themselves back together shard by shard, splinter by splinter, stitches made of anger and pain and desperate hope.

Hers is the story for those who need to learn that it’s okay–that they deserve–to heal.

Which is also why, though I loath and despise those who wrote it, who out-of-universe forced Leia Organa into slavery in order to be eye candy, I can never hate the fact that, in-universe, she was enslaved. Because she slew her enslaver, her abuser, and took back her freedom and autonomy, her life, her right to be a person and her right to heal.

It makes me ache, physically ache, when people refuse to see the power and the strength in that, even though it was a really shitty thing to have happened. Even when I see people saying that it shouldn’t have happened–which yes, again, out-of-universe I am angry, so angry at the people who did that to Carrie, because the attitude about it and the reasons for it were wrong, so very, very wrong–that how dare that be a plot point, I hurt. I physically hurt.

Because this is part of Leia’s story. This is part of why hers is the story for the broken. Because here, unlike anywhere else in the story, Leia is allowed to win her own freedom, to reclaim her own autonomy. Vader is redeemed by Luke; Palpatine is killed by Anakin; Tarkin is killed by the Death Star exploding. Only with Jabba is Leia the one to overcome her abuser.

And that, as someone who has been abused, is so incredibly important to me. That, I believe, is part of what makes her story–specifically that part of Leia’s story–so, so important to so many people.

That isn’t to say that those who aren’t “broken” can’t love or even identify with Leia. Because anyone is allowed to love her or identify with her, with any parts of her.

But her story? Her story, I believe, is meant for those who are broken–whether it was “intended” by the writers or not. And I don’t mean to be arrogant, or to act as some sort of gate keeper–but at the same time this is something that I want people to see, to consider, even to realize. I want people to realize the importance and power of her story–all of her story–and what it means to so, so many people.

Wanna know what I noticed this time?

You know how Finn is so heartbroken by the death of the other Stormtrooper, the one who somehow finds bare fingers and blood to smear across his helmet? The one who’s death starts Finn’s break from his programming? The one he CLEARLY cared about?

Yeah, Poe shot that guy.