10 Things You Don't Know About Mara Jade
Apart from Grand Admiral Thrawn, Mara Jade is probably the best known and most popular character from the former Expanded Universe. Both the male Chiss and the female human were created by the same author and first appeared in the same novel: Heir to The Empire, 1991, by Timothy Zahn. During her lifespan of 57 years Mara had an amazing story arc and character transformation, from an Emperor’s Hand, to a smuggler and a Jedi Master, from Luke Skywalker’s sworn enemy to his wife and mother of his son. So there are reasons enough to take a look at 10 things, you (probably) don’t now about Mara Jade (Skywalker):
1. Her Own Flagship
While working for Palpatine, Mara had her own cargo vessel, which served as her mobile home and where she also stored all her belongings and her extensive weapons collection. The ship was big enough to have its own hangar, where she parked her Z95-Headhunter. When she was away on missions, her own personal protocol droid, called K3, served as her major domo.
2. More Hands
There are some similarities between an Emperor’s Hand and an Inquisitor. Both were trained in the dark side of the Force, but both were not Sith per se. Both carried out dirty deeds for Palpatine and Vader, but while the main purpose of the Inquisitors was to hunt down the remaining Jedi after Order 66, the Hands also made short work with traitors within the Empire, but also with gangsters, whom Sidious saw as a potential threat. Although Jade always believed that she was the only Hand, Palpatine had taken around a dozen other Force-sensitive children from their homes and trained them as his personal assassins. It was years after Palpatine’s passing that Mara learned that truth.
3. Force Connection
Mara Jade was able to telepathically communicate with Palpatine over giant distances. She often got her orders this way, and Palpatine also made her see his last moments on the second Death Star, putting in her mind the image of Vader throwing him into the ventilation shaft and giving her one final order: “You will kill Luke Skywalker!” Palpatine’s death left her devastated, and she detached herself from the Force for some time after the battle of Endor.
4. Great Ambitions
After the destruction of the first Death Star, Mara Jade started to spy on Vader, although she still carried out missions for the Dark Lord. Secretly she hoped to convict Vader of treason to the Empire, so that Palpatine would allow her to kill him and make her his new apprentice afterwards.
5. Barely Outside Episode VI
Although she appeared or was at least mentioned in nearly 90 works of the Expanded Universe, she was of course never part of any of the Star Wars movies. Still, she became a dancer girl at Jabba’s palace shortly before Luke arrived there to free Han Solo, and even witnessed him killing the rancor and begged Jabba to let her come with him on his sail-barge to watch the execution of the Jedi. But Jabba, sensing a mind trick, sent her away. Years later, Luke had a Force vision that showed him that his plan would have failed had Mara been there at the Dune Sea on that day.
6. Fulfilling The Last Order
Ultimately, Mara fulfilled Palpatine’s last order, when she killed Luuke Skywalker, a clone who had been created by the insane Dark Jedi Joruus C’baoth from Luke’s cut off hand. Although she and Luke had compulsorily worked together before, this moment marked the beginning of their friendship that would years later turn into love.
7. No Love From The Maker
When George Lucas tossed around early ideas for a possible sequel trilogy at the end of the '80s, he planned to give Luke a female love interest. Sill, Lucas never liked the character of Mara Jade and disregarded her marriage to Luke, as he thought that this would disrespect the Jedi Code from the prequels. Lucas clearly made his point in his (hopefully) exaggerated reaction to the mentioning of Mara Jade, in the famous behind the scenes clip from Robot Chicken: Star Wars, where he actually throws a guy out of the room, who said the Lucas had created Mara.
8. The Color Purple
Mara constructed her first lightsaber around a rare crystal the Palapatine had given her. It emitted a magenta blade. During her Jedi training, she constructed another lightsaber, this time with a purple blade, but she also used a blue lightsaber in her later life. This of course was before the time it was established that a Kyber crystal more or less chooses its owner and that Sith make the crystals “bleed.”
9. A Dramatic Illness And A Strange Cure
At the beginning of the Yuuzhan Vong War, a years-long, galaxy-spanning battle against an alien race from outside the galaxy, Mara got very ill from a disease caused by coomb spores that had been unleashed on the galaxy long before the Yuuzhan Vong began their invasion. Countless beings died from this disease, and Mara could only survive because of her connection to the Force. Although her health situation got steadily worse, she kept on fighting, until she was cured by a vial of tears that she got from a defector of the Yuuzhan Vong.
10. Disappointments About Her Death
The decision to kill off Mara Jade Skywalker was made by Lucasfilm, and Karen Traviss, author of Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice (2007), stated that she had great respect for the character and wanted the murder of the Jedi Master by her own nephew to be something meaningful. Mara’s creator, on the other hand, was not pleased with the decision to kill her, especially since Lucasfilm hadn’t even bothered to inform him beforehand. Shannon McRandle, the model who had portrayed Mara Jade in many publications, was not too happy about that decision.
From time to time, rumors start to spread that Mara Jade will be brought back into official canon, just like Thrawn had been, and although a life like she had in Legends would be impossible due to the sequel trilogy. Still, it’s not unthinkable that one day a red-haired woman with a complicated past could show up in her second career as a smuggler in one of the upcoming TV shows.