It seems to me that there are two ways to do sibcest stories - you either handwave the sib relationship, or highlight it. And I've read and enjoyed both sorts, but when I write I tend to go for the second option - because what really, really turns my crank about sibcest narratives is the doubled intimacy. Sibling relationships are intimate in a way that I don't think exogamous romance can ever be. Your sibs are the beings in all the world most like you, on a genetic level. And instead of backing away from that, I like to stack sibling!intimacy on TOP of romantic intimacy, pushing the intensity of the connection.
I think this is particularly fun to do with Luke and Leia, because - for the Doylist reason that they WEREN"T ALWAYS GOING TO BE TWINS - they're often presented as dissimilar. But I don't think they are, or of they are it's yin and yang, halves of a whole kind of difference. And - I don't think I was necessarily doing this consciously - the idea of the baby is me pushing at the incest taboo, because that's the heart of the attached genetic paranoias, the sibcest baby, and because this is my ot3 happy ending I needed it to go all the way.
It was also a way for me to poke at Leia's Force talent, which I find a very contentious point of paracanon. I'm perfectly willing to believe that she has it, but the idea of her training as a Jedi nerfs me out. Maybe - this is a new thought - because I subconsciously read the Jedi as masculinist? You know I only really do OT Star Wars, and there's no question that in that limited canon being a Jedi is a thing that dudes do. Which doesn't mean that Leia couldn't, but I like her better on her own path - her mother's path, politics and justice and rhetoric. And of course you know she's used force powers throughout her senatorial career, unconsciously. I can see her learning to manipulate them more consciously, but I'm not on board with her sharing Luke's path in that way. Which comes back to the baby again - the twins are the same but not, and in the case of reproduction I'm pretty sure Luke's both more eager and more prepared. But with both of them together she can want it.
We've talked before about Han/Leia as containing some dangerously heteronormative potential - the Gone With the Wind reading, with the seductive scoundrel and the yielding, thawing Ice Princess. Han/Luke/Leia is one of my ways out of that trap, because it almost inevitably destabilizes gender roles between the three of them. Han stays pretty butch, but Luke is imo more femme in many ways than Leia - she's more outwardly performative, but he's got all the softness and relationality and emotional openness that characterize heterosexual femininity. In-story, I suspect that Leia is very aware of this, that she worried in ESB-era about submitting to a man, about losing her edge, about thawing. (my grr about RotJ!Leia, let me reference it.) If it were just her and Han, I can see her being much more trepidatious about reproduction, seeing it as a trap rather than as a possibility of joy continuing.
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Date: 2012-08-13 09:34 pm (UTC)It seems to me that there are two ways to do sibcest stories - you either handwave the sib relationship, or highlight it. And I've read and enjoyed both sorts, but when I write I tend to go for the second option - because what really, really turns my crank about sibcest narratives is the doubled intimacy. Sibling relationships are intimate in a way that I don't think exogamous romance can ever be. Your sibs are the beings in all the world most like you, on a genetic level. And instead of backing away from that, I like to stack sibling!intimacy on TOP of romantic intimacy, pushing the intensity of the connection.
I think this is particularly fun to do with Luke and Leia, because - for the Doylist reason that they WEREN"T ALWAYS GOING TO BE TWINS - they're often presented as dissimilar. But I don't think they are, or of they are it's yin and yang, halves of a whole kind of difference. And - I don't think I was necessarily doing this consciously - the idea of the baby is me pushing at the incest taboo, because that's the heart of the attached genetic paranoias, the sibcest baby, and because this is my ot3 happy ending I needed it to go all the way.
It was also a way for me to poke at Leia's Force talent, which I find a very contentious point of paracanon. I'm perfectly willing to believe that she has it, but the idea of her training as a Jedi nerfs me out. Maybe - this is a new thought - because I subconsciously read the Jedi as masculinist? You know I only really do OT Star Wars, and there's no question that in that limited canon being a Jedi is a thing that dudes do. Which doesn't mean that Leia couldn't, but I like her better on her own path - her mother's path, politics and justice and rhetoric. And of course you know she's used force powers throughout her senatorial career, unconsciously. I can see her learning to manipulate them more consciously, but I'm not on board with her sharing Luke's path in that way. Which comes back to the baby again - the twins are the same but not, and in the case of reproduction I'm pretty sure Luke's both more eager and more prepared. But with both of them together she can want it.
We've talked before about Han/Leia as containing some dangerously heteronormative potential - the Gone With the Wind reading, with the seductive scoundrel and the yielding, thawing Ice Princess. Han/Luke/Leia is one of my ways out of that trap, because it almost inevitably destabilizes gender roles between the three of them. Han stays pretty butch, but Luke is imo more femme in many ways than Leia - she's more outwardly performative, but he's got all the softness and relationality and emotional openness that characterize heterosexual femininity. In-story, I suspect that Leia is very aware of this, that she worried in ESB-era about submitting to a man, about losing her edge, about thawing. (my grr about RotJ!Leia, let me reference it.) If it were just her and Han, I can see her being much more trepidatious about reproduction, seeing it as a trap rather than as a possibility of joy continuing.