Princess of an entire planet. Hero of the Rebellion. General in the Resistance. And…academic prodigy? As a tweet that went viral this week revealed, Star Wars‘ Princess/General/Senator Leia Organa Solo is even more amazing than we thought.
According to a Buzzfeed report, the tweet highlighted a key piece of information about Leia that somehow flew under our radar for 13 years. In the commentary for the 2004 DVD release of Star Wars: A New Hope, the tweet said, George Lucas described Leia’s character as “a very sophisticated, urbanized ruler, a Senator, a politician, she’s accomplished, she’s graduated, got her PhD at nineteen…”
That’s right. A doctorate at the age of 19. You know, in case General Senator Princess Leia’s accomplishments–sorry, Doctor General Senator Princess Leia’s accomplishments–didn’t already put everyone else’s in the shade. For the sake of comparison, when I was 19, I had a LiveJournal where I unironically used terms like “yummah” and “T3H SUCK,” and at the same age Luke Skywalker was still playing with model spacecraft in his bedroom.
This trivial tidbit raises several key questions: Did Leia start her higher education ridiculously early, or did she just start a bit younger than everyone else and burn through almost a decade of schooling in a couple of years? Either way, it’s a wonder she didn’t collapse from sleep deprivation at the beginning of A New Hope. Maybe she let herself get captured just so she could finally take a nap.
Also, what field of study did Leia pursue for her PhD? Given her career in politics, it was probably something like Political Science or the Star Wars version of International Relations (Intergalactic Relations?). Can you imagine the conferences? Being condescended to by academics from all those different species, having to deal with crusty researchers from the other side of the galaxy “explaining” Alderaanian customs to her–no wonder she’s hard as nails from the get-go.
And of course, the most burning question: how does one woman get to be so freaking amazing? We may never know. Naturally, something offhandedly said by Lucas on a DVD commentary over 25 years after the fact is not full-on canon, but it is interesting to note that he has this opinion of her, and has conjured up a backstory where she’s got more titles than Danaerys Targaryen.
All we can say for now is that Doctor Organa, PhD continues to be a hero to us all.
Images: Lucasfilm
