36. Steela Gerrera
Image Credit: Lucasfilm
Steela Gerrera’s personality is just like her name: hard as steel and no-nonsense. She is at her best when she is behind the scope of a blaster rifle. The politics, she leaves to her brother, Saw Gerrera.
Those who have seen Rogue One may or may not know that Saw Gerrera (Forrest Whitaker) was first introduced in The Clone Wars. Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi met Saw and Steela on Onderon, where the Gerreras led an insurgency against the Separatists. The Star Wars Databank calls Steela “a crack shot” who “racked up an impressive number of droid kills with precise headshots fired from the cover of canopy jungle.”
Steela proved herself an effective leader, which got her elected head of the Onderon resistance. However, she lost the position in a battle in which she fell to her death off a crumbling cliffside.
Steela is awesome because she is a rebel leader on the ground. Unlike Mon Mothma and even Princess Leia to a certain extent, she is not a figurehead. She blows things up and shoots droids with the best of the men. In fact, she is the best which is why she was elected leader of the resistance. For these reasons, she ranks as number 36.