March is Women's History Month, and it would be quite easy to write love letters to my favorite Star Wars heroes of the female persuasion. Princess Leia, Mon Mothma, Mirax Terrick and Iella Wessiri were my adolescent heroines. It can't be denied that some of the most interesting characters in Star Wars Legends media came from the bad girls, so I'd like to pause and pay homage to those characters.
Here are the top 5 female villains from Star Wars Expanded Universe.
1. Ysanne Isard (X-wing series)
First appearing in Michael Stackpole's X-wing: Rogue Squadron, Ysanne "Iceheart" Isard stood out from your run-of-the-mill Imperials. It wasn't just about her looks, though this was a woman with one molten red eye and one blue and white forelocks. She was calculating and cruel and seemed to be unstoppable.
Having implicated her own father as a Rebel sympathizer in order to take his place as the head of Imperial Intelligence, she held that position for years after the Battle of Endor. She let the New Republic take Coruscant but masterminded the release of an alien-targeting virus to bankrupt the former rebels and destroy the fragile unity that existed between species. She ran the government of Thyferra after a coup and waged a devastating war against the usurpers who had triumphed over the Empire. She was unpredictable, but wonderfully intelligent.
2. Gethzerion (The Courtship of Princess Leia)
One of the significant holdovers from Legends to current canon is that of the Nightsisters from Dathomir. We first saw their leader Gethzerion in the book that codified Han and Leia's near-disastrous love story. When stranded on the Imperial-held world that Han had won in a card game, Han, Leia, Luke, and Isolder were targeted and tracked by a tyrannical Force-wielder in league with a warlord.
Gethzerion was capable of causing mass casualties, such as when she killed one hundred stormtroopers, but she also demonstrated a flair for personalized violence when torturing General Solo. As Princess Leia says, when the Emperor "learned about the Nightsisters, he blew the planet's airfield from orbit and stranded hundreds of his own people here, along with the prisoners, rather than risk letting Gethzerion escape. That's how frightened he was of Gethzeron." She is a power to be contained and a force to be reckoned with.
3. Shira Brie/Lumiya (Marvel comics)
The first time we saw Shira Brie as a hero of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. She was fresh-faced and friendly and a pilot that the great Luke Skywalker had to admire. All went terribly wrong when Luke felt prompted by the Force to destroy a TIE fighter and discovered that his target was fellow Rebel Captain Brie. As it turned out, she was an Imperial agent who had infiltrated the Alliance to kill or discredit Luke Skywalker, sent by Darth Vader himself.
Her end as the master who led Jacen Solo to the dark side is far from her beginnings as a sinister operative, but not out of character. This is the woman who survived nearly-successful attempts on her life and also worked to engineer a second civil war. She was persuasive and often insightful, and that was a dangerous combination.
4. Erisi Dlarit (X-wing series)
Michael Stackpole's series about the Rogue Squadron's next generation of heroes produced many thought-provoking characters. We've already covered the overtly evil woman at work in the X-wing books, but this one is my favorite because of how long it took us to work out Erisi Dlarit's purposes. Selected for Rogue Squadron from one of the wealthiest families on the world that produces bacta, she's sexy and skilled and very interested in the male lead, Corran Horn. She plays a major part in decisive battles a few years after the defeat of the Empire and has a role in liberating Coruscant.
Throughout the series' first three books, we know that there is a mole inside Rogue Squadron, but their identity is a mystery. It isn't until Erisi "gets captured" by the Empire of her own free will that we discover she's been the one working for Isard all along. She was responsible for the attempted murder of fellow pilot Bror Jace and fed information to Imperial Intelligence. She went on to commit more war crimes as a commander in the Thyferran Home Defense Corps, but I remember her for being shameless. She's best explained in her own words from The Bacta War: "I have no obligation to save the stupid from themselves... The fact that they refused to face reality does not make it incumbent upon me to shield them from the disaster they so fervently court."
5. Mara Jade (Heir to the Empire to Legacy of the Force)
I brainstormed ideas for this list with a few fans and it's no surprise that everyone recommended Mara Jade, the ex-Imperial we first met in Heir to the Empire. Trained from a young age to be the Emperor's Hand, she had a compulsion to kill Luke Skywalker when she first met him. Yet when she met her hands in Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice, she was a Jedi Master nearly besting a Sith Lord. It was quite a journey.
Mara is a consummate survivor whose resilience allowed her to overcome professional hurdles as the Emperor's hand and personal hurdles after she lost everything in the war. She is also arguably the most transformed Legends character from start to finish.