Carrie Fisher and Princess Leia are not the same person. But they both kick butt.

Image courtesy of The Harvard Gazette. 

So. Carrie Fisher. And, separately, Princess Leia. Let me unpack a little bit.

When the news broke that Carrie Fisher had suffered a massive heart attack, my first thought wasn’t, “Oh no! Not Princess Leia!” Princess Leia is a fictional character and, trust me, Not Dead.

My first thought was, “Oh, crap. I need her on twitter if I’m ever going to survive 2017.”

This week's lightsaber vigil at Alamo Drafthouse wasn't much about Carrie. Instead, we mourned Princess Leia. I watched my sister-in-law, dressed in Leia’s white robe, console my niece, corral a stroller, and brandish a lightsaber without missing a beat. A kerfuffle arose between the men wanting to toast “Princess” Leia, and the women shouting “General!” A marching band played songs by The Modal Nodes. Cinnamon-roll buns abounded. It was impossible not to see what Princess Leia means to us as a culture and not to think about how she shaped me, personally.  

See, Leia's the first person I saw break out of her archetype. Star Wars is about as in-your-face with the Hero Cycle as it's possible to get, and that means everyone and everything has a role. Leia is the meeting with the goddess. She's the damsel in distress. If you look at the movie in terms of structure, she plays the typical female parts.

But the second she gets placed in those roles, she starts breaking down the walls. "Help me Obi Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope." Sounds pretty typically damsel-y, right? She's not asking for rescue, though. She's asking him to take the baton and get it to Alderaan while she gives up her life in an attempt to stall and outmaneuver the Empire. To put it in gaming terms, tiny 18-year-old Leia is the tank of A New Hope. 

And what does she need the guys for? To unlock the door. The second it's open, she goes from damsel to rescuer: "This is some rescue. You came in here, but you didn't have a plan for getting out? ...Somebody has to save our skins."

She has absolutely no respect for the role she's supposed to inhabit. She's not gracious or soft-spoken or helpless. From "Into the garbage chute, flyboy," to "We have no time for our sorrows," she never flinches away from putting aside what’s expected of her to get the job done. Princess Leia doesn’t so much escape her archetype as explode it from the inside.

When I was a kid, I adored Carrie Fisher—because I was a kid, and I conflated her with Princess Leia. Now I adore Carrie Fisher separately. She fights just as hard as Leia does, but she does it with messy humor. Leia fights the power. Carrie Fisher sticks out her tongue at the power and blows a raspberry. Both Carrie and Leia were born into royalty, and both refuse to be confined or silenced by the expectations of their positions. Leia barks orders. Carrie plays words the way some people play piano.

And both taught me that trouble isn't something you sit back and passively take. You don't have to be defined by your hardships. You can define yourself by the way you choose to react.