So I was watching Return of the Jedi recently and I was struck by the scene where we first discover Jabba has the rancor…
Do you think that Jabba’s first dancing girl, the green one named Oola, was:
a.) Brave for defying the most dangerous crime lord in the galaxy,
or
b.) Stupid for thinking she was above Jabba killing her for her disobedience?
It’s amazing how often brave and stupid are not mutually exclusive.
Is that the one who has the nipple slip? I’m sorry…what were you asking again?
I think it had more to do with disgust than anything else, and you can hardly blame her. I doubt Jabba smelt any better than he looked.
I kinda think she knew what was going to happen, and didn’t care anymore.
There’s more there than just those two. Brave, or repulsed by Jabba’s nature, a giant slimy gastropod? Or repulsed by his character. After all, she was willing to be the local go-go dancer for the group, she probably doesn’t hate the whole den of smugglers theme, or did she?
Stupid, or self-confident/arrogant, after all, she was a highly desirable slave for her dancing, she shouldn’t be wasted. I guess she really underestimated Jabba. After all, instead of making Han work for what he lost, he hung him up on the wall. Says something about Jabba’s interest in prestige over short term cash. Maybe … she’s a bit more stupid. But I don’t think I’d make a better guess. Remember, Luke offers him a reasonable price for all his friends, but Jabba doesn’t go for it. That seems like a flaw in Jabba’s characterization. But consider The Sopranos or Goodfellas. Can you really just buy off any of the main characters? Not likely. Tony will take your money, but you won’t get what you want.
They had to chain her to the wall to keep her there. I don’t think “willing” had anything to do with it.
I agree - she was not “willing” to be there … at the same time, she certainly seemed pretty accustomed to being there, dancing and all. Even Leia wasn’t THAT comfortable being among Jabba’s denizens.
Which makes me lean towards her being more stupid as well, since she knew her place pretty well. Like Arkcon said, either she underestimated Jabba’s penchant for discipline, or she vastly OVERestimated her worth to him - I mean, if he hangs people in carbonate up on the wall who WORKS for him, why would he hesitate to kill a slave who has the audacity to run her mouth while standing above his trapdoor?
Well, its kinda impossible for me to remove from my mind Oola’s back-story from the novelizations. I know they’re not canon, but …
Oola comes from a race that dedicates itself to the sensual arts. She’s not just a dancer, she’s supposed to move those ‘head tails’ of hers sensuously, because they are an erogenous zone for her. She willingly took a job to be head dancer, (and other tasks) for a wealthy mob boss – they only had to chain her up when she saw and smelled Jabba.
But then, you don’t really get that from the scene in the movie in question. But look at the crowd gathered around Jabba – so many lowlifes enabling his lifestyle. That was a wretched hive of scum and villainy, not the spaceport.
I know there was an exchange between her and Jabba as Jabba pulled her over to where the pit cover was.
Have those lines ever been translated and posted anywhere? I’ve always wondered why Jabba decided to ace her.
Because he could. You’ve got to understand that Jabba isn’t personally sexually attracted to his slave girls (like, ew). It’s not about libido; it’s about status. He’s showing off that he has a harem of desirable females, that others find attractive, and so they should envy him. Dropping one to the rancor would be counterproductive if he found them sexy, since now he can’t see them dance any more. But for the status, it works just fine: “See, I have so many bitches I can afford to just throw them away on a whim”. That’s important to someone like Jabba.
You think he smells bad on the outside…
Actually, in the novelizations, it goes into that a little. Jabba IS attracted to lithe nubile girls, and that’s part of the reason a giant slimy mucus slug is living on a desert planet - his people kicked him off of their nice comfy mudball planet (in part) for being a disgusting pervert who doesn’t go for his own species.
As for killing people off - he’s got the emotional maturity of a three-year-old, or of the Incredible Hulk.
Slave girl rejects me? Hulk SMASH! Uppity Jedi pisses me off? Into the Saarlac with you! There’s way easier ways to off someone than to drag your whole court out into the god-awful desert - he just wants to make some people suffer, and he likes the power-trip.
I’ve always felt sorry for Oola - I have a feeling at least on some level she knew what he would do, and she had just taken enough that she didn’t care any more.
If it’s not in the movie, it’s not canon to me. Otherwise, you have to explain Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, and the hot Luke/Leia budding relationship.
There’s no backstory in the movie. You see a dancer in chains. She’s a slave girl. “Willing” is not part of the job description.
This is on a planet that slavery is legal - see Anakin and his mother. This is a criminal enterprise on a planet where slavery is legal. Um, yeah, she’s a slave. “Willing” is not only not required, it’s probably not even desired.
Han actually had several opportunities to pay off Jabba. The encounter in Ep IV where Greedo and Han chat is about the debt being in place for some time. At the beginning of Empire, there’s a conversation where Han has been piddlin around with the Rebels rather than going off and paying back Jabba like he was supposed to. Boba Fett wanted Han alive from Vader - “He’s no good to me dead.” That’s because Jabba wanted to either extract the money due, or get his payment in some sort of punishment. By then, the interest was probably a significant multiple of the original debt. Having Han delivered in carbomite was something that struck his whimsey. Instead of defrosting him to threaten and perhaps torture a bit, then try to extract payment from him, it struck Jabba’s sense of style to leave him frozen as a symbol to everyone else that you do not cross Jabba. Pay your debts, on time. Or else…
Well, there’s two points to that. First, you are correct that Jabba cares as much about his reputation as the actual money. Thus allowing Luke to buy the debt would entail jacking up the price significantly, both for the prestige of Han itself, and the issue with Leia trying her trick on him. His refusal might have been considered a simple bargaining practice - haggle. Second issue, Luke comes in claiming to be a badass and dropping threats against Jabba - that struck Jabba’s reputation and made him resistant to bargaining. “You silly human with your petty Jedi mind tricks, you think you can outwit me? Ha ha ha, I’ll show you who’s the tough guy.”
Interesting idea. On the other hand, he makes a big deal out of licking Leia. Either he was giving her a taste test, he’s a kinky perv for a Hutt, or he just likes disgusting the silly humanoids and knows how to get a good reaction from a chickie.
There was a book somewhere featuring other Hutts that mentioned how Jabba was pervy because he was infatuated with humans. This was cited as a reason that he was on Tatooine instead of on the Hutt homeworld. Again, this being a book and all YMMV.
As of the prequels he wasn’t the only Hutt on Tatooine, so that book (or at least that part) must not be canon (if it ever was).
I don’t think this is inconsistent with what I said. It’s pretty safe to say that most male humanoids would like to lick Princess Leia. Again, he’s asserting his position of dominance: He’s able to do something that most males would like to but can’t.
Of course, most male humanoids would specifically prefer that Leia be willing for us to lick her. But I doubt that that detail ever even crossed Jabba’s mind. He probably doesn’t even realize that most guys prefer their babes to be willing.
I honestly think that this was the intent of the writers of that scene, and that the book authors who said otherwise just missed the point.
I was wondering the same thing - I know Jabba says “Boscka” at one point, which I assume means something like “DIE”, seeing as right afterward she falls in the hole.
I kind of believe what most people are saying, that Jabba WAS attracted in some gross way to Oola and Leia; why else would Oola have freaked out like that? Seemed to me like she would have been accustomed to being Jabba’s slave at that point except Jabba wanted to (and apparently had done) something deplorable with her.
I always found it funny that she was “trapped” on a little 2X2 grating that dropped her to her death - like she couldn’t think to step left or right somehow when she made Jabba mad.
Here’s the relevant wookieepedia link. Still doesn’t have the translation I’m looking for but does give context.
On an incidentally related note, why do the Ewoks get so little respect? They rigged up those huge smash-log traps for the imperial walkers - that’s way more awesome than anything the Viet Cong slapped together.