History Literature / TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia

* GoodShepherd: Leia. Han knows that she isn't shallow enough to fall for Isolder's looks, his exalted status, or his gifts, but believes he's screwed when Isolder offers her the one thing that neither Han nor all her connections in the New Republic have been able to: an uninhabited planet for Alderaan's survivors to colonize and call home.

** Han kidnaps Leia to prevent her marrying Isolder. Though she's outraged at him initially, over the course of the book she chooses him instead of Isolder and they get married at the end..

''The Courtship of Princess Leia'', a 1994 Franchise/StarWarsLegends novel, is several storylines in one: Leia is engaged to [[PrinceCharmless Isolder, prince of the multi-planet Hapes Consortium]] so that she can get a home planet for Alderaan expatriates. Han wins a planet in a sabacc game. Luke is looking for information on the Jedi. All of this takes them to the primitive world of Dathomir.

** Han kidnaps Leia to prevent her marrying Isolder. Though she's outraged at him initially, over the course of the book she chooses him instead of Isolder and they get married at the end. It helps that they had been lovers before.

* AllAmazonsWantHercules: Teneniel wanting Luke, who just happens to be [[WorldsStrongestMan the most powerful Jedi ever]].

* TheAtoner: Barukka, a former Nightsister who was Gethzerion's sister, abandoned them into and went off into voluntary self-exile to atone as those who've used the Dark Side are expected to do. She's the only one seen doing this, and Gethzerions has driven her mad with torment mentally for it. She helps Luke, Leia, Han and Tenenial Djo against Gethzerion. Luke encourages her in the effort to atone.

* TheExile: The Witches are descendants of a rogue Jedi named Allya whom the Order exiled to Dathomir, hopeful that she would turn from the Dark Side. Dathomir had been a dumping ground for exiled criminals, as many war machine makers had been sent there as punishment too.

* WickedWitch: Gethzerion is quite ugly due to facial deformities caused by her use of the Dark Side and lives in isolation with her fellow wicked witches at the Imperial prison on Dathomir, which they took over. She and they use their powers for evil, chiefly by hurting people (Gethzeron tortures Han with Force telekinesis near the end).

* LoveTriangle: Han and Leia start out as lovers, but then Isolder, Crown Prince of Hapes, proposes a marriage alliance which would help the New Republic greatly. Leia also becomes attracted to him, and legitimately feels torn between them. This continues throughout much of the book, until Isolder falls for another woman, Teneniel, and Leia chooses Han, marrying him at the end. Isolder forces his mother to make alliance with the New Republic regardless.

''[[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Courtship_of_Princess_Leia The Courtship of Princess Leia]]'', a 1994 ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' novel, is several storylines in one: Leia is engaged to [[PrinceCharmless Isolder]] so that she can get a home planet for Alderaan expatriates. Han wins a planet in a sabacc game. Luke is looking for information on the Jedi. All of this takes them to the Hapes Cluster and to Dathomir.

Written by noted science-fiction/fantasy author [[Creator/DavidFarland Dave Wolverton]], it was the first ''Legends'' novel to feature the future ''Literature/XWingSeries'' antagonist Warlord Zsinj, although the way he is portrayed here is [[TooDumbToLive substantially different]] from what [[ObfuscatingStupidity fans of that series]] may be used to.

* ArtisticLicenseEconomics: Han wins a planet in a pot of cards worth 2.4 billion credits. Luke's speeder got 2,000 credits at a used car lot (for a maximum of 1 credit to $10 US equivalent). An inhabitable planet is worth $16 billion? Even for one under imperial interdiction, that means Bill Gates could purchase 3 planets! The estimated price of Earth is 10 QUADRILLION. This is also ignoring the fact that Han started the novel with an amount of money that is unspecified, but certainly no more than the cost of his Millennium Falcon, so assuming he leveraged that at a starting bid, he went from owning 100k-1M credits to nearly 2B credits. What luck to increase your net worth by 3-10 orders of magnitude in one night. Still, it's possible the price is relatively low as A) its full of Force witches, making "ownership" useless and B) in Warlord Zsinj's territory, so you couldn't do anything with it even without them being there. Really though, Han should have realized it was off.

* ContinuitySnarl: Shares a [[ContinuitySnarl/StarWarsLegends page]] with the rest of ''Star Wars Legends''.

* DeflectorShield: Isolder has a personal one. It's stated to get unbearably hot. He uses it as a PowerFist at one point, which [[DeadlyForceField burns the living crap out of one assassin who he and Luke were fighting and cuts another one in half when it's thrown at him.]]

** There's mention of a droid rights movement in the New Republic early on when Threkin Horm makes a remark disparaging Threepio, who presumably believe droids are people deserving of equal legal protection.

* EvilMakesYouUgly: When the Force-sensitive women of Dathomir touch the Dark Side, small blood vessels burst in their skin. Years of this leave the Nightsisters looking like raw, blotchy, lumpy messes. It appears to be the same effect as the Emperor's terrible condition (although that was (sort of) {{retcon}}ned into an injury [[Film/RevengeOfTheSith much later]]).

* FixFic: The Literature/XWingSeries does this for Zsinj and Melvar and the ambiguity of whether the ''Iron Fist'' is destroyed or not. It also contains plenty of straightforward continuity nods to Leia's mission to the Hapans. It also, perhaps accidentally, leaves room for Zsinj to have survived. [[spoiler: In ''Courtship'', Zsinj is on his bridge talking with Solo over the comm when Solo launches torpedoes into the Iron Fist's bridge windows. In the Literature/XWingSeries, we find out that Zsinj liked to hang out in a complete duplicate of his main bridge with all control screens being echoed there so that he could watch over his subordinates shoulders without their knowledge. He also uses it as a stage for acting out his decadent leader persona for visitors without impairing the proper crew from running the ship. If Zsinj was in this bridge, he wasn't where the torpedoes hit and may have escaped. No such luck for Melvar though, who we see die on the planet surface. Zsinj never appears after the book though, indicating that he really was killed.]]

* GatlingGood: Hapan Battledragon cruisers have their main Turbolaser battery built like a flat version of this, and it works much the same way. The guns are built in a rotating ring around the central reactor, and each gun gets adequate time to charge. During a fight with a Star Destroyer, it states that there's a huge chunk of time where the Imperial ship has its guns silent as they recharge, while the Dragon just keeps pounding on them. However, the Destroyer's got [[TechnologyMarchesOn a higher damage-per-shot]] ratio than the Dragon does.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* HeroicWillpower: Mother Rell's spirit is so strong, it won't let her die until she passes on the knowledge of the Jedi to the one who was prophesied to claim it.

* KillSat: The superweapon of the week is a cloaking device that surrounds the planet. It's even lampshaded as only working on a primitive planet. Like most of the Empire's superweapons, a single ship can (and does) destroy it.

* LineageComesFromTheFather: {{Inverted}} for the Hapans and Dathomiri. As matriarchal societies, both don't count males for inheritance. Thus Isolder is Crown Prince through his mother, but cannot become king, although his wife will succeed her as queen. Very similarly, Teneniel's mother is the queen of the Singing Mountain Clan and she's also the heir (her father is not mentioned at all). Dathomiri Force sensitivity is also a solely female trait, as no one had ever seen a "male witch" until Luke, although they heard of them.
* LostTribe: The Dathomiri, who descended from prisoners in a penal colony on the planet, including one female rogue Jedi who took power over the rest. Over time, her descendants became (all female) Force users, or the so-called "witches". Since then, they were cut off from the rest of the galaxy and developed on their own.
* LoveTriangle: Han and Leia start out as lovers, but then Isolder, Crown Prince of Hapes, proposes a marriage alliance which would help the New Republic greatly. Leia also becomes attracted to him, and legitimately feels torn between them. This continues throughout much of the book, until Isolder falls for another woman, Teneniel, and Leia chooses Han, marrying him at the end.
* MadeASlave: Teneniel makes Luke and Isolder into her slaves. In the first case, he quickly gets free (being a Jedi). However, Isolder is left as formally her slave until she frees him. Han initially is also designated a slave, though Leia pleads for him with the elders of the Singing Mountain clan, who agree to treat him as a free man. The Nightsisters disputed it, saying that he was their slave because the stormtroopers they own captured him.

** Dathomir meanwhile is much more worse. From what's seen, many men are slaves of the women, with the right to rape them if they wish.
* MeaningfulName: Luke levitates both himself and the ship to a graceful landing, appropriate for a guy called "Skywalker." Isolder speculates internally about how this may be where his ancestors got it.

* TheNightThatNeverEnds: Zsinj punishes a rebellious planet by employing an "Orbital Nightcloak", a system of satellites that not only keeps all sunlight from reaching the surface, but also blocks all signals they send to other planets asking for help. This will kill every living thing on the planet quite soon. He's a jerk like that.
* NoodleIncident: The entire reason Zsinj wants to kill Han so badly is brought up about three quarters of the way through the novel; Han telling Zsinj to "Kiss my Wookiee" during gloating over the destruction of his Super Star Destroyer. The Allston-written ''Solo Command'' later fleshed it out.
-->"Let me get this straight," Isolder asked. "You said 'Kiss my Wookiee' to the most powerful warlord in the galaxy?"

* ReallyRoyaltyReveal: Han is outed as the rightful King of Corellia by Threepio (who's trying to help him compete with Isolder, a prince), though Corellia's been a republic for centuries. [[spoiler: It turns out this isn't true-the ancestor he'd supposedly inherited this from was just a pretender, explaining why Han didn't claim the title.]]

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Isolder is not only a combat-trained star pilot, he surprises both Han and Leia by revealing that after his older brother was killed, Isolder deliberately left the Hapan royal court and spent years tracking down his brother's killers, infiltrating the pirate gang they joined, and eventually capturing them. Except for the last part, he did it all on his own. He soon proves his skills after taking on three assassins who had attacked him and Leia, defeating them all easily.

* TheSocialDarwinist: Isolder argues certain people are most genetically fit to rule, as with social carnivores, and this being the right way of doing things (he's a prince himself, making it an unsurprising view). ''Luke'' of all people thinks this might have some merit to it, distasteful though the idea may be. Leia (a princess, of course) disagrees strongly with this (the Alderaanian monarchy was far more limited than the one Isolder's from), plus she was adopted and thus can't claim "superior" royal blood (he doesn't realize this, from his comments-oddly, as she's Luke's sister, who's not royalty).

* SpareToTheThrone: Isolder, after his mother [[spoiler:murdered his older brother.]] However, it's not outright inheritance in his case-he won't become king, but whoever he marries will be queen (still giving him some power).
* TheToothHurts: During Han's torture at the hands of a Dark Side witch, two of his teeth are telekinetically shattered. Actually the result of a successful bit of BriarPatching by Han. He specifically asked that she not do anything to his teeth, because he'd rather lose a tooth than something more immediately useful. Talking to her itself was a BatmanGambit to keep her occupied and not notice the ''Millennium Falcon'' coming to the rescue.
* TooCleverByHalf: Ta'a Chume compared to Luke. She essentially attempts to seduce him without sex during their dinner, but underestimates his Jedi abilities (a not uncommon trait amongst Star Wars villains). He knows ''exactly'' what she's doing and what she ''has done'' in the past. At the end of the novel, [[EngineeredPublicConfession he uses the Force to make her confess]] that she sent the assassins to target Leia, who she'd judged as too weak to succeed her.

* WorldOfActionGirls: ''Star Wars'' has lots of {{action girl}}s already-this book takes it up to eleven with not one but ''two'' different matriarchal cultures here which feature warrior women ''[[AmazonBrigade en masse]]'', the Hapans and Dathomiri. The entire Hapan military is made up of female soldiers, while Crown Prince Isolder's bodyguards are also entirely women. Dathomiri clans meanwhile have Force-using "witches" catch men and also fight each other with their "magic". Only the evil Nightsisters use male soldiers too-Imperial stormtroopers who have been trapped on the planet and obey them out of fear. Leia naturally remains an {{action girl}}, but is largely overshadowed with all the rest. Tenenial Djo, a Dathomiri woman, has the most focus of them. Out of them all, just one or two female characters ''aren't'' {{action girl}}s here. Conversely, even male characters like Luke who are {{action hero}}es are outnumbered (plus beaten at several points) by many degrees.

* ContinuitySnarl:
** The book is set a year prior to ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'', but implies the Empire has broken up into many independent warlords ruling fiefdoms in the galaxy. ''The Thrawn Trilogy'' meanwhile said nothing of the kind, having it that the Empire had simply shrunken in size over the five years after Palpatine's death at Endor. This was [[{{Retcon}} harmonized]] later by saying both were true-a number of warlords broke off to form their own fiefdoms, while the Empire proper also remained, and their holdings were then reintegrated after Daala [[Literature/TheCallistaTrilogy had the last warlords]] [[BoardToDeath gassed at a meeting]], then Pellaeon took power.
** Luke believes sixteen is "too young to learn the ways of the Jedi". This in spite of the fact that Yoda says Luke is ''too old'' to be trained at twenty-two in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack.'' Later the prequel films confirmed Jedi were typically trained from childhood. Granted, he did not know that at the time and would still revise recruitment standards when he found out.
** The book has Luke say droids too are living beings, and can be sensed through the Force, while most ''[[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends]]'' material had the opposite view.

* AHorseOfADifferentColor: The Witches of Dathomir tame rancors as steeds. Yes, ''rancors'', as in the toothy monster that Jabba the Hutt kept in the dungeon cell beneath his throne room in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi''. Though carnivorous, they're actually quite intelligent and sweet-natured and the Dathomiri deeply love them.

** The origins of the Hapes Consortium--and how! The Hapans' ancestors were a large band of SpacePirates that pillaged nearby shipping lanes, taking the most beautiful females they found on the ships back to their bases, and over time, having only beautiful women giving birth led to most of the Hapan race being extremely beautiful. Put very simply, just because your parents are beautiful, there's no guarantee that you won't have [[{{UnusualEuphemism}} a face for radio]]. It was never stated explicitly that every child born was amazingly attractive though. However, those who were not physically appealing didn't do well on Hapes. Survival of the fittest came into play. Family embarrassments were likely stashed away. Hence why Hapans seemed radiant.

* WickedWitch: Gethzerion is quite ugly due to facial deformities caused by her use of the Dark Side and lives in isolation with her fellow wicked witches at the Imperial prison on Dathomir, which they took over. She, and they use their powers for evil, chiefly by hurting people (Gethzeron tortures Han with Force telekinesis near the end).

* GenderRestrictedAbility: For some reason, Allya's descendants only could use the Force if they were female, since no one had seen a "male Witch" as they call it until Luke. Given that Force ability is usually hereditary and sometimes even skips generations, perhaps in her case it was carried solely by the female sex chromosomes (though it would be an outlier as this is never seen in any other case of Force sensitives)

** Luke believes sixteen is "too young to learn the ways of the Jedi". This in spite of the fact that Yoda says Luke is ''too old'' to be trained at twenty-two in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack.'' Later the prequel films confirmed Jedi were typically trained from childhood.

* DeadlyForceField: While fending off an assassination attempt against himself and Leia, Hapan Crown Prince Isolder makes use of a handheld personal deflector shield. As it begins to overheat he punches one with it, burning half his face off, and throws it at the other, cutting him in half at the waist.

* EvilMakesYouUgly: When the Force-sensitive women of Dathomir touch the Dark Side, small blood vessels burst in their skin. Years of this leave the Nightsisters looking like raw, blotchy, lumpy messes. It appears to be the same effect as the Emperor's terrible condition (although that was {{retcon}}ned into an injury much later).
* TheExile: The Witches are descendants of a rogue Jedi named Allya whom the Order exiled to Dathomir, hopeful that she would turn from the Dark Side. Dathomir had been a dumping ground for exiled criminals, as many war machine makers had been sent there as punishment too.

* GenderRestrictedAbility: For some reason, Allya's descendants only could use the Force if they were female, since no one had seen a "male Witch" as they call it until Luke. Given that Force ability is hereditary, perhaps in her case it was carried solely by the female sex chromosomes (though it would be an outlier as this is never seen in any other case of Force sensitives)

* HarmlessVillain: Played ''ridiculously'' straight with Zsinj ([[Literature/XWingSeries that's what he]] [[ObfuscatingStupidity wants you to think]]...).
* HealingHands: Luke heals Teneniel after she's struck by a Nightsister's Force lightning, and put his hands on her doing so. She's astonished because only the most powerful witches in her clan can heal, and always [[MagicalIncantation using incantations]], concluding that Luke is very potent as a result.

* WorldOfActionGirls: ''Star Wars'' has lots of {{action girl}}s already-this book takes it UpToEleven with not one but ''two'' different matriarchal cultures here which feature warrior women ''[[AmazonBrigade en masse]]'', the Hapans and Dathomiri. The entire Hapan military is made up of female soldiers, while Crown Prince Isolder's bodyguards are also entirely women. Dathomiri clans meanwhile have Force-using "witches" catch men and also fight each other with their "magic". Only the evil Nightsisters use male soldiers too-Imperial stormtroopers who have been trapped on the planet and obey them out of fear. Leia naturally remains an {{action girl}}, but is largely overshadowed with all the rest. Tenenial Djo, a Dathomiri woman, has the most focus of them. Out of them all, just one or two female characters ''aren't'' {{action girl}}s here. Conversely, even male characters like Luke who are {{action hero}}es are outnumbered (plus beaten at several points) by many degrees.

''[[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Courtship_of_Princess_Leia The Courtship of Princess Leia]]'' is several storylines in one: Leia is engaged to [[PrinceCharmless Isolder]] so that she can get a home planet for Alderaan expatriates. Han wins a planet in a sabacc game. Luke is looking for information on the Jedi. All of this takes them to the Hapes Cluster and to Dathomir.

Written by noted science-fiction/fantasy author [[Creator/DavidFarland Dave Wolverton]], it was the first ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' novel to feature the future ''Literature/XWingSeries'' antagonist Warlord Zsinj, although the way he is portrayed here is [[TooDumbToLive substantially different]] from what [[ObfuscatingStupidity fans of that series]] may be used to.

Written by noted science-fiction/fantasy author [[Literature/TheRunelords Dave Wolverton]], it was the first ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' novel to feature the future ''Literature/XWingSeries'' antagonist Warlord Zsinj, although the way he is portrayed here is [[TooDumbToLive substantially different]] from what [[ObfuscatingStupidity fans of that series]] may be used to.

* ContemptibleCover: The infamous "Leia-in-a-wedding-dress" cover was switched out for a more conventional, action-oriented one because people thought the book was a romance novel--[[{{Irony}} which it is, in many respects.]]