Star Wars: Doctor Aphra is a 2020 audiobook by Sarah Kuhn. It adapts material from the 2015 run of Star Wars: Darth Vader, Vader Down, and Star Wars (Marvel 2015), but now told from the point of view of the fan-favorite archaeologist Doctor Aphra, voiced by Emily Woo Zeller. Its script was also released as a print book in 2021.
Beautiful and brilliant (according to herself) archaeologist Chelli Lona Aphra has recently uncovered some fascinatingly dangerous artifacts, and incurred the wrath of those who would rather see them safely locked away. Her exploits also gain the attention of one infamous Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader himself, who offers her a confidential mission away from the Empire’s eyes. Aphra eagerly accepts, seeing a glorious opportunity to get rich, flirt with danger, and maybe uncover all of Darth Vader’s juicy secrets for future lucrative blackmail. But it may be much harder to fool the powerful Sith Lord than she thinks…
Star Wars: Doctor Aphra provides examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: The audiobook adds extra scenes expanding on Aphra’s backstory and what she was doing during times Vader or the Rebel heroes weren’t around her in the comics. For example, the story opens with her in a starship battle with Maz Kanata after stealing tools for the later heist Vader will find her on.
- Bothering by the Book: When faced with imminent death by Triple Zero on Vader’s orders, Aphra uses some quick thinking to buy herself more time.Aphra: What was the specific order?Triple Zero: Why, to bring you to the Executor to await Master Vader, and failing that, to silence you.Aphra: Hmm. Okay. So… I surrender.Triple Zero: Hmmph. Stand down, everyone. Mistress Aphra, I have to say, you do take the fun out of everything.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: When Commodex Tahn refuses to reveal the truth of Padme Amidala’s pregnancy, Aphra has Triple Zero torture him with electroshocks. She then kills him quickly once he confirms Padme gave birth (only mentioning a single son, not twins), despite Trip’s gleeful insistence that Tahn could spill so much more with further pain.
- Drowning Their Sorrows: After escaping from Sunspot Prison, Aphra finds a bar and downs drink after drink, knowing that Vader is coming and is sure to execute her for failing to capture Luke Skywalker.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Aphra is drawn to Vader because he feels like her first employer to value her skills and respect her expertise, instead of being annoyed by her wild schemes. However, she eventually grows impatient when he takes very long to reveal his secrets and even attempts to kill her unexpectedly. She blows up at him at Vrogas Vas, urging him to show she matters to him, but Vader remains as impassive as ever. Eventually Aphra realizes that Vader will never see her as anything more than a tool, to be used and then discarded, and turns from trying to get in his good graces to trying to escape him.
- Fell Asleep Crying: In stark contrast to her usual smug attitude throughout the narration, Aphra ends up breaking down into tears while recording her apology to Sana Starros. The audio picks up hours later after she cried herself to sleep.
- Framing Device: The audiobook is told under the conceit that Aphra is recounting her adventures into a recording. It turns out to be made for Sana Starros in the event of Aphra’s death.
- Her Codename Was Mary Sue: Aphra’s opening narration sounds straight out of a power fantasy fanfic. Granted some of it is true, but the script notes that the “truly epic space battle” is “perhaps exaggerated in its epicness because this is the story as Aphra’s telling it, and she is nothing is not over the top.”Aphra: Imagine it: the most epic space battle you’ve ever seen! Lasers! Explosions! Things that go pew-pew! And right in the middle of it all, our intrepid heroine — that’s me! — Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra. Rogue archaeologist, weapons expert, droid reactivator extraordinaire… and did I mention she is also extraordinarily beautiful? Raven tresses… that are usually a tangled mess, because they’re stuffed under a very stylish aviator cap, complete with rakish goggles. Brown eyes that spark — yes, spark! — with a yearning for adventure. Intriguing electro-tattoos running down her right arm — foolish, youthful mistake, or sign of an irrepressible daredevil? That’s none of your business!
- Love Is a Weakness: Aphra has a disdainful view of her mother and of Padme Amidala, thinking that their fixation on love blinded them to the dangers that eventually killed them. It’s also why she broke up with Sana Starros, because she could see Sana genuinely loved her and Aphra loved her back but she was afraid loving someone would make her weak as well.
- My Greatest Failure: Aphra regrets how she dumped Sana Starros before her first archaeological expedition, one that Sana wanted to go with her on. Though Aphra claims not to regret the breakup itself and more how she wasn’t honest to Sana about why she left her behind, claiming it wasn’t about the money but rather because Aphra was afraid of getting close to her.
- No Matter How Much I Beg: To prevent herself from deleting her apology to Sana Starros, Aphra orders her computer to encrypt the upcoming part of the recording. Immediately after finishing it, she marks it as a task to de-encrypt later.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Aphra is fascinated by deadly weapons and locked up artifacts, the more horrific the better. She holds twisted ideals of wanting to see dangerous machines be set “free”, watching them wreak havoc in all their glory. This attitude drives a wedge between her and Sana Starros at Sunspot Prison, as Aphra takes too long trying to reprogram a droid strangling Sana instead of just shooting it.
- Not Afraid to Die: Aphra thinks she’s this at first, hence why she openly tells Vader to make her looming death at his hands quick when it comes. But when a close encounter with his blade strikes her with fear down to her core, Aphra realizes she really isn’t ready to die and begins hunting for a way out.
- Opposites Attract: At the University of Bar’leth, Sana was a model student adored by all her teachers and Aphra was a disastrous (though intelligent) delinquent. In spite of, or perhaps because of, their vast differences from each other they began to date and fell in love.
- Recognition Failure:
- When Boba Fett tells her that the Rebel pilot who destroyed the Death Star is named Skywalker, Aphra has no clue who that is. By the end she manages to figure out why Luke is so important to Vader.
- From her perspective of the Rebel Jail arc, Aphra has no idea who Eneb Ray is, so when he dramatically removes his helmet Leia is shocked but Aphra is just confused.
- The Reveal: It’s been alluded to in prior works that Aphra and Sana Starros have a history, the events of which Aphra recounts in this story. It also answers why they broke up: Aphra signed onto an illegal treasure hunt, which Sana offered to legalize and go with her on the journey, but Aphra ditched her and went on the expedition alone.
- Running Gag: Every time Aphra tells a story of her dates in university with Sana Starros, she gets frustrated with how sappy it sounds and marks it for later deletion.
- Unreliable Narrator: Aphra is prone to exaggerating her feats, lying about embarrassing incidents, and deleting portions of the recording she doesn’t want heard. She even points out to the listener one example of her doing this, when she tells Commodex Tahn an embellished tale of her childhood where she defeated raiders with a cannon (when in reality she only had a single blaster and was rescued by Imperial scout troopers.)Aphra: Did you like my… embellishment of that story, by the way? Personally, I think it works much better — who doesn’t love an intrepid child hero, fighting her way back to her mother and taking out all the bad guys? It’s the stuff fairy tales are made of.
- The Unreveal: Just as Aphra is about to tell how she “liberated” a rare blastomech prototype, the recording fuzzes out and cuts to Aphra deleting that portion, saying some adventures are best left mysterious (and with incriminating confessions kept to a minimum.)
- Worthy Opponent: Aphra considers Maz Kanata a rival worthy of respect, even offering to meet her for drinks. Maz does not return the sentiment.
