Lit Mara Jade, what did she look like in people's minds ?

The POTF2 action figure was the first depiction I saw of Mara, well before I read any of the books she was featured in, so I always pictured her basically like that.

 

The first artistic depiction of Mara Jade that I remember seeing was on the cover of the final book of the HTTE trilogy in '93 - i.e., "The Last Command". That's pretty much been the way I've pictured her (even before TLC came out), i.e. a very attractive, fit, and extremely tough redhead. In other words, the type of woman that you'd admire from a safe distance, but wouldn't want to talk to for fear that she would beat the crap out of you....LOL...

 

Mara Jade Bishoujo

 

i was also introduced to her through mysteries of the sith. good times

 

"This" is how I see her, too. She's portrayed as using her looks to full advantage. Whether it's in a black cat suit or flight suit, I always imagined it being form fitting.

 

The thing about form fitting is that it's hard to conceal weapons. I mean you can get Columbian-drug-mule creative about it, but that's not ideal in a combat situation.

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Vision of the Future was the definitive Mara in my mind, always.


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@Darth_Duck. Seriously, Mara Jade was lethal without weapons as I recall. And being (untrained) force sensitive she could just mash up someone's grey matter until they bite it, too.

 

Well "using her looks to her full advantage" is a VERY common trope when you've got female character who are depicted as being "conventionally attractive." Some might even call it an overused/problematic cliché even. And yeah, some people think that "attractive" has to mean "dress provocatively." She cannot "use her looks to her full advantage" without having to wear a skin-tight/form-fitting outfit, really? Especially if she's also meant to be an awesome fighter as well.

 

I definitely think Mara Jade has been depicted as being "too" sexy in many of the drawings that we've seen from the '90's on. A lot of the artists have depicted her as being somewhere between a seductive siren & a barbie doll - which is definitely not the way I've ever envisioned her.

And, as a guy who's very partial to redheads, I definitely believe that Mara is a real redhead

 

It seems to me like a lot of the earlier materials (the actual writing in the books) and the early imagery had her wearing pretty practical stuff, which creates bizarre setups where the comic book adaptation has her wearing a lot of tank tops despite the books themselves describing her as wearing shirts with sleeves (like hiding a small pistol up it, etc.). I'm not entirely sure when the black jumpsuit came into popularity, although those two Hand of Judgement books had her using one during her Imperial agent days, although your guess is as good as mine whether Zahn did that because of the jumpsuit having become Mara's default look or not.

I've tended to take the opinion that the actual text of the story overwrites the after-the-fact illustrations. Although, if they are going to use the jumpsuit look, I think the better renditions tend to be the ones they use in stuff like the Essential Readers' Guide and the Choice of One paperback, where the suit looks like its made out of different parts (pants, shirt, vest, etc.), rather than a one piece (like a diver's suit). The former looks a bit more professional and more like something that someone might use in the field.

I seem to recall that, while Zahn didn't give much of a description of the character's appearance (beyond having green eyes, being a redhead, and having a slender build), but I always got the impression that she was always intended to be a pretty person (although I think you're right that the earlier artwork made her look less like a supermodel then some of the later ones did.)

That said, It's really interesting how the artists refused to age Mara. By the time stuff like New Jedi Order, Legacy of the Force, etc. had established her as one of the main characters, she was in her forties - fifties and described as such in the actual text. However, the Sacrifice cover shows her only looking in her thirties, while the other covers show Han, Luke, Leia and the rest (most of whom are about her age) actually looking like their in their fifties. While I could get that the cover might suspend disbelief to give the default image of the character (esp. as it was her swan song from the franchise, not counting flashback stories), most of the images in the reference materials like the Essential guides use the younger Mara in circumstances where an older rendition would be more appropriate. Either they were afraid of people getting confused and thinking this was a different character (since Mara is not a movie character, there's no "real" version to compare the renditions too), or she had been pegged as the looker of the cast and they didn't want to change that. Kind of a shame, since seeing an older Mara visualized would've been interesting.

 

This was how Robot Chicken had her visualised.

 

Shannon McRandle!

 

Ditto here. The cover of Visions, Mysteries of the Sith, and Shannon McRandle all portrayed her features as a bit too soft and round for my taste. Hard and angular seemed more appropriate for the character, so the figure's high cheekbones and sharp chin fit my view of her.

 

I wasn't happy with the Mara pics on covers. If she was going to be a character in a movie, I think Gabriella Pession looks the most like how I see Mara. And she's played some Mara-like characters (like Eva Vittoria in 'Crossing Lines').

 

I personally shape Mara to fit the story I'm writing, the important thing is what ever Mara looks like she's always a badass

 

First impressions are very important.



Heh.

I imagined Mara with that satchel/waterskin and paudron (good accidental nod to her training under Kyle) until the day she died.

The EGtC informed my view of pretty much EVERY expanded universe character as it was (I think!?) my first experience of everything Star Wars outside the films.

. . .

Nomi Sunrider is shredded.


Eight pack.

 

I definitely didn't have her down as being quite as super-hot as some artists portrayed her. I mean she was never described as ugly but I can't recall her being explicitly described as particularly/notably beautiful either, at least not in the Thrawn trilogy. She's obviously in pretty decent shape physically but I had her leaning more to a bulkier 'practical' athletic physique (with plenty of muscle) rather than a model's physique. And she was always a redhead (with blonde highlights) in my mind even though we kept getting told 'red-gold' hair. I don't know why.

 

I was never a big fan of this artistic depiction, but then, I first read this book after it was way out of date and have generally preferred the more colorful and detailed illustrations of the "New Essential Guides" -- although the non-jumpsuit outfit is a nice alternative. I actually kind of wish that that hat/headdress with the goggles she's had a few times hadn't fallen into disuse. That was her most interesting look, IMHO.

 

Agreed. This is pretty much how I depicted MJ. Athletic & maybe even somewhat muscular; definitely attractive but not drop-dead gorgeous, which would be distracting & a detriment to her profession. After all, when we're first introduced to her she's a former Imperial agent and would have needed to blend into the background on her missions - not draw attention to herself.

 

Maybe we will get lucky and see her next season in Rebels:

Image unfortunately not real, but created by Engelhast

 

Well, how would you like to see the character portrayed? The only two ways I can see are either make her an Inquisitor or make her some smuggler-type character. i'm not sure the original Emperor's Hand backstory really works in canon anymore. You'd think if Mara made her way into Imperial service, they'd say: "Oh, high medi-chlorian count? Inform the Grand Inquisitor that there's a new student."

(Odds, are a Rebels Mara would also be at least five-some years older than her original counterpart.)

While it might be cool to see the franchise have two versions of Mara (sort-of Jenny Everywhere-style), I wouldn't mind if we just stuck with the single version. She might not be canonical, but she's still the defining version of herself. Historically, Legends characters that made the jump to canon, like Quinlan Vos, often end up different enough that they over-write the character to an extent. Also, since as I mentioned before, a canonical Mara would most likely be made an Inquisitor, it would make her a villain character. I don't know if I like that idea, given that Mara was always depicted as an antihero, at worst (most of the stories set during her Imperial days show that she sees herself as one of the good guys and follows some basic principles).

 

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Well Zahn himself has changed her back story about so it is doable. In his early books she's an Assassin whose one of many Hands to being the only Hand and in later books she's not an Assassin but Judge Dredd and more a police man who only went after bad people.
She also went from being one of many Hands to being super important to Palpatine and who Vader was jealous off but that's by the by.

 

Even in the early books, she was portrayed as less "assassin" and more "highly specialised courier" who also sometimes gets assigned those duties.

 

Yeah Thrawn said that t her n the early books but given how she was portrayed in the later books it does prove my point about Zahn changing his mind.