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Back in 2005, I decided to do a birthday gift fic for "Jedi Rita." For those who might be unfamiliar, Rita is known in SW circles as a Bail writer. She loves Leia, and she now has a little "Padawan" of her own. I wouldn't call Rita a raging feminist, but I would say she is very pro-girl and all about giving young woman strong role models who are self-sufficient and interested in more than if their shoes match their handbags. As a result, writing Rita a "young Leia with her dad" story seemed like a good way to go. I may be off my rocker, but I think Rita was editing her story "Rebel Apprentice" during this period in an effort to get it on the TF.N archive.
I also have a rather soft spot for the spunky, if sometimes snotty, Princess of Alderaan. You gotta love a gal who can get tortured and then smart mouth her captors; who can lie about the location of a rebel base when threatened with the destruction of an entire planet; who can grab a gun and blast her way out of somewhere when the so-called heroes who show up for the rescue bungle the job.
It takes a special kind of parent to raise a woman like that. It's one of the reasons I've been a fan of Bail for so damn long.
So, there I was. I had a setup, or the start of one, and a reason to write the thing. I gave myself two days. I figured I'd see if I managed something. Wouldn't you know, I did.
"How is my Princess?"
"Daddy!" Leia dropped her book to the desk. "When did you get home?"
"Just this minute." Bail met his daughter halfway, swinging her up into his arms for a kiss. She threw her arms around his neck and snuggled into the soft fur of his long coat as Bail walked across the room to sit on the couch. He plopped Leia down beside him. “Have you been studying hard while I was away?"
My mangaka friend, Ren, is also a Bail fan and does some wonderful (and adorable) drawings of father and daughter. They had inspired several starting points for stories, this one included. While this work is not directly related to my other "little Leia" story -- Spoiled -- they do share some common themes and ideas. The relationship between father and daughter in that story informs the kind of ideas I have about the dynamics between Bail and Leia. This story builds on those ideas in a different way.
Bail was surprised to see his daughter pout in response to his question. Her little lower lip pushed its way out and her mouth turned down in a frown. "I don't like the new tutor. He's mean."
"He's mean? How is he mean?"
"He won't let me draw!" Leia huffed. "All we do is read boring books about laws. I hate laws! I want to be an artist, Daddy. Artists don't need laws!"
"Oh, they don't? Well." It was all Bail could do to suppress the laugh that tried to escape. Leia was the picture of disapproval with her face screwed up and her hands balled into tiny fists. He schooled himself to a serious expression. "Hm. That's a mighty big thing to say. I tell you what; I'll make you a deal. When you finish your boring laws today I'll take you to the museum and, if you still think that artists don't need to know laws by the time we leave, I'll talk to your tutor."
"Really?" Leia's eyes widened in surprise.
"Yes, really." Bail bent down and kissed Leia on the head. "Now back to your studies. I need to change and go see your mother."
Leia hopped off the couch, excited. "I love you, Daddy!"
Bail finally allowed himself the laugh. "I love you too, sweetheart."
Kids say the best stuff. They have little or no social filter. They tell you exactly how big your butt looks in the jeans, and will speak the truth about what they think even when it is periodically inappropriate. They are very direct and definitive in regard to their likes and dislikes. As adults, we often have to force ourselves not to respond to some of the stuff that comes out of their mouths. React too strongly to something (laughter, anger, or otherwise) and you can give the child the wrong impression. Then, you find yourself digging out of a hole for a VERY long time.
I don't have any of the critters, but I play "Auntie Mame" to many a child. The Leia here is a composite of my best friend's three daughters with regard to personality. Leia, like most children, doesn't understand why she can't do what she thinks is fun. She also doesn't understand the implications of what she is saying up there. Bail, however, does understand. Not only that, but it is very important for the scion of a ruling house to be well versed in law, politics, and the responsibilities that come with their social position. If Bail doesn't find a way to make Leia understand this issue, and make it relatable in a way that makes her want to learn, then he and his wife will have their hands full as Leia grows older. So, Bail does what I often do with kids who don't want to do something -- tell them that if they can do X or Y or Z that they won't have to do the thing they dislike anymore. However, I pretty much rig the choices and the kid generally has to do whatever it is anyway. Or, I make bargains or trades. If you do X for now, later you can do Y.
I have to say that it usually works great. However, caution to anyone doing this. If the kid can work around it you had best stick with the bargain. Don't change the rules in the middle of the game. This makes a child resentful and they will stop trusting you.
In this particular case, Bail has no intention of firing this tutor but he is willing to reconsider a few things depending on how his plan goes. After all, there are lots of things in life we don't like but have to deal with anyway.
Bail listened to his daughter chatter as they moved from one room in the museum to the other. Leia was a precocious child with a charming and feisty personality that often reminded Bail of Padmé. There were hints of Anakin too. Leia's creativity in design also extended into an uncanny knack with all things mechanical. In fact, her natural talents in that area were what lead Bail and his wife to change tutors. While they didn't want to squelch Leia's dreams of art, or put a damper on her creativity, they felt changing the focus of her studies toward the abstracts of law, history, and economics might be wise. As the heir to House Organa, the responsibilities of rule could not be shirked and Bail felt it best to begin relegating Leia's artistic pursuits to activities outside of study.
"Time for a rest?"
Leia nodded, her head bobbing up and down at a rapid pace. She insisted on walking the galleries herself, but her small legs wore out long before she was ready to leave. Bail had come to know the warning signs that his daughter was tiring and had devised a pattern to their walks that included rooms with benches at regular intervals. Today, however, Bail was modifying their normal routine. He took Leia's hand in his and tugged toward a pair of closed doors. A sign above read: 'Special Collections.'
"Let's take our rest in here today. I'm in the mood for a nice long sit."
"But, Daddy, you said I'm not supposed to go in that room."
"That's true. I did say that. But today is a special day." Bail knelt down to put his face level with his daughter's. "Leia, I think you're old enough now for us to talk about the art we keep in this room and to understand why it's important. I still would rather you not go in this gallery if your mother or I aren't with you. I feel that way because the things exhibited inside change on a frequent basis and you may have questions about them that your mother or I can answer. Understand?"
I have taken more children to more museums than I can count. Art Museums, Children's Museums, Air Force Museums, Racing Museums, Science Museums, Living Museums of history. I've taken them to plays, musicals, ballets, puppet shows, and movies. I've even had them at Disney world. They all do the same things. They are super excited, they want to see it all and can't, they get tired, they eat sugar (if you let them), they crash (and are usually cranky when this occurs). Proper planning for bathroom breaks, snacks, and sitting down (as well as play) are critical. As a parent, Bail has figured this out.
He's also an adult who doesn't believe in talking down to children. This also comes from personal experience. Kids love me -- even kids I don't like. And, don't get me wrong, but I generally don't like children much. Too many of them are trained by their parents into bad habits or are helicopter so much that they play roles to get things they want, a trait I find annoying in the extreme. For a long time, I couldn't figure out why I seemed to attract children like magnets (even when I was a teen) when I really didn't want to be around them. What I figured out was that I didn't treat them any differently than I treated their parents. I talked to them the same way I did any other person. They seem to instinctively respect and like this. When I say something they don't understand, they ask. I explain. I don't dumb things down. Sure, I try to use easier language or to make analogies they might have experience with, but I'm never using a strange voice or assuming a child is ignorant (much less stupid). I always thought that adults who treated me strange had mental problems or were weird or something. I also normally told them exactly that, or asked them if they had a problem with their voice. I'm sure I was annoying little shit.
This Bail is about to take some risks, however. He's going to introduce his daughter to some pretty complex and hard to understand concepts that many adults in our society have major conflicts about. At Leia's age, this is a pretty big leap. However, every child is different. Some can take these kinds of things very early, others can't. Some you have to spank to get them to pay attention to you for two seconds, others will cry if you look at them wrong. Bail is trusting Leia, and he's trusting his own gut about his daughter's developmental stage. He's trusting his own parenting skills, the parenting skills of his wife, and the teaching skills of everyone around his daughter. There are going to be a lot of follow-ups to this initial situation to reinforce different concepts and it will take everyone's cooperation to ensure that Leia takes the right things away from the lesson she's about to receive.
In short, Bail's got some guts.
Leia put on her thinking face - it was a serious expression that made her look much older than her five years. It always tugged at Bail's heart, that expression, because it reminded him how quickly Leia was growing up.
"I think so, Daddy. I can go in the gallery now because I'm a big girl but I shouldn't go without you or Mother."
"That's my Princess." Bail smiled and tapped Leia on the nose with a finger. "Now, let's go in. Daddy's getting too old to kneel on the hard floor."
This is one of those wonderful drawings by Ren. See what I mean? She really has a gift.
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Bail sat on the bench absently gazing at the huge painting displayed on the wall across the room. The canvas, four meters wide and six meters high, seemed, at a distance, to be nothing more than a portrait. However, on closer inspection, the painting revealed much more. Instead of simple brush strokes, the artist had meticulously painted thousands of scenes creating a complex composition from which his own face resolved. Titled 'What's In My Head,' the divisionist images ranged from the benign to the shocking. A small pittin was placed between images of naked bodies. A dismembered thranta and the head of a stormtrooper shared space with fire lilies. It was a work Bail admired both for the skill required to execute it and for the guts it took to display it. Every time he looked at it he found another image that made him think; another bit of the work that shocked or provoked in some way. It presented all that was good about sentient nature, and all that was abhorrent, in one climactic sweep.
In spite of his appreciation of the piece, Bail's attention was not on the painting. It was on his daughter. They had walked the gallery for an hour before settling on the bench. Leia's eyes were huge as her mind attempted to take in everything at once. Bail knew that what he was doing was risky but he was counting on his daughter's inquisitive nature and maturity in this circumstance. Not many fathers would take their five-year-old daughter into an art gallery filled with images of sex and violence. Every work in the special collections was banned in some part of the Empire for content and while a few -- like the holorepresentation of a controversial grass painting that had offended the Emperor -- only had the distinction of making political statements that weren't currently in vogue, the majority of the works were definitely of a mature nature. Bail had spoken to the curator to ensure that two holoprojections containing explicit sexual content would be deactivated before their arrival, but short of that, he let his daughter wander the area freely. Now they sat in quiet contemplation and it was time for Bail to explain why they were here.
Each of the artworks mentioned in this story has either an EU source or a real-life counterpart. The initial portrait I talk about here is partly based on divisionist/neo-impressionist techniques of using dots or patches of color that interacted together to create a whole image. Georges Seurat is one of the more famous painters of this sort (though Vincent van Gogh is also very well known and uses this technique to great advantage). The Impressionists had a lot in common with this bunch and some moved in and out of this type of painting. In addition, with the advent of computers and photography there are many artists who delved into photomontage and pixilation techniques. One of the more famous pieces of this sort when I was young was an image of President Lincoln. When you approached the work and looked closely, you would find it was comprised of many squares of smaller, more detailed images. Pop-Artists also played with combinations of both techniques and such things are still being done to this day.
The grass painting is a work from the EU and was originally part of a book put out that featured works by fictional GFFA scholars about various planets called . Bail tells the tale of this painting later.
"Leia, what do you think about the art in this area?"
Bail watched as Leia's legs kicked back and forth in the air. She had a nervous habit of fidgeting when under stress and since she was still young enough that her legs didn't reach the floor when seated, her preferred unconscious fidget was leg kicking. Her other was twirling her hair. Leia was currently twisting a lock over and over on her index finger. It wasn't a good sign.
Every person has tells. Kids have them even more than most adults thanks to that lack of social filter. As we get older, we try to train ourselves out of such things. However, Leia's not at that point yet, and Bail knows his daughter.
"I don't know, Daddy." Leia frowned and stared at the floor. "It makes me feel funny."
"Funny how?"
Leia shrugged. "Well, some of it makes me sad."
"Which ones?"
"The grass painting."
"Why?"
"It was so beautiful and full of color and then, suddenly, everything withered and died and it all turned black and horrible." Leia looked up at her father. "Why would the artist do that? Why would he want to kill everything?"
Bail nearly sighed in relief. Leia was asking the right kinds of questions. Now it was up to him.
In lots of cases, I sit down to do a story and I have an outline and an agenda and I am looking to weave things together. Here, I was just writing a story to show how Bail managed to teach his child about censorship. In EU materials, Leia is said to be artistic and creative. So, when it came down to it, putting Bail in the situation of explaining censorship in an art gallery seemed utterly obvious.
I'd like to take loads of credit there -- and perhaps I should -- but it just kind of happened. I think of this as "the muse" taking over. When you know a character very well, they sometimes just tell you things. Honestly, in most cases when I do work like this, I'm the transcriptionist. The character just tells me what to put down. This is one of those cases. I said, "Hey, Bail, how did you talk to Leia about censorship?" He sat down and said, "Well..."
Just feels wrong to take credit for that. However, here it is. And I did write it. And, technically, Bail doesn't exist so this obviously came from somewhere in my head.
Even if it totally doesn't feel like it.
"The artist was using the field to say something about politics. You see, the land was beautiful but he timed the plantings so they would die off like that when the Emperor was scheduled to visit Alderaan. So beings from all over the galaxy were able to see this beautiful art but when the Emperor showed up it turned to dust. This is how the artist feels about the end of the Republic and the rule of the Emperor."
"Oh!" Leia's eyes widened with understanding. "Didn't that make the Emperor mad?"
Bail nodded. "Yes. He was very upset. In fact he wanted me to arrest the artist and have him executed."
Leia gasped. "But you didn't did you? He's still alive, right?"
"No. I didn't, and yes, he is." Bail turned to fully face his daughter. "You see, we have laws on Alderaan that protected him. You've been learning about some of them while I was away. Here on Alderaan you can't be executed for a crime, no matter how serious it is. We respect life and the uniqueness of each individual. An offender might spend the rest of their life in a correctional facility, but we don't kill sentient beings. So, when the Emperor wanted me to execute the artist on a charge of sedition I had to explain that our laws didn't allow me to do that. In fact, I had to explain that the 'Rights of Sentient Beings' clause of our charter wouldn't even allow me to arrest him."
"What did the Emperor do?"
"He got very angry, called me a rebel sympathizer, threatened to have me ejected from the Senate on grounds of treason, and wanted to send stormtroopers to Alderaan to help enforce his will."
"But you're still a Senator, and we don't have stormtroopers on Alderaan."
"That's right. What I did, instead of what the Emperor wanted, was censure the artist." Bail lowered his voice and brought his face close to his daughter's. "Leia, I'm going to tell you a secret. I agree with that artist. I think the Emperor is a horrible man and that the Republic should be restored. However, because I rule Alderaan, I can't say that. If I did, the Emperor wouldn't just be angry with me, he would be angry at our whole planet and I want to protect our people from his wrath. Perhaps one day I will be able to tell the Emperor what I think of him -- that I think he turns everything he touches to evil -- but I can't right now. I was very unhappy that I had to reprimand artist, but I did it. I did it so the people of Alderaan could continue to live their lives without interference. All of them but that artist. He had to leave Alderaan and the Emperor still hates him to this day."
"I don't like the Emperor. He's a mean man if he doesn't let people say what they think!"
"I agree, Leia. But you must never, ever, say that to anyone but me." Bail held out his right hand with his pinky up. He said in a deadly serious tone, "Pinky promise me."
Leia put her tiny pinky up in the air and hooked it in her father's large one. They shook on it.
"Pinky promise, Daddy."
When I look at this piece now, I'm surprised it doesn't seem more contrived. After all, I'm setting up this situation specifically to have a parent talk to a child about censorship. I'm also showing the seeds of a potential member of the Rebel Alliance, giving a child a lesson in galactic politics, and generally doing a lot of liberal preaching here. It is probably no surprise to anyone that I am a pacifist, that I lean left in my social politics, that I am a card carrying member of the ACLU, and that I think the right of free speech in this country is one of the things that makes us great. I'm not into backing down on your principals under pressure or doing deals with dictators or terrorists. And, while these are my personal politics and they are, very clearly, being shown in this story; I also feel there is a lot of EU and movie support to back up the idea that Bail's politics are not very far from my own. My personal version of Bail -- after writing thousands and thousands of words on the guy -- is rooted in these kinds of core values. So, while I am pushing a personal philosophy here, I'm also pushing one that is based in Alderanni culture as set out by Lucas and all of the EU materials put out under his SW imprint.
I also find it interesting to see how unsubtle Bail is about the "brainwashing" of his child here. Note the scare quotes. On the one hand, some would call putting political ideas like this in the head of a child to be exactly that. On the other, these are this man's values. What are we doing having kids if we're not going to pass on our values to them? It's kind of a part of the whole parenting deal. However, Bail is already drawing Leia into conspiracy at a young age here. She's in the single digits and she's already learning to fear the Emperor, to hate him, to see him as a threat to her way of life, to view him as an evil man who kills others on personal whims, and to view him as an enemy of the things and people she loves. That's a lot to throw on a child's shoulders. Bail is doing this knowing that Leia's real father is the Emperor's right-hand man, and that she might one day be trained as a Jedi and be sent to kill one or both of those individuals. While he's not teaching his child to fight just yet, he's getting her ready for the day when she will. It's kind of sobering when you think about it.
Finally, there's the cute factor. Leia gets her first swearing in as a rebel with a pinky promise. That's simultaneously too cute for words and so sappy as to be gag inducing.
When they were done, Bail reached out and gathered Leia in his arms. He turned her so they both faced the painting and he rested his chin softly on his daughter's head. "So, what other things in here make you feel funny?"
"Mmm. The ones when we first came in."
"The black and white stills?"
Leia's hair rubbed against Bail's goatee as she nodded.
"Why do you feel funny about them?"
"They're naughty!"
Bail had to bite his lower lip keep from laughing. After a moment, he mastered himself and got back to the business at hand. "Why do you think they're naughty?"
Leia turned in Bail's arms and looked up at him. Her little face was pink with embarrassment just as it had been when she first realized what she was looking at. "They show people's private spots," she said in a hushed voice.
"Yes, they do. But that doesn't make them naughty."
So, there's a bit of a personal story to be told here before we get to the other issues this particular part of the story brings up. When I was in first or second grade, a guy started hanging around the playground at my grade school. He was a drug pusher. He started giving acid stamps to the kids. So, the school called all the parents and told them to have a "drug talk" with their children and to try to find out any information possible.
To get the full impact of the next part, you need to know that my parents owned a hotel, restaurant, and bar. We lived above the restaurant and bar in the hotel. My father was the bartender and supervisor. My mother was the chef. They worked at least eighteen hours a day, sometimes twenty or more. The only time I saw them together was in our bar drinking coffee when my mother was on break. I think you can imagine now how strange it was for me to come home after school and find them both on the couch in our rooms waiting for me.
My father proceeded to use reverse psychology on me (or at least that's what I like to think). Mom just sat there while dad asked me if I knew what drugs were, explained the difference between the drugs I knew (aspirin and antibiotics) and recreational drugs. He said that lots of people thought recreational drugs were bad for you but that he didn't know for sure because he had never tried any. He then explained that the school called because of the guy hanging around and asked if I had seen him. I said no. Then dad said that if I ever was curious about drugs that it was okay, but that it was important that we all decide as a family if we were going to do drugs and to make an informed decision about their use. He said that if I wanted to try them I should come to him, we'd get enough for the whole family, and we'd all do whatever it was together so we could come to a consensus about things.
Final bit of personal info -- my dad is an alcoholic and comes from a family with a history of substance abuse and mental illness. Mom's side isn't much better. Of course, at that age, I didn't understand that situation any more than I understood what was really being offered with the whole, "we'll do drugs as a family," thing. All I knew was I wasn't in trouble, I wasn't going to get hit with a belt (a fairly common thing), and I was now free to go practice piano. However, to this day I have never taken any form of recreational drug. I haven't even smoked a legal cigarette. I have major curiosity about 'shrooms and would dearly love to do a hit of acid, but I never have (in spite of the fact that I've had loads of friends who had the stuff and offered it to me) because my dad would be totally pissed off if I did that without him. The last damn thing he needs is to get hooked on something other than alcohol.
This is the kind of personal event in my life that informs this story. Bail is going direct at a situation, in spite of it being something a bit complex for the child's age. He's not really using a reverse psychology technique (Was my dad? Who knows.), but he's really taking a risk here addressing highly complex and adult topics with a child. Would this work on every child? I don't know. I think that would be dependent on a lot of variables. For the purposes of this work, however, it does the trick.
"Mother told me that showing your private spots in public is wrong!"
Now came a tricky thing. Bail had to find a way to explain erotic artwork while dancing around the subject of sex. The prints in question were a huge collection of stills shown in a group called, 'Beauty Exposed.' The small images took up an entire wall and artistically depicted the genitals of nearly every sentient species in the galaxy. "What your mother said is true. Here on Alderaan it is our custom to keep our privates private. But that's not true everywhere. I know you've been studying world customs with your new tutor. You know how different worlds celebrate birthdays in different ways?" Bail watched his daughter's head bob up and down before he continued. "Well, lots of cultures celebrate their bodies. Some don't wear clothing unless they are going to be around outsiders. Others, like Wookies, are covered in hair and don't wear clothing at all. Some have ceremonies where they don't wear clothing because they think that the naked form is sacred. Even here on Alderaan we admire and celebrate life and individuality by appreciating our bodies. The difference is that we think of our nakedness as a gift."
"A gift?"
"Yes. To us, our bodies are our most treasured possessions. We cover them to protect them, to enhance them, and also because it means that when we take the covering off that we trust and care for someone. That's why your mother and I dress differently around one another than we do other people -- why we show one another our skins -- because we're giving one another something we don't give to anyone else. It makes it special that only I get to see your mother like that."
Sex and sexual customs are tough to address with children. When you are a child you have no sense of body modesty, no idea of the concept of shame. This is, in many ways, a good thing. The fact is that we instill these concepts in children and that they are informed by our social norms.
Personally, I think there are plenty of customs and norms in American culture that suck when it comes to sex. I think there are plenty in other cultures that suck. However, every culture -- here or in the GFFA -- is going to have their own ways of addressing such things. Wookies obviously don't have much of a taboo about clothing. Most human or humanoid races in the GFFA seem to have similar ideas about keeping their hairless bodies covered. There are practical reasons for this in addition to social ones. All of these things need to be addressed by Bail now that he has brought up this topic.
He's also jumping into the deep waters of sexual relationships with this topic. His wife has obviously addressed the idea of why clothing is worn. I've helped out with this conversation with several toddlers in my time as the little critters keep jerking off their shorts or flashing their undies at people by flipping up a skirt at a socially inappropriate moment. You don't want to cause inhibitions or trauma with a kid, but you also need to make them aware of what's going on around them. So, here Bail has a delicate line to walk.
"Well, I've seen you and mother without your clothes and you see me without mine."
"That's right. You're our child. We trust you and you trust us. And our body servants see us without our clothes because we trust them. But the only man other than me that's seen your mother without her clothes is her father."
"Is Mother the only woman that's seen you without your clothes?"
Bail wondered silently how it was that children always asked the most pointed questions. He had no one to blame but himself; he'd opened the door wide for that one. If he skirted the issue or lied, he ran the risk of being found out later. With the kind of image he'd promoted during his early years in the Senate, Leia was sure to have questions later on. However, addressing the issue now might send mixed signals about sex. Bail suppressed a sigh and tried to find the right words.
"No. My mother and my sisters all have seen me without my clothes on. Also, when I was at university, there was a young woman that I gave that gift to."
Leia blinked. "Why?"
I felt it was only fair, and only realistic, for Bail to have this kind of thing happen. Kids say the darndest thing and ask the most obvious and pointed questions. Precocious ones ask even more of them. Fiction is fiction, but it is also about realism and interpreting events in ways that resonate with readers. If Leia hadn't had some pointed questions here, it would have been completely wrong.
"I cared for her very much and I thought that I might marry her."
"But you didn't. You married Mother."
Bail nodded. "That's right. But I didn't know your mother then. I didn't meet your mother until I was much older."
The answer seemed to satisfy Leia and Bail was relieved. He knew he'd likely have to answer questions about sex today but his reasons for doing this were more about law than sexuality. He waited to see if Leia had any more questions and then tried to redirect the conversation back to his topic. "So you see, Leia, those pictures aren't necessarily naughty. They're about the artist wanting to celebrate creation. To show that the naked form is beautiful. And it is. It's very beautiful. But lots of beings feel uncomfortable when they look at the stills - just like you did. They think the pictures are naughty and that they shouldn't be shown in a place like this. That's part of the reason the artist made the pictures. He wanted to make people see that no matter what species or gender you are, no matter what size or shape you are, there are things about us that make us the same."
"Like having private parts?"
Bail couldn't stop the smile that came. "Yes. Like having private parts." He turned his attention back to the huge canvas across the room and pointed to it. "And this painting. It seems to be one thing when you sit back here but it was very different when you got up close, wasn't it?"
Leia looked at the painting and nodded.
"There are things in that painting, when I stand close to it, that bother me. Images that make me feel funny. But just because something makes me feel funny, or because I might think it's strange or naughty, doesn't make it any less a work of art. There's a saying: 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.' Do you understand what that means, Leia?"
The above paragraph, and the ones that follow, are the part where I start pulling my "education is the means by which civilization is transmitted" hat. I also pull out my pacifist hat and my social tolerance hat. I know these are ideas that not everyone agrees with, but I think that a certain amount of history supports my suppositions. When laws are created and applied across social strata, when education is given to the masses, we have stable societies in which more good is done for more individuals.
I think it's also important to acknowledge that our social programming and personal experiences make things squicky to us that might not be to others. It's important to keep this information in mind. Bail has his own hang-ups, like anyone, and he's sharing the fact that he has them with his daughter. He's not only explaining things to his daughter, but he's opening up and talking to her about the fact that he has the same feelings. He's validating her sense of unease. He's telling her that it is okay to feel uncomfortable. In spite of this, he's also telling her that she can control those feelings and interpret them in ways that can be helpful to her and to others.
Leia began to twist her hair again. "Mother taught me that! It means that I think pittins are cute but Auntie Celly thinks they're ugly."
"That's a good example." Bail knew the fidgeting meant Leia was ready to leave so he needed to make a final push. What he was trying to explain to Leia was difficult to understand, even for some adults, and he could only hope that it would work. "And just like Aunt Celly doesn't like pittins when you do, so lots of people think the art in this area of the museum is ugly. They don't like it and they think it shouldn't exist. Just like the Emperor being mad because that artist did what he did, other people with values different from ours either like or dislike things like that painting over there. But on Alderaan, just because you don't like something doesn't give you a right to destroy or make it go away. Here, our laws protect things -- even things we think are ugly -- because they are all a part of life. We value debate and controversy on Alderaan because we believe that it fosters tolerance. Do you understand that word? Tolerance? That means that we like to discuss things and disagree because we learn to appreciate new things that way. Understand?"
"I think so, Daddy."
Bail picked Leia up off his lap and the pair stood up. He took Leia's hand and slowly started back to the entrance of the special collections. "I wanted to bring you here today, Leia, because you said something that worried me. Do you remember what you said?"
Leia shook her little head no.
"You said, 'Artists don't need laws.' I don't think that's true. Without laws to protect freedom of expression, none of the artwork in this area of the museum would be here. Without laws, the artist who made that grass painting would have been killed for what he did. Artists need laws, Leia, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all things are not the same to all beings. We all have different things we like -- be it because of personal taste or because of differences in culture -- and laws ensure that we respect our differences and celebrate them instead of use them as reasons to be disrespectful and cruel."
Bail glanced down at his daughter. She had her thinking face on again as she considered what he said. It was a good sign. "One day, Leia, you will take my place as Viceroy and First Chair of Alderaan. When you do, you will need to help and protect other artists by upholding the laws of Alderaan. That's why your tutor makes you study law and culture so much. He wants you to know your rights and the rights of others so you can create what you want and make it safe for others to do the same."
And now our lesson is done, and so is the story. Bail has imparted the information he wanted to impart and explained things in such a way that Leia will understand why she must learn all this boring stuff. I've gotten off my soap box and Rita gets a story out of the deal. Whee!
Leia said nothing until they reached the huge door that separated the special collections from the rest of the museum and Bail started to worry. He held the heavy door open as Leia exited but she turned in the entryway before she got all the way out. She looked up at her father. "You're right, Daddy. Artists need laws. But I still think they're boring and I still think the tutor is mean!"
With that, Leia turned on her heel and flounced away. Bail followed behind her, laughing.
It's a short denouement. This story doesn't need much more. However, I wanted Leia to get the last word here. She agrees with the huge lesson, but she still thinks it sucks and the new tutor is mean. You can't really argue with that. He probably is mean and learning boring stuff does suck. Bail knows it and all he can do laugh about the situation.
So, that's the story of the story. It was a deceptively simple concept for a simple reason. In the end, I think it came out fine. It has held up over the years in spite of some preaching, a few niggling problems of grammar and punctuation, and the sap. While I might have a desire to tweak a thing or two, I wouldn't change anything major. To top it off, the Bail muse seems to enjoy this piece so I figure it's all good.