Okay--she's there. She's all right. Not a big deal. As a supporting character we looked forward to seeing her indecision and problems. "Its' gonna be nice," we thought, "to see someone in the GFFA being torn over leaving their old lives behind."

Over the course of a number of other SW novels we see Mara become a space trader (polite term for smuggler these days) and we see her and Luke develop . . . some sort of relationship(?). Here's where our problems really kick into high gear.

In these books, Mara is a cold, distant, emotionless person going through the motions. She by all rights should be having some sort of big emotional turmoil over her new life, her unexpected feelings (of what, sympathy? friendship?) toward Luke, and of this we see nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. She oscillates from ice queen to confusing wacko chick with no stops in between. As a result there is not one shred of sympathy aroused in us--as Mara does not seem to care about the people around her who are trying to help her and to become her friends, neither do we care about her.