Star Wars Character Review: Rose Tico

*Warning: This post contains spoilers about the new characters that were introduced to audiences for the episodes seven and eight in the Star Wars franchise. Read at your own risk if you have not seen The Force Awakens Or The Last Jedi.

There is something to be said about a well written, human character. They leap off the page and speak to us as if they were right in front us, as flesh and blood human beings, instead of fictional creations.

In this series of weekly blog posts, I will examine character using the characters from Star Wars to explore how writers can create fully dimensional, human characters that audiences and readers can relate to.

Hero worship is a funny thing. We may think that we know that person, but sometimes, the person behind the hero is two different people.

In The Last Jedi, a new character was introduced to the Star Wars Universe. Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) is a mechanic who has toiled silently in the background for the rebellion. She is the last member of her family still living after her parents died in subjugation to the First Order and her sister died during the battle of evacuation and battle of D’Qar.

Rose’s hero-worship moment comes when she stops Finn from getting on one of the escape pods by knocking him out with an electro-shock prod. But, she does this after realizing that he is one of the heroes of the resistance. When Finn comes to, he convinces Rose to join him on the secret plan to stop the First Order by disabling the tracking device they are using to track the rebellion.

In the end, Rose becomes a hero herself. She not only sees Finn as a complete human being, but also rises to the occasion. She is no longer in the background, but in the foreground as one of the heroes of the rebellion.

To sum it up: Hero worship is a fine thing. But to understand a person, we have to look past their heroics and see the person. As writers, when we have a character who views another character through the lens of hero-worship, we have two options. We can either view that character through the rose-colored glasses of said hero worship. Or, we can take the time to reveal the human being underneath the hero.

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