Star Wars Author Daniel José Older Explains Why He Created A Non-Binary Character In Solo Tie-In Novel
Star Wars author Daniel José Older recently explained why he created the non-binary character Taka Jamoreesa in the Solo tie-in novel, Last Shot.
Older posted to TikTok and then subsequently to Twitter a video introducing people to Taka Jamoreesa as well as explaining why he decided to create the character.
The explanation was prompted by a question from user violentfemme22. They asked, “Could you talk about coming up with Taka for Last Shot? You wrote them so well and good non-binary rep is hard to come by.”
Older then stated, “Violentfemme2 asks about Taka Jamoreesa, hot shot pilot, aspiring scoundrel, great taste in music from my novel Last Shot. Taka also has a pet worrt named Korrg.”
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“Things that were important to me when writing this character and keep in mind there is no one right way to write people of a certain demographic. This was my particular take for this character, Taka Jamoreesa,” he continued.
Older then detailed, “I wanted to show that they were a person of color because there are very few non-binary people and even fewer non-binary people of color in the media.”
“I wanted them to be able to say their own pronouns and not have other people gender them and decide their gender from the outside. I wanted them to be clearly a human and not an alien ’cause in this particular case that was important,” he said.
He concluded, “And I wanted to show canonically Han and Lando respecting the they/them pronouns without missing a beat because they’re heroes. And real heroes respect people’s pronouns.”
TAKA JAMOREESA THEY NEED NO INTRODUCTION but here’s one anyway plus some thoughts on writing this particular non-binary character #StarWars https://t.co/VukCkYa7ET pic.twitter.com/qJabGcYE1A
— Daniel José Older (@djolder) January 10, 2021
This explanation of Jamoreesa comes months after Older promised he would be introducing new non-binary characters into Star Wars.
Back in March 2020 he wrote on Twitter, “Let me say this to international publishers: Taka Jamoreesa was not the first and I can promise you they will not be the last gender nonbinary Star Wars character.”
He added, “So you would do well to figure out how to handle that correctly for translations.”
What do you make of Older’s explanation on why he created a non-binary character?
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