In what is a pretty historic moment in the Star Wars Universe, Paul S. Kemp's upcoming Lords of the Sith novel (which is set between the events of Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Rebels) will introduce the first official LBBT character into canon. Moff Mars is described as, "an Imperial who has made some very serious mistakes," but is still "an incredibly capable leader and spends much of the book working hard to prevent absolute failure." Big Shiny Robot (via IGN) adds that she "also happens to be a lesbian." Same sex relationships and LGBT characters in Star Wars canon have only ever really been alluded to in games and novels and never directly addressed.
However, the book's editor Shelly Shapiro revealed in a recent interview that the character will bring some much needed diversity to the Star Wars Universe. "This is certainly the first [LGBT] character in canon. But there was a gay Mandalorian couple, so it's not brand new. It's not something I really think about, it just makes sense. There's a lot of diversity–there should be diversity in "Star Wars." You have all these different species and it would be silly to not also recognize that there's a lot of diversity in humans. If there's any message at all, it's simply that "Star Wars" is as diverse (or more so because they have alien species) as humanity is in real life and we don't want to pretend it's not. It just felt perfectly natural." How big of a role this will play in the novel remains to be seen, but hopefully a similar level of diversity finds its way into the live-action movies too. What do you guys think of this latest Star Wars development? Sound off below!