A lot of people forget Carrie Fisher's role in the writing of Star Wars. She did a lot of semi-uncredited editing on the scripts for The Empire Strikes Back and The Attack of the Clones (indeed the original script for AotC was considered 'unfilmable' by Kathleen Kennedy, pre-Fisher). Quite a lot of those films' quality (arguably they are both the best of their respective trilogies) was due to her perspective, writing skill and understanding of the characters (as well as her ability to pare thirty words from George Lucas down to just two or three).
Huh? I knew she was a gifted screenwriter and script-doctor, but not that she lent her skills to the good cause ...
Thanks!
With regards to her personal life, one thing we can say for certain about Carrie Fisher is this: Few were the days when she had been truly happy and that she at least had the moral courage to acknowledge her own responsibility in this. Nonetheless, I genuinely believe that she was more sinned against than sinning.
Yeah ... I'm not quite so happy about the framing of effects of mental health troubles in terms of 'sins'. A lot of people with persistent mental health troubles - including yours truly - have a
"self-medication episode" in their biographies. In my twenties, I tried to cure my ADHD with THC (Cannabis' acts calming on most people - not so on folk with 'paradox stimulant response') and my budding depressive episodes with alcohol.
It's
far less hedonistic self-indulgence via recreational drugs and far more
'desperate to feel normal for once' - and judging from accounts, bipolar disorder is one of the more difficult ones to balance in that respect. I'm not so happy with the framing along the 'sin/repentance'-axis because mental health troubles make you prone to seeing yourself as a pathetic piece of shit anyhow, and this may lead people so afflicted to seek religious solutions exclusively, instead of also seeking medical guidance. The Christian faith makes a good point about suffering being a part of life, and the nobility of sacrifice for others - but nowhere does it praise
needless suffering.
If suffering was a reliable indicator of a sinful life, I'd like to know what poor Jesus did to deserve dying nailed to a cross? And what other religion has a deity (prophet for non-trinitarians) that conjures up recreational drugs for a wedding?
In the sense that she was unapologetic about herself, less prone to bullshitting herself than most, and a
fierce advocate for people struggling with their mental health, I'd agree.
