There are women out there in the world who make these amazing realizations, and declare them out like a powerful orchestra of liberty and righteousness. It is often difficult, I think, even for those who dismiss women and their power, to ignore the art that they make with their words. Normally that could be because it gets plastered everywhere and anywhere media is spoon fed to the masses, but also because beautiful and heartfelt words tend to radiate out without discriminating on their recipients.

Loan Tran is one such woman. We know her as Kelly Marie Tran and she was the first main cast Star Wars character who happened to be female and of color. She was the first Asian in a leading roll in Star Wars and she made fan boys rage with their hatred of the way her character handles key plot moments in the latest main line Star Wars movie: Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi.

I’ll be the first to admit, her character left so much to be desired in terms of autonomy, plot relevance and overall thought process in crucial moments. Her inexplicable devotion/attachment to Finn weakened her character in so many ways for me, but that is not Kelly Marie Tran’s fault, or her problem.

You may be thinking “But Ally! Tran deleted her Instagram, she hid from the criticism and the threats, why would that make her your hero?” and on the surface, it seems pretty strange that I’d be cheering for someone who avoided her problems… but honestly? These are not her problems, they are ours.

The reeling and whining of Star Wars fans is not something she should ever, ever have to deal with. Her job is to bring to life the character as imagined by the script and the director and build a believable human from those tiny directions. In my opinion, regardless of how weak and flawed that person was, she did that with flying colors. She created a woman who was broken from the loss of her (clearly) more competent and more respected sibling, living in the wake of that loss and attempting to honor that legacy by stepping up into shoes she wasn’t ready to fill without realizing how complex the world outside of her engineering bubble would be. She never lost face, but it was clear that she lacked the experience outside of a space vessel to effectively communicate her goals and lead the team to their execution.

That isn’t a bad thing either, a lot of the story arcs in SW:TLJ were about having goals and taking control and failing miserably when you do because you aren’t prepared or don’t have all the information. That in and of itself is a great lesson about trust and honesty. And perhaps that is the best lesson Kelly Marie Tra- sorry Loan Tran had learned from the haters and die hards. Rather than blindly throwing herself against the opposition, without a clear goal of how to end the conflict, she stood by herself and took the reflection and the battle inward and one that conflict before bring the battle out to them.

In both instances, its clear that she is the winner. May the Force be with you, Loan.