Star Wars: Battle Scars explores Merrin’s pansexuality
Star Wars: Battle Scars from Sam Maggs, a new novel that bridges the gap between Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order and Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, is catching every queer fan’s attention thanks to a sapphic storyline focusing on Merrin.
Merrin, the mysterious Nightsister who we first met in Jedi Fallen Order, is a Nightsister from Dathomir. After overcoming a foe with Cal Kestis, the protagonist of the game, Merrin joins Kestis and the rest of the crew of the Stinger Mantis. As confirmed by Star Wars: Battle Scars, Merrin has been with the crew ever since. And it looks like she’s been busy in more ways than one.
It should be noted that, before going any further, this article will contain spoilers for Merrin’s story in Star Wars: Battle Scars. If you’d rather avoid that, then click away.
As confirmed by our source Star Wars Queer Watch, Star Wars: Battle Scars has Merrin taking on a key role in the novel. On a routine mission, Merrin runs into an alien-looking Stormtrooper, a Keshiri woman who goes by Fret. She’s looking to defect from the Empire and together the two women undertake a mission to stop the Empire from getting their hands on an intention by Fret’s ex-girlfriend, Irei. Along the way, the two develop feelings for one another and their relationship (which takes a spicy turn, because sex in Star Wars does exist, actually) helps Merrin understand more about herself and her Magick powers.
Merrin’s sexuality is conveyed earlier in the novel, where it talks about the Nightsister having a handful of different relationships since she joined the crew aboard the Stinger Mantis. It has since been confirmed by Sam Maggs, the author, that Merrin is pansexual and has been even before Star Wars: Battle Scars, but was only able to be explored recently in Maggs novel.
“Merrin was originally envisioned as pansexual by the team at Respawn. So, that was an established thing when I came on to writing this book, something that the Respawn team wanted to explore with this book, and wanted to establish with this book was Merrin’s pansexuality so that it would be clear, canonical, and also is something that the book gives us a unique opportunity to explore.” Maggs explained. “[There’s] not a lot of time in video games to do romance with extraneous characters. We got stuff going on. And also, again, the games being from Cal’s perspective, this was a really unique opportunity to get Merrin’s thoughts and establish the way she feels about people in a really intimate way.”
As Maggs pointed out, Merrin’s pansexuality hasn’t exactly been hidden or thrust upon the character. Respawn established her tastes in Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order with the implication of losing her girlfriend during General Grievious’s attack on the Nightsisters during The Clone Wars.
Whether Star Wars: Battle Scars will have any sort of effect on what goes down with Merrin in Star Wars: Jedi Survivor remains to be seen. Either way, queer Star Wars fans are eating well lately, and god, what a change that makes.
Star Wars: Battle Scars is available to purchase now via your local bookstore retailer.
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