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A sun-dragon was a mythological creature, a type of dragon that supposedly existed inside stars. Smaller cousins of these creatures were said to live inside the fusion furnaces that powered things such as starships and podracers. The children of Tatooine would sometimes tell tales of these creatures.[1]
Behind the scenes
- "Inside your head, there is only fire. Around your heart, the dragon whispers that all things die. This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, right now."
- ―Revenge of the Sith novelization narrator
The sun-dragon is mentioned in Matthew Stover's novelization of the film Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. In the novel, Anakin Skywalker's fear of death and fear of losing his wife, Padmé Amidala, is personified as a version of this dragon which whispers to him continuously that "all things die," precipitated when Skywalker witnessed the death of a star with Obi-Wan Kenobi. The whispering is hastened by Skywalker's visions of Amidala's death, leading him to create the persona of the Sith Lord Vader to quash the dragon, but as the voice whispers to him again, he fears the dragon has left a venomous fang behind.[1]
The 20th anniversary deluxe edition of the novel features an addendum titled The Sun-Dragon Crisis detailing that the sun-dragon appearing in the novel is not that in Stover's original manuscript. In it, author Matthew Stover explains that a little after two months after delivering the final manuscript of the novel, he received a phone call from Howard Roffman of Lucasfilm who stated "George doesn't like the dragon stuff. It all has to go," and that they needed the changes by the day after tomorrow. He asked specifically what George Lucas didn't like about it, to which Roffman replied that it made it feel as if something outside Anakin was driving him toward the dark, that it was something acting on him instead of his own choices. He protested that the dragon was the central image for Anakin's anger, to which Roffman replied "George knows that, he just doesn't like it." At this point, Stover lost his mind and began shouting obscenities, not knowing how he was going to fix this in so short a time. He asked if Roffman really expected him to be struck by lightning and wake up with a magic idea. However, after going for a walk for a while and then going to bed, he awoke less than three hours later with a realization: why it was that the film's script had tagged Anakin Skywalker as the "Hero With No Fear," that it was dramatic irony.
Appearances
- Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith novelization (and unabridged audiobook) (First mentioned)