Dejah Thoris

The side characters I think are just all too underdeveloped.

Uh, the princess, I have to keep flipping to IMDb, Dejah Thoris-

Yeah

... um, is the most developed of all the side characters, and I think she's okay.

Exactly.

He falls under the spell of a gorgeous, fiercely independent Martian princess named Dejah Thoris, and gets completely swept up in the massive planet-wide conflicts between various local alien sects, four-armed green Martians and warring kingdoms.

It is the absolute template for the pulp sci-fi hero, the stranger in a strange land who becomes a savior.

And almost a century later, in 2012, Walt Disney Studios decided they wanted to bring this ancient template to the big screen.

Okay.

The movie was directed by Andrew Stanton, who is a legitimate genius over at Pixar, having directed Finding Nemo and WALL-E.

It starred Taylor Kitsch as John Carter and Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris.

And the scale of this production cannot be overstated.

But he still loves Burroughs, right? Edgar Rice Burroughs.

He loves Dejah Thoris.

You know who else is in this book he loves and isn't part of the universe exactly? It's Kipling.

He can't help but find places to throw down Kipling.

I did another Red Sonja, the more Red Sonja.

I did Dejah Thoris and a few other things because Vampire Lover is a Red Sonja recently.

So whenever something comes up, he just pops up and say, hey, would you be interested? And he emailed me and said, hey, do you know anything about Supernatural? And I was like, yeah, I was like, I mean, I was a fan, right? So I've seen it.

I've been watching it.

It was upon the occasion of a great feast at the marble palace of the Warlord.

There were gathered under one roof the most beautiful women of Barsoom, where, notwithstanding the gorgeous and radiant beauty of Deja Thoris, Tara of Helium, and Thuvia of Tarth, the pulchritude of Sonoma Tora was such as to arrest attention.

I shall not say that it was greater than that of those acknowledged queens of Barsoomian loveliness, for I know that my adoration of Sonoma Tora might easily influence my judgment, but there were others there who remarked her gorgeous beauty which differs from that of Deja Thoris as the chaste beauty of a polar landscape differs from the beauty of the tropics, as the beauty of a white palace in the moonlight differs from the beauty of its garden at midday.

When at my solicitation I was presented to her, she glanced first at the insignia upon my armor, and noting therefrom that I was but a padwar, she vouchsafed me but a condescending word and turned her attention again to the door with whom she had been conversing.

I must admit that I was piqued, and yet it was indeed the contumelious treatment she accorded me that fixed my determination to win her, for the goal most difficult of attainment has always seemed to me the most desirable.

It was upon the occasion of a great feast at the marble palace of the Warlord.

There were gathered under one roof the most beautiful women of Barsoom, where, notwithstanding the gorgeous and radiant beauty of Deja Thoris, Tara of Helium, and Thuvia of Tarth, the pulchritude of Sonoma Tora was such as to arrest attention.

I shall not say that it was greater than that of those acknowledged queens of Barsoomian loveliness, for I know that my adoration of Sonoma Tora might easily influence my judgment, but there were others there who were marked for gorgeous beauty, which differs from that of Deja Thoris as the chaste beauty of a polar landscape differs from the beauty of the tropics, as the beauty of a white palace in the moonlight differs from the beauty of its garden at midday.

When at my solicitation I was presented to her, she glanced first at the insignia upon my armor, and noting therefrom that I was but a padwar, she vouchsafed me but a condescending word and turned her attention again to the door with whom she had been conversing.

I must admit that I was piqued, and yet it was indeed the contumelious treatment she accorded me that fixed my determination to win her, for the goal most difficult of attainment has always seemed to me the most desirable.

My dear Mr. Burroughs, It was in the fall of nineteen seventeen at an officers' training camp that I first became acquainted with John Carter, Warlord of Barsoom, through the pages of your novel, A Princess of Mars.

The story made a profound impression upon me, and while my better judgment assured me that it was but a highly imaginative piece of fiction, a suggestion of the verity of it pervaded my inner consciousness to such an extent that I found myself dreaming of Mars and John Carter, of Dejah Thoris, of Tars Tarkas, and of Woola, as they had been entities of my own experience rather than the figments of your imagination.

It is true that in those days of strenuous preparation there was little time for dreaming, yet there were brief moments before sleep claimed me at night, and there were my dreams.

Such dreams! Always of Mars, and during my waking hours at night my eyes always sought out the red planet when he was above the horizon, and clung there, seeking a solution of the seemingly unfathomable riddle he has presented to the Earth-man for ages.

I did not need to be told that this was Karavasa.

There is little more to tell that might not bore you in the telling of how John Carter himself took Valadia and me to Duhor after attending the nuptials of Dartas and Karavasa, and of the great surprise that awaited me in Duhor when I learned for the first time that Kor-San, Jeddak of Duhor, was the father of Valadia, and of the honors that he heaped upon me and the great riches when Valadia and I were wed. John Carter was present at the wedding, and we initiated upon Barsoom a good old American custom, for the warlord acted as best man, and then he insisted that we follow that up with a honeymoon and bore us off to Helium, where I am writing this.

Even now it seems like a dream that I can look out of my window and see the scarlet and the yellow towers of the twin cities of Helium, that I have met and see daily Carthoris, Thuvia of Ptarth, Tara of Helium, Gahan of Gathol, and that peerless creature, Dejah Thoris, Princess of Mars.

Though to me, beautiful as she is, there is another even more beautiful, Valadia, Princess of Duhor, Mrs. Ulysses Paxton.

"Have you more than Carthoris?" "A daughter," he replied, "only a little younger than Carthoris, and barring one, the fairest thing that ever breathed the thin air of dying Mars.

Only Dejah Thoris, her mother, could be more beautiful than Tara of Helium." For a moment he fingered the chessmen idly.

"We have a game on Mars similar to chess," he said, "very similar.

And there is a race there that plays it grimly with men and naked swords.

And, well, Tara of Helium, if I were a young man, I should doubtless be willing to set all Barsoom afire to win you, as I still would to keep your divine mother.

And he smiled across the Serapis table and its golden service at the undimmed beauty of Mars' most beautiful woman.

Our little girl should not yet be troubled with such matters, said Dejah Thoris.

Remember, John Carter, that you are not dealing with an Earth child whose span of life would be more than half completed before a daughter of Barsoom reached actual maturity.

What is your name? asked Lorquas Ptomel, addressing the prisoner.

Dejah Thoris, daughter of Mors Kajak of Helium.

And the nature of your expedition? he continued.

It was a purely scientific research party sent out by my father's father, the Jeddak of Helium, to rechart the air currents and to take atmospheric density tests, replied the fair prisoner in a low, well-modulated voice.

In fact, he could do nothing but make a wild and futile attempt to dislodge me.

With all his immense bulk, he was little if any stronger than I, and it was but the matter of a moment or two before he sank bleeding and lifeless to the floor.

Dejah Thoris had raised herself upon one elbow and was watching the battle with wide, staring eyes.

When I had regained my feet, I raised her in my arms and bore her to one of the benches at the side of the room.