Prior to reading the Thrawn Trilogy I was one of those “wow she’s so cool” types from just hearing about her backstory on forums. But as soon as I read the books I disliked Mara since I feel like she’s two cool characters combined into one far less cool character. Specifically I think the Pirate and Emperor’s Hand bits feel weird together. It’s pretty telling that when people describe her they tend to entirely focus on the Emperor’s Hand-turned-Luke gf stuff and ignore the entire pirate plotline. So I think she’d be a stronger character if she was just one of the two. Preferably the pirate gf because I think Luke dating a pirate is very funny.

(Also doesn’t help that I read them when TFA was new. So seeing all the “Rey is a Mary Sue” criticisms coming from accounts I had previously seen praise Mara was giving me whiplash since Mara is far worse on that front. Although I wouldn’t criticise her for that since I hate using the term due to the sexist connotations)