Jess

Jess played the seven-string hallikset and had a long-term relationship with a swooper named Altair Wyeto, who, in 2 ABY took his chance to join the swoop circuits and departed for the Core Worlds. Although Wyeto would have been willing to stay had she asked him, Jess told him to go and live his dream despite the fact that they would be apart. The two promised to see each other again.

Jess eventually became a performer and servant at Jabba's palace because her father, Willux, had a debt to Jabba the Hutt. She dreamed of killing the Hutt and escaping but believed she never would. Eventually, Wyeto returned and attempted to bargain with Jabba for her freedom. He later encountered Jess and asked her to marry him. Jess refused to try and escape, saying that Jabba's people would hunt them both down and kill them. When Wyeto insisted, Jess, overcome by sadness and anger, told him to leave and never come back.

During her servitude, Jess befriended the singer Damaris Viell and Jabba's slave dancer Oola. She also caught the attention of Bib Fortuna, though she only made it look like she would reciprocate his affections. Having been relegated to serve drinks while the Max Rebo Band performed, Jess then sat next to Fortuna for Oola's final dance and subsequent death when Jabba dropped her into the rancor pit. Despite trying not to look directly into the pit, Jess was enraged as the rancor ate Oola.

When Jabba captured Princess Leia Organa during her attempt to free the smuggler Han Solo from his carbonite prison, the Hutt ordered Jess and Damaris to prepare Organa to serve as his replacement for Oola. While she dressed Organa in a dancing-girl costume, she informed the Princess that if she didn't cause trouble, she would be treated well. Organa rejected her advice and insisted that Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker would soon arrive to save her. Later that night, Damaris had a vision that Organa's chains would not hold her, but when she refused to tell Organa, Jess expressed her frustration.

The next morning, Jess received a written message that a palace kitchen worker, Naatke, had found amongst arriving cargo and given to her. It was from her old neighbor, Imj, who told her that Willux had passed away. That same day, Skywalker visited the palace. He was eventually taken prisoner and, alongside Chewbacca and Solo, was sentenced to be executed in the Great Pit of Carkoon. Jess hid in the palace until Jabba's sail barge left for the pit so that she wouldn't have to go. She then stole a Joben T-85 speeder bike from the palace hangar and rode to Mos Espa, where she learned that Jabba had been killed. Locating Wyeto, the two escaped the planet together.

When Organa was later briefed by the Rebellion chronicler Dora Mar, she told her about both Jess and Oola. Though they were not part of the Rebellion, Organa insisted that they were important to the story and should be included in the Rebel's records. Organa admitted that she didn't know whether or not Jess had survived.

Jess was friends with some of the other performers in Jabba's Palace, such as Damaris and Oola. After becoming a servant of Jabba the Hutt, Jess dreamed of killing the gangster. Though she hated serving Jabba, she was resigned to the fact that she couldn't escape his palace alive. Because of this, she believed Leia Organa was delusional for trusting that Luke Skywalker would save her. Eventually, the shock of her father's death inspired her to finally escape.

Despite the fact that Jess started out on keyboards, her preference was stringed instruments.

Jess first appeared as a briefly glimpsed background character in played by English dancer and actress Amanda Noar. Noar also appeared as the character in "Lapti Nek": The Music Video from Jabba's Palace as well as the mockumentary Return of the Ewok. Jess was first identified in Canon as the protagonist in the short story "Dune Sea Songs of Salt and Moonlight" by Thea Guanzon, published in the anthology From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi on August 29, 2023.