Lady Proxima

Lady Proxima is a Grindalid matriarch who rules the White Worms gang in the industrial underworld of Corellia during the years just before the Galactic Civil War. Introduced in the 2018 film “Solo: A Star Wars Story” (and expanded upon in the movie’s novelization, the reference book “The Art of Solo,” and the 2022 guide “Star Wars: The Secrets of the Bounty Hunters”), she is an immense, albino, worm-like alien that spends most of her time submerged in a fetid pool beneath the decaying Corellian city of Coronet. Proxima maintains iron-fisted control over a network of orphans and street urchins - including young Han Solo and Qi’ra - who steal starship parts, coaxium vials, and other valuables for her in exchange for food and the faint promise of protection. Because Grindalids desiccate quickly when exposed to ultraviolet light, she rarely leaves her lair and instead projects authority through well-armed enforcers such as Moloch and Rebolt, as well as through a translator droid that renders her hissing aquatic language into Basic.

Narratively, Lady Proxima embodies the predatory nature of Corellia’s criminal ecosystem: she hoards resources, manipulates the vulnerable with debt and fear, and sells pilfered goods to off-world buyers connected to larger syndicates like Crimson Dawn. Her confrontation with Han - culminating in his daring escape after shattering a skylight and forcing her to recoil from sunlight - acts as the catalyst that propels the future smuggler off-world and into the events that shape the original trilogy. Although she appears only briefly on screen, ancillary materials reveal that Proxima survived the incident, reinforced her den, and continued exploiting Corellia’s youth well into the Imperial era, illustrating how deeply entrenched, small-scale crime can be in the Star Wars galaxy even under the shadow of galactic-level conflicts.