Characterization
Jabba the Hutt exemplifies lust, greed, and gluttony. The character is known throughout the Star Wars universe as a "vile gangster" who amuses himself by torturing and humiliating his subjects and enemies. He surrounds himself with scantily-clad slave girls of all species, chaining many of them to his dais. The Star Wars Databank—an official online database of Star Wars information—remarks that residents of his palace are not safe from his desire to dominate and torture. Jabba would send even his most loyal servants and prized possessions to their deaths. For example, in Return of the Jedi, the Twi'lek slave dancer Oola is fed to the rancor monster because she refuses to pander to his whim.
Jabba the Hutt's physical appearance is as grotesque as his character and reinforces his personality as a criminal deviant. As Han Solo puts it in Return of the Jedi, Jabba is a "slimy piece of worm-ridden filth." Film critic Roger Ebert describes him as "a cross between a toad and the Cheshire Cat", and astrophysicist and science fiction writer Jeanne Cavelos gives Jabba the "award for most disgusting alien." Science fiction authors Tom and Martha Veitch write that Jabba's body is a "miasmic mass" of flesh that shakes as he laughs. He emits an unmistakable smell: "The Hutt's lardaceous body seemed to periodically release a greasy discharge, sending fresh waves of rotten stench" into the air. His swollen tongue drips with saliva as he feeds on creatures that resemble frogs and maggots. Jabba's appetite is insatiable and he is not discriminatory about his diet. For example, his jester, the Kowakian monkey-lizard Salacious B. Crumb, must make the Hutt crime lord laugh once a day, every day, or Jabba will eat him.
Jabba the Hutt does show rare moments of charity, however. For instance, in one Expanded Universe story, he prevents a Chevin named Ephant Mon from freezing to death on an ice planet by covering him with his bloated layers of fat; the two are eventually rescued, and Ephant Mon becomes totally loyal to the crime lord, making him the only resident of Jabba's palace that the crime lord trusts. Also, in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Jabba seems to have genuine affection for his son Rotta, and is worried by his kidnapping and angered by his supposed death.
Lucas has noted that there was a potential role for Jabba in future episodes, as he may have faked his death via Leia and one angle shows an escape hatch emerging from his barge as it explodes.
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