U Paw, more commonly known as Serpent Lady and nicknamed Lotus Flower by Sophia Hapgood, was the general of a faction of Chinese bandits around 1938.
Biography[]
Formerly the leader of a province where she maintained law and order, U Paw was usurped by the armies of Chiang Kai-Shek and since became directly opposed to his rule. Her army was reduced to being nomadic and forced to banditry in order to continue to fund their fight to free her province. Because she led from the front, her men were fiercely loyal to her and would willingly volunteer themselves to be put into harm's way for her cause. She had long black hair and wore revealing tops and a cape instead of a military uniform or traditional garments.
She infiltrated the city of Chanri-Ha as a mute slave, with a plan to rob its treasury and escape on the city's holy day of sacrifice. During her captivity, Indiana Jones, Sophia Hapgood, Patar Kali and Khamal arrived in the city, where Khamal was proclaimed the incarnation of Zan-Khan after he bested one of the ceremonial guards. One day while she was carrying water, a guard goaded U Paw with a staff. Jones' whip put a stop to the beating, and Khamal's anger and Hapgood's thinking helped free the chained woman, who had been designated as a sacrificial offering. Instead, she became Hapgood's servant, staying close to the outsiders. Learning that she did not have a name, Hapgood named her "Lotus Flower" and began to clean her up - realizing that her new servant was quite beautiful.
On the day of sacrifice, Khamal cried and refused to allow people to be sacrificed for him, which caused a riot among the citizens who saw them as impostors. The city came under military bombardment, allowing the four to escape. U Paw had ransacked part of the treasury and loaded up the treasures, and killed a spearman aiming at Jones and Hapgood, and then directed them to safety via horseback. Leading them to the army attacking the city, she revealed herself as General Serpent Lady. Re-united with her army, she ordered that they attack the pursuing Chanri-Ha warriors, and after their defeat, set out to a plain to camp. At the camp, she explained her situation to Jones, as fighting against Chiang Kai-Shek, and promised to grant provisions to Jones and his party to continue their search. The next morning, Jones discovered that she and some of her army were accompanying them in the search for the Covenant of Buddha, which in her guise as a deaf slave, she had overheard Jones discussing with Kali. With the secrets of the Covenant, she felt that she could rule all of China. Leaving Fang in charge of the rest of her forces, she led the expedition.
In a mountain bridge pass, her men came under attack by Masashi Kyojo's men, but her mortars forced their retreat. After losing a volunteer to a sniper, she took a rifle and eliminated two snipers before braving across the bridge on her own, inviting Jones to accompany her. Catching up to the Japanese forces, she used dynamite to destroy their vehicle convoy, and separate Kyojo from his forces.
Continuing to move eastward, she and Jones came across a train with Kuomintang forces. Confronting their leader, Captain Lao-Tsing, she captured the train and separated Jones from his comrades, to ensure that they could not escape to find the Covenant without her - and to possibly romance the archaeologist. Stopping the train in the countryside before it reached Japanese-controlled Hankow, she ordered her group to disembark to pick up the trail of the Covenant. Approaching a village, she sent two scouts to determine the town's allegiances, but they failed to return. Coming under fire, she ordered a retreat, in which Jones, Hapgood, Khamal and Kali escaped, but were captured by the town's defenders. Trying to load a machine gun, U Paw was captured by the town's warlord, Ch'ao the Red. Ch'ao kept her prisoner, trying to determine why she had come to the region, without the bulk of her army. Bound, she defied Ch'ao, spitting in his face and biting his lip. Ch'ao then went to interrogate and kill Jones and Hapgood. During the brawl outside, Japanese planes began bombing the town, which distracted U Paw's guards, whom she killed with a knife, and rounded up Jones and his friends to take her to the Covenant.
Their car was attacked and flipped on its side, and Kyojo, in an armored car, reached the temple first. Hapgood managed to draw a gun on U Paw, allowing Jones and Kali to go to the temple without letting U Paw near it. As the temple began to collapse due to the opening of the Covenant, U Paw accompanied Hapgood and Khamal inside, and helped pull Jones and Kali to safety. Driving Kyojo's armored car back to the town, she recognized that Fang had arrived with the rest of her army, and had taken over the town from the late Ch'ao's forces, and seized a great cache of weapons and gold for their cause. Recognizing that the Japanese were a greater threat to China, the general set aside her war with the Kuomintang to drive the foreign invaders out. Leading her forces again from horseback, she bid farewell to Jones, outfitting him with trucks and money to get him home, and expressed her dismay at the loss of the Covenant.
Appearances[]
- Indiana Jones: Thunder in the Orient (First appearance)