by mattieb

Princess Leia Organa

Appearances

Star Wars films

Early life

Baby Leia being put in the care of Bail Organa and his wife after the death of her mother, the fall of her father, and the separation between her and her brother.

By the fictional chronology, Leia first appears in Revenge of the Sith, when Padm gives birth to her and Luke at Polis Massa.

After Padm’s death, Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda decide that they must hide the Skywalker children from their father, former Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, who had recently turned to the dark side and became the Sith Lord Darth Vader. Leia is sent to Alderaan with the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO with her adoptive parents, Bail and Breha Organa, so she would not be found by the Empire.

According to the Expanded Universe, Leia is raised with Winter, who becomes her handmaiden later on in life, as well as her children’s nanny.

At the age of 16, Leia becomes the youngest member of the Imperial Senate and becomes good friends with Senator Pooja Naberrie of Naboo, her maternal cousin. She also becomes one of the driving forces behind the Rebel Alliance, the New Republic and even later, the Galactic Alliance. She serves the Senate until Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious dissolves it. Three years before Episode 4, she is taken as a hostage to Kashyyyk, to stop adoptive ther Bail Organa from speaking out against Darth Sidious. After being saved by the young Galen Marek, she is later present at the formation of the Rebel Alliance on Corellia, which is disturbed by Darth Vader, seeking Marek, his secret Apprentice. She is at the formation via transmission, and Vader never actually sees her when raiding the rebel Alliances’s formation headquarters. She later chooses the symbol of the Rebel Alliance as the Marek family crest.

A New Hope

Princess Leia aboard the Death Star with her, at the time, unknown twin brother Luke Skywalker, and future husband Han Solo.

In Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Darth Vader captures her onboard the ship Tantive IV, where she is acting as a spy for the Rebellion. He accuses her of being a traitor and demands to know the location of the secret technical plans of the Death Star, the Empire’s newest and most powerful weapon. Unknown to him, the young senator has hidden the plans inside an Astromech droid, R2-D2, and has sent it to find Obi-Wan Kenobi on the nearby planet of Tatooine. Later, Vader has her tortured, but she resists telling him anything. Still believing she could be useful, the Death Star’s commander, Grand Moff Tarkin, threatens to destroy Alderaan with the superweapon unless she reveals the location of the hidden Rebel base. She still does not give in and lies to them, as Tarkin orders Alderaan to be destroyed anyway. She is finally rescued by unlikely heroes: Luke Skywalker, an elderly Obi-Wan Kenobi, the cocky smuggler Han Solo, the Wookiee Chewbacca, and the two droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO. When they finally escape, at the expense of Obi-Wan’s life (sacrificed in a duel with Vader), they take part in the Battle of Yavin. Luke, in his one-man X-wing fighter, destroys the Death Star. In the Massassi Temple at the hidden Rebel base on Yavin 4, the radiant Princess Leia Organa presents the Alderaanian Medal of Freedom to her rescuers and the heroes of the battle.

The Empire Strikes Back

Three years later, in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Leia is at the Rebel base on Hoth When Luke was rescued after being knocked unconscious in the snow storm, Leia began to worry for Luke. Later Han rescues Luke and back at the base, Leia tells Han that he probably doesn’t know everything about women and then kisses Luke. Leia later helps with the evacuation of Hoth. Despite the ongoing battle, she remains vigilant and issues commands from the crumbling base. She flees with C-3PO, Han, and Chewbacca on Han’s ship, the Millennium Falcon. Although they are pursued by Imperial TIE fighters, they dodge their fire by flying into an asteroid field when the Falcon’s hyperdrive breaks down. Despite Leia’s having kissed Luke earlier and being constantly at odds with Han, romance blossoms; while hiding in the stomach of a space slug, she finally shares a kiss with the scruffy-looking Corellian smuggler. Later, when they stop at Bespin for repairs, Han’s friend Lando Calrissian turns them over to Vader, who uses them as bait for Luke. Han is also used as a test subject for the carbon freezing chamber meant for Luke, and it is there that Leia finally confesses her love for Han. Vader then gives the frozen Han to bounty hunter Boba Fett to give to Jabba the Hutt, to whom Han owes a very large debt. Later, Lando helps Leia, Chewbacca, and the two droids escape. While escaping, she senses that Luke is in trouble and makes them go back for him. They save Luke, who is badly hurt after a near-fatal duel against Vader, who has revealed that he is Luke’s father.

Return of the Jedi

In Return of the Jedi, Leia, Chewbacca, Lando, Luke (now nearly a Jedi Knight), and the droids go to Tatooine to try to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt. Leia’s part of the plan consists of posing as the Ubese bounty hunter Boushh, who will turn Chewbacca over to Jabba. Her ruthless bargaining as Boushh, negotiating the price for Chewbacca at the end of a thermal detonator, impresses Jabba and Boba Fett enough to allow her quarters in the palace for the night. The Huttese gangster eventually discovers her real identity, captures her, makes her his new slave girl, and forces her to wear her now iconic metal bikini after she frees Han from the carbonite.

After Luke kills the Rancor, Jabba sentences Luke and Han to be fed to the Sarlacc. Just as all seems lost, Lando, disguised as a guard, helps Luke and Han overpower their captors. Leia seizes the moment to kill Jabba by strangling him with the very chain that bound her. R2-D2 cuts her loose, and after Luke boards the sailbarge, he rescues Leia. With Leia’s help, Luke uses a deck cannon to blow up his barge as they swing to safety.

While preparing for a last battle with the Empire on Endor, Luke reveals to a stunned Leia that she is, in fact, his twin sister, and that Vader is their father. Initially reluctant to believe him, Leia realizes that Luke speaks the truth and joins Han Solo in leading the Rebels in battle on Endor as the Rebel Fleet battle the second Death Star. Leia is injured in the battle, but the Rebels, allied with the Ewoks, are victorious over the Empire.

The Star Wars Holiday Special

Leia and C-3PO in The Star Wars Holiday Special

Leia briefly appears in the 1978 TV movie The Star Wars Holiday Special, where she is once again portrayed by Fisher. In the show, Leia is a leader and administrator of the new Rebel Alliance base. She is accompanied by C-3PO when contacting Chewbacca’s wife, Mallatobuck, for assistance in finding Chewbacca and Han. She also appears in the cartoon segment at a different Rebel Base, located in an asteroid field, and at the Life Day ceremony at the end of the film.

Leia also appeared in and hosted the November 18, 1978 episode of Saturday Night Live that aired one day after the holiday special. The Summer 1983 issue of Rolling Stone magazine poked fun at this appearance.

Star Wars literature

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Alderaan

After the Rebellion’s victory on Endor, Leia establishes New Alderaan, a sanctuary for the destroyed planet’s surviving inhabitants. The Royal House of Alderaan, in the person of Leia Organa Solo and her children, continues to hold sovereignty over both New Alderaan and the old Alderaan system. Her title is largely ceremonial, however, as the government on New Alderaan actually administers the Alderaan system and New Alderaan in her name. Alderaan thus has been ruled under what seems to be a constitutional monarchy.

The New Republic

Princess Organa is a founding member of the New Republic. Although most of her life is devoted to such matters of state, she engages in limited study of the Jedi arts, with Luke as her teacher. Notably, she wields a blue lightsaber that she built herself.

In the book Queen of the Empire by Paul Davids and Hollace Davids, she gets kidnapped by the “Prophets of the Dark Side” to try to get brainwashed and become loyal to the Empire and to also marry Trioculus but this plan failed to which Trioculus got tricked with a Leia droid which also killed him; this disrupted a planned wedding to Han which was later done in The Courtship of Princess Leia.

In the book Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn, Luke builds her a green lightsaber which she uses to help free the Noghri from their perceived debt to the Empire. Luke then gives her a red one to complement the weapon she had constructed earlier.

After a near-disastrous courtship in which Prince Isolder vies for Leia’s affections, she marries Han. As described in The Courtship of Princess Leia, Han kidnaps Leia and takes her to a planet he had won in a game of sabacc named Dathomir. There they encounter the Nightsisters, whose attempt to escape eventually leads to the demise of the Warlord Zsinj and his empire, equal rival at this time to both the Imperial Remnant and the New Republic.

At first, Leia does not want to have children, fearing they would succumb to the Dark Side as her father had done. In the novel Tatooine Ghost, however, she begins to understand what happened to her father to bring him to the Dark Side. When she and Han go on a mission to Tatooine to retrieve the Alderaanian moss-painting Killik Twilight and the Rebel code hidden within it, Leia discovers her grandmother Shmi Skywalker’s diary and, with the help of her father’s childhood