W. Wald

W. Wald was a male Rodian slave on Tatooine who could speak Huttese.

Childhood
Wald was a friend of Anakin Skywalker in their childhood years. He lived on Tatooine with his family, which had moved to Mos Espa only shortly before the Invasion of Naboo, and helped Anakin as he built a podracer. Wald was known as a petty thief and vandal, and graffiti proclaiming Watto to be a "dirty old bird" was attributed to him. Wald always managed to share his illicit earnings with his friends, and his friendship with Anakin was strong.

Adult life


In the years following Anakin's departure, Wald remained close friends with Kitster Banai and Anakin's mother, Shmi. He took a job working in Watto's salvage yard, but never matched Anakin's skills in repairing old hardware.

While working for Watto, Wald was often overburdened with jobs in addition to the normal chores. For example, when there was a problem with large mynocks slipping into Watto's junkyard at night to eat the power cables, Watto told Wald to solve the problem. Fortunately for Wald, a traveler who was looking for a missing droid part agreed to help Wald and went to the location just outside of Mos Espa where the mynocks roamed, and thinned out the population drastically. The traveler agreed to do two more jobs for Wald. A gang called the Laser Flits had ambushed a delivery of swoop parts for one of Wald and Watto's customers and stolen ten swoop parts. The traveler went to the Laser Flits' headquarters and retrieved the parts, killing at least ten gang members. The other job was a simple delivery job. Some spare parts were to be delivered to a Qord D'Baelor customer waiting in Mos Espa starport. Having completed the jobs, the traveler left. Wald appreciated the benevolence of the traveler, whom he ended up considering a friend.

When Watto decided to retire, he turned over the salvage shop's rights to Wald. He renamed the shop Wald's Parts, and continued to do a meager business during the early years of the New Republic. When Kitster stole the Killik Twilight moss-painting, Wald helped him escape from Jergo, then later provided information to Leia Organa Solo on where Kitster had fled with the moss-painting. Leia however was quietly infuriated that he refused to believe Anakin Skywalker had grown up to become Darth Vader, unable in his mind to reconcile the joyous young child he had known with the monster of the Dark Side. He was also unaware of his return to Tatooine, and the actions he took in attempting to rescue his mother.

Behind the scenes
Wald was played by Warwick Davis, who also played Wicket W. Warrick in Return of the Jedi, as well as Weazel in The Phantom Menace.

Wald is a German word meaning forest.

Appearances

 * Urchins
 * Episode I Adventures 5: The Ghostling Children
 * Episode I Adventures 8: Trouble on Tatooine
 * Episode I: Anakin Skywalker
 * Episode I: The Phantom Menace ½
 * Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
 * A New Hope: The Life of Luke Skywalker
 * Tatooine Ghost
 * Tatooine Ghost