Leia Organa Solo

Princess Leia Skywalker Organa Solo of Alderaan, (born 19 BBY) was among the most important figures in the Galactic Civil War and its aftermath. Leia Organa is the daughter of Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker, adopted daughter of Bail Organa of Alderaan, and twin sister of Luke Skywalker. A politician turned fighter and spy, she had a forceful personality and bright intellect, having accomplished much in her youth: she was a strong proponent for the Rebel Alliance, a former senator of the Galactic Empire (many years later, Chief of State of the New Republic), and a member of the Royal Family of Alderaan. Though raised in privileged surroundings, this fiery diplomat received martial training in order to defend herself, both with a blaster and just her bare hands.

Early Galactic Civil War-era (19 BBY to 0 ABY)
Leia Organa, the younger twin of Luke Skywalker, was born to Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker in 19 BBY. She was later adopted and raised by Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan. She followed her adoptive father into the office of Senator, a position which she held until the dissolution of the Senate in 0 BBY. (At the age of 18, she was the youngest member of that body.) It was not until 4 ABY that she realized Luke was in fact her brother, and Darth Vader her father.

In 0 BBY, Organa was captured along with her ship, the Tantive IV, by Darth Vader. The Sith lord sought to recover the plans for the Death Star I, which Imperial Intelligence suggested had been stolen by Rebel spies.

Unknown to Vader, the young senator had hidden the plans inside an R2 unit, R2-D2, and sent the droid to find the legendary Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi on the planet of Tatooine.

Vader brought her to the Death Star I, where he personally interrogated and tortured her, seeking the location of the plans and the hidden Rebel base from which the Empire suspected the Alliance was striking. Remarkably, she managed to keep silent, despite Vader's Sith powers and the use of an interrogation droid.

Grand Moff Tarkin threatened Organa with the destruction of her homeworld, Alderaan, if she did not reveal the location of the Rebel base. She lied, giving them instead the location of a long-since abandoned base on Dantooine. Tarkin proceeded with the destruction of Alderaan regardless, one of the most infamous acts of the Empire and a shocking example of the Tarkin doctrine of rule by terror. Leia was then placed in a holding cell and scheduled to be executed, while the Imperial Navy deployed scout craft to investigate Dantooine.

Princess Organa's message had reached Obi-Wan Kenobi by this time, and he set out from Tatooine with Luke Skywalker, intending to bring R2-D2 to Leia on Alderaan. Kenobi had hired Han Solo as a pilot. Arriving in the Alderaan system shortly after the world's destruction, the Millennium Falcon was captured by the Death Star's tractor beam.

Surprisingly, this small group managed to avoid immediate capture. Finding that Organa was on the station, they set out to rescue her. Tarkin had by this point discovered that Dantooine was indeed abandoned. In order to find the true location of the hidden base, he ordered his soldiers to allow the small band to escape with Leia, after planting a tracking device on the Falcon. Darth Vader, meanwhile, set out to find Obi-Wan Kenobi, whom he later killed in a duel.

Organa realized that her escape must have been deliberately permitted by the Empire, and surmised that the ship was being tracked. However, she nonetheless decided to return to the base on Yavin IV. Presumably, she would have been arrested immediately had she tried to land on any inhabited Imperial world, and finding another place to trade ships would have been complicated and dangerous. (Locating the tracking device would have been virtually impossible, given how small such a device could be.) This was of course a risk: if no weakness could be found, or if the discovered weakness could only be exploited by, for instance, a saboteur on board the Death Star, it would be necessary to stage a massive evacuation.

Returning to Yavin IV, Princess Organa found that her gamble had paid off, as the plans did in fact reveal a weakness that starfighters could potentially exploit. At the Battle of Yavin, the Death Star was destroyed by Organa's brother, Luke Skywalker. This marked a turning point for the Rebellion.

Late Galactic Civil War-era (0 ABY to 4 ABY)
In 3 ABY, Organa helped coordinate the evacuation of the rebel base on Hoth, an icy-rock planet. Despite the ongoing battle, she remained vigilant and issued commands from the crumbling base. Luckily, she was able to escape any danger and flee with C-3PO, Han Solo and Chewbacca on the Millennium Falcon. Pursued by Imperial fighters, and hobbled by a non-functional hyperdrive, they escaped by flying into an asteroid field.

Princess Organa's initially adversarial relationship with Han Solo around this time evolved into a love affair. Not long after their escape from Hoth, Solo was captured on Cloud City, and used as a test subject for the carbonite-freezing process which Darth Vader intended for Luke Skywalker. (Solo survived the freezing process, and was taken to Jabba by Boba Fett.)

Leia displayed latent telepathy, despite having never been trained in the use of the Force, when she sensed Luke's distress as he hung from a weather vane after being defeated by Darth Vader. She led the Falcon back to rescue him, and together they departed for a secret rendez-vous point where the Rebel fleet was gathering for an attack on the Death Star II.

Organa participated in the rescue of Han Solo from Jabba, killing the Hutt gangster herself by throttling him with a chain. She joined the gathered Rebel fleet near Sullust, and accompanied General Crix Madine's commando force to the forest moon of Endor where the Death Star's shield generator was located. With the success of this mission, the Death Star was destroyed in the epochal Battle of Endor.

She married Han Solo not long after the Battle of Endor, and later gave birth to three children, Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin. (See Solo family.)

New Republic-era (4 ABY - ?)
Princess Organa was a founding member of the New Republic, which was formally promulgated in 5 ABY. She succeeded Mon Mothma as its Head of State, and later filled other offices, such as Chief of Defense and various diplomatic posts. Although most of her life was devoted to such matters of state, she engaged in limited study of the Jedi arts, with her twin brother Luke Skywalker as her teacher. Notably, she wielded a red lightsaber - a color traditionally associated with the Sith.

Organa's relationship to Darth Vader was kept secret; publicly, she remained known as the biological heir to Bail Organa, and thus the Royal House of Alderaan. She played an important role for those Alderaanians who still lived, having been offworld at the time of the planet's destruction. She founded New Alderaan, over which the Royal House of Alderaan, in the person of Leia Organa-Solo and her children, continued to hold sovereignty. The government on New Alderaan also administered their former Alderaan system.

Behind the Scenes
Leia is played by actress Carrie Fisher in the films and by Ann Sachs in the 1980s radio drama.