Skywalker family

• 1. Introduction

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  The Skywalker family is a fictional legendary human bloodline at the heart of the Star Wars franchise, one whose grip on galactic history spans generations and whose members are bound by a shared, extraordinary relationship with a mystical energy called the Force. The saga begins on Tatooine, a desert planet, where Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn finds a woman named Shmi and her young son Anakin living as slaves. What Qui-Gon senses in that boy will set in motion a story of prophecy, betrayal, sacrifice, and legacy that reaches across nine films and decades of storytelling. Who is the Chosen One? What does it cost a family to carry such power? And can a bloodline that ends in tragedy still leave something worth inheriting?

• 2. Shmi and the Chosen One

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  Shmi Skywalker, portrayed by Pernilla August, is the root of everything. Before she had a son who would reshape the galaxy, she was a slave sold by pirates to the Hutts, eventually passing from Gardulla the Hutt to a junk merchant named Watto in a bet. She and Anakin are introduced in The Phantom Menace as Watto's property in the desert city of Mos Espa. When Qui-Gon asks Shmi about Anakin's father, her answer is striking: she simply became pregnant, with no father involved. Qui-Gon interprets this as evidence that Anakin is a product of midi-chlorians, the Force-imparting microorganisms that connect living beings to the Force.

  In spite of the grinding poverty of the slave quarter, Shmi tries to give Anakin a stable home. Qui-Gon can negotiate Anakin's freedom but not hers, since Watto refuses to give up two slaves at once. She sends her son away anyway, telling him they will meet again. That goodbye is the last moment of relative peace she ever knows.

  By the time of Attack of the Clones, set roughly a decade later, Shmi has found a measure of happiness. Cliegg Lars, a moisture farmer played by Jack Thompson, purchased her from Watto and then freed and married her. She became stepmother to Cliegg's son Owen. Then Tusken Raiders kidnapped her. Anakin, now a young adult Jedi apprentice played by Hayden Christensen, senses through the Force that she is suffering and races to Tatooine. He finds her inside a Tusken encampment, but she has been beaten and tortured beyond saving. She dies in his arms. The grief and fury Anakin feels in that moment do not leave him, and her death becomes one of the first steps on his path toward becoming Darth Vader.

• 3. Anakin's Bargain With Darkness

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  Anakin Skywalker carries the weight of prophecy from childhood. Qui-Gon Jinn identifies him as the Chosen One, the figure from Jedi lore destined to bring balance to the Force. After Qui-Gon's death, Anakin becomes the Padawan of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He also forms a bond with Padmé Amidala, the young senator of Naboo, and earns the attention of Chancellor Palpatine, who promises to watch his progress "with great interest".

  Anakin secretly marries Padmé near the end of Attack of the Clones, shortly after the Battle of Geonosis. Three years later, he begins having nightmares of Padmé dying in childbirth. Palpatine offers him a way to prevent that death through knowledge of the dark side of the Force. Torn between his loyalty to the Jedi Order and his terror of losing Padmé, Anakin crosses to the dark side and becomes Darth Vader.

  The cost is catastrophic. Padmé, devastated by what her husband has become, tracks him to the volcanic planet Mustafar to try to bring him back. Anakin Force chokes her unconscious when Obi-Wan arrives. She survives long enough to give birth to twins, Luke and Leia, and to tell Obi-Wan that she still believes there is good in Anakin. Then she dies. Obi-Wan and Yoda separate the children to hide them from Vader, sending Luke to Owen and Beru Lars on Tatooine and Leia to Senator Bail Organa and Queen Breha Organa on Alderaan.

  Anakin himself would not learn he had children until decades later, in the events depicted in the original film trilogy. His eventual redemption in Return of the Jedi, when he kills Palpatine to save his son Luke, fulfills the prophecy at last. He is played by Sebastian Shaw in that 1983 film, with Jake Lloyd portraying him as a child in The Phantom Menace and Hayden Christensen in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

• 4. The Twins Apart

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  Luke Skywalker, portrayed by Mark Hamill, grows up on Tatooine with Owen and Beru Lars knowing nothing of his real family. Leia Organa, portrayed by Carrie Fisher, is raised on Alderaan as the daughter of Senator Bail Organa and Queen Breha Organa, becoming a princess and a political leader. By age 19 she is already a resistance fighter, captured by Darth Vader while aboard the blockade runner Tantive IV.

  Neither twin knows of their shared blood until Return of the Jedi, when a dying Yoda confirms to Luke that Darth Vader is his father, and Obi-Wan's Force spirit reveals that Leia is his sister. That revelation reframes the entire original trilogy in retrospect: the two children Padmé named with her last breath have spent years fighting on the same side without knowing they are family.

  The twins' Force sensitivity sets them apart from most of the people around them. Padmé had no Force sensitivity. Neither did Han Solo. Shmi had none. But both Luke and Leia carry what their father carried. In Return of the Jedi, Leia uses a chain to strangle Jabba the Hutt to death after Jabba planned to feed Luke, Han, and Chewbacca to a creature called the Sarlacc. Luke, meanwhile, refuses to kill Vader when the Emperor orders it, gambling that the father he never knew can still choose the light. That gamble proves correct. Anakin kills the Emperor to protect his son, fulfilling his destiny and dying in the process.

  The twins' adoptive families both pay a fatal price. Owen and Beru Lars are killed by stormtroopers on Tatooine. Bail Organa and Queen Breha Organa die when the Death Star destroys Alderaan in A New Hope.

• 5. Han Solo and the Next Generation

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  Han Solo's connection to the Skywalker family begins as a job. He and his Wookiee co-pilot Chewbacca are hired to transport Luke and Obi-Wan Kenobi, as depicted in the original 1977 film A New Hope. Han, played by Harrison Ford, is not Force-sensitive; the anthology film Solo: A Star Wars Story reveals he was born on Corellia, where his father constructed ships. His surname "Solo" was not his birth name. An Imperial officer assigned it to him when he applied to join the Imperial Flight Academy, an institution he would leave three years later.

  Over the course of the franchise, Han becomes a military leader for the Rebel Alliance and falls in love with Leia. Their son Ben Solo is revealed in the 2015 film The Force Awakens. Ben's slide toward the dark side fractures the family: Han and Leia separate, though the source notes that neither of them stopped loving their son. Luke had trained Ben as a Jedi apprentice, but Luke sensed the influence of a figure named Snoke on Ben and, in a moment of instinct, ignited his lightsaber over the sleeping young man. Ben woke, and that act of betrayal drove him fully to darkness. He renamed himself Kylo Ren and became the primary antagonist of the sequel trilogy.

  Ben Solo, portrayed by Adam Driver, is obsessed with his grandfather Darth Vader's legacy. He kills Han Solo, his own father, by stabbing him through the heart after Han tries to reach him on a bridge. He then spares Leia when ordered to destroy her ship. His arc ends in The Rise of Skywalker, when his mother Leia spends her remaining life force reaching out to him, helping him return to the light. He sacrifices himself to bring Rey back to life, sharing a kiss with her before vanishing into the Force as the last of the Skywalker bloodline.

• 6. Rey and the Inherited Name

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  Rey Skywalker is not a Skywalker by blood. Her connection to the family runs through Ben Solo; the source identifies the two as sharing a "dyad in the Force", a rare bond. She and Ben are enemies before they develop a romantic relationship. In The Last Jedi, it is Luke who eventually trains her, first refusing her request and then relenting after a conversation with the Force ghost of Yoda on the island where Rey found him.

  By the end of The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, every member of the Skywalker bloodline has died. Han was killed by Kylo Ren. Luke sacrificed himself to save the Resistance from the First Order. Leia died reaching out to her son. Ben Solo gave his life to save Rey. The surname would have died with them.

  Instead, Rey chooses to carry it forward. She adopts "Skywalker" as her surname to honor the family and to sever her ties to her own Palpatine lineage. The Skywalker and Palpatine bloodlines are identified in the source as the two strongest Force bloodlines in galactic history. Rey becoming the last known person to carry the Skywalker name transforms what was a biological inheritance into something chosen, a legacy defined by values rather than parentage. Throughout galactic history, the Skywalkers are remembered as the family that restored peace to the galaxy.

• 7. The Legends Branch

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  Before the Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, decades of licensed novels and comics had extended the Skywalker family tree far beyond the films. In April 2014, this material was rebranded as Star Wars Legends and declared non-canon. Within those stories, the family continues well past Return of the Jedi.

  Leia and Han's first children, twins Jaina and Jacen Solo, were introduced in Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire in 1991 and born in Zahn's The Last Command in 1993. Jaina, named after Han's mother, was born five minutes before Jacen. A younger brother, Anakin Solo, named after his maternal grandfather, followed. All three trained as Jedi under Luke. The parallels to earlier generations are deliberate: Anakin Solo shares his grandfather's talent for mechanics and Force sensitivity, and is haunted by the name he carries. He dies in battle in the 2001 novel Star by Star by Troy Denning; writers later revealed he had been intended to lead the Jedi Order but the arrival of the prequel films made a second heroic Anakin awkward.

  Jacen Solo's arc mirrors his grandfather's in darker terms. In the Legacy of the Force series, published from 2006 to 2008, Jacen falls to the dark side and becomes Darth Caedus. His twin Jaina trains with Boba Fett to prepare to fight him, and kills him in the 2008 novel Invincible. IGN ranked Jacen as the 17th top Star Wars hero, and separately named his murder of Mara Jade his defining act of villainy.

  Mara Jade was created by Zahn as an antagonist in Heir to the Empire. She eventually marries Luke, and their son Ben Skywalker is born during the New Jedi Order series, which ran from 1999 to 2003. The Star Wars: Legacy comic series, set over 120 years after Return of the Jedi, follows descendants including Cade Skywalker, whose story takes place 125 years after that film, and the Fel dynasty descended from Jaina Solo. That lineage reaches all the way to Emperor Roan Fel and his daughter Marasiah Fel, both of whom oppose a new Sith Order. Cade Skywalker was ranked the 84th top Star Wars character by IGN.