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Princess Leia Organa

Princess Leia Organa (played by Carrie Fisher) was adopted into the Royal family of the planet Alderaan at a very early age. Leia and her brother Luke were the children of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala. Their father was a former Jedi who had been seduced by the dark side and become a Dark Lord of the Sith, taking the name Darth Vader. To protect Vader’s children from their father Luke was hidden on a moisture farm on the desert planet of Tatooine, while Leia was placed under the protection of Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan.

Leia was to follow in Bail Organa’s footsteps, and became the youngest Senator in the Imperial Senate. Despite her position Leia was a dedicated member of the Rebel Alliance, and used her diplomatic missions as a front for her work for the Rebellion.

On one such mission Leia secured plans of a new battle station being built by the Empire; the Death Star. Leia’s adoptive father ordered her to take the plans to Tatooine and seek out the famous Jedi Knight, Obi-Wan Kenobi. In orbit above the desert planet Leia’s ship was captured by an Imperial Star Destroyer, and Leia placed the plans in the memory of a droid named Artoo Detoo, who evaded capture in an escape pod and set about finding Obi-Wan.

Princess Leia was taken to the Death Star where she was tortured by Darth Vader, who was unaware that Leia was his daughter. Vader was trying to persuade her to reveal the location of the Rebel base and of the stolen plans, and when torture failed he used the Death Star to destroy Alderaan in an effort to get the information he needed.

Leia was rescued from the Death Star by her brother Luke Skywalker and the smuggler Han Solo, and, using the stolen plans, the Rebel Alliance finally destroyed the station in the Battle of Yavin.

Abandoning their base on Yavin’s fourth moon the Alliance set up Echo Base on the ice world of Hoth. When Echo Base was discovered by an Imperial probe Princess Leia was instrumental in the evacuation, finally escaping herself in Han Solo’s starship, the Millennium Falcon.

Han and Leia’s relationship had always been fiery, but while hiding in an asteroid belt after their escape from Hoth their feelings for one another began to deepen into love. Shortly afterwards they were captured by Darth Vader in Cloud City on the planet Bespin, and Leia had to watch as Han was frozen in carbonite and handed over to the bounty hunter Boba Fett.

Princess Leia escaped Vader’s clutches with the help of Han’s old friend Lando Calrissian, and travelled to the palace of Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine to rescue Han. She infiltrated the palace by posing as Boushh, a Ubese bounty hunter, and freed Han from the carbonite.

She and Han were captured by Jabba and Leia was forced to submit to the humiliation of wearing the costume and chains of one of the vile gangster’s slave girls. The humiliation was short-lived though, and Leia escaped with the help of her brother Luke, and used her chains to strangle Jabba.

After escaping Jabba’s palace Princess Leia joined a strike team led by Han that was being assembled to destroy an Imperial shield generator on the forest moon of Endor. While on the moon she befriended a local tribe of Ewoks, the indigenous lifeform. She convinced the tribe to aid the Rebels in their attack on the shield generator, an assault which was ultimately to lead to the destruction of the second Death Star, the death of the Emperor, and the fall of the Empire.