Padme Amidala

Padme Amidala Naberrie was a human female politician from Naboo who served as the elected ruler of her homeworld and later as its representative in the Galactic Senate. A committed idealist, she championed democracy and sought a peaceful end to the conflicts of the late Republic. Her secret marriage to the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and the birth of their children, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, would shape the future of the galaxy long after her death.

Queen of Naboo#

Padme Naberrie was born in 46 BBY and raised by her parents, Ruwee and Jobal Naberrie, on the peaceful Mid Rim world of Naboo. Identified early for her potential in public service, she devoted herself to civic duty, joining the Apprentice Legislature at the age of eight and rising through the ranks of Naboo's youth government. In 32 BBY she was elected queen and took the regnal name Amidala.

Her reign was almost immediately tested when the Trade Federation, manipulated by her own advisor Senator Sheev Palpatine, blockaded and then invaded Naboo. Unable to resist the Federation's droid army alone, Amidala traveled to Coruscant to plead her world's case before the Galactic Senate, only to find her efforts mired in procedure. She returned home and, with the aid of the Jedi and the Gungan Grand Army, liberated her people. Her vote of no confidence against the sitting chancellor, however, cleared the path for Palpatine to seize the office of Supreme Chancellor.

Senator and the road to war#

After her terms as queen, Amidala joined the Galactic Senate as the representative of Naboo, where she became a leading voice of the Loyalist Committee and worked to resolve the Separatist Crisis through diplomacy rather than force. She survived an assassination attempt and was placed under the protection of the Padawan Anakin Skywalker, whom she had first met years earlier as a child on Tatooine.

Though the Jedi Code forbade attachment, the two grew close as they sheltered together on Naboo. In the aftermath of the first battle of Geonosis, which opened the Clone Wars, Amidala secretly married Anakin Skywalker, despite her own misgivings about the danger their union posed to them both.

The Clone Wars#

Throughout the war, Amidala continued to argue in the Senate for peaceful solutions while her husband served as a Jedi General on the front lines, their marriage kept hidden and their meetings rare. She undertook diplomatic missions of her own, negotiating with reluctant powers and at times finding herself caught in the fighting, as when she was nearly captured aboard a Separatist warship before escaping with the help of the Jedi.

She remained throughout a steadfast advocate for democracy and restraint, opposing the expansion of emergency powers even as the conflict eroded the institutions of the Republic. Her idealism set her increasingly at odds with the drift toward authoritarian rule that Palpatine encouraged.

Mustafar and death#

In the final months of the war, Amidala told her husband that she was pregnant. Anakin's terror of losing her, fed by visions of her death, made him vulnerable to the dark side, and he was seduced into believing that becoming a Sith Lord would give him the power to save her. Amidala witnessed Palpatine's declaration that the Republic had become the first Galactic Empire, the very tyranny she had warned against.

Learning of her husband's fall, she went to him on the volcanic world of Mustafar, hoping he had not truly changed, but he turned on her in his rage. She survived to give birth on the medical facility of Polis Massa to the twins Luke and Leia, but died soon after, declaring with her last breath that there was still good in Anakin Skywalker. Her children, hidden and separated, would grow up to vindicate that faith: Leia became a leader of the Rebellion and the New Republic, and Luke, trained as a Jedi, helped turn his father back to the light at the Battle of Endor.