What Happened to Anakin's Mother?

Anakin's mother, Shmi Skywalker, was kidnapped and tortured by Tusken Raiders on Tatooine and died in Anakin's arms when he finally found her. It happens in Attack of the Clones. Anakin kills every Tusken in the camp in revenge, then vows to become powerful enough to stop people from dying, a promise that leads straight to the dark side. (Attack of the Clones)

A slave who let her son go#

When Qui-Gon Jinn meets them in Mos Espa, Shmi and the young Anakin are both owned by Watto. Qui-Gon can see the Force is strong in the boy and asks who his father was. Shmi says there was no father: she carried him, gave birth to him and raised him, and can't explain what happened. (The Phantom Menace)

Qui-Gon wins Anakin's freedom by betting on him in the Boonta Eve podrace, but Watto won't stake both of them, so Shmi stays a slave. Anakin promises to come back and free her. She tells him to be brave and not to look back. (The Phantom Menace)

Freedom, then the Tuskens#

Ten years later, Anakin is Obi-Wan's apprentice and keeps dreaming that his mother is in pain. Assigned to protect Padmé on Naboo, he takes her to Tatooine instead. Watto tells him he sold Shmi to a moisture farmer called Lars, who freed her and married her. (Attack of the Clones)

At the Lars farm Anakin meets his stepbrother Owen, Owen's girlfriend Beru and Cliegg Lars, who has lost a leg. Cliegg explains that Tusken Raiders took Shmi a month earlier while she was out early, as usual, picking mushrooms from the vaporators. Thirty farmers went after her and only four came back. Cliegg doesn't believe she can have survived this long. (Attack of the Clones)

How she died#

Anakin rides out alone and finds the Tusken camp at night. Inside one of the huts Shmi is tied up, beaten and barely conscious. She recognises him, tells him how proud she is and that she's complete now, and dies in his arms. (Attack of the Clones)

What he does next changes everything. He kills the whole camp, men, women and children. Back at the farm he tells Padmé, in a mix of grief and rage, that he wasn't strong enough to save his mother, that one day he'll be the most powerful Jedi ever, and that he'll learn to stop people from dying. On Coruscant, Yoda feels the pain he's in. (Attack of the Clones)

They bury Shmi at the homestead. At her grave, Anakin tells her he wasn't strong enough to save her and promises he won't fail again. (Attack of the Clones)

Why her death matters#

Shmi's death is the template for Anakin's fall. In Revenge of the Sith he starts having the same kind of dreams about Padmé dying, and he's certain they'll come true because the last ones did. Palpatine's offer of a power that can stop people dying lands because of what happened in that Tusken camp. (Revenge of the Sith)

The Clone Wars uses her too. On the world of Mortis, Anakin sees a vision of his mother who tells him to let go of his love for Padmé, before it turns out to be the Son, the being who stands for the dark side, wearing her face. (The Clone Wars, "Overlords")

After she was gone#

Her grave stays at the Lars homestead, where Owen and Beru later raise Luke. In the canon novel Ahsoka, Obi-Wan visits it during his exile on Tatooine and feels the Jedi failed her. In Marvel's Darth Vader, after he tells Luke the truth on Bespin, Vader returns to the burned-out farm. Interpretation: for Vader, the trip reads as a return to the place where his first loss is buried. (Ahsoka; Darth Vader (2020) 1)

Read more#

Anakin Skywalker and Tatooine have the wider story, and C-3PO covers the droid Anakin built to help her. For how her death fed into his fall, see why Anakin turned to the dark side.