Leia's lightsaber

After discovering she was Force-sensitive, Leia Organa Solo utilized several lightsabers through her career as a Jedi of the New Jedi Order.

History

Thrawn campaign

Although her twin brother Luke Skywalker offered to make one for her,^[8] Leia created her first lightsaber by herself, under his tutelage.^[1] Supplied with the same tools Luke had used to construct his green lightsaber, Leia journeyed into a wilderness to find the components she required, accompanied by R2-D2, while Luke awaited her return.^[1] After three days, she located the necessary components, and on the eighth, she emerged from the wilderness with R2, carrying her newly built lightsaber, and impressing Luke with how quickly she had succeeded.^[1] When ignited, this lightsaber produced a green-white blade.^[2][9] On Coruscant, Leia practised her lightsaber combat skills against a training remote, under Luke's instruction.^[8]

The lightsaber's creation was prompted by events during the Thrawn campaign in 9 ABY, when several kidnapping attempts targetting the pregnant Leia were instigated by Grand Admiral Thrawn. On Bpfassh, Leia's husband Han Solo used it to disable a decoy transport resembling the Millennium Falcon, by cutting through its korfaise coolant lines. Leia later used the lightsaber herself to fight Thrawn's Noghri servants in Rwookrrorro, Kashyyyk, killing one by slicing him almost in half, before carving an exit through the floor of the house in which she had been staying. While traversing Kashyyyk's Wroshyr trees with the aid of Chewbacca, she used an unorthodox tactic of attaching her lightsaber to a rope and swinging it like a pendulum into a pursuing airspeeder, destroying its repulsorlift generator, and sending it falling into the mists below.^[8]

Convincing Khabarakh, the last surviving would-be kidnapper, to lead her to his homeworld of Honoghr, Leia journeyed there to expose the Empire's treachery to the Noghri people, bringing her lightsaber along with her. When the Noghri leaders doubted her claims, Leia used her Force powers to draw, ignite and levitate the lightsaber before her, displaying the abilities and distinctive weapon of her father, a cultural hero to the Noghri, and so commanding their respect. Upon being afforded the chance to speak, she demanded that one of their decon droids be brought to her, and used the lightsaber to cut it open and reveal the poison that it had been seeding among their world's flora, in order to keep them indebted to the Empire.^[2]

Following the birth of her twin children, Leia was forced to defend herself from another kidnapping plot on Coruscant, using her lightsaber to attempt an escape through the window of her family's suite in the old Imperial Palace. Later, when Leia was attacked and disarmed by the insane Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth on Wayland, Mara Jade picked up the lightsaber and used it to kill both C'baoth and his servant Luuke Skywalker.^[9]

Dark Empire campaign

During Operation Shadow Hand in 10 ABY, Leia briefly used a 10,000 year old lightsaber that she was gifted by an old Jedi Knight named Vima-Da-Boda.^[10][11][12] On Byss, Leia used the blue-bladed lightsaber to slice the hand off an Imperial Sentinel before the resurrected Emperor Palpatine made it explode, proclaiming that such an old weapon was not worthy of her.^[11]

When Palpatine offered to teach Leia, luring her with knowledge from a Jedi Holocron, she defied him and escaped with said device, including a lightsaber with which it was being showcased.^[13] She returned to the New Republic's Pinnacle Base with the new lightsaber, and later brought it aboard the Emperor's flagship Eclipse.^[14] Using the blue-bladed lightsaber to duel Luke, who had been mentally tormented into becoming Palpatine's apprentice, she eventually convinced him to renounce the dark side.^[14]

New responsibilities

Around the time of her succession of Mon Mothma as President of the New Republic in 11 ABY, Leia reevaluated her role in Luke Skywalker's New Jedi Order, after aggressively using her blue lightsaber against Imperial sympathizers on Coruscant.^[15]

Attacked while visiting a park with her three children, Leia used her lightsaber to defend her family from the assailants, successfully deflecting their blaster bolts and ultimately neutralizing them, including severing the arm of her last opponent.^[15] Stopping herself from enacting further aggression by lightsaber on her downed enemy, her fears of following in her father's footsteps were reinforced, and she chose to prioritize her obligations to her new leadership position and family over advancing her Jedi skills.^[15]

Nam Chorios

After being kidnapped and imprisoned on Nam Chorios in 13 ABY, the now-Chief of State Leia was forced to take up a lightsaber once more in order to aid her escape.^[3] Wielding her self-built pale blue lightsaber, she used it to illuminate her passage through darkened areas, and to kill the insectile drochs that attacked her, although she lightly injured herself with the blade in her drugged and exhausted state.^[3] She later sparred with Callista Ming, regaining some confidence in her abilities after having let her training lapse in recent years. She would ultimately use her lightsaber to duel and kill the fallen Hutt Jedi Beldorion.^[3]

Almania Crisis

By 17 ABY, Leia had continued to practice her lightsaber skills against training remotes.^[16] She later took her lightsaber with her when she travelled to Almania to rescue Luke from the Dark Jedi Kueller.^[16] During their escape, Leia relinquished her saber to an unarmed and injured Luke, while she supported him with blaster fire to defeat Kueller.^[16]

Red lightsaber

Leia resumed her lightsaber exercises in private by 18 ABY, on the rare occasions allowed by her duties as Chief-of-State, but she believed she was not yet a true Jedi, perceiving her training to still be incomplete.^[4] Disagreeing with her assessment, and observing her recent reluctance to carry her lightsaber, Luke gifted Leia with a ruby-red blade that he had built from scratch, proclaming that while her training had been different to his, it was nonetheless complete.^[4]

Accepting the red lightsaber, Leia immediately challenged Luke to a duel, relishing the opportunity to test the physical skills that she had rarely employed in recent years.^[4] Though lacking finesse, her speed and agility caught Luke off-guard, and she was able to disarm him of his own weapon.^[4] Having evaluated the new blade in combat, Leia felt that the new lightsaber was superior to her previous one,^[4] and took it with her to Corellia.^[17]

After being imprisoned in Coronet's Corona House by the Human League, Leia and Mara Jade were able to effect an escape, with the former successfully retrieving her lightsaber.^[17] Leia used the red saber to illuminate their way in the darkened building and slash the hinges from locked doors blocking their path.^[17] To locate Mara's slave circuit controller for summoning her ship, Leia cut away a chunk of stresscrete under which it had been buried, following an earlier rocket attack.^[17] While attempting to summon the ship, they were discoved by League troopers, with Leia using the blade to deflect blaster fire from and decapitate one of the soldiers, then redirect a thrown mini-detonator back at another, who was caught in the ensuing explosion. ^[17]

Later career

Leia carried her lightsaber during the Caamas Document Crisis in 19 ABY.^[18] At the Combined Clans Center Building in Drev'starn, Bothawui, Leia's weapon was noticed by Secretary Ceok Orou'cya, who pleaded that she use it to defend them from a mob approaching the building.^[18] When the mob forced their way into the building's atrium, Leia verbally confronted the group after igniting the blade, the sight of which temporarily halted their advance.^[18] However, when a blaster fight ensued between Bothan guards and members of the crowd, she deactivated her weapon to avoid being forced to kill or maim anybody.^[18] Scaling a wall to escape, and wishing to prevent the building's occupants coming to harm, Leia threw the lightsaber down to her husband Han Solo, after spotting him on the balcony above the main stairway, which he used to cut the latter free, blocking access to the upper floors.^[18]

While training under Saba Sebatyne in 35 ABY, Leia's previous lightsabers were taken by her new Jedi Master, who told her that they did not reflect her skills anymore, and that it was time that she build a new lightsaber, one fit for a fully-fledged Jedi Knight.^[5] Leia built a blue-bladed lightsaber,^[5] feeling that her new weapon was a signifant improvement on her old one.^[7] She also felt a stronger connection to it, because it carried a part of her history, namely a shard of the Kaiburr crystal, a Force artifact that she and Luke had first encountered on Mimban, three decades earlier.^[7] Employing the fragment as a focusing crystal,^[7] Leia used the lightsaber throughout the Swarm War and thereafter.^[5]

Behind the scenes

When asked about what type of lightsaber she would like during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert when promoting her new book The Princess Diarist, Carrie Fisher said she liked the color purple.^[19]

Inconsistencies

In The Thrawn Trilogy, the text of Dark Force Rising and The Last Command specifically call Leia's first lightsaber "green-white," in Chapter 24 and 27, respectively, and is also depicted as green on the cover of the latter, as wielded by Mara Jade. However, while the comic adaptation of Dark Force Rising correctly depicts the lightsaber as green, it appears as blue in those of Heir to the Empire and The Last Command.

While the novel Heir to the Empire implies that Luke built Leia's first green lightsaber, the short story "Leia's Lightsaber" in the Heir to the Empire Sourcebook describes her building the weapon herself. However, Ambush at Corellia ignores the Sourcebook, and states that Leia had never built her own lightsaber, when Luke gifts her with a new red-bladed one.

In the comic Dark Empire, Leia acquires a new lightsaber on Byss, which is depicted as blue in Cam Kennedy's panel art for issue 6. Dave Dorman's cover art for that issue instead portrays it as green, although this inconsistency in blade color between page and cover also exists for Palpatine's and Luke's sabers (blue and red, respectively, to vice-versa).

While Leia's lightsaber is described as pale blue and sky-colored in Planet of Twilight, it cannot be the same as that which she obtained in Dark Empire, as she recalls having built the weapon herself under Luke's tutelage. This description may imply that it is actually her original lightsaber from The Thrawn Trilogy, despite now featuring a different blade color. Additionally, the cover art for Planet of Twilight appears to have a yellow hue, spawning the misconception that Leia wields a yellow blade, something that is repeated in The Essential Reader's Companion's illustration depicting her duel with Beldorion.

Many artists have depicted Leia's lightsaber hilts as heavily resembling that of Luke Skywalker's green lightsaber.^{[3][15][20][21]} However, the comic adaptation of The Last Command depicts an original design for the hilt of her first lightsaber, featuring a more complex blade emitter assembly, a front vertical handgrip with activation lever, and a tapered section at the rear that includes a horizontally ridged handgrip that widens toward the pommel.^[22]

Appearances

Notes and references