Rouge Organa was a female Human who was a member of the Organa family of Alderaan and the sister of Bail, Celly and Tia Organa, as well as the adopted aunt of Leia Organa. A strict dowager, Rouge helped her brother raise the young Leia by inculcating her with the codes and protocol of high court life. In 0 BBY, Rouge Organa died in the destruction of Alderaan.
A Human female, Rouge Organa was born in the last decades of the Galactic Republic on Alderaan, a planet of pristine beauty that had been and a center of culture and education for many a century. From birth, she was destined for a glamorous life, as the blood of the most noble and wealthy House Organa coursed through her veins. She was the daughter of the Viceroy Organa and one of four siblings, the others being Tia, Celly and Bail Prestor. When she finished school and came of age, Rouge was brought to a debutante ball on Coruscant, capital city of the Republic. By custom, young noblewomen attended levees in hopes they could find a suitable husband of high lineage. Eventually, Rouge Organa got married and started a family of her own. In the meantime, her brother Bail Prestor Organa went on to become the Viceroy and First Chairman of the Alderaan system and the husband of Queen Breha Antilles.
Following the end of the Clone Wars, a three-year galaxy-wide conflict, Rouge's brother adopted the late Senator Padmé Amidala's daughter, a baby called Leia. Rouge Organa and her two sisters, Tia and Celly, helped their brother raise his adopted child, moving to the Royal Palace of Aldera. By the time Leia was an infant, Rouge Organa had become a widow.
Rouge and her sisters hired deportment teachers to tutor young Leia, wishing to make a "proper" princess out of their tombyish niece, including the redoubtable Madame Vesta, headmistress of Alderaan Select Academy for Young Ladies. The Organa sisters would often tend to the Princess' dress and hair themselves, much to Leia's annoyance. In 1 BBY, Rouge accompanied Leia Organa, now a young adult and a Senator, to a levee on Coruscant along with her siblings. When her niece noticed the Galactic Emperor Palpatine's jeweled concubines and asked her about them, Rouge assumed a superior air and answered that a Princess was not obligated to speak with their sort.
Rouge Organa died along with her homeworld.
One year later, the Galactic Empire decided to subject all Alderaanians to a radical punishment, following their Viceroy's involvement with the Alliance to Restore the Republic. The Imperial Grand Moff Tarkin decided to use his new superweapon, the Death Star, to sow the seeds of terror and keep the seditious star systems in line. The peaceful planet Alderaan vanished with a single green blast from the Death Star's superlaser, with the captive Princess Leia watching in horror. Although her aunts had made her girlhood tough and sometimes unpleasant, Leia Organa was immediately struck with grief when she realized they were gone forever. Many years later, the Princess, now the Chief of State of a New Republic, would often remember her Aunt Rouge.
Rouge Organa was a fair-skinned Human female who sported long hair that she kept bound, as was customary among Alderaanian adults, and would adorn them with flowers. In the evening, before dinner, she enjoyed having servants tending to her hair in front of a gilt-framed mirror in her boudoir. A refined woman born into wealth, Rouge Organa enjoyed wearing iridescent Old Republic bronze earrings, a taste she shared with her sisters. By contrast, she despised semi-dry wines, considering them unrefined and only good enough for space-hoppers. A gossipy and proud noblewoman, she overtly despised Palpatine's Imperial concubines. Rouge Organa valued patience, and she tried to inculcate this virtue into her niece. The dowager attached great importance to etiquette, and she would not hesitate to lecture other people of high-rank about their offspring's public behavior. She also had a very strict idea of the proper dress code for a self-respecting woman.
Bail Organa and his sisters with Princess Leia
Princess Leia's three dowager aunts were first mentioned in Children of the Jedi, is a 1995 novel written by Barbara Hambly. More specifically, Rouge Organa was mentioned by name eleven times throughout the novel, which is twice as much as Celly and more than thrice as much as Tia. Although Rouge, Tia and Celly Organa were created in the absence of a mother figure for the young Leia, early sources such as Star Wars (1977) 53 suggest that a woman whom Leia called "mother" survived until the destruction of Alderaan.
In 1998, Rouge Organa received a passing mention in Jude Watson's Star Wars Journal: Captive to Evil, a retelling of the events of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope from Princess Leia's point of view.
In "The Princess Leia Diaries," a short comic written by Jason Hall that appeared in Star Wars Tales 11, Bail Organa's three sisters were pictured for the first time. However, Rouge Organa has not been clearly identified with any of the three aunts from the comic.
Since the late Queen Mazicia Organa was stated to be Bail Organa's mother in Star Wars Blueprints: Rebel Edition, it is possible that she was also the mother of his sisters. However, that particular issue has not been addressed yet.
- The Essential Guide to Characters
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