Shmi Skywalker Lars

Born on an unidentified planet, Shmi Skywalker, along with her parents, were seized by space pirates and forced into servitude when she was just a young girl in 66 BBY. Her life was marked by hardship, as she was transported from star system to star system, serving various masters. The pirates were uninterested in providing for her unless she could offer them a valuable service. Shmi never disclosed the fates of her parents, if she even knew what became of them. Prior to being acquired by the Hutts, Skywalker was once offered for sale in a market resembling the Zygerrian slave market that her son would visit during the Clone Wars.

Shmi observed that while slavery was prohibited by the Galactic Republic, the Republic's laws lacked enforcement in the Outer Rim Territories, where survival depended on self-reliance. Eventually, Skywalker was enslaved and raised on the Outer Rim planet of Tatooine during the final decades of the Galactic Republic. She developed a skill for working with machinery.

At some point, perhaps through the will of the Force, the very energy created by all living things that binds the universe together, Shmi became pregnant under mysterious circumstances. Without a male figure involved in the child's conception, it is believed to have originated within her through the midi-chlorians. In 41 BBY, she gave birth to a son, Anakin Skywalker. His blood possessed a count exceeding twenty thousand midi-chlorians, surpassing even the Jedi Grand Master Yoda and all other Jedi across the galaxy, an utter vergence in the Force. The boy was the Chosen One, whose destiny was prophesied to bring ultimate balance to the Force itself by destroying the Sith, the ancient enemies of the Jedi Order. Indeed, an ancient Jedi mystic foresaw that the Sith would be destroyed by a child being born of no father. Despite being unable to explain or comprehend the pregnancy's origin, Shmi chose not to question it and loved her son unconditionally. Upon giving birth, however, Shmi was initially afraid, but was relieved to find that her son was a normal and typical infant. She also kept the true circumstances of his birth a secret from others, knowing no one would believe her or would be afraid of such unnatural circumstances.

Shmi and Anakin resided with other families in shared living spaces during their time as slaves under the female crime lord Gardulla the Hutt. Gardulla lost them in a gamble with the Toydarian junk dealer Watto, who utilized Anakin's mechanical abilities at his shop. While Watto could be a demanding and severe master, he still provided them with a home in Mos Espa's slave quarters. Despite their impoverished circumstances, she created a comfortable home for Anakin and herself through her tireless efforts. When Watto did not require Shmi's services, he permitted her to earn a modest income by cleaning computer memory devices. She transformed a small section of their house into a workstation, equipped with just enough tools and equipment for her work. Additionally, Shmi and her son possessed a few personal belongings, including an antiquated protocol droid named C-3PO and a podracer, both of which Anakin constructed himself. In a rare act of kindness, Watto also presented her with an aeromagnifier, kept in her work station as a gift for her hard work.

Often, however, Watto was unkind, understanding that nothing could stop him from doing what he wanted because Shmi had nothing valuable to trade, besides her son whom she would never trade. Thus, Watto took advantage of this frequently, requiring the boy to podrace, much to Shmi's dismay. During one race, she watched in horror as Anakin crashed once again, but was surprised when he had not been thrown from his podracer for once. Watto approached her, yet again dismissing her concerns that Anakin could be seriously injured before flying off. She made her way down to the racing pit where she reunited with Anakin and saw that his legs had become twisted from the crash. While she knew that Watto would pay to ensure that Skywalker's legs recovered, Shmi held onto her son's hand to comfort herself. Before the rustic, yet effective, medical droids made Anakin unconscious to work on his legs, Anakin promised he would always be with her, yet Shmi privately wish he would one day leave her for a better life.

Despite the horrors in which Anakin grew up, Shmi still tried to give him a normal and stable childhood. She taught him how to fix things and fend for himself, since the Republic was never there for her. She taught him that he deserved more than slavery. Most of all, she taught him compassion. On hard nights, Shmi would tell Anakin the Tatooine myth of the sun-dragon. The sun-dragon was a beast who lived inside the core of a star, guarding everything it treasured. It could survive through the hardest circumstances because it had the biggest heart in the galaxy, able to protect anything and everything it loved. Shmi told this story to her son to remind him that he was the sun-dragon. She never wanted Anakin to doubt in himself and the power of his love for others. Anakin recalled this story many times as an adult when he needed to remember what should guide him. It was something he kept close and told very few other people.

Shmi also tried to treat Anakin whenever she could. Most of the food they were able to acquire resulted in very bland dishes, but on the rare occasions when Shmi had extra things to barter with, she took Anakin out to the food markets in Mos Espa. In particular, she would take Anakin to a food vendor that sold franikhad, a meat dish common on desert planets.

One day, she had woken Anakin from a dream where he was a Jedi and freed her. She appreciated his good natured ambition, but warned him against attracting the wrong kind of attention by being doing altruistic deeds. Then an Otoga-222 maintenance droid came in and warned them both of the work Watto wanted them to do while he was gone. The Toydarian needed Anakin to go to the Mos Eisley spaceport to pick up a shipment. By night, Anakin had come home and was going to bed. Shmi asked him if he stayed out of trouble, to which he lied and said he had.

One day, Anakin arrived home accompanied by a group of individuals, including the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, the Queen of Naboo, Padmé Amidala, disguised as a handmaiden, the Gungan Jar Jar Binks, and the astromech droid R2-D2, seeking refuge from a sandstorm. Initially, Shmi and her son believed that these visitors from other worlds had come to liberate the enslaved population. However, they soon learned that the group was stranded on Tatooine after the Naboo Royal Starship's hyperdrive sustained damage during a diplomatic mission to the galactic capital, Coruscant. Unable to acquire a replacement using only Republic dataries, they were stranded. When Anakin offered to assist Qui-Gon and the others in obtaining money for the hyperdrive by winning the upcoming Boonta Eve Classic podrace, Shmi initially opposed the idea. However, she relented when Anakin reminded her of her teachings on helping others.

While Anakin repaired his podracer, Qui-Gon inquired about the boy's father. Shmi explained that while she carried and raised him, he didn't really have a father. Later, Qui-Gon tested Anakin's blood and discovered that he was particularly strong with the Force. Due to his high concentration of midi-chlorians and the peculiarity around his birth, Qui-Gon believed that Anakin was the prophesied Chosen One.

The following day, Qui-Gon challenged Watto to a wager, knowing that Watto never turned down the chance to gamble. He put Anakin's podracer against Shmi and Anakin's freedom, but Watto did not see the worth in surrendering two enslaved beings for just one podracer. Qui-Gon and Watto eventually settled on just Anakin's freedom should he win the race. Shmi along with the off-world visitors then attended the Boonta Eve Classic. Despite the extremely high risks, Anakin won the race, and Watto had no choice but to honor his promise to emancipate Anakin.

Following the race, Shmi and her son embraced each other with Shmi, expressing pride in her son's achievements. After securing Anakin's earnings from Watto, Qui-Gon informed Shmi that he had freed Anakin and offered to train him as a Jedi. Anakin asked if Shmi would be going with them, and was heartbroken when Qui-Gon broke the news. Putting her own feelings aside and knowing that this was the path Anakin needed to take, Shmi was able to convince Anakin to leave without her by explaining that her place and future were on Tatooine. Anakin was moments away from leaving with Qui-Gon when he ran back to his mother. Terrified that he would never see her again, Shmi reminded him that as long as he believed in his heart that they would reunite one day, then they would see each other again. Anakin made a solemn vow that he would return and free her someday. Adjusting his pack on Anakin's back, she told her son to be brave and to not look back, before he left with Qui-Gon to prepare his new life.

Later, Shmi was walking through the spaceport where Jira told her to keep her head up. She told her that Anakin was in a better place, but Shmi already knew that. In her house, C-3PO held onto the idea that Anakin would one day return. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. She opened the door to see a Tusken Raider, she immediately closed the door to prevent it from getting in. The Tusken kept the door open using a gaderffii stick and held a black melon through the door. She backed up as the Tusken entered her home, with C-3PO informing her of what a black melon offering represented. She knew what it was, and asked why the Tusken had come. C-3PO translated a story the Tusken Raider told of Anakin freeing him from slavery. As the Tusken left, she held the melon in her hands. Her son had returned like C-3PO said he would, in a way. C-3PO stated that he would come back in more than just stories, but that didn't matter to her, she had dreamed that he would become a Jedi and he was already on his way doing so.

A decade before the start of the Clone Wars, Watto's gambling habit left him to be essentially broke and destitute, leaving him no choice but to to sell Shmi. The path to her freedom started when a moisture farmer named Cliegg Lars met Shmi and fell in love with her. Manipulating Watto into a gambling game that the Toydarian lost, Lars purchased and freed her, in approximately 27 BBY, and the two eventually married. Shmi became a loving step-mother to his son, Owen Lars. C-3PO also lived with them. Upon her release, Shmi also helped the White Suns liberation movement that focused on freeing Tatooine's enslaved people, using her mechanical and technical talents to build a device that could locate and remove the tracking chip forced into all enslaved beings. The device was made out of kitchen equipment and saw its first use on Shmi herself and succeeded, but subsequent uses on others showed it needed to be perfected.

Approximately four years after the Invasion of Naboo, Padmé sent her handmaiden Sabé to rescue as many people from slavery as she could, including Shmi. Unfortunately, Sabé's efforts went in so many wrong directions, because it enlisted help from so many untrustworthy sources. Watto had seemingly disappeared along with Shmi, and when Sabé asked of her whereabouts, they could only tell her that she had been sold. When passing through Shmi's former residence, she noted a sign on the door that was likely a mark of the local liberation movement; in truth, it was indeed the mark of the White Suns.

By the end, Sabé's efforts lead her to buy the freedom of over twenty five individuals, reporting back to Amidala that among the freed beings were Anakin's old friends, Kitster Banai and Wald. Undeterred, Amidala asked Sabé to continue her efforts to free more people on Tatooine, although she soon needed to leave to help Amidala in the Galactic Senate. Although Amidala and Sabé remained unaware of her fate, Shmi had a quiet yet happy life at the Lars moisture farm in Tatooine's Jundland Wastes, spending many happy years together with her husband as farmers. However, she spent many nights with an ache in her heart and looking at the stars, as she was worried about where Anakin was and his well-being. One month before the Battle of Geonosis, Shmi was out gathering mushrooms that grew on the moisture vaporators when a group of Tusken Raiders kidnapped her and took her to their camp. Cliegg assembled a rescue party, involving about 30 participants, involving Cliegg himself, but the Tusken goons gained the upper hand and slaughtered most of Cliegg's ambition, especially with Cliegg's leg being severed in the process. Believing Shmi to be dead and unwilling to risk any more lives, Cliegg aborted the mission.

However, Shmi was still alive but had been severely tortured and brutalized. Meanwhile, her son Anakin, now 19 years of age and a Padawan under Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, sensed her distress through Force-induced nightmares. Anakin immediately set off to Tatooine to find and save her with Senator Amidala accompanying him. After meeting with Watto, Anakin and Amidala arrived at the Lars family farm and learned about his mother's fate after Anakin left for Coruscant: freedom, marrying Cliegg and becoming stepmother to Owen Lars, and her kidnapping. Despite Cliegg' advice, Anakin traveled into the wilderness to find her. He eventually found the Tusken Raider camp.

After infiltrating the camp, he found the tent where Shmi was being held. There, Anakin encountered a bound and emaciated Shmi, who was near death. Right before her death, she managed to tell her son that she was proud of him and that she loved him. She was complete after seeing her son and died in his arms. Shmi's death threw Anakin into a fit of rage, and he took his first step into the dark side of the Force when he avenged his mother by killing every Tusken Raider at the encampment, including the women and children. The following morning, Anakin returned to the Lars moisture farm with his mother's body. Shmi was mourned by both her son Anakin and husband Cliegg, as well as Amidala, Owen, and his girlfriend, Beru. They all attended her funeral, where Beru served blue milk and cheese to everyone after.

Shmi's demise exerted a significant influence, steering Anakin down the path toward the dark side. Before the interment of his mother, Anakin confided in Amidala, expressing regret for his inadequacy in saving her. He also pledged to attain such power that he could master the art of preventing death. Subsequently, Skywalker admitted to his involvement in the slaughter of the Tusken Raiders as retribution for his mother's passing. The profound guilt Skywalker felt from not being able to halt Shmi's death rendered him vulnerable to the seduction attempts of the Sith Master Darth Sidious, who sought to lure him to the dark side.

During the Clone Wars conflict, Anakin was subjected to a Force-induced vision of Shmi on the planet Mortis. Here, he faced trials administered by three potent beings known as the Force wielders, who aimed to ascertain his true identity as the Chosen One. In truth, the Son, a Force wielder embodying the dark side, had taken on the guise of Anakin's deceased mother. This deceptive Shmi implored Anakin to renounce his affection for Amidala, whom he had secretly married soon after the Battle of Geonosis, asserting that he did not genuinely love her and that she was a source of corruption before transforming back into the Son.

Around 18 BBY, Obi-Wan, living in isolation on Tatooine following Order 66, visited Shmi's gravesite to offer an apology for his failure with her son. At some point afterward, it's believed that Owen and Beru interred the headstones of Shmi and Cliegg to protect Shmi's grandson, Luke Skywalker, who had been entrusted to their care. Years later, Obi-Wan secretly left toys for Luke near her weathered tombstone, for Beru to discover.

Later, Anakin, now the Sith Lord Darth Vader, attempted to corrupt a kyber crystal to fashion his signature crimson-bladed Sith lightsaber. The crystal resisted, bombarding him with a series of visions. One of these visions depicted Anakin returning to the Lars family residence, cradling Shmi's lifeless body in his arms.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Fortress Vader, Vader stepped through a gateway conjured by Darth Momin, which unveiled visions of his past, embodying his deepest fears and darkest thoughts. Upon entering this gateway, Vader witnessed his pregnant mother accompanied by a spectral manifestation of Sidious, echoing Shmi's words to Qui-Gon about Anakin having no father before transitioning to the subsequent segment of his visions.

In 3 ABY, shortly after revealing his paternal connection to Shmi's grandson, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader revisited the Lars moisture farm. While examining the farm's ruins, the forensic droid ZED-6-7 noted that Shmi's demise at the hands of the Tusken Raiders was documented as part of the long-standing hostility between the Tuskens and the moisture farmers.

In 35 ABY, following the final destruction of Darth Sidious and the Final Order, the Jedi Rey journeyed to the Lars homestead on Tatooine, the final resting place of Shmi Skywalker. There, the former scavenger interred the lightsabers of Luke Skywalker and his sibling, Leia Skywalker Organa Solo, Shmi's grandchildren, who were brought into the world by Padmé Amidala. The Skywalker lineage concluded with the deaths of Leia and her son, Ben Solo. However, Rey—the descendant of Darth Sidious—chose to adopt their surname to honor the Skywalker family.

Shmi Skywalker Lars possessed a personality defined by peace, selflessness, compassion, and kindness. Her devotion to her son Anakin was boundless, and she was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to afford him the chance of a better existence. Even during her enslavement under Watto, Shmi maintained hope for eventual freedom, yet she accepted her circumstances and found contentment in her relationship with Anakin, treasuring their simple life in the Slave Quarters Row.

Cliegg asserted that Shmi was the ideal partner a man could desire, highlighting the profound impact of her death at the hands of the Tusken Raiders.

Shmi demonstrated proficiency in mechanical repairs, a trait she shared with her son Anakin. Additionally, she was recognized for her maintenance and survival skills. Following her marriage to Cliegg Lars, she acquired the skills necessary to operate the Lars family's moisture farm.

The character of Shmi Skywalker was brought to life by Swedish actress Pernilla August in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace and Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones. August reprised her role as Shmi in The Clone Wars third season episode titled "Overlords."

Back in 1998, the announcement was made that Anakin Skywalker's mother would be named Shmi, with August cast to portray her. As the original trilogy was re-released in cinemas and on VHS to mark the twentieth anniversary of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope the preceding year, Star Wars Trivial Pursuit was launched to coincide with this event. This limited-edition game included a separate set of questions that previewed elements of the upcoming first installment of the new trilogy, with two questions revealing the aforementioned details.

In an early version of The Phantom Menace script, her name was Shmi Warka. Vanity Fair proposed that Shmi's death in Skywalker's arms was inspired by Director George Lucas's personal experiences with his mother, Dorothy Lucas, who was frequently confined to bed with an illness, possibly pancreatitis, throughout his childhood.