Relationship Spotlight: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Leia Organa (Obi-Wan Kenobi)

*Spoilers.*

Yes, there’s also the indirect interactions in A New Hope to consider, but today, I mainly want to talk about this relationship as it exists on Obi-Wan Kenobi. Along with Ewan McGregor’s performance, it’s my favorite part of that show and everything I didn’t know I wanted. Say what you will about Obi-Wan Kenobi, but I will always appreciate it for this.

In the years after Anakin’s fall and Padmé’s death, Obi-Wan becomes a hermit on Tatooine, somewhere between self-imposed exile for his failure to save his former padawan and a penitent mission to look after Anakin’s son from afar. His days are bleak and largely unvarying, and his connection to the Force has dulled.

When Bail Organa comes to him, urging him to help rescue Leia from kidnappers, Obi-Wan is resistant. He doesn’t think he can leave Luke, for one, and after the tragedies of his past, he isn’t sure he can be of help to anyone anymore. But Bail is insistent, and so Obi-Wan reluctantly ventures back out into the galaxy.

Slowly, the mission reignites some of the strength and hope he once had. Leia inspires this in him by simply being herself, eight feet of attitude in a four-foot frame. At first, she’s wary of this guy who claims he’s here to rescue her—she has plenty of scrappiness to show her kidnappers, but it turns out she takes much the same approach toward would-be rescuers, and she’s not about to just trust him and do what he says.

Naturally, this exasperates Obi-Wan, and it’s a hoot watching him try and wrangle a confident 10-year-old girl. When he goes to buy them cloaks to wear as a disguise, I love that Leia also tries on a pair of pretty gloves and willfully ignores all his attempts to point out that they’re not necessary. Eventually, he realizes it’s easier to just buy the gloves and be done with it. She’s still not sure if she wants to follow him or run from him, but when they get into a scrape and Obi-Wan has to call upon the Force to save her, Leia’s estimation of him improves greatly.

Not that they proceed without any further attitude or argument—Leia’s reaction to this new information is practically, Aren’t you a little old and sad to be a Jedi? And their adventures together are frequently marked by Leia not doing what Obi-Wan tells her to, either because she thinks he’s overly cautious or because she doesn’t want to be sidelined. But as they gradually fumble their way back toward safety, they start to see each other differently.

Obi-Wan is reminded, painfully, of both Anakin and Padmé when he looks at Leia. She realizes from his words that he knew her birth parents and begs him to share what he knows. She helps him recognize that there are still good people in the galaxy worth fighting for, and he does everything to keep her safe when she charges ahead. His first priority is getting her home safely, but when they come across some fledgling rebels in a desperate situation, he listens to her pleas to help them.

The way the story is set up, I have my doubts that there was anything else between them until A New Hope. But I think I’m okay with that. Theirs is a sweet, delightful connection that means a lot to both of them and isn’t any less important because it only lasts for a short time. For Obi-Wan, he rekindles his connection to the Force and finds a renewed purpose to life beyond punishing himself for his past mistakes—even though the fundamentals of his day-to-day life don’t change radically after this experience, his state of mind does. And Leia’s adventures with Obi-Wan set her on the path to becoming the Rebel princess we know and love, a spunky fighter who holds her head high in the face of intense strain, someone who fights for something so much larger than herself.

Favorite Characters: Princess Leia Organa (Star Wars)

Princess Leia mother-effing Organa. The one, the only. I of course liked her when I watched the movies as a kid, but I don’t think I knew just how indelible she was until I rewatched the films as an adult and realized how many of her lines/deliveries had been preserved perfectly in my mind for over 20 years. In short, she rocks.

When Luke first sees the message Leia recorded through R2, he’s taken by her: a beautiful princess in trouble, and he can be the one to help her! He crafts a whole heroic vision for himself based off of a short holo-recording. But while Luke comes riding in to save the day (not to mention securing Han’s assistance by promising that Leia will pay him handsomely,) he doesn’t recognize what that recording actually meant.

Leia doesn’t try to contact Obi-Wan for rescue. She records that message for him because, when Darth Vader boards her ship, she’s only just received the intel that could be vital to destroying the Death Star and taking out the Empire’s most devastating weapon. She’s well aware that she could be captured or killed at any moment, and she uses her last minutes of freedom to record a plea to Obi-Wan to get the plans to the Rebellion. Obviously, Leia doesn’t want to be Vader’s prisoner. But the Rebellion is more important to her, and that’s what she prioritizes in this moment.

Honestly, Leia is just wonderful. She bears up under interrogation, never giving up crucial information and only begging mercy for Alderaan, not herself. When Luke and Han show up with an admittedly slapdash rescue plan, she accepts the help but isn’t about to swoon over it. Instead, she gives both of them attitude, being delightfully snarky and giving off an air of exasperation toward her would-be hero and the pirate he hired with her money. Throughout the escape from the Death Star, she plays an active part in her own rescue, and when they get away, despite the harrowing ordeal she’s been through—she watched her planet get destroyed before her eyes—she’s focused on completing her mission.

Moving forward, it’s true that there are other times when Leia is in distress and needs help, but even under the most extreme circumstances, she’s never fully damseled. She stays in the thick of things, coordinating operations at Rebel bases and pitching in when things need repairing on the Falcon. When danger rears its head, she’s often frightened, but she does what she can to fight back and save herself.

Don’t forget: the only reason she winds up enslaved by Jabba, chained to him and forced into an exploitative outfit, is because she goes to Jabba’s palace trying to rescue Han. And after she’s captured, she’s the one to kill her captor, strangling him with the very chain he uses to bind her. Leia isn’t a super woman, but she’s no one’s damsel.

I know people have mixed feelings about Obi-Wan Kenobi, but I’ll always appreciate the series for letting us see Leia as a young girl. On that show, we learn that she’s been giving both captors and would-be rescuers attitude since day one, that’s she’s always had an affinity for droids and an eye for justice, and that she learned from a young age that you can be on a secret mission and still look stylish (it kills me that she makes Obi-Wan buy her a pair of pretty gloves when they’re getting cloaks to disguise themselves.) Seeing young Leia in Obi-Wan Kenobi made my heart swell, because it showed me such a clear throughline from the brave little girl she was to the amazing young woman she becomes.

Relationship Spotlight: Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa & Han Solo (Star Wars)

*Relationship spoilers, if you need a spoiler warning for the original trilogy.*

As I said when I revisited the original trilogy, the characters are what do it for me. As cool as the aliens and lightsabers and Sith lords are, for all the iconic design and music, I wouldn’t appreciate it so much were it not for this trio right here (along with Chewy, R2, C-3PO, and Lando, of course!) At some point, I may circle back to these three and look more specifically at the individual pairings – platonic, familial, and otherwise – but for now, I want to talk about all three of them together.

A New Hope obviously kicks off with the mission to recover Leia. Luke is a goner from the moment he sees the holomessage she left with R2 – “smitten” doesn’t begin to cover it, and what’s more, I’m sure the thought of rescuing a beautiful princess appeals to both his innate goodness and his own desire to get off Tattoine and do something more exciting with his life. Han, however, isn’t invested in Leia as a person, not at first. No, his investments are more literal, focusing on the reward money he’ll get for helping to rescue her. When things get dicey, Luke is the one to remind him of that. “She’s rich,” he points out, dangling the words like a tasty treat. On the surface, this sets up their dynamic: Han is in it for himself while Luke is in it for honor and because it’s The Right Thing to do (and hey, if it gives him a chance to be a hero and win the favor of a beautiful princess, who is he to argue?)

But what’s on the surface isn’t who these characters are, not really, and Leia just further reinforces that when she joins the group. She may be captured, but there’s nothing damsel-ish about her. She doesn’t fall down faintly in gratitude to the brave (short) hero who comes to save her, she continually throws shade at Luke and Han’s rather improvised escape plan, and she’s immediately an active participant, brainstorming alternatives when things go awry. Likewise, while Han is the first to point out that he doesn’t care about these people or the rebellion and he’s just there to collect his money and go, somehow he keeps sticking around, finding his inner hero despite himself. And Luke is noble and heroic and cares deeply about his friends, but calling him the golden boy to Han’s scoundrel is too simplistic – there’s a darkness in him that he has to reckon with if he’s gonna to walk the path of the light with the Jedi.

From there, it’s just moment after moment of stuff to love. I like how Leia and Han argue over tactics when they’re in trouble, but when the moment is really heated, these two people who both like very much to be in control are able to take a beat and trust each other. I like that Leia finds herself drawn to Han, even if he is a “stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder,” but her first priority is to the rebellion and so she doesn’t let her feelings get in the way of what needs to be done. I like that Han braves the dangerous climate of Hoth at night when Luke is in trouble, that he moves heaven and hell to recover his friend and keep him alive against the elements. I like that Luke would be considered a “failed” Jedi for running out on his training to protect his friends, but we instantly know that of course Luke wasn’t going to leave them in trouble. I love the way they cheer and celebrate together when things go right, and I love how Leia learns to feel Luke through the Force.

Three friends – a pair of siblings, brothers in arms, and a couple – traveling a galaxy far, far away together in a beloved, rickety old ship. All the trappings and coolness are a ton of fun, but that right there, that’s Star Wars to me.