Shmi Skywalker - Tumblr Posts

Darth Vader | illustrated by Randy Martinez & Rick Burchett I’M NOT FINE I’M CRYING ABOUT SHMI CARRYING BABY ANI AT THE BEGINNING OF HIS LIFE AND ANAKIN CARRYING HIS MOTHER AT THE END OF HERS.

Hey all I made a poll expanding other to add rogue one and Andor characters go vote in that one. After both these polls finish I will make a final poll comparing the two winners to see who is truly the saddest death on Star Wars.

Palpatine: does sith magic

Fifteen different universes worth of anakin, obi wan, Luke,Leia, padme, shmi, ahsoka, rex, din, grogu, cody, fives, echo, chewie, and han pop into the same coruscant at the same time

Coruscant: is destroyed in the best and most chaotic ways possible

fuck it, its self indulgence saturday. anakin skywalker, but he was raised on mandalore, and also his mom is alive and well.

Can we just take a second remember that the great and powerful Skywalker name was the maiden name of a single mother who did her best to take care of her child by herself, taught him to always want to help people, and ultimately did what was best for him over thinking about her own feelings?

We don’t talk about Leia killing Jabba enough. Her grandmother and father were born into slavery. Her blood was that of the desert sand and the shackles of bondage. Leia was never more a Skywalker than the day she strangled her slave master with the very chains he used to bind her. The daughter of Anakin Skywalker was the one who killed Tatooine’s most notorious slaver, and I find that really beautiful.

I can’t do it, Mom. I just can’t do it. I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.

It’s...it‘s the same😪

I agree with many people that Anakin’s story was kind of poorly developed, especially in the movies. However, I think what we have seen shows how his motivations were strong enough to join the dark side and become Darth Vader.

Anakin had no father, literally, and only had his mother until he was ~10y/o.

He and his mother were slaves for Watto.

When Qui-gon discovered how high his midichlorian count was, his force sensitivity was made into a big deal.

Qui-gon believed very early on that Anakin was the Chosen One and that he would fulfill the prophecy of balancing the force.

Anakin had to say goodbye to his mother and leave the only home he ever knew to live with and be trained by strangers.

When Anakin was first brought before the High Jedi Council, they refused to allow him to be trained. His confidence was built up and broken down within such a short amount of time.

As one of the only men that believed in him and cared for him up until that point, Qui-gon’s death must have been heartbreaking to Anakin.

The only reason Yoda agreed to let Anakin into the Order was because Obi-wan basically threatened to leave the Order and take Anakin with him and train him without the council’s supervision (and because he trusted Qui-gon’s judgement).

Anakin was raised by Obi-wan for the next 10 years, but probably in a very by-the-book way because Obi-wan was dedicated the the Jedi Code.

During this time, he was probably judged by everyone else in the Order. Everyone expected him to be the Chosen One. What do you think happened when Anakin failed at something? Made a mistake? He was probably held to such high expectations the rest of his childhood.

When he was 19, he saw force visions of his mother dying. He went back to Tatooine to find her just in time for her to die in his arms. He killed the entire village of Tusken Raiders out of rage, probably because he never had a place to vent his anger before. Jedi are taught not to let emotions control their actions, but for the first ~10 years of his life, he was raised differently. He probably had strong emotions but had to hide them to avoid further disappointment from his peers.

It is implied that Anakin was knighted because the Jedi Order didn’t have enough Jedi knights to serve as generals in the Clone War. They admitted that he hadn’t passed all of the trials but knighted him anyways. One of the most important achievements in any Jedi’s life was falsified in Anakin’s case for the council’s gain.

When the council entrusts him to train Ahsoka, and after he warms up to the idea of that responsibility, he grows very attached to Ahsoka. So when Cad Bane almost threw her out an airlock, she was almost killed by the Blue Shadow Virus, she was possessed (and killed¿) by the Brother, she was kidnapped by Trandoshans, she was framed for murder, she was expelled from the Order, and when she left the Order and Anakin behind...Anakin felt responsible, heartbroken, and maybe even betrayed. He missed her and resented the council for her deciding to leave.

Not to mention when the council decided to have Obi-wan fake his death and go undercover to prevent Eval from kidnapping Palpatine. Anakin genuinely thought his master, the man who raised him, “the closest thing [he had] to a father,” was dead. They had a funeral that Obi-wan’s closest friends and peers attended under the impression that it was real. After the mission’s success, Anakin finds out that the council lied to him in such a horrible and kind of unnecessary way.

Anakin also saw force visions of Padmé dying. Not only was padmé his wife and the love of his life, but she was also the mother of his unborn children. He wasn’t just trying to save her, he was also trying to save the twins from dying. He had three lives at risk that he was desperate to save.

When Anakin is inducted into the Jedi Council, he isn’t given the rank of master. This is the first time in the Jedi Order’s history that a member of the council was not ranked as a master. If Anakin wasn’t ready to be a master, he shouldn’t have been accepted onto the council. Later, Windu tells Anakin that if his intel is correct then he will have “gained [his] trust” meaning that Windu never truly trusted him before that.

So when Palpatine promises to help Anakin save Padmé, supports Anakin’s decisions throughout the war, and seems to want to help him, Anakin grows close to him. Anakin depended on him.

In the end, he was deceived. Padmé was dead (he probably assumed his children were dead by extension), the Jedi were dead, he believed his former padawan was dead (probably at the hands of Rex, who he also probably thought was dead), his master had left him to die, his life was basically ruined, and all he had was a man that engineered his suit to constantly cause him pain to ensure that he would never overthrow him.

Anakin’s story is a tragedy, and it’s shown beautifully if you pay enough attention.

Inescapable weight

Rewatched The Phantom Menace

various shmi lives au stuff because 1. i love her and 2. i don't draw the skywalker-lars family enough <3

(ko-fi requests are open!)

You cannot stop the change, any more than you can stop the suns from setting

Shmi Skywalker, The Phantom Menace

the way obi-wan is the first to hold the children, the one who actually welcomes them into the world, it's the way he looks at baby luke with SUCH WONDER, HOPE, DEEPEST SORROW & LOVE

something something the way obi-wan & padme are each other's proxies which enables the transference of motherhood and how obi-wan is the one who gets 'cradling a new born child' close-up shot usually reserved for the mother instead.

*foaming at the mouth in utter derangment* isn't it....isn't it ironic how lucas said he needed vader as the father but needed a father figure so he created obi-wan for the OG trilogy, but the prequels accidentally (and unintentionally) place him in the narrative position of the mother.

by have him directly take over from padme; both LITERALLY and SYMBOLICALLY. their similarities in demeanour, personalities and their relation to anakin - as apologists, as devotees, as those who believe in him- makes their narrative roles transferrable.

how making padme die in childbirth and obi-wan be the first to hold the children to - figuratively- be the one who brings them into this world, keeps them safe and watches over them makes him a mother figure in exile, in direct opposition to anakin.

maiden -> mother -> crone

quotes from:

time of death by cavan scott

lone wolf by abel g. pena

To answer your questions.

We do not have a canon timeline on when Anakin and Shmi were sold to Gardulla or when they came to Tatooine.

Canonically, we know that Shmi had been enslaved by Hutts or someone in their cartel, before Anakin’s birth based off his comment to Ahsoka in the Zygerrian Arc in TCW that his mother had been sold in a slave market similar to the one on Zygerria before being bought by the Hutts.

At some point Shmi became pregnant with Anakin.

At some point Shmi and Anakin were sold to Gardulla (there’s some fan speculation that Shmi was pregnant with Anakin when they were sold).

Gardulla owned them until she lost them to Watto betting on Pod Races.

In Legends Shmi and Anakin were brought to Tatooine when he was about three after Gardulla moved there.

There is no canonical timeline when Shmi came to Tatooine.

Wait a minute. We know that Darth Plagueis learned to use the Force to create life and stop people from dying—at least according to Palpatine. We also know that Mae and Osha were created from the Force as a direct result of the vergeance…

I thought he was spying on Qimir as his Sith master, but what if he’s actually spying on Osha? What if we’re going to see how Plagueis learned to create life?

no, qui-gon did not kidnap anakin away from shmi, and he did not use shmi's position as a slave in order to coerce her to give anakin up. he made no attempts to request that shmi allow anakin to be trained at all, actually. he observed that anakin was force-sensitive, but that was it. there were no requests for her to send anakin to the jedi, or even suggestions that the jedi might be a better place for anakin. just a simple, neutral observation that anakin is likely force sensitive. after that, qui-gon allowed shmi to provide her own opinions about anakin's future.

it's shmi who volunteers the story of anakin's immaculate conception and says that she "can't explain what happened." she follows this comment by asking qui-gon, "can you help him?" which links qui-gon's assistance to anakin's status as a force-sensitive child. she is specifically asking for his help with regards to anakin being force sensitive, because he knows more about it than she does.

and later, once qui-gon informs her and anakin that he's managed to buy anakin's freedom, he makes no attempt to dictate or even suggest what shmi should decide with regards to her child's future. it's shmi who asks qui-gon "will you take him with you?" and it's shmi who asks qui-gon if anakin can "become a jedi."

shmi doesn't ask if qui-gon can find another home for anakin outside of the jedi; she specifically asks if he can be brought to the jedi temple. and it's because of that first conversation with qui-gon: it's because she acknowledges that anakin has unique needs that only the jedi can provide for. it's also because, as she later comments to anakin, she knows that being a jedi is "making your dreams come true." because she knows it's what anakin wants as well.

there's also hints that shmi is force-sensitive and is listening to the will of the force when making this decision; she makes comments about how qui-gon was "meant to help" anakin, about how her place is on tattooine, and about how anakin will "know what's right" by listening to his "feelings." all of these statements involve shmi being attuned to the will of the force and recognizing its influence over the events that unfold around her. there's an entire other essay to be written about how in her short amount of screentime shmi behaves entirely like a jedi, proving her love but not attachment to anakin twice over, but i haven't the space for it here.

lastly, it's shmi who first brings up the idea of anakin leaving her behind. she's the one who tells him to "let go" of her, and who tells him "don't look back." even once she is freed- which is implied to have been within 4 years of anakin leaving- she makes no attempt to contact him on coruscant, nor to travel to coruscant. she states in tpm that tattooine is where she's meant to be, and so there she remains even once she has the ability to choose otherwise.

tldr: shmi is the one who brought up jedi training, not qui-gon. she wanted anakin to learn from experts in the force, she knew anakin wanted it, and she is implied to understand that the force wanted it. she is a human being with agency, and she chose to let anakin be taken to the jedi in particular. and in all the years between when she was freed and when she died, she respected the space required by the jedi lifestyle and did not attempt to broach it.