Bail and Breha Organa’s last moments on Alderaan, in From a Certain Point of View (2017)
the organas
“I hope to have told you all this myself,” Bail Organa’s voice said. “I hope we have enjoyed many more happy years as a family, that we have seen the Empire fall, and that we have gone forth together to find General Kenobi and your brother. If so, this recording can serve only one purpose. You must be listening after my death, so let this be my chance to say once again how much I love you. No other daughter could ever have brought me more joy.” Tears welled in Leia’s eyes, but she fought them back. If she began to sob, she wouldn’t be able to hear her father’s voice any longer. He concluded, “Please know that my love for you, and your mother’s love, endures long past our deaths. We are forever with you, Leia. In your brightest triumphs and your darkest troubles, always know that we are by your side.”
yeah but like
…..most of alderaan probably thought leia was a jedi anyway.
I mean, one minute the viceroy is a lauded senator and alderaan’s queen is childless, and the jedi are heroes, fighting a noble war against the separatists. Then suddenly the
chancelloremperor is declaring that the jedi had to be cleansed, and senator organa slinks back to alderaan in unexplained semi-disgrace, and the queen has an infant daughter who is just Way Too Pale to be either bail or breha’s natural-born child“an orphan,” the queen and viceroy of alderaan tell absolutely everyone.
“a jedi orphan,” absolutely everyone replies. “saved from the destruction of the jedi temple. where the jedi lived.”
“no no, just a regular normal orphan with nothing force-sensitive about her! what a silly idea, our daughter being a powerful jedi. are we even sure jedi really existed? emperor palpatine makes some good points, about them never having existed.“
“we literally have 700 hours of holonews footage that’s just viceroy organa hanging out on the warfront with a bunch of jedi.”
“I don’t recall that,” bail says cheerfully. “and neither does my daughter, who is force-sensitive as a box of bricks.”
(leia is eight when she dreams of her father in the war. he is holding a sword of fire, and he breathes too loudly, harsh in her ears—she is scared, and so she reaches for him, seeking comfort,and suddenly he turns on her. he is shadow and death and that awful sword of fire, not her father at all, and he says in a breath of smoke, who—?
she wakes up to her father’s arms, real and warm, cradling her to his chest. it was only a nightmare, bail says, as she cries. shh, it wasn’t real.)
”on alderaan, they say she was an orphan rescued from the destruction of the jedi temple,” general tarkin says. “that she is a jedi too.” the footage is grainy, but tarkin can make out the shape of her well enough, the princess throwing herself against the cell door. such dramatics.
“impossible,” darth vader says from beside tarkin. “I killed every child that breathed.”
(well. he isn’t wrong.)
Please know that my love for you, and your mother’s love, endures long past our deaths. We are forever with you, Leia. In your brightest triumphs and your darkest troubles, always know that we are by your side.
Bail Organa “Bloodline” / Claudia Gray
Fuck. Me. Up.(via irhinoceri)
“They must have had some warning of the Death Star’s arrival above Alderaan. The battle station hadn’t fired immediately but had waited—waited so Governor Tarkin could try to extract information from Leia and torment her with her own helplessness.” – excerpt from Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure
Okay so I’m not entirely sure why it just struck me so hard, but after seeing siths-pretentious‘s most recent art (with Bail and Leia and Vader), I very suddenly (and very horribly) realized just how absolutely terrifying it would have been for Bail to raise Leia.
Here is this little girl, innocent and bright and kind and loving, and yet he knows better than almost anyone in the entire galaxy the potential for darkness that she has–the poison in her blood that, with only one wrong move on his part (or hers)–one misstep, one accident–could devour her and the galaxy both. (And he can probably see it, sometimes–see the anger flashing in her eyes, hear the fire in her words, feel the power in her presence–and he knows what lurks beneath, what coiling serpents of temptation bite at her heels, even if she herself does not (cannot) understand them.)
But even more, Bail (and Breha, and even all of Alderaan) were living on a knife’s edge. One wrong move, one misstep, one accident, and everything would come unraveled. Bail Organa would have known full well the consequences if it was ever discovered that he had harbored and kept hidden a child of Anakin Skywalker–or, at least, he would know full well that the consequences would almost certainly be agonizing, and most definitely fatal. And not only for him, but for his wife as well, and for his planet (because that would be all the excuse the Empire would need to remove the Royal Family and institute Imperial rule on Alderaan). And as for Leia, were that to ever happen…
Yet Bail takes her without hesitation, saying, “She will be loved with us.” And she is. She is loved, and she is cherished; she is Bail’s daughter in every regard but blood. And I don’t think he ever regretted that choice.
Bail Organa was a man who danced with demons. He danced with demons, and paid homage to their dark lord, but all the while held close a secret that would prove the damnation of one or the other–himself, if the secret was discovered; the dark lord on his dark throne, if all he hoped for came to fruition. (And yet, that was not why he skirted torment and death–he did so for the child he protected; for the little girl he loved; for his daughter.)
Anakin-and-Padme-raise-the-twins AUs are great but
- please don’t forget about Bail and Breha and Owen and Beru
- they’re the ones who taught Luke and Leia about bravery and kindness and generosity and heroism
- they’re the ones who bandaged their skinned knees, helped them with their homework, punished them, and worried about them
- both sets of caregivers had to deal with pre-teen brattiness (I dare you to picture 12-year-old Leia sneering at you and thinking you’re uncool – now imagine seeing that EVERY DAY and tell me Breha didn’t deserve a medal)
- they’re the ones who gave them the “we’re not your biological parents” talk, and both talks must have been so difficult for each family for their own reasons
- if you’re a Legends fan and consider B&B’s infertility and miscarriage issues, jfc, can you imagine how extra precious Leia must have been to them?
- how long had they been planning on adopting a baby girl? were they waiting for the war to end? or had they just decided on adoption, but never imagined they’d get a daughter this quickly?
- if Owen and Beru never wanted children, can you imagine how much they must have loved Luke to take him in?
- (OWEN’S ENTIRE MOTIVATION IN ANH IS TO PROTECT LUKE AND KEEP HIM AWAY FROM IMPERIAL INFLUENCES AND THAT WAS HIS /BOY/ and if you think Owen was “too mean” or ever resented Luke, please come and fight me)
- (because haha okay yeah what kind of world is this where fic writers interpret “please Luke don’t move out even though we’re poor farmers and you’re an adult and you’re not our son and feeding you is probably very expensive” as “Owen Lars is an abusive asshole”)
- all four of them are so ignored when it comes to Luke and Leia’s characterizations
- Bail has a good amount of spotlight, but he’s always a Senator and we’ve only seen him as a parent for three seconds
- please remember them and what they did