Eight months on, the consensus is that The Rise of Skywalker was a big disappointment. But there were still a couple of cool moments, the best being the all-too-brief flashback to Luke instructing Leia to become a Jedi soon after Return of the Jedi. Seeing the Skywalker siblings spar was catnip for Star Wars fans and using Carrie Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd as her body double with a CGI face worked spookily well. Ever since that scene, fans have been wanting to know more about Leia’s time exploring her connection with the Force and how far her training progressed.
Now, an upcoming book titled Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection sheds a little more light on it. The book bills itself as an exploration of “the legendary lightsabers found within the Star Wars galaxy” and will take us through the designs and lore behind hilts from the movies, TV shows, comics, novels and video games. Leia’s lightsaber is featured in a preview, and it gives us our best look at it yet.
See for yourself in the gallery below, along with a description of the weapon:
“Leia’s lightsaber is a work of art, defined by elegant symmetry and silver and gold hues that evoke Leia’s regal upbringing on Alderaan. Curved metal grips are spaced around the midsection surrounding a crystal heart that projects a blue blade. The narrow neck and ringed emitter of the saber bear similarities to those on Luke’s green-bladed lightsaber.”
We also get an explanation of why Leia never became a full Jedi, which turns out to be related to a prophetic vision of Ben Solo’s future.
“After the collapse of the Empire, Leia Organa briefly undergoes training to harness her Force powers on the jungle moon of Ajan Kloss. Her brother, Luke Skywalker, acts as her instructor, and Luke seeks to pass down the same lessons he learned from Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. But Leia senses only tragedy at the end of her path, specifically the unshakable conviction that her training will lead to the death of her son. Leia quits the program and leaves her lightsaber with her brother, who keeps it with him during his years of exile on Ahch-To.”
I suspect Leia departing before Luke could impart all the Jedi teachings could turn into one of those big Star Wars “what-ifs.” If Leia had stayed with Luke and focused on becoming a Jedi, then she might have assisted with his Jedi temple and helped his Padawans. If she’d done that, then she’d have been closer to Ben and perhaps could have prevented him from falling to the Dark Side.
Who knows, maybe it’ll eventually be revealed that her ominous premonitions of the future were just the start of Snoke’s manipulations to win over Ben Solo to his side and begin the First Order?
