Summary
- Star Wars manga Leia: Princess of Alderaan resolves Leia's apparent plot hole in Return of the Jedi, suggesting her false memories were a result of Force visions.
- Leia's childhood visions of the past explain why she believed she had memories of her mother, integrating them into her subconscious.
- The manga illustrates that Star Wars continuity is fluid, and any plot hole can be fixed with time and imagination, in this case, through Leia's connection to the Force.
Star Wars may have quietly fixed a major Princess Leia plot hole in Return of the Jedi. George Lucas gives the impression that he had the full story planned out from the start, but there's plenty of evidence this isn't the case. Chief among them is the apparent plot hole created in Return of the Jedi, implying Luke and Leia's mother lived for several years after Anakin Skywalker fell to the dark side. Leia even remembers, claiming her mother "died when I was very young."
The 2020 Star Wars manga Leia: Princess of Alderaan, adapted from Claudia Gray's novel Leia, Princess of Alderaan, may finally solve this continuity problem. The story reveals that young Leia experienced dreams and nightmares, clearly intended to be visions from the Force.
Other tie-in comics have revealed Leia experienced similar nightmare-visions in adulthood, and had no idea they were a result of the Force. Those childhood visions could well explain why Leia thought she had memories of her mother; because she had experienced visions of the past when she was just a child, and her mind had integrated them into her memories.
Star Wars Exposes A Dark Truth About Princess Leia
The latest issue of Star Wars reminds readers that Leia is responsible for countless deaths, connecting her to one of the Empire's biggest killers.Leia's Connection To The Force Gave Her False Memories of Padmé
In the original Return of the Jedi novelization by James Kahn, Obi-Wan's Force ghost tells Luke, "When your father left, he didn't know your mother was pregnant. Your mother and I knew he would find out eventually, but we wanted to keep you both as safe as possible, for as long as possible." According to Obi-Wan, Luke's mother personally took Leia to Alderaan to be brought up in secret. Of course, this dialogue does not appear in the film, and the prequel trilogy takes a different approach, with Padmé dying in childbirth. Obi-Wan's words can be hand-waved away, as he was never known for his honesty. But Leia's memories have proven to be more problematic.
The manga offers a simple fix, and it illustrates that Star Wars fans often misunderstand continuity; they think of it as something solid and fixed, rather than fluid and ever-changing. It's best understood as a complex web, with every piece of content an additional node in the web, shifting everything else around it. Any plot hole and continuity error can be fixed with time and a little imagination. In this case, the Force provides a simple explanation: Leia didn't realize she possessed the Force until she learned she was Luke Skywalker's sister. As seen in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, she briefly trained with Luke as a Jedi sometime after Return of the Jedi - and it's possible she gained further mastery of this particular Force talent.
Hopefully sooner or later Star Wars tie-ins will reveal more about Leia's training and connection to the Force.