Anakin Skywalker

Anakin Skywalker was a Force-sensitive human male who served the Galactic Republic as a Jedi Knight and later the Galactic Empire as the Sith Lord Darth Vader. Believed to have been conceived by the Force, he was born to Shmi Skywalker and came to reside on the Outer Rim planet of Tatooine as a small child, where he and his mother were slaves of the prominent crime lord Gardulla the Hutt before falling into the ownership of a local Toydarian junk dealer named Watto. An engineering prodigy, Skywalker rebuilt the protocol droid C-3PO using scavenged parts to help his mother. Soon thereafter, during the Naboo Crisis, he was discovered by Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, who freed Anakin from slavery after a successful wager on the youth's podracing skills. Bringing him into the Jedi Order, Jinn hailed Skywalker as the Chosen One of Jedi prophecy, destined to defeat the Sith and bring balance to the Force.

In the years leading up to the Separatist Crisis, Skywalker was apprenticed to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Following the events of the Battle of Geonosis—the opening engagement which sparked the devastating, galaxy-wide conflict known as the Clone Wars—Skywalker secretly married his childhood love, Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo. As the war progressed, Skywalker saw very little of Amidala, prizing the moments the two were able to share with one another. Early in the course of the war, the Jedi High Council assigned Skywalker a Padawan of his own, Ahsoka Tano, a gifted student who, much to Skywalker's chagrin, eventually left the Order before the war's end.

Towards the end of the war, Skywalker was blessed with the news of impending fatherhood when Amidala announced she was pregnant with his child. This blissful moment proved to be short-lived, however, as Skywalker became plagued with visions of his wife's demise in childbirth. In a misguided attempt at saving the lives of Amidala and their unborn child, Skywalker was driven to the dark side of the Force and ultimately betrayed his fellow Jedi by pledging himself to the teachings of his former confidant and friend, Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine—the public guise of the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious—who rechristened him Darth Vader. In a swift sequence of events, Palpatine officially ended the war, destroyed the Jedi Order, and proclaimed himself Galactic Emperor.

To put an end to the Clone Wars, Darth Vader was tasked with the elimination of the Separatist leadership, who had gone into hiding on the planet Mustafar. Shortly after completing his mission, Vader was confronted by his wife, Amidala, who attempted to persuade him to turn away from the dark side and run away with her. Believing Amidala had betrayed him when his former master, Kenobi, emerged from her ship, he attacked her before engaging in a duel against Kenobi. Ultimately, Kenobi emerged the victor and Vader was left limbless and burnt on the banks of a volcanic river. Forced to live in a life-supporting armored suit as a result of his injuries, upon learning of the death of his wife, he continued to serve Sidious as his apprentice and chief enforcer. Under the new Imperial regime, alongside his master and Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Vader ruthlessly put down any rebellion against the new Empire. He also trained the Inquisitorius to hunt down any remaining Jedi and retrieve any newborn Force-sensitives per his master's will.

Almost two decades after his turn to the dark side, the various rebel groups who opposed the tyrannical rule of the Galactic Empire had united to form the Alliance to Restore the Republic and destroyed the Death Star, a superweapon that was meant to cement the Emperor's supreme rule over the galaxy. As the sole survivor of the Empire's stunning defeat at the Battle of Yavin, Vader was blamed and found himself pitted against several potential replacements vying to become the Emperor's new apprentice. In the meantime, he uncovered that the Force-sensitive pilot who was responsible for the destruction of the Death Star was his son, Luke Skywalker, whom Amidala had given birth to before she passed away and whom Kenobi had hidden on the one planet he knew would Vader never return to, Tatooine.

Now aware of the Emperor's deception, Vader drew young Skywalker out and attempted to sway him into joining him and overthrowing his master: Luke refused, unable to accept the truth. As the Galactic Civil War culminated at the Battle of Endor, Vader fought Skywalker in a final duel aboard the Death Star II, his son now a Jedi Knight set on redeeming him back to the light side. Skywalker defeated his father but refused to kill him, prompting Sidious to attempt to kill the young Jedi; witnessing this, Vader abandoned the dark side and sacrificed himself to destroy the Emperor, fulfilling the prophecy of the Chosen One. Mortally wounded, Anakin Skywalker made peace with his son and became one with the Force.

Before he died, Vader learned he also had a daughter, Leia Organa. She subsequently married the smuggler Han Solo and had a son named Ben Solo. From his youth, Ben struggled against his own pull to the dark side of the Force and, upon learning the truth of his mother's parentage, he became obsessed with his grandfather's legacy. He himself fell to the dark side and became Kylo Ren, master of the Knights of Ren and apprentice to Snoke, the Supreme Leader of the First Order—the successor to the Galactic Empire.