Mara Jade Skywalker.
Raised in shadow as Palpatine's most lethal instrument, she remade herself entirely — smuggler, Jedi Knight, Master, Skywalker.
Legends
Expanded Universe · Visions
Mara Jade Lightsaber
The full character catalogue
Two Mara Jade-Skywalker designs from one era
From the Emperor's Shadow to the Jedi Council
Force-sensitive from birth, she was taken young and shaped entirely to one purpose — to serve Emperor Palpatine as his most covert instrument. Trained across disciplines, lethal without hesitation, she operated beyond rank or record as an Emperor's Hand: invisible to the chain of command, answerable only to Palpatine himself.
Palpatine's death broke the chain. His final command — kill Luke Skywalker — died with him unfinished, and rather than serve an Empire in collapse, she walked away from everything she had been built to be. That refusal was the hinge her whole life turned on: within years she was running cargo for Talon Karrde, her Imperial precision quietly repurposed, her loyalties finally her own.
Working alongside Luke Skywalker during Grand Admiral Thrawn's campaigns shifted the trajectory she had set for herself. Grudging respect became partnership, partnership became love, and by 19 ABY she had married Luke and taken the Skywalker name. The two designs on this page belong to that Legends arc — the New Jedi Order years in which she rose to the Jedi High Council and took Jaina Solo as her apprentice.
Assassin, smuggler, Knight, Master — her arc remains unmatched in the Expanded Universe.
Related characters
Mara Jade-Skywalker & Related Characters
Her story runs through Luke Skywalker's, began under Emperor Palpatine, and shares the Legends era with Expanded Universe figures who shaped the galaxy she inherited.