Now that she knew the truth about her parentage and her Force powers, Leia trained as a Jedi with Luke, honing her Force abilities and constructing a lightsaber. But she ended her apprenticeship after having a vision that her Jedi path would end with the death of her son. Leia gave her lightsaber to Luke, predicting that one day it would be picked up by someone who’d finish her journey. She then returned to the political arena, ascending the New Republic ranks.

After the Battle of Endor, Leia found herself sidelined politically, dismissed by the New Republic’s leaders as a militant fearmonger and an impediment to peace. Leia’s response was to do what the New Republic would not, forming a secret military force called the Resistance to check the rising power of the First Order.

Leia also sought to re-establish ties with Luke, who had vanished into self-imposed exile. Worried that the First Order’s spies were also seeking Luke’s whereabouts, Leia sent Poe Dameron to Jakku to secure a valuable clue in the search. To her dismay, Leia learned that the First Order had attacked Jakku, and both Poe and his droid BB-8 were believed lost. Leia told C-3PO to find out if BB-8 had survived – after all, astromechs had proved themselves heroes before.

Leia’s political misfortunes had been mirrored by personal tragedies. She and Han Solo had had a son, Ben, who’d been one of Luke’s Jedi trainees. But the boy fell prey to the dark side of the Force, destroying Luke’s efforts to resurrect the Jedi and reinventing himself as the First Order warlord Kylo Ren. Amid the pain of these events, Han and Leia’s relationship foundered, and they parted.

When C-3PO’s droid network spotted BB-8 on Takodana, Leia ordered her starfighter squadrons to the planet, and followed in a Resistance transport. Their intervention drove off attacking First Order forces – and led to Leia’s reunion with Han, who sadly told Leia that Kylo Ren had led the First Order attack.

The former stormtrooper Finn was familiar with Starkiller Base, the origin point of the First Order’s superweapon, which had destroyed the New Republic capital of Hosnian Prime. Leia led the Resistance’s effort to devise an attack plan, with Han agreeing to lead a mission to infiltrate the First Order base. Leia told Han she thought he could still bring Ben Solo back from the dark path he’d followed.

Leia saw the Falcon and the starfighter squadrons off, then waited anxiously for word from Starkiller Base – while hoping Han might manage to bring their son home. But it was not to be – Leia felt Han’s death in the Force.

The Resistance mission succeeded, and the Starkiller was destroyed. A somber Leia greeted the returning pilots and watched as BB-8 and R2-D2 solved the puzzle of Luke’s planet of exile. Leia watched Rey, Chewbacca and Artoo depart in the Falcon, hoping they might persuade her brother to return in the galaxy’s time of great need.

The First Order drove the Resistance from D’Qar, with Poe Dameron disobeying Leia’s orders to strike a blow against the Resistance’s foes. Furious with her protégé’s lack of leadership, Leia demoted him to captain.

Leia awakened to find Poe leading a mutiny against Holdo, ruining the Resistance’s plan to slip away to an old rebel base on Crait aboard small transports. Her protégé’s relief at her recovery turned to shock as Leia raised her blaster and stunned him. But Leia faced another painful loss: Holdo remained aboard the Raddus, sacrificing her life so the transports could escape.

Alerted to Holdo’s plan, the First Order destroyed all but a few transports, trapping the Resistance on Crait. All appeared lost – until Luke walked into the room. Reunited with his sister, he warned her that while he would face Kylo, he couldn’t save him. But when Leia admitted she knew her son was gone, Luke told her that “no one’s really gone.”

As brother and sister touched, Leia understood that Luke wasn’t physically there, but a Force projection. His confrontation with Kylo bought the Resistance time to escape Crait, with Poe taking charge. Aboard the Millennium Falcon, Rey wondered how the remnants of the Resistance could possibly keep fighting. But Leia, her faith restored, assured her they had everything they’d need.

Leia worked to rebuild the Resistance, though she was hampered by the grievous injuries she’d suffered during the D’Qar evacuation. She also trained Rey, taking up where Luke had left off. When Rey insisted on leaving Ajan Kloss on a perilous mission to find a Sith wayfinder, Leia gave her protégé advice she knew she would need: “Never be afraid of who you are.”

Leia was horrified to learn that Emperor Palpatine had somehow returned from death, and now commanded a Sith armada that threatened the galaxy. Yet this stunning revelation fit with things she’d long sensed: Palpatine had always been out there, working in the shadows to return to power.

Leia sensed that matters had reached a crisis point with her son, and poured all her vitality into reaching out to him across the galaxy through the Force. Her entreaty would prove instrumental in helping Ben cast off the shroud of Kylo Ren and return to the light, but it took all of her strength. The princess of Alderaan and legendary Alliance leader died on Ajan Kloss, attended by her old friend R2-D2.

Leia’s legacy would endure, however. The Resistance she had built won a great victory at Exegol, destroying Palpatine’s Sith armada and inspiring a galactic uprising against the First Order. And Rey and Ben Solo defeated Palpatine, with Rey wielding Leia’s lightsaber. As Rey buried Leia’s Jedi weapon alongside her brother’s, she caught sight of the Skywalker twins, watching over her as Force spirits.