50 most shocking moments in Star Wars history

38. Padmé Amidala’s death and splitting up Luke and Leia (Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith)

Padmé Amidala played a large role in Anakin’s life until he started to really make his turn to the dark side. She has their two kids without him being around and it was probably good that he wasn’t there for it. We’d have a much different version of Star Wars if he had been.

In Revenge of the Sith, Padmé was taken to Polis Massa by Obi-Wan Kenobi to have the twins. He was able to get her there after defeating Vader and she gave birth two days after arriving there. While she was seemingly healthy she died right after Luke and Leia were born. She thought there was some sliver of good left in Anakin and said as much to Kenobi.

After her death, she was made to look like she was still pregnant at her funeral on Naboo so that Vader wouldn’t find out about the twins. They were then split up and didn’t meet until 19 years later. Neither had any idea that the other existed until Obi-Wan let Luke know about his sister. It was probably a hard choice to split them up, but in the end, it was the right thing to do for the sake of their safety. We see later how Vader reacts to finding out his children are alive and it isn’t great.