Obi-Wan Kenobi: Is Leia using the Force to read others emotions?

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Obi-Wan Kenobi Episodes 1 and 2.

While the title of the series may be Obi-Wan Kenobi, we have seen an awful lot of Leia Organa in the first two episodes. This certainly isn’t a bad thing, but the storytellers of Star Wars are expanding some of Leia’s backstory into Live Action.

As seen clearly in the sequel trilogy, Leia was a capable Force user later in life, but could it be helping her early in life to have that uncanny ability to read others?

Is Leia using the Force or are we just assuming things?

The answer to this is probably yes. While Leia certainly is growing up in a diplomatic family, presumably with the best education available on Alderaan, and with the advantage of growing up near Bail Organa, Leia still seems far beyond her years in terms of diplomatic ability. While having something like Anakin’s enhanced reflexes or natural piloting ability to not uncommon in trained Jedi or even the exceptionally gifted Anakin without training, the mental abilities of the Jedi are usually depicted as significantly more difficult to master than other skills.

This lack of training also seems very clear, because Leia had not met Obi-Wan. That raises the question if anyone else could be training her, and that is probably not true as well. Not only would hiding a Jedi be an extremely dangerous prospect for an Imperial Senator, but Bail was also intended that Obi-Wan was the only one that was able to trust to protect Leia after she was kidnapped.

I suppose the overall question being asked is whether everything in Star Wars comes down to Force Sensitivity, or can people just naturally be gifted. As a counter-point to it being the Force, the soundtrack so far has not seemed to indicate that she is using the Force with any kind of theme being played as she responds to others. For now, we will just have to hope that we get another indication that Leia is or is not using the Force, but if she is using the Force it would explain her great leadership abilities that we all come to love in her near future.