Chart of Master & Apprentice Relationships in the Star Wars Universe
Knowledge and training in the Force passes down through master/apprentice relationships. These include the formal master/Padawan relationships common in the Prequel era and the informal training relationships common in Luke's New Jedi Order. Observing the map of relationships between masters and apprentices helps reveal how Star Wars characters are connected -- and how they became the Jedi or Sith that they are.
This first chart shows the relationships between the nine main Sith and Jedi characters in the Star Wars films. The red lines indicate Sith or Dark Jedi apprenticeships, while the green lines indicate Jedi apprenticeships.
Only three of the relationships shown occur in the Expanded Universe. First, a deleted scene in Revenge of the Sith (and the Revenge of the Sith novelization) explains how Qui-Gon Jinn appeared to Yoda as a Force ghost and became his new master. This post-mortem training from Qui-Gon is how Yoda and Obi-Wan learned to become Force ghosts themselves.
Second, Princess Leia was not trained as a Jedi in the Star Wars films, since she only found out about her heritage in Return of the Jedi. Luke provided some training for her while she continued in her role as a politician, but it was a while before she began training more intensely and officially joined the Jedi Order.
Finally, Luke was briefly Emperor Palpatine's apprentice in the comic Dark Empire, which featured Palpatine returning to life in a cloned body.
Charting the rest of the master/apprentice relationships in the Expanded Universe, however, quickly becomes problematic.
The above chart shows the master/apprentice relationships from the main movie characters, plus their masters and apprentices and any relationships between those characters.
The sheer number of masters and apprentices for some characters begins to make the chart unwieldy. The major offenders are Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, since Luke trained many Jedi in his Jedi Academy and Vader trained a number of Dark Jedi in the service of the Emperor.
However, the most interesting thing is the way master/apprentice relationships intersect over multiple generations and across Sith/Jedi lines. Yoda, for example, trained Luke Skywalker; he also trained Ikrit, who trained Anakin Solo, who was also trained by Luke Skywalker. Vergere trained Jacen Solo as a Jedi (at least an apparent one), but also trained Lumiya, Jacen's Sith master.
Adding one more degree to this chart, unfortunately, adds a host of new problems. Master/apprentice relationships cross generations of thousands of years; in particular, Exar Kun ties together Jedi and Sith from the Old Republic, when he was alive, with some of Luke's students, whom he trained as a spirit. Even without all the characters charted, however, these visual aids should help make the relationships between Jedi and Sith characters more clear.
These charts were created with OpenOffice.org Draw. Master/apprentice relationships were primarily taken from Wookieepedia's character infoboxes. Any mistakes or omissions are my own.
This first chart shows the relationships between the nine main Sith and Jedi characters in the Star Wars films. The red lines indicate Sith or Dark Jedi apprenticeships, while the green lines indicate Jedi apprenticeships.
Only three of the relationships shown occur in the Expanded Universe. First, a deleted scene in Revenge of the Sith (and the Revenge of the Sith novelization) explains how Qui-Gon Jinn appeared to Yoda as a Force ghost and became his new master. This post-mortem training from Qui-Gon is how Yoda and Obi-Wan learned to become Force ghosts themselves.
Second, Princess Leia was not trained as a Jedi in the Star Wars films, since she only found out about her heritage in Return of the Jedi. Luke provided some training for her while she continued in her role as a politician, but it was a while before she began training more intensely and officially joined the Jedi Order.
Finally, Luke was briefly Emperor Palpatine's apprentice in the comic Dark Empire, which featured Palpatine returning to life in a cloned body.
Charting the rest of the master/apprentice relationships in the Expanded Universe, however, quickly becomes problematic.
The above chart shows the master/apprentice relationships from the main movie characters, plus their masters and apprentices and any relationships between those characters.
The sheer number of masters and apprentices for some characters begins to make the chart unwieldy. The major offenders are Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, since Luke trained many Jedi in his Jedi Academy and Vader trained a number of Dark Jedi in the service of the Emperor.
However, the most interesting thing is the way master/apprentice relationships intersect over multiple generations and across Sith/Jedi lines. Yoda, for example, trained Luke Skywalker; he also trained Ikrit, who trained Anakin Solo, who was also trained by Luke Skywalker. Vergere trained Jacen Solo as a Jedi (at least an apparent one), but also trained Lumiya, Jacen's Sith master.
Adding one more degree to this chart, unfortunately, adds a host of new problems. Master/apprentice relationships cross generations of thousands of years; in particular, Exar Kun ties together Jedi and Sith from the Old Republic, when he was alive, with some of Luke's students, whom he trained as a spirit. Even without all the characters charted, however, these visual aids should help make the relationships between Jedi and Sith characters more clear.
These charts were created with OpenOffice.org Draw. Master/apprentice relationships were primarily taken from Wookieepedia's character infoboxes. Any mistakes or omissions are my own.
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