Padmé Amidala

When the Trade Federation invades Naboo, Queen Amidala is rescued by Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. The escape to Coruscant ends with a forced stop on Tatooine, and it's there, dressed as a handmaiden, that Padmé meets an enslaved boy named Anakin. He asks if she's an angel.

In the Senate, she realizes bureaucracy won't save her people and, advised by Senator Palpatine, calls for a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum. Then she heads back home, though the Jedi have no better plan. In front of Boss Nass of the Gungans, she reveals that she's the real queen, not the woman in the robes and makeup, and kneels to ask for help. It's a rare gesture for a Naboo monarch, and it works: the Gungans agree to hold off the droid army in the field while she personally leads the assault on the palace. The decoy Sabé distracts the enemy while the real queen captures Viceroy Nute Gunray.

Ten years later, Padmé is a senator and leads the opposition to creating an army for the Republic. Right as she arrives on Coruscant, an explosion kills her decoy Cordé, and another attempt uses poisonous creatures in her bedroom. The Jedi Council assigns Anakin as her bodyguard.

On Naboo, the two grow close. She resists, knowing a Jedi can't marry, but she goes with him to Tatooine and hears his confession about slaughtering the Tuskens. On Geonosis, chained in an arena and about to die, Padmé admits she loves him. The movie ends with their secret wedding on Naboo, with only C-3PO and R2-D2 as witnesses.

During the Clone Wars, Padmé is one of the voices trying to rein in the war through the Senate. The animated series shows a senator who doesn't stay on the Senate floor: she negotiates, travels, gets caught in firefights and often ends up needing to be rescued by her husband, who nobody knows is her husband. She goes in secret to Raxus, the Separatist capital, to meet Senator Mina Bonteri, her old mentor, and the two try to open a path to peace. Mina's death and an attack on Coruscant sabotage the effort.

Later, she agrees to help the Jedi Council keep an eye on the banker Rush Clovis, an old flame, and Anakin's jealousy becomes a real problem inside the marriage.

In Revenge of the Sith, Padmé tells Anakin she's pregnant. While he's consumed by nightmares about her death, Padmé joins Bail Organa and Mon Mothma in a group of senators worried about the chancellor's power. When Palpatine proclaims the Empire, she remarks that liberty dies with thunderous applause.

Obi-Wan tells her what Anakin did at the Temple. She refuses to believe it and also refuses to say where he is. Padmé flies to Mustafar to hear it from him, without noticing that Obi-Wan stowed away on her ship. Anakin asks her to rule the galaxy at his side, sees Obi-Wan coming down the ramp and chokes her with the Force. Taken to the asteroid Polis Massa, she gives birth to twins, names them Luke and Leia and dies saying there's still good in Anakin. At her funeral on Naboo, she still appears pregnant, to keep the children a secret.

Padmé doesn't appear in the original trilogy, but she's there. In Return of the Jedi, Luke asks Leia if she remembers her real mother. Leia says she only has scattered images, of a woman who was very beautiful, kind and sad. It's the only memory of their mother the twins share out loud in the movies.