We know that according to Star Wars canon and a 2007 interview with George Lucas, Anakin Skywalker’s father is the Force. In an earlier StarShips post, we explored the religious and mythological roots of a virgin birth brought about by a deity or spiritual entity.
Although Anakin was conceived by midi-chlorians, other clues linger that other candidates might have participated in his mysterious origins. When canon and non-canon sources are considered, there’s an interesting array of possibilities about not just who Anakin’s father was, but who might have known about the circumstances of his birth. Let’s look at a few theories about who
Anakin’s Father and Human Possibilities
Anakin’s mother was Shmi Skywalker, a slave who lived on Tatooine. In The Phantom Menace, when Qui-Gon Jinn realized Anakin’s strong Force connection asked Shmi about who Anakin’s father was, she answered, “There was no father. I carried him, I gave birth, I raised him—I can’t explain what happened.” Did Anakin have a father?
There’s a lot to unpack here.
Some fans propose that Shmi, as a slave in the outer reaches of the galaxy, might have been victim of an assault. As a coping mechanism, she told herself—and later Qui-Gon– the lie that “there was no father.”
She also may have mentally blocked the trauma, and can therefore truthfully claim that “I can’t explain what happened.” In the Star Wars universe, drugs and devices are available to blank out certain memories; Shmi’s attacker or someone else might have administered one of these to her.
There’s also a theory that Qui-Gon himself is the father and wiped Shmi’s memory with the Force. That means the Anakin-related events of The Phantom Menace are an elaborate ruse on Qui-Gon’s part to see to it that his boy is raised as a Jedi, but that doesn’t explain the supposed “necessity” of JarJar in anyone’s life, including ours.
Anakin’s Father and the Force
In the non-canon Expanded Universe, a backstory novel called Darth Plagueis tells us that Plagueis the Wise experimented with controlling midi-chlorians to bring about life. If Plagueis the Wise sounds familiar to you, that’s because you heard his name in the prequel trilogies.
Plagueis thought his experiments always failed until just before his death, when he realized he’d somehow succeeded with Anakin. This suggests that Darth Plagueis “accidentally” used the Force to bring about Anakin, and that his apprentice, Darth Sidious, knew precisely how Anakin came to be.
Supreme Chancellor Palpatine—the public face of Sidious—told Anakin at the end of The Phantom Menace that he would “watch his career with great interest.” It wasn’t just a throwaway fan-servicey line: Palpatine was well aware of the youngster’s immense potential.
Here’s the basis for that theory. It comes from Revenge of the Sith, when Anakin and Palpatine attended the opera. Palpatine said:
Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith who lived many years ago. He was so powerful and so wise that he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create (big pause and stare at Anakin) life. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, and then one night, his apprentice killed him in his sleep.
Palpatine knew the details of this story because he was that apprentice. This seems to have sailed right over Anakin’s head, but it might have lodged in his subconscious. As Palpatine was a Sith, however, even this apparent moment of “the truth” is as likely to be a lie as the truth.
Certain Force visions Anakin experiences in canon Darth Vader comics are also part of the debate about his paternity. Some fans have interpreted Anakin’s visions as suggesting that Palpatine somehow manipulated Shmi Skywalker’s womb to result in his pregnancy.
However, Matt Martin, who was involved with the comic, said on Twitter that these panels weren’t meant to suggest this as a plot development. The writer of the comic, Charles Soule, had Martin’s back on this one: “The Dark Side is not a reliable narrator,” he tweeted.
Non-canon sources and fan theories also suggest that Darth Maul was sent to assassinate Qui-Gon to prevent him from training Anakin, because a Jedi armed with so much Force sensitivity would likely destroy the Sith. The fallout from this had profound consequences for the galaxy. While Anakin was indeed raised as a Jedi, he lost the elder father figure that Dave Filoni insists he so desperately needed. Instead, he was given a “brother” in Obi-Wan.
Knowing about his origins could have influenced Anakin’s decisions, but it’s also likely that the larger forces at play would have guided his path similarly. Even with or without Qui-Gon, the machinations of the Sith and the will of the Force seemed destined to shape Anakin’s journey. In this sense, the absence of a true father figure and the cosmic tug-of-war over Anakin’s fate both played pivotal roles in steering him toward his eventual transformation—regardless of what Anakin knew about his own mysterious beginnings.
An alternate fan theory inspired by Darth Plagueis proposes that Anakin’s conception was enabled by the Force via the midi-chlorians to combat the rise of Plagueis and Palpatine. It suggests that while Plagueis tried to artificially create the ultimate Sith apprentice, the Force would not allow it, and preserved the light in Anakin. In this sense, then, Anakin “brings balance” simply by coming into existence as an embryo.
This theory also leans on the idea that the Force itself is not a passive energy, but rather possesses a form of consciousness and its own will—actively intervening in the galaxy’s affairs to maintain balance. In orchestrating Anakin’s birth, the Force may have directly influenced events as a countermeasure to the growing darkness, subtly ensuring that hope remained even as the Sith plotted their return.
How Anakin’s Birth Stands Apart from Other Force-Sensitive Legends
Unlike most other Jedi or Sith, whose origins trace back to typical galactic family trees, Anakin’s arrival is unmistakably extraordinary. The majority of notable Force users—think Yoda, Mace Windu, or even Luke and Leia—were born the old-fashioned way: two parents, maybe a bit of midwife droid assistance, but nothing out of the ordinary by Coruscant standards.
Anakin, on the other hand, stands alone as the only central character whose very existence is woven directly into the mysterious fabric of the Force itself. Shmi Skywalker insists there was “no father,” and canon backs her up—no secret suitor lurking on the sands of Tatooine, just a whisper of destiny and the midi-chlorians at work.
Where Obi-Wan and most Jedi are shaped by lineages, Anakin’s conception defies both biology and expectation, presenting a literal “chosen one” whose entry into the galaxy bypasses all precedent. In essence: if Force-sensitive births are rare, Anakin’s is virtually mythic—an event no other Jedi or Sith can claim, setting the stage for the singular drama that follows his life.
Future Knowledge of Anakin’s Father
The answer to who Anakin Skywalker dad is might lay in how you interpret the term “father.” Technically, in the EU as well as in canon, his “father” is indeed the midi-chlorians. And although both canon as well as non-canon sources mention that Sith Lords use the Force unnaturally to bring about Shmi’s pregnancy, Anakin is not carrying their DNA. His “father” is still the Force.
Another take: The Mandalorian and The Bad Batch have a great deal to say about cloning. The sequel films also indicate that Palpatine is a clone-carrier for his Force essence, and that the Empire undertook many failed programs in an attempt to achieve Sith cloning. Who, then, is the father of a clone—the original template or the enabler of the cloning?
Whatever else we learn from these clone “fathers” will likely spring from these new series. We do know from Attack of the Clones that Jango Fett asked to raise an unmanipulated infant clone as his son, Boba, who refers to him as his father. But how that might connect to Anakin and his origins remains to be seen.
Mysterious Origins Across the Galaxy
Anakin is far from alone when it comes to enigmatic parentage or uncertain origins in the Star Wars saga. Rey, the protagonist of the sequel trilogy, famously spent much of her early story searching for the truth about her family—a mystery that lingered over multiple films before being (somewhat) resolved. Similarly, Grogu, better known as “the Child” or “Baby Yoda” in The Mandalorian, remains shrouded in secrecy, with his species, lineage, and early life still largely unexplored.
Even classic characters haven’t escaped a foggy backstory. Yoda’s origins are legendary in their opacity, with George Lucas deliberately keeping his species and home world under wraps. Likewise, Supreme Leader Snoke’s background twisted knots in fan theories for years, before it was finally hinted that he was a puppet of Palpatine.
The theme repeats elsewhere: Ezra Bridger in Rebels was orphaned by Imperial machinations, Dooku’s youth was touched on only in outside materials, and the truth behind Darth Plagueis’s abilities with life and death continues to inspire speculation. The galaxy, it seems, has no shortage of characters with tangled or incomplete family trees—a tradition that keeps both old-school fans and new viewers busy connecting the dots.
