character history;

[shabuir]

( DISCLAIMER: The "Star Wars Expanded Universe," also known as "Legends," refers to all non-cinematic canonical Star Wars media produced before the Disney acquisition. This version of Boba Fett is the "EU" or "Legends" version; his backstory and characterization were detailed in various novels, short stories, and comics prior to the release of the animated tv show, The Clone Wars. Therefore, his backstory and characterization is not be consistent with The Clone Wars or any media released after it. )

cw: violence, child endangerment, slavery mention, rape, drugs, drug-related stigma, torture

Boba Fett did not have anything like a normal childhood. The cloned son of the infamous bounty hunter Jango Fett, he grew up on an isolated, little-known planet called Kamino, where his existence was kept a secret from the rest of the galaxy. As such, he spent most of his life in a very sheltered environment. His father was extremely paranoid about anyone harming his son and in one instance scolded Boba for even letting another person see him.

Boba thus had a very lonely childhood. He only interacted with three people with any regularity: Jango, Zam Wesell, and Taun We. Jango was not only Boba’s father, but also his hero; he could do no wrong in his son’s eyes. Jango also loved his son dearly and would do anything to keep him safe. However, he also knew that in his line of work, he couldn’t guarantee he’d always be there for his son and so did his best to teach Boba how to be self-sufficient despite his sheltered environment. Besides Jango, Zam Wesell was the closest thing Boba had to a second parent. Zam was a fellow bounty hunter and friend of Jango’s who met Boba when he was very young and quickly befriended the boy. The two regularly swapped jokes and stories, and it’s suggested that Zam and Jango took turns looking after Boba when the other was out hunting. Finally, Taun We was a Kaminoan cloner who oversaw Boba’s growth and helped tutor him. Though Boba counted her as a friend, in reality, her interest in him was mostly scientific.

It was Zam who suggested Boba combat the loneliness and boredom of life on Kamino through reading books. It was through books that Boba learned about the outside world and what life was like for other children. He found concepts such as “school,” “mothers,” and “other children” foreign, but fascinating. He also developed a keen interest in starships and enjoyed talking about them at length.

In all, Boba Fett as a young child did not seem the type destined to become a ruthless bounty hunter. Though he idolized his father as something akin to a superhero and naturally wanted to follow in his footsteps, he seemed disturbed by the thought of killing anything or anyone who meant him no harm. On one occasion, his father tasked him with feeding aquatic rodents known as sea-mice to an eel every morning. The thought disturbed the boy to the point that he spent those days feeding the eel his own food instead and attempting to release the sea-mice into Kamino’s ocean. It wasn’t until he saw the sea-mice die the instant they hit Kamino’s waters that he resigned himself to their fates and began giving them to the eel—an act that seemed to depress him considerably. Later on, he displayed the same compassionate streak when he was watching Anakin, Obi-wan, and Padme being prepared for execution in the Geonosian arena. Though he didn’t care about the two Jedi, whom he believed had hunted down him and his father, he quietly hoped that Padme would escape, seeing as she looked like a good person and had done him no wrong.

But Boba’s gentle childhood would not last for long. At ten years old, Boba experienced Zam’s death followed by his father’s within days of each other. He watched his father decapitated in the Geonosian arena by Jedi Mace Windu, an event that sharpened his hatred towards the Jedi Order into an obsession. In the aftermath of the battle, he buried his father’s body in the Geonosian desert. The memory of his father’s death and burial would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Boba then took his father’s ship Slave I and returned to Kamino. There, he asked Taun We to shelter him—but to his shock, the Kaminoan whom he believed to be his friend told him she had already alerted the Jedi when she detected his approach in Slave I. Betrayed and hunted, Boba fled. His only possessions were his father’s armor plates and helmet and a “book” (really a holo projector) his father had left him. He didn’t make it far before being captured by bounty hunter Aurra Sing.

(The following is taken from the wiki) ”Aurra Sing gave Fett to Darth Tyranus, who gave Sing Slave I as payment (Boba eventually recovered the ship). He was taken to Raxus Prime to meet with Tyranus, who was then searching for the Force Harvester. The Sith Lord attempted to detain his young charge, but a Republic attack allowed Fett to escape.

Boba was taken by clone troopers and sent to an orphanage on Bespin. He managed to escape with Sing, who had come searching for the boy, in order to gain access to Jango Fett's rather large bank account on Aargau.

On Aargau, Fett lost 500,000 credits of his father's money due to the betrayal of a Clawdite named Nuri, but received the rest. While on Aargau, Boba managed to elude Aurra Sing after she failed to steal Jango's credits. Jango's "book" told Fett to find Jabba the Hutt.

Boba thus traveled to Tatooine, the seat of Jabba’s power. His first act there was to get mugged by a gang of thieving children who attempted to steal his father’s helmet. Fortunately, Boba was able to get it back by reasoning with the gang’s leader, a girl named Ygabba. He learned that the children were actually slaves to the gang’s adult leader, a Neimoidian named Gilramos Libkath, who used the children to smuggle weapons and explosives. Libkath controlled the children with eye-shaped sensors embedded in the palms of their hands. If any tried to escape, the sensor would release a deadly toxin into their bloodstream, killing them instantly. Boba was horrified and promised to return to help her one day.

Boba then went on to locate Jabba, who was in a local gambling den betting on a podrace. Wearing his father’s helmet, Boba posed as an adult (not difficult in a universe full of short-statured alien races) to gain an audience with the Hutt. Jabba was intrigued by the small stranger without weapons who claimed to be a great bounty hunter. He offered Boba a trip to his palace—as an indentured servant. Outraged, Boba demanded what he could possibly owe the Hutt. He was then immediately set upon by one of Jabba’s guards.

Though Boba’s opponent was much bigger and stronger, Boba was faster, more evasive, and clever. Grabbing a small nearby table to use as a shield, he baited the guard into stabbing the table, pushed the table up into his face to get him off balance, and then kicked his knees out from under him. Still indignant, Boba took the opportunity to address Jabba again, telling him, “I am no one’s slave or servant! I will work for you, for a price—but I will name that price!” Both entertained and impressed by the stranger’s nerve and skill, Jabba agreed to take him on as a bounty hunter.

However, Boba’s troubles were far from over. Back at Jabba’s Palace, he encountered Durge, a bounty hunter with a notorious hatred for all Mandalorians. As Boba was at that moment still wearing his father’s Mandalorian battle helmet, things went about as well as you’d expect them to go. Durge threatened Boba in front of Jabba and, in an effort not to look weak in front of the crime lord, Boba insulted him back. Durge attacked him and a fight broke out between the two right there in the throne room. Boba held his own but his helmet was knocked off during the scuffle. Suddenly, everyone in the throne room knew that the self-proclaimed “great bounty hunter” was a child. The charade was over.

Fortunately, Jabba was only further amused by the revelation. He granted Boba an assassination contract, seemingly as a cruel joke, as he refused to give the boy any weapons and sent Durge to pursue him all the while. Boba’s target: Gilramos Libkath and his gang of thieves.

Before the hunt for Libkath could even begin, Durge was already hunting Boba through the palace. Boba only managed to escape thanks to the kindness of a kitchen slave named Gabborah, who lent him a jetpack he himself had been saving as a means of escape. With Durge only meters away, Gabborah pushed the boy through a secret door hidden in a storage closet—that led to a straight drop out of the palace, hundreds of meters above the desert below.

Free from Durge, Boba began his hunt for Libkath. Thanks to his earlier encounter with Ygabba, he knew exactly where to find the Neimoidian. He returned to the gang’s hideout and found Libkath inspecting the children’s latest handiwork—crates of explosive weapons, disguised as water shipments. Boba knew he had to strike now while Libkath was still there. But he had no weapons. Undaunted, Boba improvised, picking up a stone and hurling it at Libkath’s head. A scuffle ensued, during which Boba attempted to make use of his new jetpack in the fight—and promptly knocked himself out against the ceiling.

When Boba awoke, Libkath was about to implant an eye-shaped sensor into his hand. Fortunately, before the Neimoidian could complete the process, Durge barged in, intent on killing everyone inside the hideout. What everyone else knew that Durge didn’t was that firing off a bolt inside the hideout would be a very bad idea as the crates around them held a huge amount of explosives. Boba immediately wriggled out of Libkath’s grasp and threw himself to the ground while yelling at the rest of the children to flee, just in time to dodge a blaster bolt that wounded Libkath instead. He then grabbed Libkath’s hat (as proof of the completed bounty, since Neimoidians would quite literally die before being parted with their hats) and used his jetpack to dart towards the crates of explosives. Enraged, Durge fired a shot at the boy and missed. His blaster bolt hit one of the crates and the hideout was immediately engulfed by a huge explosion, just as Boba made a break for the exit. Boba narrowly escaped being killed himself as he fled the explosion.

With Libkath dead, the sensors in the hands of the other children deactivated, freeing them from his slavery. Durge was likewise nowhere to be seen. Boba returned to Jabba’s palace with Ygabba and told the crime lord that he had killed Libkath. Jabba was impressed that the boy had survived at all and even moreso that he had brought back proof of Libkath’s death. From then on, Boba’s position in Jabba’s court was secured. It also helped that Ygabba ended up being the long-lost daughter of Gabborah, the kitchen slave who Boba had befriended earlier. As the months went by, the two of them would prove an invaluable source of palace intel (and food) to the fledgling bounty hunter.

Fett continued to work for Jabba as a teenager, but soon began to feel unhappy with his chosen path as a bounty hunter. He wondered what it might be like to lead a “normal” life, with a family and a world outside of organized crime. These feelings only intensified when he met Sintas Vel, a Kiffar bounty hunter who shared his dissatisfaction. The two became close and started a relationship that quickly escalated into full-fledged elopement. The two fled to Concord Dawn, where Fett found work as a Journeyman Protector, a kind of local law enforcement official. Sintas became pregnant shortly thereafter. She was only 18 and Fett only 16 at the time.

At least initially, their new life seemed to work out. Sintas had a daughter, who they named Ailyn. Fett was taken under the wing of his superior officer, a man named Lenovar. For about a year, they had a family and the normal, contented life they’d wanted.

It wasn’t to last. Using his position of trust with Fett, Lenovar infiltrated deeper into the young family’s life, eventually seizing the opportunity to isolate and rape Sintas. Fearing the jeopardy the truth would place her family in, Sintas kept the incident a secret. She didn’t even tell Fett, who she knew would do something rash if he knew the truth.

Unfortunately, she was right. A year after Sintas was raped, Fett found out. He immediately started planning to kill Lenovar, much to Sintas’s dismay. She knew that attempting a reprisal against Lenovar would end badly for them; if Fett succeeded, he’d be branded the worst kind of murderer for killing his superior officer. If he didn’t, the testimony of a senior Protector would hold up much more than a teenager with a criminal past. Already hurt at Sintas hiding the truth and further enraged at her arguing against killing Lenovar, Fett responded to her pragmatism with angry recriminations, even going so far as to suggest that Ailyn wasn’t his daughter. He then left to kill Lenovar, with Sintas’s approval or not.

Now bitter and alone, Fett followed through with his plan. It’s implied that Lenovar appealed to Fett by blaming his actions on the corrupting influence of spice, a class of addictive drugs. Though this excuse was not enough to stop Fett from killing him, it clearly had a strong influence on his beliefs, as he admits to Leia years later that he believes spice can make formerly decent people do terrible things, including rape. Fett was then apprehended by his fellow Journeyman Protectors and held in an Imperial prison. Despite repeated interrogations, he refused to give a motive for his actions, saying only that his sole regret was not killing Lenovar earlier. By the time his sentence was commuted into exile from Concord Dawn, Fett was no longer the hot-headed teenager he’d been before, but a cold and bitter stranger. He accepted his exile without a fight and left Sintas and Ailyn behind.

Now convinced that he was incapable of being anything other than a bounty hunter, Fett returned to the business he had once fled. It appeared that killing Lenovar had not sated his desire for revenge as Fett prioritized spice smugglers and dealers as targets, taking zealous satisfaction in not only killing them, but destroying their merchandise afterwards. He became a favorite tool of Jabba the Hutt once again, who often deployed him against rivals.

It was on one such job that Fett first encountered Han Solo. At the time, Solo was a prisoner forced to fight for his freedom in the same venue where Fett was hunting his target. Fett was momentarily distracted from his mission by the sight of Solo preparing to fight. The two of them made eye contact briefly just before the fight started and Fett continued to watch as Solo fended off and eventually prevailed over several larger combatants. The event left a strong impression on Fett and he actually felt a great deal of admiration for Solo at first—until he discovered his occupation as a smuggler of spice and that admiration curdled into a sharp sense of betrayal.

Fett spent the next 15 years of his life working as a bounty hunter for various clients. He gained Imperial attention after they hired him for a job on Kamino exterminating a batch of anti-Imperial clones that the Kaminoans intended to use in an uprising. His intimate knowledge of the cloning facilities would prove a valuable asset during the mission and would secure him a place as a favored bounty hunter of the Empire. Working for the Empire also allowed Fett a profitable means of venting his animosity towards the Jedi, as they paid him for the death or capture of remaining Jedi fugitives.

It was around this time that Fett accepted an Imperial contract for the capture of Han Solo, whom he brought to Vader to be used as a test subject for the carbonite freezing process. After Solo had been frozen alive, Vader allowed Fett to bring him to Jabba the Hutt as bounty, essentially collecting two paydays for a single target. Fett stayed at Jabba's Palace for several days afterwards, during which time he also encountered Princess Leia Organa, whom Jabba had enslaved and sent to the bounty hunter's room as a "reward" for his service. Naturally, Fett had no wish to assault her, but also did not wish to invite Jabba's ire on either of them by sending back his "gift." Instead, he and Leia passed the time in his room arguing about politics and morality, though the circumstances of Leia's presence in his room and the conversation's eventual turn towards the topic of spice eventually agitated Fett into silence. Before they both went to sleep, Leia warned Fett that he would be killed by Luke Skywalker if he remained in Jabba's Palace. Fett, unfortunately, ignored her warning.

As foretold by Leia, Skywalker would stage a rescue soon after. Though Skywalker was initially captured and slated to be fed to the Sarlacc, a massive, subterranean creature that slowly digested its victims alive, he eventually managed to gain the upper hand after escaping from his bonds. When Fett attempted to intervene, his jetpack was struck and damaged by a blinded Han Solo and he was subsequently knocked into the maw of the Sarlacc himself.

Inside the Sarlacc, Fett endured unimaginable pain, both physically and mentally. Though most considered the Sarlacc a mindless, ravenous beast, in truth, its long list of victims—particularly Force-sensitive victims—had merged with it over the centuries, imbuing the beast with a sapient, psychic presence that could communicate psychically with its victims. It called itself Susejo, after one of its first victims. "Susejo" would spend its days torturing the Sarlacc's victims to amuse itself, forcing them to relive each other's most vulnerable and traumatic memories in an attempt to break their minds as the Sarlacc slowly ate them alive over years and years. The Sarlacc took a particular interest in Fett, noting that there was a certain "purity to [his] intent" that reminded it of one of its Jedi victims, something that Fett was, initially, none too happy to hear.

Immobilized by the Sarlacc's tentacles, Fett endured Susejo's torture for days, though the time seemed much longer to him due to his experiencing years of memories from the Sarlacc's other victims. Eventually, Fett realized that the Sarlacc reacted physically to Susejo's emotions, and that Susejo, psychically connected to Fett and the others trapped within the Sarlacc, reacted to his own. Fett thus hatched a desperate plan to psychically overwhelm Susejo in the hopes of weakening the Sarlacc's control over the tentacles binding him to its wall, giving him a chance to trigger his jetpack's emergency override switch and free himself from his torment by killing either himself or the Sarlacc. To do this, Fett harnessed all the anger and hatred he felt for the Sarlacc not just for his own torture, but for the torture of those others that had been devoured before him and whose memories he had been forced to endure, and let it loose in a furious and highly uncharacteristic tirade.

His fury, concentrated and amplified by his weaponized empathy for the Sarlacc's other victims, successfully overwhelmed the Sarlacc, causing it to uncontrollably drag Fett back and down, enough that he could finally dig one of his heels into the ground and push upwards, triggering his jetpack's emergency switch. Pressed between Fett and the wall of the Sarlacc, the jetpack exploded, wounding them both. After this, Fett was able to fire a series of concussion grenades into the Sarlacc's side, blasting a hole in it through which he was able to escape, though not without doing considerable damage to himself in the process. Upon reaching the surface, he immediately collapsed unconscious to the sand.

Fett would later be rescued and given medical attention by the bounty hunter Dengar, whom he would work alongside for several years to come. Though Fett continued his bounty hunting career for several decades to come, he remained haunted by his memories of the Sarlacc and those of its other victims. Furthermore, while no one could ever claim him to be a model of compassion and mercy, his experiences did seem to leave him with a somewhat increased capacity for empathy, as evidenced by his last hunt for Han Solo, in which he allowed Solo to escape to tend to a mortally injured contact who had been caught in the crossfire and eventually spared Solo himself.

For the rest of Fett's history as it pertains to this journal, please read the sections "Mandalore" to "Training Jaina Solo" on Wookieepedia.