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This is a post-Force Awakens follow up to the 2012 question Did Princess Leia ever use The Force?.

The fact that Leia has natural strong force sensitivity is obviously very important - but I can't think of any examples of her actively using the force. By actively I mean her making a deliberate, conscious decision to use the force to bring about a certain result.

That above linked question gives examples of her showing a kind of affinity to Luke, and there's a scene discussed in this question in The Force Awakens where she...

...becomes aware that her son has killed her husband/ex/son's father (Han)

...but all of these are latent and passive, not her actively and purposefully causing a result.

Since Disney took over, have there been any examples of her using the force in an active way comparable to reading someone's mind, influencing their thoughts, telekenisis, guiding shots, freezing things, blasting people with lightning, etc etc?

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  • According to the novelisation, she senses the deaths (of the Senators) in the Hosnian System. I guess that doesn't count.
    – Valorum
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 20:01
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    @Richard yeah, unless it was like, "I'm going to telepathically see how our senators are getting along over in the Hosnian System. Ommmmm... Oh no!" (hopefully better written)
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 20:07
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    It's not massively better written, but it's better than that.
    – Valorum
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 20:09
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    Even in the Legends EU, she barely learned how to do anything. She became proficient with the lightsaber and some minor telekinesis, but otherwise her skills were primarily passive. Instead, we got 30 years of reading her tell herself "Man, I need to practice one of these days."
    – Omegacron
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 20:50
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    @Omegacron interesting to know, thanks - thinking about it, it also seems in character that TFA Leia would have spent 30 years periodically thinking "I should probably take some time out to train in using the force... I'll do that once I've finished leading the Resistance and setting Ben on the right path"
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 20:56

3 Answers 3

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Yes.

In The Last Jedi we see Leia use the Force to save herself when she gets blasted out into space. This still fits in with the general theme of her using the Force in a "passive" mode since her use is instinctual rather than deliberate.

She also uses a (deliberate) Force power in Rise of Skywalker when she makes a mental connection with Kylo Ren with the intent of distracting him during a fight with Rey.

enter image description here

That all being said, there's at least one fully canonical example from the original (pre-2014) canon that shows Leia using the Force. In the RotJ novelisation, when Luke escapes the Death Star, he reaches out to let Leia that he's alright and she reaches out to him to offer him the same reassurance.

“Hey,” he jostled, “I’ll bet Luke got off that thing before it blew.”

She nodded. “He did. I can feel it.” Her brother’s living presence touched her, through the Force. She reached out to answer the touch, to reassure Luke she was all right. Everything was all right.

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  • 1
    I'm basing this on all of the Disney canon sources I have access to; The novelisations (obviously), the TFA film, the new comic serials, the new canon novels and the new factbooks (everything you need to know / 100 scenes). I also had a very long readthrough of the Wookiepedia page for her and the wikipedia page in case I'd missed anything abstruse or very new.
    – Valorum
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 20:36
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    @all - and THIS is the correct format to structure a proper "no" answer to such "are there any" a question on SFF.SE
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 22:26
  • @DVK - Curses. While re-reading the original trilogy novelisation, I've spotted an instance where she did use the Force. Poop.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 14, 2016 at 17:29
  • Sensing Luke in ESB or ROTJ? I am not sure that qualifies as "used"
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Jan 14, 2016 at 17:34
  • @DVK - She "reaches out" with the force in the ROTJ novelisation
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 14, 2016 at 17:59
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There are some notable instances as of September 2016. My list features the name of the media that these instances appeared in.

  • Star Wars: Showdown on the Smuggler's Moon - In this comic book, Leia ends up on the planet Nar Shadaa, where the collector of Jedi artifacts, Grakkus the Hutt, resides. TIE Pilots storm the area she is in, so she grabs a lightsaber and shows great prowess in its usage, something only a Force-user would have.
  • Aftermath: Life Debt - This is set about a year after the Battle of Endor. Luke has begun training Leia in meditation. While meditating, Leia senses that her unborn child is a boy.
  • Bloodline - Set six years before The Force Awakens, Leia is a Senator in the New Republic. Tiring with the boring life of politics, Leia and a group of of her close associates decide to fight against a Nikto cartel led by Rinnrivin Di. While Di's thugs attempt to kill her, she makes a 1-in-a-million shot that ends up blowing up the criminal base, similar to what her brother Luke did when he blew up the Death Star.
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I feel that I must complete the answer by adding the events of The Rise of Skywalker into the mix:

1. She actively uses the Force to reach out to her son during his lightsaber battle with Rey on Endor. This is strong enough, across great distance, to distract him so Rey can impale him, and possibly also plays a part in convincing him to turn back to the Light

2. It is shown, in flashback, that she actively trained as a Jedi under Luke. We only see training exercises with her lightsaber, but one presumes she gained access to all kinds of active Force powers. We learn that she gave up her training and her lightsaber around the same time and for the same reasons that led to Luke's exile.

I should add:

The fact the Leia is using a lightsaber at all is effectively a Force ability. Lightsabers are typically not wielded by the non-Force-sensitive because it requires advanced reaction capabilities to handle them. (And before anyone points out that Finn wields one in The Force Awakening, this is in fact an indication of his Force sensitivity. That's what he wanted to tell Rey in TROS as well as numerous hints ["I just had a feeling"] -- but that's the subject for another answer...) 1

1 (Here's a reference for this claim, confirmed by JJ Abrams. It's easy to find other stories on this interpretation.)

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