Star Wars Is Filled With Tons Of Bad Dads, Here Are The Worst Star Wars Dads

Bail Organa might be the most loving Star Wars dad on this list. He showered his adopted daughter Leia with attention and always treated her like his own flesh and blood. That being said…

The dude allowed his daughter to get mixed up in the Rebellion at the age of 17, knowing it would put her directly in the path of her real father—Darth Vader. Had Bail been one of the countless denizens of the Star Wars galaxy that didn’t know Anakin had become Darth Vader, it would have been a different story. But not only did Bail know, he never told his daughter the truth, knowledge that could have allowed her to make a more informed decision before joining the very group tasked with bringing the Sith Lord down.

Lando’s daughter was two years old when she was kidnapped by the evil First Order. As a result, a distraught Lando…did nothing. He became a hermit on a desert planet—kind of a recurring motif in Star Wars—while his daughter was brainwashed and turned into a stormtrooper. Sadly, despite his inaction, the fact that he wasn’t actively harming his child actually makes Lando one of Star Wars least offensive dads.

We’re willing to bet many of you didn’t even know that Chewbacca even had a kid with how rarely he’s ever brought up. Believe it or not, Chewie’s entire family from The Star Wars Holiday Special is canon.

That means Chewbacca abandoning them all to go galavanting around the galaxy with his best friend is also canon. While the Wookiee’s loyalty to Han Solo may seem admirable, it’s really just Chewie being the Star Wars equivalent of a deadbeat dad.

When you have a child with Darth Vader’s daughter there’s a good chance that kid might end up going full-on dark side. Sure enough, that’s what happened to Han Solo’s son Ben.

Facing the possibility of Vader 2.0, Han Solo did the only thing he could—he peaced out and went back to smuggling. Spawning Kylo Ren was bad enough, but running away while the rest of the Star Wars galaxy has to deal with junior space Hitler is what really makes Han Solo a terrible dad.

Watto may not have been Anakin Skywalker’s actual father—he won the kid and his mother gambling—but he was the closest thing the boy had. While the Toydarian junk dealer may have developed some affection for Little Anni over the years, he still treated him like property. Property Watto was willing to bet on a race without any hesitation. Treating your child like a slave—even if he is one—is definitely enough to earn a spot on the list of horrible Star Wars dads.

Sheev Palpatine’s unnamed son thought he was doing what was best for his daughter when he left her with Unkar Plutt on Jakku. Little did he know Plutt was a ruthless, petty crime boss who would eventually sell Rey out to the First Order.

We know Rey’s dad was desperate, but he couldn’t have taken two seconds to do a quick background check on the guy he was trusting with his only daughter’s life?

Jango Fett was odd for a Star Wars dad in that he took an active role in raising his son and genuinely seemed to care for the boy. Unfortunately, raising his son meant teaching him how to be a cold-blooded, ruthless killer. On top of that, Jango made every day “Take your son to work day,” no matter how dangerous the situation. As a result, poor Boba had to witness his father’s decapitation at the hands of Jedi Mace Windu.

If Anakin Skywalker was conceived by the Force—as most Star Wars media hints at—then it wasn’t a very good dad. Not only did the Force allow its child to become a slave, it sat back and watched as he was corrupted into the second most evil man in the galaxy. If everything that happens in Star Wars is truly the will of the Force, then Anakin’s tortured upbringing is the Force’s idea of a sick joke.

Let’s run down the list: he had his daughter tortured, cut off his son’s hand, tried to kill both multiple times, froze his daughter’s boyfriend, and that’s just scratching the surface.

Calling Darth Vader a bad father is like calling Jabba the Hutt husky. Vader might not be the worst Star Wars dad, but he still beat out millions of other contenders to earn the title of Second Worst Dad In The Galaxy.

Palpatine is easily the Star Wars franchise’s worst dad by far. He abandoned his actual son—Rey’s father—when he found out the kid had no connection to the Force.

Later, Palps had his son hunted down and murdered for daring to hide his granddaughter from him.

Meanwhile, as Darth Sidious, Palpatine was a surrogate father to several Sith apprentices, including Maul and Anakin Skywalker. To motivate his adopted children, Palpatine would lie, manipulate, and torture them regularly.

His cruelest prank was purposely making sure that Vader’s suit and mechanical limbs were outdated and ill-fitting so that the constant pain would strengthen his connection to the dark side of the Force. Now that’s a bad father!