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How Old is Depa Billaba?
7 Aug 2022 23:26While looking up something completely unrelated on Wookieepedia, I discovered that in the Legends continuity, Mace Windu and Shmi Skywalker share a birthyear – 72 BBY. (In Disney canon, Mace is still the same age, but no-one's pinned down an age for Shmi.) For reference, Obi-Wan was born in 57 BBY and Anakin in 41 BBY (when Shmi was 31).
Oh huh, I thought. Mace is a few years younger than I'd have guessed. But wait – didn't he raise an entire padawan whom he rescued from pirates at a young age? Where did they slot Depa Billaba, anyway?
Turns out, Depa has no canonical birth year. Instead, we have the assurance that Mace rescued her from the pirates who killed her parents when she was less than a year old. So assuming that Mace rescued her on his very first mission as a bright-eyed 13-year-old, she would've been born in 59 BBY. Amazing! Except that she was on the Jedi Council in 32 BBY as a 27-year-old, while Obi-Wan was 25 and still a padawan. And that makes no sense. Also, she doesn't look 27, but more like in her 30s.
My solution is to headcanon that she was actually born after Obi-Wan in ~56 BBY, so Mace can be slightly less of a baby when he rescues her, Knighted at 21 or something, and went on some amazing time travel adventure, so she's chronologically ~24 in TPM but 30+ with some unique life experiences that are also the reason Sidious arranged for her to spend most of the war unconscious. (You could have her be a 27-year-old wunderkind who got just placed on the Council, but that requires a number of very precise assumptions. And I'm not sure if the canon is written in a way that supports them.)
Oh huh, I thought. Mace is a few years younger than I'd have guessed. But wait – didn't he raise an entire padawan whom he rescued from pirates at a young age? Where did they slot Depa Billaba, anyway?
Turns out, Depa has no canonical birth year. Instead, we have the assurance that Mace rescued her from the pirates who killed her parents when she was less than a year old. So assuming that Mace rescued her on his very first mission as a bright-eyed 13-year-old, she would've been born in 59 BBY. Amazing! Except that she was on the Jedi Council in 32 BBY as a 27-year-old, while Obi-Wan was 25 and still a padawan. And that makes no sense. Also, she doesn't look 27, but more like in her 30s.
My solution is to headcanon that she was actually born after Obi-Wan in ~56 BBY, so Mace can be slightly less of a baby when he rescues her, Knighted at 21 or something, and went on some amazing time travel adventure, so she's chronologically ~24 in TPM but 30+ with some unique life experiences that are also the reason Sidious arranged for her to spend most of the war unconscious. (You could have her be a 27-year-old wunderkind who got just placed on the Council, but that requires a number of very precise assumptions. And I'm not sure if the canon is written in a way that supports them.)