PT Why did the Tusken Raiders kidnap Shmi? What did they need her for?

Why did the Tusken Raiders kidnap Shmi? Why did they need her?

 

They just like to kidnap and torture people. They had started venturing into the farm lands and Shmi had gone too far from home when she was grabbed.

 

Possible (re-)sale on the slave market? I'm just guessing

 

it was convenient for the plot, obviously.

 

For the same reason that they shot the participants in the Podrace in TPM. darth-sinister already has explained it.

 

Except that in TPM that did nothing to the plot. Shmi was probably used as a slave for everything you can imagine, some things you probably don't want to imagine.

 

Inb4 "it was all part of Palpatine's plan".

 

There's clearly a perennial conflict over land and resources going on between the Sand People and the moisture farmers, just as has gone on countless times throughout history between indigenous people and colonists. As part of this conflict, the Tuskens kidnapped Shmi, a moisture farmer, probably for reasons having to do partly with intimidation (wanting to scare and hopefully deter moisture farmers from further encroachment on Tusken territory), and partly having to do with just blind hate and retribution for earlier perceived slights.

 

because they're animals

Has any of that been gone over in the EU or is that all just a very intelligent rationalization using past historical events for reference. If that is all you then

 

I believe it was mentioned in an EU novel that the Tusken's are technically the native species to the planet of Tattooine, and therefore, their land and culture has been restricted and defiled due to the colonist species that inhabit Mos Eisley and the surrounding areas.

I think it's just the typical guerilla warfare that the camps use in order to intimidate outsiders, and to gain revenge and preserve their heritage. Tusken's are generally known for attacking, kidnapping and killing any other species (however, mostly humanoids) that they come into contact with. Hell, they attacked Luke in the first half hour of ANH.

Some fans theorize Palpataine was pulling some strings and orchestrated it, but in reality Shmi could have met her end a thousand other ways living on a planet such as Tattooine. The Sand Raiders are just more malicious and vile, and actual tangible beings that Anakin can then take his anger and aggression out on. I don't think Palps mailed a Tusken a letter and paid him off to do it. Simple answer, Tusken's like to attack, Shmi was picking mushrooms off some far out moisturizers, they got a hold of her and decided to torture and enslave her for their kicks.

Anakin was going to have to face losing his mother permanently eventually, it just works out for Palps that it was prematurely and brutally. If Shmi had just passed on due to natural causes, sure Anakin would've felt the four stages of grief, thrown a few tantrums, and it would've given him a nudge towards the Darkside....but it's nowhere near the same as knowing your mother was kept alive to be tortured and enslaved until she died.

 

I have no idea if the EU has gone into any of it. It's really just simple logical extrapolation based on the clear parallels between the moisture farmers' conflict with the Tuskens and historical conflicts between American settlers and native Indians. In fact, as has been well documented, the whole kidnapping plot in Attack of the Clones is directly based on a similar episode involving a Comanche tribe kidnapping a white woman in the 1956 John Ford film The Searchers.

http://www.starwars.com/news/the-cinema-behind-star-wars-the-searchers

 

Yes. The "Outlander" arc of the Republic comic goes in depth with this.

 

I could've sworn I read somewhere, maybe in the Kenobi novel by John Jackson Miller?, that Tusken boys becoming men must take a captive as a rite of passage. Which would be interesting in that there'd be a parallel with Anakin as a Padawan soon to become a Jedi Knight.

Anakin himself going through his own rites of passage. His first mission by himself. Following his Force dreams/visions. And most of all dealing with his mother's death.

 

Probably yeah.

 

She might well have been taken as bait. Her husband mentions a posse went after her and got their asses handed to them in an ambush. If we assume this has happened before then perhaps the Tusken had planned their ambush but needed something (or someone) to get the farmers rushing into action.

 

So what? Just like in ANH, it establishes them as dangerous and violent towards others.

 

How quickly one forgets.

THREEPIO: "Pardon me, sir, but couldn’t we go after him?"

LUKE: "It’s too dangerous with all the Sand People around. We’ll have to wait until morning."


ANH established early on that the Tusken Raiders were a dangerous threat to anyone wandering around at night. We then see that when Luke is attacked by one and then dragged to his speeder. TPM establishes them as a threat to anyone, if you are starting with TPM through TFA. And now when you watch ANH after seeing AOTC, you realize that Luke might be in danger like his grandmother and that Obi-wan's arrival was very timely.

Also, ANH takes time out to have Obi-wan point out that the Stormtroopers tried to make it look like the Tuskens attacked the Jawa Sandcrawler, but Obi-wan's been on Tatooine long enough to know better. TPM and AOTC was just an extension of that.

 

I've got some reasons:

- sex slavery
- religious sacrifice
- barbecue

 

I didn‘t say that the results are the same in both cases, just that the Tuskens didn‘t have any explicable motives to shot the participants in the podrace, but they did. At first I thought that Sebulba or somebody else paid them to make this diversion but then I saw that that they shoot to anyone there. Also the two headed criature that made the comentaries about the podrace also communicated their presence and behaviour as something that they usualy do, so no one is really surprised.

 

maybe part of the pod race circuit was going through land they considered theirs. i don't know if more and more people are moving into areas outside of the cities making the sand people feel like they're increasingly being encroached upon.

 

The Kenobi novel explains pretty well why the Tuskens might want to take people from villages on Tatooine, and I vaguely recall there being some kind of mention or explanation about Shmi Lars' kidnapping.

I really recommend reading Kenobi if you want to know more about the Sand People; it was really enlightening in that respect. Not to mention anything John Jackson Miller writes for Star Wars is pure gold, and also it was fun to read about what Obi Wan's life just after settling on Tatooine might have been like (even if it's a Legends book and isn't canon ).

 

Honestly, they probably consider all the land theirs. They were on the planet first, after all. If there's ever an opportunity to set up and take potshots at offworlders, of any stripe, they're probably going to take it.

 

It is.

 

It's probably about sending a message: Get off our Lands/Planet.

 

To advance the plot?