Someone posted this question on Quora. I decided to answer the call.
What a great question. There’s so many characters to choose from. I’m going to try to make a case for R2-D2 here, specifically in the context of The Clone Wars series on Netflix.
If you look at just this series, R2-D2 plays a HUGE role and aiding the Grand Army of the Republic and saved Anakin’s ass more times than I can count. Here’s a quick list of all the shit he was involved in and was a key contributor to the Republic Army at large:
- Battle of Geonosis
- The Defense of Christophsis
- Malevolence Resuce Mission (Padame’s dumbass was trapped on board)
- Exposed R3-S6 as a Traitor
- Escaping Drol in order to find the cure for the Blue Shadow Virus
- Liberation of Ryloth
- Battle of Malastare (savior from the Zillo Beast)
- The Vanqor Trap (saved Skywalker and Mace Windu)
- Infiltrating and Escaping the Citadel
- Saving the entire planet of Aleen
- Establishing Democracy and murdering Hay-Zu (accidentally)
- Serving in D-Squad
- Saving Anakin on Cato Neimoidia (safely landed his fighter while he was unconscious)
- Escorting Yoda to Dagobah and Moraband (to complete his Jedi training and discover the Origin-of-Life)
The list could go on forever, but you get the point. Here’s where I’ll make the case for his miraculous adventures while serving D-Squad.
R2-D2, along with a band of other droids, is sent on a dangerous mission to retrieve a decoding module from a separatist warship under the supervision of this ugly, annoying slug thing called Colonel Meebur Gascon. They make it out alive, but crash land on the waste planet of Abafar.
After successfully navigating the squad through the barren wasteland they eventually find themselves back on a Republic cruiser en route to the Republic Strategy Conference. They discover the cruiser has been captured by a group of Separatist droids and is packed with rhydonium, a highly-explosive type of starship fuel of which the Separatists planned on using to nuke the Strategy Conference.
After a long skirmish inside of the Republic cruiser between D-Squad and the Separatists, most of D-Squad is able to get onto a small ship to escape the inevitable exploding doom. Like a huge pussy, Gascon takes off leaving R2 behind. Not only was R2-D2 able to regain control of the commandeered cruiser, but he did so with style. Like a mother fucking champion he preemptively activated the rhydonium detonator, blowing the ship up before it could reach its destination. He saved thousands of clones in the Republic Navy, as well as the lives of Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
This act of valor could arguably be one of the most selfless and heroic events that took place during the Clone Wars. It’s either this long-winded story or the battle where Obi-Wan Kenobi defeats both Darth Maul and Savage Opress in this wicked little battle (Starts around 3:05).
