When Princess Leia Organa went on her mission to obtain the Death Star plans, did she think it was going to be easy?

When Princess Leia Organa went on her mission to obtain the Death Star plans, her mission was anything but easy. I figured she went on other secret missions for the Rebel Alliance and probably never ran into any trouble. However, everything went terribly wrong on this mission, her ship was captured by the Galactic Empire, many if not all of her guards were killed by Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers. She was captured and tortured for information and to make things even worse, her planet Alderaan was destroyed by the Death Star's powerful ray.

The fact that Leia stood strong and didn't fall apart under these horrific circumstances speaks so much to her character. Even with Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin threating to blow up her planet if she didn't give him the information on the Rebels' location, she still didn't give him what he was looking for. On some level, she probably knew that whether or not she told Tarkin the truth, he was still going to destroy Alderaan which is why she didn't tell him. Maybe a part of her also thought that even the Empire couldn't do something so evil as destroy a planet which is why she was genuinely surprised when it happened.

I like to think that when Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star, some of Princess Leia's happiness and excitement was due to being able to feel like the Rebels avenged the death of her parents and her planet.