#teckla

Nandi ~ loyal servant of Senator Padmé Amidala

Nandi wasn't handmaiden, but a servant, who worked at House Naberrie's retreat house at Varykino, in Naboo's Lake Country, during the years leading up to the Clone Wars.

Nandi and her half-sister, Teckla Minnau - future handmaiden of Amidala, at one point lived with their older brother, Rehtul Minnau, in the capital city of Theed, where the two girls attended a private school to learn etiquette, hospitality, history, and the arts. Both relatives of Nandi are shown as a holo near her.

Nandi and Teckla finished their schooling and then went on to work for Senator Padmé Amidala as servants at Varykino. In 22 BBY, Amidala and Anakin Skywalker, used it as a sanctuary after two failed assassination attempts on the Senator's life.

On the painting, Nandi is seen to be waiting to greet Padme and Jedi at Varykino, with their already prepared meal, including shuura fruit as dessert, which Nandi and Teckla served later to the couple. Hardly any of them was suspecting that the love of the pare would have a great impact on the future.

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(also if ever you want an (almost) comprehensive list of Naboo terms I do actually have that list somewhere because I myself spent three days making it and...never used it)

But back to the fact that you have taken a world that's seen a little bit in the films and made it so beautiful and big and added meaning to things said in the films - I find myself absolutely amazed at the hard work and thought you've put into this.

I do have...a lot of questions lol which I made note of as I was going through the blog, but I won't ask them all now - but there was one thing that's been bugging me and that I haven't been able to think of a satisfying answer for yet and that is about Duja, Teckla and Motée's names.

So why Duja and Teckla keep their original names and not take the é at the end? And why Motée is spelt with an extra e? I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that!

Anyway, thank you for sharing all of this I guess?? I have had such a good morning going through it all lol

Hi! Thank you so much for your interest and enthusiasm for this silly little conlang of mine. I've been seeing your notes come in and I am genuinely so delighted to see how keen you are on it!!

Re: the three names!

Teckla isn't from Naboo. The name changing thing is common practice for handmaidens because of the interchangeability of identity and the sort of giving up of their individuation. It's a cultural practice that none of the others - even someone like Dormé who takes up the role for Padmé's senate role and not her period as queen - would really question doing, just naturally. However it's not something that'd occur to Teckla, not something Padmé would ever ask her to do, and sidenote she's never actually acting as Padmé anyway as far as I remember.

Duja... I'll be honest, I had just never heard of her until your ask! There are a lot of sort of canon-ish characters from all these novels and comics and audiobooks and I don't listen to them or read them so I just don't know them.

From a Doylist perspective, I assume it's that somebody forgot the pattern. That quite bothers me, actually. All of Padme's royalty-era handmaidens rather famously have that é ending.

From a Watsonian perspective... it does say on the wiki she was a former handmaiden of Padmé's, so it could just be that after she gave up being a handmaiden, she went back to using her original name. I think this would be a practice that quite a few people went to if they were no longer acting in capacity as a handmaiden, or for a number of other personal reasons, including but not limited to having had a harrowing time as a handmaiden or not wanting to be identified as one of Amidala's people.

Re: Moteé... the name I've assigned her, Motil, is derived from the phrase "to grow wings", and the original phrase mohu tenote, when it is used to construct a name in the é form, maintains the e which gets turned into i in Motil. So there you go!

Teckla Minnau 

I was thinking about all the Star Wars characters who deserved better, and this faithful handmaiden came to mind. 

She doesn’t get much recognition in the fandom, which surprises me, given how much people seem to love Sabé, Rabé, and the others. Teckla is the only handmaiden given a speaking role in TCW, and only appears in 3 episodes.

Teckla seems like a quiet, reserved woman, but clearly isn’t afraid of offering her advice and encouragement to Senator Amidala. I would have loved to see her relationship with Padmé develop, if she became a sort of advisor to her, or even a friend. And we certainly could have done without the way she was offed….

Dress for Padme Amidala’s handmaidens

Teckla Minnau ~ servant, handmaiden and a close friend of Padme Amidala

Teckla Minnau was a servant at Varykino estate of Padme Amidala, then she became her handmaiden during the Clone Wars. A very unique promotion.

She was a quiet presence in Senator Amidala's household, often performing tasks unnoticed in the background. Despite this, she was on hand to deliver advice to the senator when needed. Amidala considered her a close friend.

As one of Padmé's handmaidens and her aide, Teckla was proficient at both armed and unarmed combat. She was also well versed in infiltration and security. During her final mission on Scipio, Padmé assigned Teckla to create a diversion, so she could enter the Banking Clan's vaults. The mission was a success, but sadly, Teckla was killed during the action.

The painter shows the lady during her transission from a sevant girl into a handmaiden. She still wear a blue dress from Varykino estate (which is shown as a holo), but her future maid's costume is shown behind. Teckla seems to be already performing her duties, she holds Amidala's costume and the hairdress stands on the table on the right.

Some were able to recognize that Senator had it during her speech regarding defeating the bill that would increase the Republic's spending on the clone army. It was Minnau, who provided moral support for Padmé, who at some point was losing hope with her prospects of defeating the bill. At Padmé's request, Minnau stayed at the apartment and spoke to Padmé of the effects such spending was having on her family, who were living with limited power and bathing water in a small village on Naboo.

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