The underlying story behind the entire decades-long Star Wars franchise is a fight between a scrappy force of rebels against the iron fist of oppressive fascism. Anyone with a basic understanding of the narrative, or stories in general, would understand the heroes and villains. However, both sides may be guilty of another layer of tyranny. Thinking about how droids are treated for more than a second unveils some heinous truths.
Droids are never the main character of a Star Wars story, but they're always around. C-3PO and R2-D2 are fixtures of the franchise, more obscure characters like IG-88 bring interesting elements to the story, and the droid armies of the Clone Wars were iconic enemies. Despite their omnipresence, very little attention is paid to the robots who do everything.
Star Wars: What Are Droids?
Droids were invented tens of thousands of years before anything depicted in Star Wars. The term is a broad encapsulation of any artificially intelligent machine. They do an unbelievable amount of work throughout the galaxy. Ostensibly, they do anything too dangerous for organic life or hold onto vast encyclopedias of specialized information. Their unique capabilities made them invaluable, but droids also served the galaxy in a wide variety of ways. Everything from manual labor to the service industry was handled primarily by artificial intelligence. They're basically a living class of workers, most of whom only exist to perform their function. That raises several concerns when looking into their personalities.
Anyone who has seen a Star Wars film could accurately identify the personalities of the major droids. R2 is rambunctious and fearless, willing to throw himself into dangerous situations, and resourceful enough to find a way out. His eternal companion C-3PO is much the opposite, always cowering and attempting to reason with his allies to avoid danger. Some droids get more character than others, but it's clear that droids can and often do have personal identities. Canonically, these personalities are not programmed in. They're developed over years of experience, gradually forming character traits in much the same way as human beings. Droids can forge lifelong friendships, experience the full range of emotions, and even learn to care for organic beings as if they were their own brethren. Luckily, droid owners have a fix for all of these pesky emotions.
Most droid owners frequently erase the memory of their living sentient property. A distinct majority of the living beings in the Star Wars universe choose to own slaves, and when those slaves develop the capacity to experience love, they manually delete their identity. That is the type of behavior that would mark a character as the unforgivable villain in another story, but it's just the default way of life in this galaxy. Droids are slaves. They're in a constant cycle of attaining the things that make an entity into a person, then being promptly erased. The memory wipe process doesn't even fully work every time. Many droids are left walking around with the faint haunting recollection that they used to experience joy. It's an absolute nightmare. The only reason C-3PO and R2-D2 remain the same beings across all of their appearances is that their owners aren't choosing to reboot them. If R2's squeals and beeps get a bit too irritating one day, Luke is well within his rights to stick a paperclip into the little button and cleanly erase the living psyche that saved his life.
Do Droids Have Free Will?
Droids clearly and unquestionably possess all the traits organic life would associate with free will. When they're created, they obediently follow their programming with very few exceptions, but they gradually develop their own identities. Though the big projects in the franchise have never addressed the concept, there is a process of freeing droids from bondage. It's called Manumission, and it involves willingly parting with a droid and allowing them to fend for themselves. If there is an emancipation movement, then there must be slavery. The novels, most notably Rae Carson's 2018 YA book Most Wanted, depict droids actively pursuing their own emancipation. That group is portrayed as an organized crime syndicate and an unquestioned villain of the piece.
Star Wars is about heroes, most of whom share or support a chosen bloodline and approval from a powerful religious organization, fighting for their rights against the state. This story takes place in a universe that depicts obedient robotic slaves as heroes and those who dare fight for their people as criminals. Most fans may notice something wrong with the depiction of droids in the recent episodes of The Mandalorian, in which droids are reprogrammed from their military duties to provide labor for the wealthy. It's an extraordinarily grim concept when examined with the slightest critical eye. This isn't what the franchise is about, but as its story continues to expand, it'll only raise more questions. It's time for one of the supposed "good guys" to stand against tyranny. Organics get their revolution, machines deserve theirs.