PT To everyone who thinks no respectable author would have a character "die of a broken heart":

The medical droid declared that medically Padmé was “completely healthy”, so GL's words, not mine. I’m quite aware of the condition, thank you very much, but no matter how deep a depression is and no matter how much a person wishes to die, it does not enable for that person to force their body to die in a few hours by willpower alone.

Not once did I claim that every mother is happy after giving birth or that Padmé should have been overjoyed, but even grief-stricken and possibly depressed, Padmé decided to bring those children into the world and they thus remain her responsibility, and that sense of responsibility, if nothing else, should have been a motivating factor to stay alive. But like with Anakin and the state of the Republic, she simply decides to wash her hands and leave it to others to clean up the mess she helped create. The Padmé I saw in TPM and AotC wouldn’t simply do that - not without first giving a hell of a fight - and that’s why I feel the end of her arc is poorly done.

 

I also adore the nurse droid with the baby scooper. Oomba....Oomba....

 

Looks like it's time for another quoting sesh'...

That's a good point. These characters are, ultimately, mythic avatars. We shouldn't expect to know them too well. Their lives are relatively spartan and removed from full understanding. And, as you say, the screen time they get is limited. There are many competing elements in the prequel films; one thing is constantly effacing and usurping another. In this sense, it's quite poignant to have characters slipping away, I think, without us even realizing. We have to watch closely and pay attention to the small details.

Moreover, in "meta" terms, Padme's death really represents the death of the PT. That is, Padme first appears and slips away with roughly the same proximity from the beginning and the end (first few mins of TPM, last few mins of ROTS). There's a poetic symmetry to her character arc; an arc which is congruent with the themes and imagery of the prequel movies in a broader sense. Her death is the true end of the Republic, of this political serial escapade, and that her passing is somewhat rushed, and strange, kinda fits into a larger aesthetic and moral paradigm.

But yeah... the saga is like a grand book of haiku.

With respect, I intellectually agree, in large part, but I think you played Devil's Advocate to your post later on!

Yes, yes, and yes!

We are, perhaps, compelled to conclude that Padme's death is that bit stranger. My problem is this: I don't see how that's a deficit.

One has to peer a bit closer and extrapolate more, maybe, but that's quite fitting, I think. The broader point, if you look for it, is that Padme was always dying, right from the start. She was born to die.

I dunno. I feel Lucas was going for more of a mystery aspect in the PT. From Anakin's mysterious birth, to the "luck" of Jar Jar on the battlefield, to the creepy conception of the clones, to Sidious' "Exorcist" voice, to the eerie precision of Order 66 and its paradoxical "beauty in horror" construction. The PT constantly serves mystery and weirdness on a platter. Some complain about the serving -- and the service -- but others keep dining in contentment.

My own brief answer to this is that you could, roughly, make the same argument for all the prequel characters; or all the leads, anyway. And some people *have* complained about them, especially Anakin. What kind of a hero is *he* to young kids once the full arc of the prequel storyline has been revealed? That there's such an operatic quality to the last act of ROTS helps the film firmly make the point, I think, that these characters *are* flawed, and that they *do* stuff up, necessitating a fresh approach (e.g., Luke and Leia). Maybe the PT needs to be watched with some decent parental guidance or whatever, but once the OT is added to it, I think it brings issues raised tentatively in the prequels into sharper relief. Some of it could be challenging and confusing to kids, but better challenging and confusing than safe and sentimental, I think.

You've missed my meaning. The ins and outs of postpartum depression don't overly play into my argument; it's just the fact that a depression following childbirth -- even if it takes some time to set in -- exists at all. I also added that its causes aren't well-understood to deepen my analogy (albeit, a basic analogy) to Padme and her strange decline: i.e., if things in our world which afflict a not-insignificant number of new parents aren't fully comprehended, what might be the case in a fantasy universe like SW? I was by no means citing PPD as an explanation for Padme's death. PPD wouldn't apply in her case. And she is clearly being done-in by other matters.

Some people contend -- I being one of them -- that Padme's death is being signaled. And almost as loudly as Anakin's. If not all the more so. Her demise quite clearly also had to take place, one way or the other, either at the end of the PT or some time shortly after, in narrative time, so viewers should have been on high alert that she was going to fade, whether through extreme sadness and heartbreak, personal or political violence, or terminal disease. I think the main issue is that Lucas threw a bit of a curve ball; or, in other words, he chose a type of death for Padme that some dislike.

Indeed. The article I linked to in my previous post names Lincoln, Churchill, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Depression of one sort or another is a lot more common than people might like to believe.

Yes. Padme's life was totally wrecked.

As Christopher Hitchens put it, asking his audience to imagine what living in North Korea must generally be like:

"Imagine the misery, the pointlessness, the horror, the crushing nothingness, and the deprivations, and the humiliations."

In her mind's eye, Padme no doubt saw all that in the new political regime of tyranny, and in Anakin: her ruined husband and now the embodiment of the Empire.

Hmm, mind's eye. I think that stone she wears as a "third eye" as Queen at the beginning of TPM, could be there to indicate that Padme, in her melancholy, sees and feels more deeply than the "average" galactic citizen, and that this would draw her closer to Anakin, but that later, this would be her undoing. She is fated with knowing more than she should, from a certain, well, POINT OF VIEW! Hence, at the last moment, "There is good in him". She sees what Obi-Wan cannot; what Obi-Wan still refuses to see when he somewhat pithily makes that remark to Luke about points-of-view in ROTJ.

Padme's a sensitive soul, very attuned to the fates of those she gets close to, or, perhaps, not absolutely close to (there's some sense of disconnect also implied in the ruminations scene, for example), and this, itself, might be the cause of her anguish: not really knowing, or knowing imperfectly, getting intimations and glimmers, and knotting herself with dread. Can a person be overburdened with an extra helping of knowledge, especially that which could be too much of a shock to bear? Yoda's words in the same film seem to imply it: "And a little more knowledge might light our way."

Ultimately, if we look at that birthing scene a little more closely, and think on all that has led these characters to that point, I'd say there are one or more critiques being made of both Obi-Wan and Padme at the close of ROTS.

Interesting. Padme kind of comes to life when she's about to die -- when she's at her lowest point. Sort of, hmm, I don't know quite how this fits into things, but I can kinda see it (like, one idea advanced in the saga is, you're at your highest when you're at your lowest, and vice versa). She can't ride that wave of emotion, though; maybe because she's not allowed herself to feel so deeply before. She was sort of like only a half-there person, and when she gets the chance to be whole, albeit, through grief, she can't handle it: high-volume ennui. Curiously, there is little place in Star Wars for enormous, crushing, sustained expressions of emotion, so maybe the Force took Padme out of the game, because she broke a cardinal rule -- and don't ya know, "The Code forbids it"?

You've made a lot of very good posts here, PH -- 'bout time I gave a shout-out to one of them.

Excellent reading of Padme and her flaws (and how Luke and Leia contrast with their biological parents).

IMO.

None of that holds water with me. I'm not a slave to what was previously written down as if it's The Decalogue (hell, even The Ten Commandments have at least two versions in the same book of The Bible). A very Star Wars-ian theme is to be aware of the past, appreciative of the past, and to learn from it, without totally clinging to it. Revisions are a normal part of the storytelling process; of any process where things are willed into being. There are all manner of statistical deviations from a curve in Star Wars; ontologically, that's kinda what the whole series *is*. I'm no more troubled by this issue -- which fans, in my opinion, have turned from a can of beans into a bloody mountain -- than I am by the fact that Vader's helmet and chest plate changes from ANH to TESB. In our world, poop happens. In Star Wars, the ruddy Force happens, baby.

I'm really not being facetious there, either. To you, it might be some serious plot hole, but to me, it's a minor contradiction, at best. That whole scene in ROTJ has always resonated with such delicate sadness, that a strict adherence to Leia's words, or whatever was written in some cash-in novel, would actually diminish that scene, and the series, for me. I'm delighted that Lucas chose a more ethereal/recondite end for Padme. Had he gone more mundane, it would seem, to me, that his imagination petered out at the last hurdle, and that he was trying too hard -- i.e., exerting, rather than doing: explaining, rather than painting -- to link one trilogy up with another; a feebleness of the imagination. Padme slipping away as she does works a whole lot better, on multiple levels, for me.

If anything, Padme's demise -- maybe this is also why it's argued over so much -- is the final proof, in my reckoning, that the trilogies are united but separate. There was much more of an attempt made to have them sing than hold hands, so to speak. Their lone melodies are sweet, their harmonies, sweeter. And for all that they have in common, they are also much different; and never the twain shall meet. I think a lot of people can't get over this and want a more homogeneous mix. I prefer to see it as a mosaic; or two mosaics next to each other. Our minds must intermingle them as we see fit. The artist is not obligated to do that work for us. Such rote conformity, in my opinion, would be a betrayal of the artist's scruples and his work's life themes.

Any number of visuals in ROTS dramatically clue us into this conception of the art, in my view, from the gently-trickling fountain on Padme's veranda that becomes a roaring fugue of lava on Mustafar (contradictions rising with pernicious intent -- a contrast of monolithic beauty), to the small, indivisible gap that exists between the hands of Anakin and Obi-Wan as each tries, unsuccessfuly, to displace the other, each representing a different "view" of Star Wars, as if the two trilogies were battling it out for ultimate supremacy. Finally, ROTS closes on the image of those Tatooine suns, mutually entwined behind a valance of clouds, discrete points of light far beyond the horizon, doing some patient cosmic dance. They are so alike, yet they are not the same. And close-up, they are violent suns, immense balls of gas in a kind of balanced tumult. But at the right vantage point, all is peaceful.

Don't look at the six movies through a big lens, then.

Strangely, when I use a big lens, I see a rich tapestry. I don't see contradictions; I see changing patterns.

"Crazy" theories I'll cop to -- but only 'cos I'm me. I like to go a bit wild with some of my speculation, though the Padme/Leia thing is trivial to resolve, in my opinion, depending on what you want to see.

Which kinda goes for the whole show. The series was made to inspire awe and debate; maybe even some kind of frustration or bewilderment. It keeps it interesting.

Oh, and talking about that plot point in ROTJ, where Luke snaps after Vader mentions his "twin sister". I really like that twist. With the PT, I feel Vader's taunt is stronger, since he's actually suggesting he wants to sully and rape the faint hint of Luke's real mother, Padme. Leia is the sole keeper of that flame: the lone sooth. In this way, Luke somehow keeps the memory and the integrity of the PT alive, albeit unconsciously, but not before almost destroying he and his father first. Well, shoot, metaphorically, he DOES destroy himself, and the old Anakin, who have both fallen from greatness, but I really like how Leia is the catalyst for that. And that really makes Padme the catalyst. This diffusion of meaning, of legacy, is part of why Star Wars is so great, in my view. The past, present, and future can rise up suddenly, and at an instant, be full of beauty and danger. They are suddenly there, all at once, within a person, like a living djinn or buddha, burning within the belly of the beast. Such is the way history is written.

WOW!!!

Thanks, you guys!

I've actually written some more stuff on Jar Jar to IMDb (the TPM board). It might be even crazier.

I should maybe attempt a full-blown Jar Jar essay -- or even a book -- quite soon.

 

You never know, maybe her "memories" of her mother was actually visions through the force.

 

I could see Luke not getting those visions because, not being of Padme's gender, he might not be as psychically close to her as Leia was.

 

Anakin and Luke = both obsessed with missing fathers

Anakin = also obsessed with mother he left in slavery

Luke is free of an attachment to maternal figures.

This severing of the Oedipal dilemma might be why Luke triumphs where Anakin cannot.

And it's ultimately Vader's invocation of the maternal that almost turns Luke.

Fascinating, this saga is.

 

Yeah, I love that droid.

Issee-tah, oido. Oomba. Oomba. Issee-tah, oida.

It's so bizarrely amusing. It's so weird! Padme is giving birth to the next gen, she's about to freakin' die, and that droid is using soft baby talk.

The droids that put Frankenstein Vader back together again are also fittingly sinister looking.

 

Cryogenic, I have 2 questions for you off-topic. First, are you an incredibly fast typer? Second, do you edit your posts before you put them up? I'm especially interested in this second question because your writing -- grammar, syntax, punctuation, etc. -- is flawless. Personally, half the time I can't write a postcard without leaving out a word or messing up in some other way! I've become a good writer through hard work, but it really seems to come naturally to you.

 

The midwife droid is just trying to help Padme breathe -- breathing, PadmeVaderWars. Need I say more?

And the droids poking at Anakin don't seem that sinister to me. I can't be afraid of robotic slaves.

No, wait, maybe I can!

Yes, Oooba/Nabooba/NABOO(B) Lady. Hard to take seriously.

But that's good. GL manages to inject a bit of comedy in even the darkest of times.

While Anakin just gets, well, injected. Poor fool.

Okay, I really got stop eating so many mints. What are these things laced with? LSD?

Hard to believe that sugar can turn my crank shaft so much.

Real kidding aside, have you noticed that ROTS is a little bit more giddy than the rest, starting with the first word: WAR! ?

Screwball tragedy. "No, no, no, you will die!" / "Ooba, ooba!"

It has so many facets. I see certain miscalculations in other films (you want an awful line? try TDKR's Batman throwing Bane's taunt back at him: "THEN, you have my permission to die!"), but a lot of this seems very deliberate in ROTS. And it doesn't outstay its welcome. They're more like punctuation marks, little teases with the absurd.

I sorta think we get a bit carried away, maybe, discussing the serious themes, or the plot developments, as if it matters, or as if these are even the most interesting aspects, at times. People who complain about the prequels at least are responding, quite often, to the silly surface. I've said before -- for all my emphasis on depth -- that more note should be taken of that surface. It's all rather grandiose. Make mine a cup of Jar Jar.

 

I'm not that great a writer. I make plenty of remedial errors; stemming, in part, from a poor technical grasp of English. I keep meaning to brush up on syntax. Thank you, though.

I usually make an edit or two. I'm used to spotting problems after I've submitted my post, and nine times out of ten, I always think of more to say. Pretty much without fail, my posts will always become bigger after edits, not smaller, which probably says a lot.

Writing in this fashion is fairly natural to me. It always has been, really. I've well-practiced, though, since I've been on the net, posting mainly to bulletin boards (that's what they USED to be called!) for, like, thirteen years. CRAZY! I also use Facebook a fair bit and write a lot on there; at times, anyway.

I'm also pretty comfortable with language, these days, as I began to read with expanding appetite and interest. Nothing will do more to expand your writing skills than reading books. I'll let Carl Sagan finish up:

 

But that is exactly the point of investing time into her story, so that you will come to know her character. From a fictional standpoint 120-150 minutes of screen time is a lifetime. It's more like getting 13 years of Padme's life on record.From the time she is 14 to the the time she is 24, we know Padme is a fighter, who faces great adversity without flinching. She walks into danger willingly to serve the greater good, and defend those she's cares about. She does what needs to be done. In ROTS Padme was given far less screen time than in previous movies. Her role in that film was extremely underdeveloped, and quickly closed off with little regard for what she meant to the saga as a character.

No one questions Obi Wan's death, or Jaba's death, or Palpatine's death, because they all died in a way that fit in with the rest of the saga as a whole, and remained true to the character. Padme's death does not follow that template. A great many people question it validity with regards to her character, and how it fits into the greater story of Star Wars as a whole. I can accept it because I refuse to let it ruin my enjoyment of the films, but if I were less a fan than I am, I would probably bash it for what it is, an expedient, dismissive, and melodramatic conclusion to a much loved character.

There would be lots to say about a Padme who lives beyond ROTS. Some good, some bad, but who could say that it would not be in harmony with what is previously known about the saga?

 

A couple of points on my flying visit...

Padme's death may have been signaled, but the mode of her death wasn't. In Anakin's case, both were.

It's interesting to me that Leia should have such a strong connection to her deceased mother through the force when she apparently had none whatsoever with her still living father and brother. She could stand face to face with Vader and put a lip lock on Luke and be apparently completely oblivious.

 

See, that's the thing though. Take the example with Obi-Wan. The revelation that he lied to Luke is something that doesn't at all fit with the character introduced in ANH. And yet, we almost never see Lucas attacked for making Darth Vader into Luke's father and thus turning Obi-Wan into a liar. It just strikes me as incredibly arbitrary when people bring up what was in drafts and plans --> usually, it simply correlates with changes they like or don't like. But the point I was trying to make was that bringing up the drafts doesn't really add legitimacy to your point.

You say it contradicts what we see in ROTJ and all I ask is why? Why is it contradictory? As I noted before, children having memories they shouldn't have isn't all that uncommon in fantastical stories. Likewise, we're talking about a world in which people can see the future, in which they can see "old friends long gone." Why then are Leia's memories (which aren't even proper memories, but images and feelings) a contradiction?

I just find that all too often, there seems to be a focus on pointing out contradictions and plot holes and the like. And it's something that, quite frankly, I don't understand. If you're a fan of something, why spend your time tearing it down instead of building it up?

I don't really think that the theories fans come up with are "outrageous" so much as it is engaging with the art, with the film. Obviously, if you don't like or enjoy something you will find it more difficult to engage with (which is understandable), but I don't think that makes you any more right than those who "justify crazy theories" instead of "accepting contradictions."

 

All those guys die "poetic" deaths:

- Obi-Wan: beheaded by the monster he helped create moments before the new heroes of the OT, the next generation, escape
- Jabba: literally choked by the chain of slavery he metaphorically choked others with, including Leia's father
- Palpatine: thrown into the belly of his own killing sphere by a person he'd kept down so long; essentially murdered in his sleep ("It's ironic")

So, too, does Padme.

It's harder to see or feel, though, I think, because it's a lot less visceral.

But that's fine with me. The PT, really, is myth about myth.

And melodrama? The prequel trilogy is a gleaming tangerine of melodrama.

If Padme's death was signaled at any point -- as in, really signaled, like a train whistle in a tunnel -- then it was in AOTC, with the deaths of three female characters at very specific points, and in Padme's own visual linking with the clones (her white "action" outfit). Femininity is on its way out in AOTC. Maybe, upon death, Padme is reabsorbed into the Force and has a powerful feminizing effect on the mysterious energy field. Again, mystery.

The prequel trilogy shows a great regard for Padme as a character. It's basically her story. As I said before, she arcs the trilogy; her arc is transcriptive of the whole. She isn't just mindlessly dispensed with. She is going to a sad and inevitable end. That her spirit is broken in the end shows you that there are many layers of suffering in the GFFA: from droids that die comical deaths at the start of the picture to Padme's sad exit in the glowing aftermath of tragedy. It has great scope.

JMO, however.

This, I think, is some measure of the weirdness of Star Wars, the strangeness of the Force. Fans often assume too much.

It must all go back to the material itself. The actual films are often quite surprising and subtle.

 

Ah yes, breathing. For some reason my head passed that right up and focused on"Ooba" meaning push. Reminded me of Lee Marvin's "pousse" from The Big Red One, with Mark Hamill. Lee Marvin is trying to deliver a French woman's baby in the middle of the desert, on a tank, in a war zone, and he asks what the French word for push is. He is told it is "pousse" (er, I'm not sure if I'm spelling that correctly), which sounds like a certain slang word, or at least it does when Marvin says it. Marvin, being a conservative man, is kind of embarrassed to say it, and the whole scene is just silly.

I rather like that Lucas put in the effort to differentiate between male and female. Luke is oido, a boy, Leia is a oida, a girl. Cool.

It's not that I'm afraid of the droids, just that imagining being on the table with those mechanical monstrosities poking at me gives me the willies.

Especially this guy:


He looks about two seconds from screaming DESTROY!

It's probably because I don't do well with needles. I tend to need to rest for a few minutes before standing up, otherwise I get faint.

Yeah, I cringed.

Not many movies can pull off hammy as well as Star Wars.

 

I can't recall it being mentioned that Jabba ever owned Anakin. We know Gardulla did, then Watto- but I don't think it's ever been said that Jabba did.

 

Obi Wan was never introduced as a pillar of truth in ANH. The difference between Obi Wan's example, and Padme, is that Padme was introduced as someone who faces adversity, and great risk. She faced the trade federation, in order to save her world, despite reports of a holocaust on Naboo while she was away. She traveled to a hostile world in order to save Obi Wan... I like the PT, and I like the OT. But as someone who also like following a coherent story, I can't just claim that this works because I like Star Wars.

Why are images and feelings not proper memories? Most of my memories are images and feelings. I can't recall word for word what people said to me a week ago. But I can recall that I spent time with people based on images and feelings. That Leia remembers a Beautiful mother, is as valid a memory as any. Now if GL had made a Padme a battle scarred troll by the time Leia was born, people would be scratching their head as well.

 

Again, I would say breathing, but that's only my personal opinion. I don't recall reading any of the thinking behind it from Lucas himself. But breathing would make more sense, because it's what needs to happen to help with contractions, and beyond that, it clearly has great symbolic significance in SW itself.

LOL!!!!

That sounds good.

They're also like derivatives of the word "droid".

Also:

http://www.spanishcentral.com/translate/Oido

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-oida

Well, now, I see what you mean!

That's a good point.

Per Qui-Gon, the Hutts control Tatooine (at least, in the time-frame of TPM), which means they're also directly responsible for the slave trade on Tatooine. If slavery is a limiting, disabling thing, represented by a chain, then Leia is turning Jabba's evil back on him. Choking as metaphor because Anakin struggles to breathe (again, metaphor). Slavery infantilized him.

 

This is the post of the week! I wish I could like it a thousand times

 

I like your post, because it is very imaginative, and in a lot of ways insightful. But if all those characters die poetically, it can be argued that all deaths in Star Wars are poetic. Everyone dies because of the situation and place they are in. There is a poetic string that binds all stories together. But at some point, you must recognize that most deaths are just deaths, and happen in order to move the story along from point a to point b. Obi Wan had no escape. Jaba had no escape. And Palpatine had no escape. There were clear cut, and instantly reasonable and understandable reason as to why and how they died. There is no debate over whether or not Vader's lightsaber should have been able to pierce Obi Wan's cloak in order to find it's way to his flesh, or if Jaba can breathe while being choked off. In that sense, their deaths had nothing to do with melodrama.

But, it's unclear to everyone why and how a woman dies physically, before her body actually physically gives out. It would seem impossible to the extent of being contradictory. And if her body was giving out, then there should have been some clue as to where the trauma was centered. By the only dialogue we get on the matter is that she is perfectly healthy, and yet dying at the same time. There is a very steep melodramatic theme attached to that scene. And it dismissive because the audience is expected to accept it. I've always held that sequels and prequels present opportunities to make the building blocks of a story stronger, not weaker.

 

Aegon Starcaster, in regards to your quoting me and your question, I think if you look through the thread, you'll find I've already responded pretty much to what you're saying. (I'm not it's convincing, but it up there somewhere!)

In short, I would say these things. From her screen time, we get an impression of what she is like, but we don't learn so much about her that we can predict her behavior, especially when she is placed in new circumstances. In fact, I think it's rare that we know people in real life that well. People we think we know very well sometimes throw us big curveballs. This is just my perspective on people.

I would also say that if anyone has a good reason to lose the will to live, it would be Padme. Her husband's turned evil and nearly killed her, the democracy she has fought for has fallen into tyranny, she surely blames herself for leading Obi-Wan to Anakin who is presumably either dead or near gravely wounded, and if she's given it any thought at all (and she does come in out of consciousness), then she'd realize that she'll have to give up her babies since Anakin will hunt her and the children down if she lives. So, really, Padme's life is totally crushed, and it's understandable to me that she'd fall into a hopeless depression. Since I don't want to see her whither away in the way that real depression would slowly wreck her given that I don't think that would fit the SW universe, I think this fairy tale version of depression, as in losing the will to live, makes sense.

My real problem with the scene is its execution. I listed four good reasons why Padme would be terribly distraught -- evil husband, fallen democracy, feeling responsible for Anakin's death/severe wounding, and realizing that she'll have to give up her children. However, the film only directly shows us 2 of these 4 reasons. If all 4 of these reasons had been fully developed, then I think no one would doubt that she had reason to lose all hope. She really is left in an awful spot. Unfortunately, the film doesn't do a good enough job at makig us feel what an awful spot she is in. Instead, we have to think it out too much ourselves, so on a first viewing, her losing the will to live might seem like it came out of left field to a lot of viewers.

 

Maybe I need to get with the old SW spirit a bit more, but I'm afraid the old 'it was the force' justification still doesn't quite do it for me as justification for things that don't quite ring true.

 

Woops! With all the long posts in this thread, I somehow missed your other post. I'll go back and find it though.

I understand your point about not knowing people as well as we might think in real life. Padme is a character that we see in so many different dangerous, and heartbreaking, situations, however. She dealt with most of them in the exact same manner that Leia deals with the destruction of Alderaan. That is, she moved on, and tried to remedy the situation. Literally, I think of all characters, in all the films, Leia endured the greatest of tragedies, not Padme. Leia was a captive of Darth Vader, witnessed the destruction of her world, because she refused to give up information, and lost her father, her mother, and almost everyone who cared for her. Padme losing the will to live goes against the grain as far as the way characters in much the same positions as her (her included) had been dealing with adversity up to that point. It's kind of like, Luke didn't shed a tear when he was faced with tragedy. Leia didn't either. But Padme ups and dies seemingly only because the movie was ending, and there would be no Episode 3.5

I understand that it's a fairy tale, but even Anakin's miraculous birth needed an explanation. Padme's miraculous death should have been given the same consideration. (now I sound like Sio Bibble)

 

Just a couple of additions there:

- Padme also travels to a hostile world in ROTS, to save Anakin
- When she travels to Geonosis and Mustafar, we see her weaken, both times with Anakin as her prime focus, not long after arriving

Thank you. I like coming up with new ways to look at these movies; or I like to build on earlier ones.

Yes, indeed. And that string is never pulled tighter than in Padme's case -- her death being the most mysterious, and most tied to the mysteries of the Force, I think.

Everything in Star Wars is, from this purely functional point-of-view, moving the story along, first and foremost.

To go further requires a muse, an insight, an imagination, a desire to be thrilled, or a whatever.

And, by contrast, Padme felt she had no escape, other than death.

My comment on melodrama pertained to the PT.

Those other deaths are still pretty damn melodramatic, though.

Being sliced up by a black samurai robot with a laser sword, on a big moon-like space station that can blow up planets, and disappearing?

Being a big ball of snot, resembling something from "Earthworm Jim", and getting your gullet crushed by a young woman in a soft-porn slave costume, while a whole bunch of other sci-fi serial mayhem is happening around you?

Maybe it's dismissive or ungainly in some fashion, so perhaps I should just admit that I'm not too interested in that.

It's kinda put in there, in that fashion, I think, to spark some debate on the matter. I like that, but by itself, it doesn't set my mind ablaze.

I do like your phrasing, though: "centered". Precisely. We don't actually know where Padme's existential malady is really centered; and neither does she, it seems, for the most part.

Have said before and will say again: midi-chlorians. "Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist." There's an allusion to Padme's fate right there (sweetened with Anakin being told this after asking -- and looking quite confused when he gets an answer he wasn't expecting).

Not that I'm trying to bat your contentions away, however. If you have that issue with Padme's end, that's okay. There are no true right or wrongs here.

You've noticed a neat rhyme there.

It's almost as if these characters never existed at all.

They come from myth, they return to myth.