Saga "Obi-Wan...there's good in him...I know, I know there is......still."

Are you talking to me? I love that scene. I have no issue with the "death by broken heart"--I find it (and the accompanying self-fulfilling prophecy) to be the most mature writing in all 6 movies.

No, Luke wasn't trying to convince himself--Luke felt he was right, and turned out to be right.
The reason why I feel that Padme is trying to convince herself and failing is that expressing a glimmer of hope while dying of a broken heart is a bit inconsistent with the trope. It doesn't bother me, as I understand why that line is there. But making the assumption that Padme fails to convince herself removes that (slight) inconsistency.
I love JediGirl_Angelina 's notion mentioned above, that Luke's conviction is based on a Force memory of Padme saying that. Very neat idea.

 

Thanks. I always tried to interpret that scene in a way the dialoge of the twins would make sense later.

 

I don't completely agree. I feel that by the time Padme was expressing her belief that there was still good within Anakin, her health had reached the point of no return. Her broken heart had done its damage.

 

I think the line "There is still good in him" has a very different meaning than the line "He is good." "There is still good in him" is basically admitting that Anakin is mostly evil. She's simply saying that Anakin is not totally evil, and that behind all that evil there's a little bit of good somewhere. Padme's line is the best way to spin it optimistically, but since what she's saying really means that Anakin is mostly evil, it's not hard to imagine why she loses the will to live given that he's mostly evil, he tried to kill her, the Republic has fallen, and her babies are going to have to be taken from her since Vader will surely be looking for them if she lives and she has her kids with her.

 

This gets me thinking - how much did Palpatine ACTUALLY know about Padme's condition? He of course tells Vader that Vader himself killed her, which is... well, true (from a certain point of view). But did Palpatine know that she had actually died? I think it's safe to think that he assumed the babies died. If he'd known Luke and Leia were born, they would probably have been his top priorities over the next 2 decades, and this clearly was not the case until TESB. So we know that Palpatine believes the twins died... (or at least, that whatever Padme was carrying had died), but how much does he know about Padme? Does he think she died on the Mustafra landing pad? Or was he aware that she lived long enough to be carried away to Polis Massa and die there? Her funeral was held on Naboo, home planet of Palpatine himself, so...

Ugh, I'm so confused now xD

 

I'm assuming that he sensed that she died, but I think the ability to sense things over great distances becomes somewhat fuzzy. For instance, on Coruscant, Palpatine senses that Vader is in danger, but he only seems to have a vague sense that something threatening is happening to Vader. I think Palpatine could sense enough to feel that Padme had died, but he was not precise enough to sense that the children had survived. That's my take on it.

 

Yeah I've always found it odd that Palpatine didn't sense anything about the kids.

 

I don't think he was quite that powerful - he probably found out that Padme was dead through more mundane sources (she was a well-known Senator, after all), and was able to sense a heap of guilt from Vader/Anakin, who he knew personally very well - hence his ability to realise he was in danger. One can only imagine how much delirious babbling Anakin was doing while being operated on, as well.
Palps just put two & two together and realised that Anakin was in some way responsible for Padme's death - which is how I believe he figured out Anakin & Padme's relationship in the first place. Force ability aside, he was extremely intelligent - Darth Maul couldn't have manipulated his way to the position of Emperor with just his Force sensitivity, but Palpatine did.

That's a far cry from being able to sense the birth of twin Force sensitives - which Anakin wasn't aware of, either.

 

I think one source says he knew Anakin's relationship to Padme because Captain Panaka told him. Though in the RoTS novel he claims that his friendship with members of the clergy of Theed played a part in him finding out.

 

I'm pretty sure that was the visual dictionary, I'll have to check.

 

I think there's a handful of those sources - point being, Palps didn't need to reach out through the Force to find out the sort of information readily available to someone in the various positions he held (Senator, Chancellor, Emperor). Combined with the information he did glean through Force use, he was smart enough to piece it all together, without having to be omniscient.

And given that Anakin had no idea that Padme: a) gave birth to living children; and b) was bearing twins; there's no real reason that Palpatine should have any reason to believe that there were any living offspring of the Jedi Knight once known as Anakin Skywalker.

Until whatever transpired between SW/ANH and ESB - at which point, both Vader & Palps realised that there was a rogue Skywalker out there, but they didn't realise until then.

 

I think the term "mostly" is exaggerated. Was Padme admitting that Anakin had evil within him? Probably. But you know what? Who doesn't have evil within? I believe that everyone has an equal amount of both good and evil within them. What really happened is that Anakin allowed the evil that has always existed within overwhelm him. But that doesn't mean he was devoid of any goodness.

Palpatine probably learned about Padme's death when it was publicly announced.

 

Yeah I really started disliking her characterization midway through AOTC.

 

But it seems lazy on Palps' part to use other sources besides the Force to find out that Anakin and Padme are married. Without the Force, one has to wonder how PalpSidious knew that Anakin is having visions of Padme dying, that he's looking for a way to save her, or that they're in a relationship? Maybe, reaching out to the Force is the only way to explain how Palps knows so much about Anakin's private life just like it explained how Anakin knew what Obi-wan told Luke about him in ESB.

 

Padme knew there was still good in Anakin because he didn't choke her to death...she also knew in her heart that she couldn't live in a world where Anakin was a Sith Lord and that she would only bring pain to her child if she was alive because Anakin would follow her to the ends of the galaxy to find them, I truely believe she died of a broken heart.

Palpatine telling Vader that he had killed Padme was just another way of him twisting a situation to his advantage....there was still hope for Anakin until he heard he himself had killed Padme.

 

Padme died because Invisible Qui-Gon is a ****.

 

Yes on Polis Massa, it was Paranormal Activity up in there.

 

I think Palpatine may have believed that himself.

 

The line is in there for the slower members of the audience who had vague memories of ROTJ of Vader throwing the Emperor down the shaft would be like "Oh, yeah! She is right!" and get a happy ending.

 

But Vader and Anakin are two different people!

 

I'm much more taken by the word "still" -- it being Padme's final word. As in, the opposite of being animated, or in motion. Padme is so often shown being still, or close to stillness, throughout the PT; and she attains this perfect state in her last scene, completely serene in her casket. Life is about things being in motion; constant interaction, upheaval, and change. I think Padme (paradoxically) moved closer to this state of stillness at the end of her life; this sublime state beyond the rude throng of life itself. Thus, she kinda wrote her own death warrant; her last moments with Anakin merely being the final push that sent her tumbling off that cliff.

One (hopefully fresh) reading, anyway.

 

Padme started giving up on life when Palpatine formed the Empire.