PT If Padme had lived........

I recall there being a theory that Padme & Anakin had formed a psychic bond- and as a result, Anakin was involuntarily draining her during the surgery that was being done on him.

 

It is not a matter of weakness or despair.

The droid explicitly states that she is physically healthy and that for unknown reasons, she is dying because she has merely lost the will to live.

Being sad and losing the will to live are totally different things. Can Padme fall into despair that the man she loved turned into a power hungry child killed? Of course. But should she have just lost the will to live? No.

The droid says she's physically fine and that the only reason that they seem to be losing her is because she's given up on life (i.e. "lost the will to live"). Which implies that if she wanted to live, she would have. That's what makes her death stupid. That she just had children, she's even conscious enough to look at them and give them names, but... nah, she has no will to live now. Or how she just witnessed the Republic applaud away a lot of its power to Palpatine, undermining much of what she had worked for throughout her life in preserving democracy and freedom, but she's just going to give up on life now because Anakin's a monster.

It would have been a whole different ball game had the droid commented that she had suffered physical trauma (the Force choke) and that she didn't have the strength to endure childbirth and was dying, or something like that. If there were a physical cause then I could accept her death. Strong willed people die all the time, whether it be from cancer, trauma, a car accident, whatever.

But for someone as strong willed as Padme to die physically healthy but merely because she lost the will to live when her husband turns psychotic is just inconsistent with her character IMO and an insulting end for the character.

 

I really don't understand this.

How exactly would Luke and Leia have been better off if Padmé had lived? It's not like she can go back to Coruscant or Naboo. No, she's going to have to go (and remain) in hiding with them to keep them safe from the Sith until they can overthrow the Empire or for the rest of her life. What kind of life is that for a newborn? Nor can she remain in the Senate and oppose Palpatine. At this juncture in the story, her only option is to go into hiding and, from there, do her best to raise her children and the Rebellion.

The problem that I think people ignore, though, is that Padmé would do more harm than good for both of these causes. For her children, they are (sadly enough) far, far better off without her because if they are believed to have died with her, no one will be looking for them. Her taking them with her into hiding would merely put them straight into the line of fire. As for the Rebellion, there's no way it would escape Anakin/Vader's interest if anyone ever discovered that Padmé was working for them. Which would undoubtedly come to light given that Padmé is a prominent Senator and Anakin would already be tearing the galaxy apart looking for her.

People say it's "giving up," but that's not the point behind Padmé's death at all. It's made especially clear in the deleted scenes when Lucas says a major theme is how those who can't adapt die. And that's exactly Padmé's situation -- she has nowhere to go and there's nothing she can do without putting people she cares about in danger. And the contributions she would bring would be inescapably small given that there's no way she can continue to function as a Senator. She would essentially be stuck living off the goodwill of friends all the while putting them and her children in danger.

Padmé is strong willed. But she's also cognizant of the fact that there's no longer a place for her now that the Republic is gone.

 

I'm not arguing that Padme living would've been better for her kids. I'm arguing that if she had to die, she should die in accordance with her character. We already have an easy way to explain her death: trauma from the Force Choke.

 

That kind of negates the thematic relevance of "those who can't adapt die" though. In addition, I think it's also important to note that, the way it plays out in the film, there is no way for Anakin's Empire and his life with Padmé to co-exist. One directly kills the other. Now, you might say that the Force choke would be an equally good method to kill her with, but I think it undermines the resonance of Padmé's death. She's quite literally crushed out of existence by the Empire. Anakin killing her in a moment of rage, while it does have a certain sense of irony, doesn't work as well (in my opinion).

 

Vader would've tried to kill her again anyway. Vader and the Emperor, seeing the value of Padme being alive and possibly bearing children, would have spent all available resources hunting her down to get the kids to train as Sith. That would've almost immediately driven an early wedge between Vader and Palpatine because Vader would still have some closet protective feelings for his kids and would want to train them as his child apprentices, whereas Palpatine would've wanted them for his own. Given Vader's terrible handicapped circumstances along with the possibility of fresh and incredibly powerful unhindered young apprentices, Palpatine would've probably turned on Vader and killed him immediately before taking the kids...or Vader would've killed Padme and kidnapped his own kids, and then would've turned on Palpatine himself.

 

I'm sorry but that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

 

I never said that they would be better off. Merely that I think most parents would want to live to see their kids grow up if nothing else and be there for them. Not lose the will to live immediately after they are born. And there was nothing indicating any kind of self sacrifice on Padme's part here or that she felt her kids were better off if she died. She didn't even stay alive long enough to know they would be cared for. The Jedi and Bail didn't sort that out at all until after she was dead.

And she felt good still existed in Anakin. Luke felt the same thing and that faith/love is what ended up bringing down the Empire. At the time of ROTS, I feel like she was the only one that could have gotten through to him like that, but instead she lost the will to live and the galaxy had to wait over two decades for someone to try that again.

Her daughter did exactly that...

 

How on earth could a droid detect something like the "will to live"? The droids are struggling to qualify something they can't understand. And what do we know of, in the SW universe, that can't be sensed or understood by droids?

 

Why does that make the explanation any better? Padme died because the Force killed her? She was perfectly healthy by all medical readouts, but the Force killed her? And not in the "Anakin crushed her windpipe with the Force" sense, since that would show up medically, but in the "her life Force just left her" sense. And why would her life Force just leave her spontaneously? Perhaps because she willed it? or lacked the will to hold onto it? In which case you arrive right back to an accurate statement made by the droid.

 

But, again, do you really think she would have been able to watch her kids grow up? Do you really think they would have been safe with her? Without confirmation of her death, Anakin would have been hunting them down from day 1. It would have been extremely unsafe for them to stay with her if she survived, especially since Anakin seems able to sense her presence to at least some extent.

You seem to believe that Padmé had the option of watching her children grow up in a life of comfort and safety. I find that to be incredibly naive thinking. Look at what Anakin did to try to keep her alive -- he murdered the Jedi, murdered children -- to keep her at his side, in his Empire. Do you really think he's just going to let her go? And Padmé must know this -- Anakin told her himself that he was "doing it for her, to protect her." (And that, in and of itself, would be a very difficult thing to live with -- the notion that someone you loved did such terrible things ostensibly on your behalf).

You say that "most parents would want to live to see their kids grow up" -- well, there's no way that Padmé can do that without risking her children. Because people -- powerful people -- are going to be looking for her and if they find her, they will find whoever she is with.

Also, I kind of feel that it's a given that she knew her children would be taken care of. Obi-Wan and Yoda were there. As was her friend Bail. Padmé's not going to find anyone better to leave them with. It's not like she can contact her parents -- close friends are all she has at that point.

Yes, and I hope you'll notice that Leia remained "safely anonymous," a luxury which Padmé would never have been afforded in a million years. What, do you think Anakin's going to let her go back to the Senate to speak out against the Empire? After the behavior he displayed? The fact that Leia is able to live a relatively open life (instead of constantly hiding) is due in no small part to Padmé's death. If Padmé hadn't died, people would have been looking for her and the children.

 

I stand by my opinion, she died because plot demands it. There is no way she would the loose the will to live, after giving birth to two babies. Having no mother instincts in protecting her two born babies, from the Empire or their father (especially who he had become) is extremely out of character from what we saw in previous 2 movies, where Padmé showed she was fighter against all odds.

 

They're better protected with her dead, to be frank. The children are presumed dead with her which offers them the greatest protection she can afford.

 

It's all about the perhaps, isn't it? Perhaps and foregone conclusions don't really mix all that well.

Perhaps her death was stupid. And perhaps not.

Perhaps she committed suicide. And perhaps she didn't.

Perhaps we should take statements by droids at face value when they may be discussing something they can't possibly comprehend. And perhaps we shouldn't.

Perhaps "scarred by the lightning" makes sense. And perhaps it doesn't.

 

Little morale booster for these threads.

I've never liked Padme's death, still don't. I'm not really supposed to "like it" like it, it's supposed to make me feel bad, feel sorry for the whole situation, but unfortunately it doesn't because I just find it stupid, unconvincing; it does not move me. It's probably because that particular kind of death, the "can't live without you so I'm going to wilt and die" just doesn't appeal to me. I don't think it ever has. Anyone who has read my reviews in the "last movie you saw" Community thread knows that I can appreciate sappy romance, so it's not the entire genre in general, just this one aspect of it.

But I will say this, after all this time spent discussing it on this forum, I don't find it nearly as offensive as I used to. People like Cryogenic, PiettsHat, Arawn_Fenn, Ingram ( think) and others have provided new perspective, opened up new thoughts and made me re-evaluate my opinion. That's always a good thing for me. I still don't agree with them, but I can see their points and even appreciate them.

So, for me, these discussions haven't been entirely in vain.

 

I feel like you're trying to get at a point, but instead of saying it plainly, I'm forced to guess, and then you shoot down my guess at what you are driving at.

If you are merely driving at "the Force works in mysterious ways" and that we cannot know why she died, and that the droid's dialogue - really the only means by which to pass key information on to the audience - is wrong because it is unknowable as to why she died, then that is an even worse non-explanation that what we "perhaps" got in the film, IMO.

 

I would hesitate to give too much credence to the droid's words, though. One of Lucas' major ideas in Star Wars has always concerned the interplay between the natural world and technology and, thematically, he's often emphasized the limits of technology and how it can be dehumanizing.

Or, to put it more plainly, consider this piece of dialogue:

"If droids could think, there'd be none of us here, would there?"

 

I understand that overarching point, but I don't think Lucas was trying to make that point in this scene. If I take this droid as merely a computer, then I'd find it odd that it even proposed the idea at all that she lost the will to live. Instead I'd expect it to stay within the realm of completely tangible data and merely say that her vitals are failing and they haven't been able to identify the root cause, and that Yoda or Obi-Wan would then say something profound about the Force, if that's what Lucas intended.

EDIT: I myself am not knowledgeable about greek tragedies so much, but in the past I have heard others liken Padme's death to the idea of death via broken heart, which is allegedly not uncommon in such tragedies. Merely punching in "broken heart greek tragedy" in a search engine yields quite a few hits of such tragedies. And I really think that Lucas was really going for what we get at face value, that Padme's death coincides with Darth Vader's "birth" that she had lost the man she loved (Anakin Skywalker "died") and that with his death, she lost the will to live.

 

Add to that, that they had to “operate quickly to save the babies” it’s indicated that Padmé (apparently) didn't even care about her children dying with her.

 

Once again because plot demands it.

I had always had the impression with Leia's famous line in RotJ, I always suspected that Anakin and Padmé would drift apart in Episode III and she would marry Bail Organa in the end (most likely arranged marriage as means to protect Padmé's children). Thus the kids she had people saw it was Bail's daughter and son and Vader never suspects being their children. However due to Luke being more stronger in the Force it was better to be sent to family living on the planet where Vader always had problems with and refused to step his foot there willingly, Tatooine.

This plot would possible if the key point of the plot happen, and it was Anakin and Padmé drifting apart. Since the plot went the way we know in Episode III, plot demanded that Padmé needed to die, simply due to Anakin's problems of letting go and death itself.

Despite this, if Padmé must truly die, I would prefer her dieing from child labor complications (seems fairly good reason), then loosing her will to live.

 

I find it interesting that many fans believe that there must be a concrete, scientifucally-provable, real world cause of Padme's death, while another group of fans utterly oppose the concept of midichlorians, believing that they remove the "magic" of the Force. I wonder how much of a crossover there is between each group.

That's not a criticism, just an observation.

 

It would have made that line about Leia remembering her real mother make sense........

Whats wrong with Anakin just killing her? I kinda like that take on it, hes gone so far over he ends up killing the woman he was trying save in a fit of rage

Perhaps the force told her it was her destiny to die, so she decided to stop living.