PT Padmé Amidala MEGAthread - Don't look at her that way. It makes her uncomfortable

Excellent post.

 

Broken heart syndrome is a real thing, and combing that with the dangers of childbirth in a subpar medical facility (necessary due to hiding from the newfound Empire) is an entirely realistic cause of death.

However, I think there's an additional element here: an unconscious Force bond between Padme and Anakin. As he burnt on Mustafar, as he was rebuilt into Vader, he was unwittingly killing her (or at least helping her death along) through not only broadcasting his pain and hate through the Force, but through the violent severing of the bond as follows one's turn to the dark side in the old EU.

 

Did the movie praise emotional dependance?
Wasn't it one of the main reasons of Anakin's fall in the first place, foreshadowed even from TPM?
If anything the movie does the complete opposite of what you say and depicted emotional dependance as something that leads to suffering (or in Padme's case, even death).

''Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering''
''The fear of loss (=emotional dependance) is a path to the Dark Side''

 

Dude, it's a movie with laser swords, sounds in space, a magical Force, and hyperdrive.

Out of all the things wrong in the PT, I can't believe how much you are picking this a part. And your real world comparisons are a joke. Just because a women or a man is a strong character or person doesn't mean they don't have underlining weaknesses or emotional attachment. And in the real world we don't even have the Force that enhances those connections /attachments.


Was the idea a bit of stretch? Sure, but a plausible one. Far more so than just about every other aspect of the movies. But go ahead, keep applying strict real life scenarios with a completely fictional space opera in a galaxy far far away...


And I don't get your angst about the female characters having a weakness or being belittled because they were dependent on a male character. Umm hello, have you met Luke or Anakin? Anakin especially was completely slave to his attachment and connection to two women, his mom and Padme. His attachment to them is the whole reason he completely lost it and went Sith.

If anything, Star Wars has promoted very strong female characters. In many ways, they're stronger than their male counterparts.

 

I think cherry picking the weaknesses and struggles that Padme had while completely ignoring similar or identical weaknesses in male counterparts is more gender biased than anything in the Star Wars movies. It shows hyper focus on the characters just because of their gender rather then critiquing the characters independently, regardless of their gender.

I think Leia and Padme were portrayed as much stronger characters then Luke, Anakin, or Han Solo. The 3 guys had serious character flaws and showed difficulty in controlling themselves and their feelings. Luke was cocky and immature, Anakin much the same but even had control issues, and Han was a selfish gun slinging cow boy. Meanwhile, Padme and Leia were the strongholds throughout the story. Both of them knew exactly who they were and fought dearly for what they believed in. They always put others before themselves.

 

That is entirely up to interpretation. I think Leia and Anakin are two of the weakest characters in the entire film saga. They both are temperamental and are too often lauded and excused for very poor behaviour.

 

I think the cybernetic process took along time, maybe hours or days to complete. Once Bail returned her body to Coruscant or Naboo im sure the word spread that Padme past away during childbirth and the child died with her. I know it happens fast in the films, but i think that whole scene with Vader getting the implants and prosthetics as well as Padmes burial doesnt happen all at once. By the time Vaders operations were completed he was the last to know about Padmes death.

 

An odd argument. This is a thread about, specifically, Padmé's death. The discussion is going to be about Padmé and her death...it seems odd that you would expect criticisms of anything other than the subject of the thread.

That depends upon what you consider the Force to be, or rather what it represents. Nobody, I think, is objecting to the idea of emotional attachment as being a fault of Padmé's, what is being objected to is that she becomes so whimperingly 'damsel in distress' that - after giving birth to two healthy babies and declaring that 'there is still good in him (Anakin)' she just....can't cope and dies.

The setting of a story is one thing, a level of taking on board the 'reality' of those settings isan aspect of taking on the story, but the story then has to make sense within it's own framework. Characters, particularly, ought to be able to be followed as having an arc. With Padmé there seems a huge disjoint between her characterisation prior to ROTS and then within ROTS. That the characterisation in ROTS is, I would suggest, somewhat belittling in terms of her femininity, and that the weakness is related to that notion of her character is also problematic.

But neither Luke nor Anakin die because the object of their possessiveness hurt them.

But not Padmé throughout ROTS. Padmé in ROTS is an entirely different character from Padmé in TPM or AOTC - merely a simpering hanger on to Anakin's persona who simply dies because he's nasty now.

 

The book says days. I'm not sure if that's what was intended by the film, however.

 

From what I've read on Wookipedia, it took around a week or so for him to be completely rebuilt.

 

Yea it kinda felt like a montage. Padme's funeral had high attendance, Anakin Vader was problaby still healing, rehab during that time

 

I guess I'm just not ridiculously over sensitive to the supposed "unfair" portrayal of women in these movies. Especially in movies that do a pretty good job of showing strong female characters.

I seriously don't see how Padme's death is unfair or some intentional display of female weakness. It's an example of human attachment and the drastic results when those attachments are broken or betrayed.

And Anakin turning evil, killing kids, killing Jedi, and taking over the galaxy is a far worse display of weakness then just dying IMO.

While this thread is about Padme, it's not unfair to bring up other characters to compare her too. Especially when someone like you is trying to prove her character was portrayed unfairly. Unfairness requires measurement to others. So ignoring characteristics of others in the story makes that argument useless.

Padme is a relatable character, she showed very human characteristics. In fact, her being ultra thick skinned and uneffected by everything would make her less relatable.

But I guess we all see what we want to see in a movie. Clearly this is something you hyper focus on, where as I don't think its any cause for concern.

 

I think it's all down to interpretation and personal history how an individual views an character's presentation in this Saga or anything really. Personally, I don't equate vulnerability and needing others and being affected by their behaviour as weakness. Can it cause potential issues and complications, yes. However, I consider acting like all sensitivity is weakness folly and that's how some seem in this thread. Quite sad the lack of empathy by some.

 

^Well, I guess we all look at weakness in a different way. And having sympathy for someone does not imply they are weak. It just means you as a person understand and care about their misfortune. Misfortune comes to all people, weak and strong.

All the characters deteriorated in ROTS. That's the whole point of the movie. All the characters came down from their high places and fell to Darth Sidious's manipulative plan. It's a valuable point in this discussion, but you can keep blowing it off as a straw man argument all you want.

Padme's portrayal in ROTS was about going from a strong willed, good person, to an exhausted, depressed, and sad person. So yes, of course the portrayal of her character was different in ROTS vs the first two.

So was Anakin's, and so was Obi Wans. Anakin went from a strong, passionate Jedi Knight, to a dark, cruel, and evil murderer. And Obi Wan went from a sharp, level headed, Jedi, to a friend desperately trying to save his closest friend (a brother).

The original trilogy worked much the same way. The characters started out one way, and through the story they changed. For example, Han went from a selfish low life smuggler, to a passionate fighter who had to face his past in ESB, then in ROTJ step up as a leader, lover, and overall selfless man. Similar transformations happened to Luke and Leia.

But they all changed for the better because the OT was about a positive storyline, whereas the OT is about a negative (destructive) storyline.

And I'm not going to even respond to your attempt to pass me off as a sexist.

 

It's, like, 100% a fact that Padme's wilting like a flower was an intentional and direct callback to old stories that treat women as the weaker sex. It's supposed to be dramatic and romantic and all that, it's supposed to be quaint. Everyone admits this, "defenders" and objectors.

But it seems like maybe the "defenders" only see the quaint side of this, and aren't seeing that others see the more objectionable side.

It's an old mindset from an older world, and one that was terribly prejudiced and severely damaging to an entire gender, if not both. Come on, I shouldn't have to explain how negative this kind of mindset was, what the consequences were.

Lucas built Star Wars on the old ways, the old stories, and while that's often not a problem (and he often subverts the old ways, reflecting newer ways of thinking, removing some of the problems and making something new, hence the modern myth), clearly you have many people who think Padme's death is a problem. Clearly this part of the Star Wars modern myth isn't so modern. I'm not saying Lucas didn't know that, I'm not blaming Lucas at all (I'm pretty sure Lucas is aware of feminism, and I'm pretty sure Leia is probably a direct result of that, Leia is one of those subversions of the old ways that people obviously loved), I'm just saying obviously this one didn't go over as well as he thought it would, or as well as he liked it. Again, to make this clear, I'm not calling Lucas old-fashioned or sexist or anything.

I'm not feeling well right now so I'm having a hard time communicating this, but I think this is an example of the old ways not being well-received by an audience with a newer way of thinking. It may have worked centuries ago, or even 50 years ago, but our thinking has changed radically since then, so maybe it doesn't work as well anymore. Is that really inconsistent or out of place? Leia was a feminist subversion of the damsel in distress, and people loved it. Padme is a throwback to the old wilting women, and while some people enjoyed it, obviously others didn't. This isn't ridiculous or crazy, imo. I think it's a bit problematic to dismiss it as ridiculous or crazy.

Clearly Lucas is evoking the older stories, which have older and perhaps outdated values, many defenders have pointed this out. Well, maybe some people have a problem with one of these outdated values. Isn't that okay and even reasonable? Yes, yes, it's a space fantasy and you have to make allowances. Yes, it's clearly telling an old romance, so you have to make allowances for old values. But maybe some people cannot or do not want to make allowances for those old values which they find offensive, problematic, or just incredibly lame.

It's like watching a movie from the 30s full of terrible racism. Yeah, it was the 30s and that kind of thing "flew" back then, so maybe you can let it go based on that knowledge, or maybe you can't because it's just too disgusting.

I think people should respect those that find it too objectionable to accept, because this isn't just something they're imagining. Or not, whatever.

Personally, I don't like it, not because my oh so modern sensitivities have been offended (since I don't possess those sensitivities), but because I just think it's incredibly lame. I don't even care how realistic it is, I just don't like it. While I'm not a feminist or anything and I'm not decrying the sexist aspect of Padme's death, I can respect the views of those who are, because I recognize that it actually is a very real thing, I'm just oblivious to it because I'm a man.

There's little doubt that this wilting flower trope is outdated and sexist, it's almost always female, and it's stereotypical.

Sorry for the incoherent nature of this post. I think I had some bad Mexican food, lol.

 

I think he did actually, there is not a single character at the end of ROTS that I felt came out good or overcame their troubles. Even Yoda had to crawl into isolation. Palpatine was the only one that came out ahead/on top at the end of the trilogy. And everyone else completely collapsed. That's the point. Universal destruction all planned by Palpatine.

IMO, the PT is just as much a character piece of Palpatine as it is Anakin.

Wow, just wow. So now Star Wars is just some giant sexist escapade? Lucas queued up classical elements of older movies and ideas, but the whole sexist thing is stretching it. Call me blind, I don't care. I think its ridiculous. Lucas built in extremely strong female characters in both trilogies. They struggled like all the characters did. They triumphed just like other characters did. Leia saved all of them in ANH, she saved Luke in ESB, and Han in ROTJ. And she lead the rebel fight throughout the entire trilogy. Don't see how that portrays sexism.

If you want to watch something old and sexist, watch Game of Thrones.

 

There is no objective side when even the reason she died is still debated...objectively!

The interpretation that makes the most sense from what i see in ROTS (which i just finished re-watching 30mins ago) is that it was a combination of sadness from everything that happened, the choke, the stress from having babies, but most importantly (as in without this she wouldn't die) because Palpatin had something to do with her death and Anakin's re-birth...
It's all there in the imagery...this is visual storytelling fantasy...don't expect everything to be served on a plate as much as in the OT.

 

I applaud your reading comprehension. How did you get "Star Wars is just a giant sexist escapade" out of my post?

Wow, indeed.

Indeed, you don't care. Maybe you should. Or not, that's for you to decide, of course.

You care so little you feel comfortable telling a whole bunch of women that they are ridiculous for seeing one aspect of one character as sexist.

Seriously, you have many women saying they don't like this particular aspect because they think it's a sexist portrayal they find disagreeable, and this is your reaction.

I have to wonder if you let my post, as incoherent as it was, sink in for more than two seconds before reacting.

I'm agreeing with you here, Star Wars in general isn't really sexist, but that doesn't mean one part of it isn't.

Maybe Padme wilting like a flower does portray sexism, regardless of how minor or insignificant it may seem to us.

Haven't seen it, no interest in it.

But I have seen Padme's death in ROTS.

Look, I'm the last person to be a feminist advocate. But after years on this board, and hundreds if not thousands of comments from women describing Padme's death as a disappointing sexist stereotype, I'm willing to at least respect the idea.

 

CT-867 generalized the entire Star Wars story as if it was. And essentially blames Lucas for bring in sexist traditional storylines like old racist movies. Which I think is absolutely ridiculous and don't understand how you or anyone can agree with that.

If by sexist characterization, you mean a female was pregnant, and a male not. Then sure. But beyond that is clearly subjective. Are there traditional romantic elements in the PT? Yes. But like I've explained above, ROTS was not detrimental to only female characters. It was destructive to all characters. As easily as you explain Padme's death as sexist, I and others can explain it as circumstantial to what happened around her.

Honestly, this goes right back to what I said earlier. People see what they want to see. I never pay attention to one gender vs the other in movies. I just enjoy characters for who they are regardless of sex. But people who pick a part characters and analyze their stories for sexist natures, will probably find it everywhere. You seem to focus on the method of her demise as sexist, I focus on it as just results of circumstance. The roles could have been completely reversed, and it would have still been the same. (although Anakin couldn't be pregnant, lol).