Did Padme love Anakin?

Sure, she loved him--but I don't think in the way he wanted to be loved. To start with, Padme barely remembered Anakin when she saw him for the first time in 10 years--she doesn't even have the pendant that he made for her back in TPM. Doesn't sound like she's really given him a second thought. Certainly the exact opposite of Anakin's unhealthy obsession.

I say unhealthy because he's a Jedi, and he's hopelessly attatched to her. According to Lucas, Jedi can have all the meaningless sexual relationships they want--but to become attatched romantically is a definite no-no.

I think Padme is charmed by Anakin once they're alone; he tries to be sweet and romantic. Floating fruit to her and all that. But I think her main appeal is that she's alone with a boy, and for the first time she can let her hair down. But the real world has to intervine, I think it's more for his sake than for hers that she stops his sedduction not once but twice. Again, she cares about him, but not in the way he wants.

So, she blows him off. And then, they go through this shared adventure, and she sees him come /this/ close to the Dark Side. His mother has died in his arms, he has slaughtered an entire tribe of Tusken Raiders, he is on the point of complete emotional calapse. It's part of her character to try to help people, and how can she help Anakin now that his world is falling apart? What does Anakin most want from her. Answer's simple.

I think their whole relationship is based on Padme feeling sorry for him, trying to be the mother he's lost, trying to comfort him, and get him through this tough time so that he doesn't fall to the Dark Side. Ultimately, it's a very destructive relationship based on obsession and pity.

 

Nope no pity from Padme. She really does love Anakin. But she hides her feelings.

 

^are you sure?

 

Yeah

 

I think Padme BELIEVES she loves Anakin but I don't think she really does.

And I don't think Anakin really loves her. He just wants to have sex with her and is getting confused.

 

I think she's more in love with the idea of being in love than she is in love with Anakin. In Anakin she sees her last chance at a "normal" life, and her sheltered upbringing hasn't given her the maturity she needs to see that falling for this dude is one mother of a mistake.

 

Padmé never loved Anakin, nor did he love her. It was all puppy love.

 

Padmé never loved Anakin, nor did he love her. It was all puppy love.

I believe it was puppy love. I mean he saw her when he was 9 years old for a short amount of time, didn't see her for 10 years, then in the course of a few months they get married. They think they're in love with each other but were they REALLY in love?? Did Padmé give into Anakin because she was afraid if she didn't he would flip out like when he started screaming and throwing a fit in the Lars Homestead?

 

People... this isn't real life. You can't judge them by the standards of real life. It's an old-style serial romance. It's a love haiku, rather than a sonnet. Of course they love each other, it would undermine the entire Saga if they weren't truly in love with each other. There is no room for "puppy love" or "infatuation", that's not how these type of stories work. Maybe you don't buy it... but the only way we're going to ever truly care about Anakin's fall and Padme's death and the lives of their children, is if they were really in love. It's really very simple. It turns complicated in Episode III, but the only way the stakes can get that high is through true love.

 

People... this isn't real life.

It isn't..... :-O


DAMN!

 

Shhhh some people think it is real

 

Lucas said that the love story between Anakin and Padme would supersede the Titanic love story.

Yeah and I'm Ron "the hedgehog" Jeremy...

 

I seriously don't think it "undermines the saga." If anything, I think it adds some depth to the characters and makes their story all the more tragic.

SW isn't just your grandfather's serial, either... it has serious mythic and social undertones that are meant to make connections and teach lessons.

Anakin's lusting after Padme and it's been undermining his devotion to the Order. A Jedi is supposed to give up everything and devote themselves entirely to doing the will of the Force in the galaxy. But Anakin is serving two incompatable masters, to paraphrase Jesus. He's sworn to the Force as a member of the Order, but he's also holding onto his own selfishness by his infatuation with Padme (it is a bit of his old life, and old wealth that he has consciously refused to surrender)... in this scenario it comes down to selfishness verses selflessness; selflessness, which is the epitome of the Jedi life.

Padme has had people relying on her since she was 14... she hasn't been able to live her life, to pursue romance. Then, for the first time, she's alone and isolated with a member of the opposite sex... She's able to hold on to her own ethics, which Anakin is all too willing to give up for a fling with his ideal.

Anakin is way too willing to throw aside his vows to the Order the first chance he gets to be alone with Amidala--how is that healthy? I think it reveals a serious flaw in this character. This is like the Thornbirds.

I do think Padme gives into Anakin because she feels it will pull him back from the brink. The undertone of their wedding is extremely ironic and disturbing.

I'm seeing this love story not as one in the common sense, but as a commentary on all the wrong ways to enter into a relationship. Lust and pity.

 

Lust and pity??? *shakes head*
Of course not... You don't MARRY someone because of lust and pity... If it had been a 2 days lasting affair I could have agreed with you but not here...

 

In 'George Lucas' by Jim Smith there is a great review of AOTC and he brings up the notion that Anakin isn't in love with her, it's just lust and I agree with him.

And I don't think it undermines anything. In fact, it makes the love story stronger.

Anakins complete failure to articulate his feelings(the fireplace scene), shows just how vulnerable and confused he is. He's just a mixed up teenager who's led this weird slave to Jedi life and doesn't have a good grasp of reality. Or what he's really feeling.

For Padme it's the same.

I think the two of them fall in love and get married because they NEED each other more than they actually want each other.

 

I do not believe that either Anakin or Padme truly loved each other - more along the lines of puppy love, or lust.

When Padme sees Anakin for the first time after 10 years, she tells him that he'll always be that little boy she knew - definitely not love at first sight at any rate. A few moments later, Anakin shows himself to be arrogant and not know his place with his interaction with his superior. Perhaps she's moved because he speaks out of turn by claiming he just wants to protect her, but it doesn't seem like it.

We then learn that Padme covers the cameras so he can't watch her - this shows she doesn't trust him fully, perhaps.

The next time we see them together, he launches into a major whine-fest, and then ignores her when she asks him to stop looking at her in that creepy way. For Anakin, at least, his love for her is more along the lines of obsession.

On Naboo, things seem to get worse. She cuts him down in front of the Queen in such a way I can't see her liking him. She really treated him harshly, and seemingly deliberately so. If you consider the deleted scenes, at her parents' home things seem to be calmer. As her family member says, it's clear he likes her, and she does sort of dreamily look at him out the window. It seems out of place, though, because she had just finished knocking his feet out from under him in the throne room.

The kiss scene cerainly hints that there's physical attraction between them, but I don't think that that is backed up by any true feelings throughout the rest of the movie.

I admit the picnic scene (and the floating fruit scene) has some sweet moments where it's possible his charm might endear her to him.

The fireplace scene though - I don't really want to get into that. If she does have deep feelings for him, they seem to come from out of nowhere, and I hardly think his words to her would be enough to instill desire within her.

On Tatooine, Padme learns that Anakin is capable of mass murder. I think the pity argument, mentioned above, fits in strongly here. I think she seems to be motivated more by pity for him than anything else. The kid loses his mother and then loses control.

However, by the time they are wheeled out into the Geonosian arena, her profession of "I truly, deeply, love you," seems false. I just don't see the development of their relationship that would prove she feels this way. It cerainly isn't brought on by the feelings that she's going to die soon and this is her last chance, because a few moments later she actively is trying to free herself.

As stated above, Lucas might have been aiming for a courtly love or serial romance situation. But whatever he was attempting I believe failed. This is, of course, my own opinion and interpretation of the movie.

 

I think Padme's just being diplomatic in the fireplace scene, trying to let him down easily--but she's obviously flustered by her own physical attraction. (Why was she wearing that corset? Thinking something along the lines of Spike's line from Rest in Peace: "You know you've got a willing slave (Anakin), and you just love to play the thought that you might misbehave." In the Church, wer call this the "near occasion of sin.")

She says, "regardless of how we feel about each other." Anakin interjects, "Then you do feel something." And she ignores him, going on about, "I will not let you give up your future for me..." Not exactly resounding of undying love. She's a politician (also a teenager), talking to a lusty Jedi (a definite oxymoron in the SW galaxy), and she's trying to throw some cold water into the fire--defuse the sexual tension.

I don't think the love story is a failure for Lucas... I think that in this context, all of the awkwardness about it makes a lot of sense.

 

Awkwardness? Anakin was raised in the Jedi Temple--how good do you think your pick-up lines would be if you had to learn courtship techniques from Yoda and Mace?

I think their whole relationship is based on Padme feeling sorry for him, trying to be the mother he's lost, trying to comfort him, and get him through this tough time so that he doesn't fall to the Dark Side. Ultimately, it's a very destructive relationship based on obsession and pity.

I think it's insulting to Padme to say that she would marry someone just because she felt sorry for him. She has more sense than that. She really does love him.

Did Padmé give into Anakin because she was afraid if she didn't he would flip out like when he started screaming and throwing a fit in the Lars Homestead?

Unless she was planning to kill one of his close relatives, I don't think she was afraid he'd do that.

 

From the way we hear about padme in the OT I would have to say yes she really loved Anakin and Anakin really loved her...but from the way the PT is writen I really can't see the love there in either of them.

 

For some reason, Padme fell in love with Anakin. Padme is a good example of many women in the world falling for the wrong man.

 

Jedi_Monk: Sure, she loved him--but I don't think in the way he wanted to be loved.

Bingo. If it were up to Anakin, he and Padme would retreat to an abandoned world and would never leave each other's embrace. Their flesh and limbs would be so twisted up that it would be impossible to tell where Anakin ended and Padme began.

It's lust and infatuation -- hot stuff that's hard to control, even for a Jedi.

But to answer the big question: Did Padme love Anakin?

My response: a qualified yes.

It's "shorthand" love. Movie love.

And I bought it.

What sold it for me was the look that she gives him as she walks out of the Lars' homestead and into the sunset. She sees her boy as a man in that scene. Even though his actions at the Tusken camp will have disastrous consequences, Anakin looks *supremely* sexy, brooding, and confident when he speeds away to find his mother.

That's when Padme realizes that she wants to be on the receiving end of all that passion. That's when Padme falls head over heals.

 

Well said, classixboy. That scene where Anakin leaves to find his mother was one of the best scenes in AOTC as well.

 

You know, you either get it or you don't....

-You believe the love story.

-You do not believe the love story.

If you don't get it, then there's no way anyone will convince you otherwise. But they DO love each other. That was ALWAYS Lucas' intent. I could give you a dozen quotes that say so. You can debate whether it worked for you, but the fact remains, in His Majesty's story, they ARE in love. And it isn't because of pity or sorrow or lust or infatuation.

 

Well said RebelScum77 ! This is a LOVE story... Remember GL on the AOTC DVD? "This is mostly a mystery and a LOVE story" (paraphrasing)

This would not work if Anakin and Padme were not in love... What's the point in all the love scenes in AOTC? It doesn't make sense at all if it's just an infatuation... It would not have the same pay off in Episode III either.

Romeo and Juliet were not really in love either, because after all Romeo is obsessed with her and she always lived a sheltered life since she's young...

 

Padlei: Romeo and Juliet were not really in love either, because after all Romeo is obsessed with her and she always lived a sheltered life since she's young...

Are you trying to be ironic here? This is actually a valid interpretation of Shakespeare's play. I've actually seen a production of R&J in Stratford based on this very idea.