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

Cushing, movies are a form of mimesis and we react to them according to the way we see real life.

The majority of people seem to think the Padme/Anakin relationship -- as portrayed on the screen -- fell flat and was not believable or compelling to watch. That's because it didn't match with our own life experiences.If we felt like Anakin was a weak character who was easily manipulated and cried and whined like a 13 year old, it's because life has shown us repeatedly that 13 year olds whine and cry and annoy us to no end. And that a strong and mature woman falling in love with someone like that just seems weird and contrived for the sake of advancing the plot.

Now, YMMV. A minority of people may have different life experiences and thought, wow Anakin/Padme is the most deep and compelling love story of all time. They might find easily manipulated whiny characters endearing because that's the type of person they are too. Or they might be a nurturer, who feels compelled to love weak people like that. Or they might like them for another reason.

The basic gist is people identify with films or fail to identify with films depending on how accurately those films represent real life, from our own perspective. In the case of Anakin and Padme's "relationship", or Padme's death, most of us just don't connect with the story because it seems fake and contrived.

 

Anyone can lose the will to live if they feel that they have nothing to live for.

I will have to go back through the source books and and few other things laying around but when Padme entered the political program on Naboo as a young child at the age of six or so she mind as well have entered a boarding school. In there she and many of the other children destined to hold positions of power on Naboo were basically brainwashed into believing that the Republic is all-powerful and that if something wrong happens all they have to do is go crying to the Senate and the Senate will right everything. The Naboo did this hoping to prevent corruption which is why they put children in positions of power that on Earth only those thirty-five or so can hold (in the USA at least).

She trusted Palpatine only to learn that he is evil, Anakin not only went to the Dark Side but committed terrible acts supposedly for her and then tried to her and their unborn child(ren). At this point she still loves Anakin but when she asks Obi-Wan if Anakin is alright but his face is full of pity so she believes that Obi-Wan fill fulled his duty to stop a grave threat. She might have feared that they would take her children away after they were born so she had nothing to live for.

She could have been connected to Anakin in some way since her last words are that 'there's still good in him. I know.'

 

Most likely of a broken heart. She loved Anakin and couldn't live further with the path he was going down.

 

i think there had to be more physical trauma through childbirth combined with the broken heart. if it was just a broken heart we'd have people falling over in the streets.

 

has anybody thought that this medic droid (with only one line in the grand scheme of things) might have been wrong?

just because we are told "medically she is perfectly healthy" doesn't mean she was. Droids aren't omniscient beings in the Star Wars world last I checked

 

I hope his Malpractice Insurance premiums don't go through the roof...

 

well true

still a possibility, I'm not one to believe EVERYTHING someone says in a movie if we have no clue who they are (even if they are dear little sweet life savers who softly coo ooobba oooba).

So I choose to believe the droid was wrong.

 

It's possible, but doesn't seem likely.

That line was obviously put in for a specific reason from a writing standpoint. It would be a weird thing to have a character say something so direct, and then it just turn out to be false, is all I'm saying.
Lucas wanted it a little mysterious IMO, and I think it is specifically implied that it wasn't technically Anakin's physical actions, rather something "for reasons (they) can't explain" through medicine.

 

oh I agree with you, it obviously was put in there to make a specific point

I just to think "eh, you must be wrong" that way I can just watch it without worrying myself with questions of logic

The only other possible solution I can think of is that their "force bond" had broken, hence there being no physical symptoms the droids could detect.

 

Fair enough

Maybe.
Anyway, I can personally suspend disbelief for stuff like this in fantasy if it serves the story. I can see why many have more of a problem with it, but similar aspects (such as Anakin having no biological father for example) make sense to me, Star Wars was always quite mystical anyway.

 

PRECISELY

Is it not obvious to people? ROTS is a Greek Tragedy. Her death is completely fitting given the context.

 

I felt it really diminished her character. She was portrayed as a very strong woman for her life to end like that. I really don't think the Padme we saw would have ever given up just having twins.

 

The thing is that Lucas never developed a reason for her death way back when he was writing ANH and that carried over to ROTJ, where he still didn't know what she died of, other than she had died a couple of years after the children were born. Lucas might have thought about having her die as a direct result of Anakin's choking, but I think even then he felt it was too far. Hence going for the broken heart angle, which when you think of it, kinda seems to be how she died according to the story meeting transcripts. They don't outright quote Lucas as saying she died of that, but the way Lucas described the backstory to Kasdan, Marquand and Kazajian, it lent itself to that notion.

 

Where does the idea that a "strong character" couldn't possible lose the will to live come from?
There is nothing in reality that even hints at that. If it were true, plenty of soldiers who went to hell and back, experiencing things that most humans couldn't even dream of, would never have considered taking their own lives, yet they did just that.

Padme's entire live just got destroyed in a very short time, everything she ever fought for was gone, the Republic, freedom and democracy. The one person she loved more than anything else in the world turned into the very person who destroys everything she believes in and tries to kill her. It's always easy to say things like that couldn't happen if you have never ever been close to such a situation yourself. All the pillars her life was grounded on got swept away at the same time, and not just that, some of the pillars were the reason why everything collapsed, which makes it even harder to stomache. Again, the one person who means the world to you, the one who you trust completely and utterly, just committed the biggest betrayal possible. No character, no matter how strong, will not get severely hurt by that. Especially when there are many other things that crash upon you at the same time.

Now, having two young children could indeed be something you may still cling to if everything falls apart, but it also may not be enough.

Is it the most awesome reason for a death ever, no, probably not. Is it very fitting in a romantic/dramatic way that reflects the complete upheaval of the entire galaxy and deciding change for the main character? it most certainly is.

 

Padme was not strong. We can sit back and say, "Phhhhhht, she didn't need Anakin. he was just a jerk and she could move on."

We say this of every battered woman. "Why does she go back? What does she see in him?"

In every other aspect of her life she was strong, but not in matters of her heart. So we can project ourselves and say we or I would not so what she did, but Padme did nto do what others think she should have done so she is in fact not like you or not like what you think she should be like.

As far as why she died, this is not a real world. So what happened in that world with the rules given? She did not die of a physical ailment as the droids said. In SW there is a ..."spiritual" realm for lack of a better word. her connection to Anakin was strong threough the Force and he severed it with hate. She could not take that.

 

To be fair, that was already established in her entering a forbidden marriage with a Jedi. While she showed strength of character and intellect in the world of politics and war, she was always weaker when it came to romance. No surprise then that love might kill her where politics and war could not.

 

i think that's true, but i think she needed to have something physically wrong alongside it.

 

Because that's what happened, right? Her husband was just a jerk...

No, the person she loved and married to commited genocide against his 'family' and friends, let his lust for power overwhelm him and attack her, the democracy and liberty she believed in and dedicated her whole life to was destroyed, her mentor was a Sith Lord, etc...

 

Well, she sure passed those traits onto Luke, who grew up his whole life idolizing his father, and wanting to be like his father, only to find out his father was really a mass murderer who just chopped off Luke's hand. He and Leia just couldn't take it anymore, they lost the will to live and died in the OT. Sad story, it was like a Greek tragedy or something.

 

I'm thinking that Padme dying of grief might be more believable if it had happened later, say perhaps 6-8 years after ROTS? That would also have the benefit of being consistent with the conversation in ROTJ where Leia supposedly has memory of her mother while alive.

 

I have mixed feelings concerning Padmé's death. On one hand, I thought her refusal to live because of Anakin's actions was a slap in the face Anakin deserved after all the atrocities he committed to 'save her'. It would not have been as much impactful to have her die directly because of the Force choke. Having her deciding to die rather than live with him/the destruction he caused was added a good thematic touch-that if you sacrifice everything including your soul to save a person you're going to end up 'killing then' emotionally anyway and become someone unworthy of their love. It was a good twist that Anakin's desperate actions in the name of Padmé's life ended in her voluntary death.

Still...I agree that Padmé giving up on living tainted her character. I understand she was meant to have a regression arc, but it was deeply jarring to have such a previously level-headed & resilient character give up her life and the fight for democracy because it all fell apart. I have nothing against suicidal characters in general, but I cannot respect the idea of a mother who has just given birth to twins wallowing in self-pity to death. When you're a parent, your primary focus should be on your children, not you. You are allowed to have feelings of misery in situations such as these, but letting yourself die when you're medically healthy is just irresponsible with newborn twins.