PT Plot Holes and Inconsistencies in the Prequel Trilogy

I still think you are reaching. Nothing in the visions indicates that if Anakin gets Padme away from the Jedi it will be some kind of magic fix that means she won't die.
I understand your point, but to me your argument is flawed because it turns out Obi-Wan's presence doesn't hinder or help Padme when the twins' birth and her death ultimately happens. He is just a witness.

Anakin sees Padme dying in childbirth. Childbirth represents change, and is essentially unavoidable (barring an undesired abortion). He asks Yoda for advice, who tells him to let it happen. Sidious offers him an actual solution that seems too good to be true (because perhaps it is), the only thing that can provide an unnatural solution and change nature. Like I said in a previous post, Padme doesn't ultimately die from physical trauma, so your "emergency" situation point is moot.

 

its not stupidity , its a lust for power that creates the tragedy , and that's made very clear in the movie .
He believes that only he can save Padme , he never realises that her death will be caused by him in his greed for such power .

 

Fear can be also a powerful motivator and the movies established early on that Anakin fears loosing people he loves so acting out of fear for Padme's life is definitively not inconsistent with his character. It's not Obi-Wan's presence that is important to him, it's Padme dying that matters to him so now he's scared of loosing her just like he did his mother. His solution to save her is to become the most powerful Jedi just like he promised his mother at her funeral, and the Jedi refused to help him so he turned to the only person willing to help him because he "can't live without her".

 

What Anakin feels right here is that he needs to become all powerful, in order to use the Force to stop Padme from dying. What Anakin felt after Shmi died wasn't that he should have gotten to her sooner. It's that he should have been powerful enough to stop her from dying. This isn't about inattentiveness. This about ego. He believes that he should be the most powerful Jedi, nay Force user, ever. He believes that the only way to save his loved ones is to become all powerful and he cannot get that from being a Jedi, but by being a Sith. And being a Sith means that you must abandon the principals of the Jedi in order to become all powerful.

Obi-wan is her friend and if she cannot rely on Anakin to be there, she would turn to Obi-wan next. She may be in a position where she cannot rely on her family to be there, but Obi-wan can be. Obi-wan being there is not the issue, it is giving birth period...that's the problem. She's dying because she is giving birth and Obi-wan coming to her aid, is not a problem. She's still going to die whether Obi-wan is there or not. That is what Anakin is focusing on.

When he sees the visions. It's even in the script.

74 INT. POLIS MASSA-MEDICAL CENTER-DREAM The view is strangely distorted and disorienting. PADME is on a table in an alien medical chamber. She is giving birth and is screaming.

PADME: Anakin, help me! Help, Anakin! Anakin, I love you. I love you."

She screams and dies.

102 INT. POLIS MASSA-MEDICAL CENTER-DREAM

PADME calls out in pain. OBI-WAN is near her and softly speaks to her.

OBI-WAN: "Save your energy."

PADME: "I can't!"

OBI-WAN: "Don't give up, Padme. Don't give up . . ."

She is marked for death. Because sooner or later in her life, she will die. Be it in birth, or as an old woman. Anakin's problem is that he is afraid of death and he wants to prevent it. The real problem is that he is afraid of the pain of losing someone. Whether they're beaten to death, shot to death or die in childbirth, Anakin is afraid of death. Afraid to be alone. Fear has a hold of him and he is feeding that fear by giving into it, letting it control and affect his decisions. He makes his fear stronger by doing so. In order to save her, he has to let go of his fear and do nothing. The film did its job right, but you're focusing on the idea of changing the conditions that lead to her death and not dealing with the root cause of why she will die, which is fear. Again, Lucas told us the problem.

"This is obviously a very pivotal scene for Anakin because this is reuniting with his mother and his youth and at the same time dealing with his inability to let go of his emotions and allow himself to accept the inevitable. The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can't hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn't willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is, because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he'd have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn't have this particular connection as strong as it is and he'd have been trained to love people, but not to become attached to them. But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he's been prepping for this, but that's the one where he's sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"The scene in the garage here, we begin to see that what he's really upset about is the fact that he's not powerful enough. That if he had more power, he could've kept his mother. He could've saved her and she could've been in his life. That relationship could've stayed there if he'd have been just powerful enough. He's greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he's greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There's a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the dark side. And it also shows his jealousy and anger at Obi-Wan and blaming everyone else for his inability to be as powerful as he wants to be, which he hears that he will be, so here he sort of lays out his ambition and you'll see later on his ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku's. He says "I will become more powerful than every Jedi." And you'll hear later on Dooku will say "I have become more powerful than any Jedi." So you're going start to see everybody saying the same thing. And Dooku is kind of the fallen Jedi who was converted to the dark side because the other Sith Lord didn't have time to start from scratch, and so we can see that that's where this is going to lead which is that it is possible for a Jedi to be converted. It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful, and control things. Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"The key part of this scene ultimately is Anakin saying "I'm not going to let this happen again." We're cementing his determination to become the most powerful Jedi. The only way you can really do that is to go to the dark side because the dark side is more powerful. If you want the ultimate power you really have to go to the stronger side which is the dark side, but ultimately it would be your undoing. But it's that need for power and the need for power in order to satisfy your greed to keep things and to not let go of things and to allow the natural course of life to go on, which is that things come and go, and to be able to accept the changes that happen around you and not want to keep moments forever frozen in time."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"When you get down to where we are right now in the story, you basically get somebody who’s going to make a pact with the Devil, and it’s going to be a pact with the Devil that says, 'I want the power to save somebody from death. I want to be able to stop them from going to the river Styx, and I need to go to a god for that, but the gods won’t do it, so I’m going to go down to Hades and get the Dark Lord to allow me to have this power that will allow me to save the very person I want to hang on to.' You know, it’s Faust. So Anakin wants that power, and that is basically a bad thing. If you’re going to sell your soul to save somebody you love, that’s not a good thing. That’s as we say in the film, unnatural. You have to accept that natural course of life. Of all things. Death is obviously the biggest of them all. Not only death for yourself but death for the things you care about."

--George Lucas,“Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005.

It's hard for you to understand, because you aren't him. You aren't ruled by your emotions. Anakin isn't stupid. He's just emotional. He isn't capable of being rational and logical, when all he is, is emotional.

 

You're asking me to be rational. That is something that I know I cannot do. Believe me, I wish I could just wish away my feelings, but I can't. -Anakin Skaywalker (at least whenever Padme is concerned I might add).
He's not one to shy away from telling people about how he feels.

 

So, Annakin is already lustful for supreme power and he uses his mother's death as an excuse to profess that greed?

He has just indulged his righteous fury, hatred and anger on the Tusken's and it didn't bring his mother back. And as far as we know, it didn't make him more powerful. it's remarkable that the dark side, which is characterised by those emotions, should be considered as a solution to Anakin's problem. There's no logic or emotional credibility in Anakin's apparent choices.

 

Well, he does express a preference to some kind of benevolent dictatorship earlier in the film.

You have it backwards though, the death of his mother won't make Anakin stronger, he wants to be stronger to save his mother.

 

No he doesn't. He says that there should be a system of government where people get toogether and vote for what they think is best and then do that. Padme has to inform that the Republic, and its system of government, for which he was trained since infancy and sworn to protect, is exactly that. His solution to the problem that people can't always agree on the right thing to do is that someone tells them what to agree. He quickly withdraws the idea, with embarassment, when Padme informs him that this would mean dictatorship.

I never said that the death of his mother made Anakin stronger. I said that his reaction to his mother's death, which sums up the dark side, did not bring his mother back or give Anakin anything like an inkling that murdering lots of people makes you strong enough to bring others back to life. That notion is completely fabricated and promoted by Sidious at a much later date. And Anaikin buys it. In spite of having already indulged in the dark side post his mother's death and getting nothing in return but deeper emotional trauma and feelings of helplessness.

That's not even mentioning the fact that Anakin's dilemma prior to his mother's death was his feeling of being detained by his duty to bodyguard Padme (whom everyone that matters is aware he has especially strong feelings for), from timeously responding to her immminent plight. When Padme compassiately endorses his impulses. and out of mutual attraction and affection, agrees to accompany him and indemnify him of any blame for not following orders. But the delay in responding to his foresight is decisive. He arrives in not enough time to prevent or mitigate the ordeal that his mother goes through and the effect that it has.

At not point is there a crisis of not having the power to save his mother. Only a crisis of being prevented from responding to his visions. He infiltrated unseen, and laterslaughtered an entire village by himself. He has plenty of power to effect a rescue and/or subdue his mother's captors, if he responds and takes action in time. No other Jedi is depicted as having the power to predict specific outomes days in the future, and light years away. But instead of making the most obvious logical step of trusting his insight and taking the same appropriate action more promptly next time. Not decide out of the clear blue sky, after being nothing more than tardy, that what he really needs is to be suprememly powerful, specifically so that he can revive people he doesn't attend to quickly enough. Even when he's given sufficient forewarning.

At what point did Anakin discover that he hadn't the power to stop his mother dying . I saw no attempt. And since he went dark side immediately after and his mother was still dead thereafter, he's already proven to himself that hate and anger is not the answer. In fact it's not even relevant because quicker response time would have gotten him inside that Tusken camp a lot sooner.

And. There is never any indication that Anakin is interested in or is expecting to bring his mother back, even when he gets the carrot of "keeping the ones he loves from dying." All Anakin talks about subsequently is not losing Padme "the way" he lost his mother. That "way" was not getting to her in time side to rescue her, but that's conveniently forgotten about by both Anakin and Padme (save her suggestion that they go to Naboo). Padme knows what happened with Anakin and Shmi. But she seems oblivious to the fact that Anakin has not learned anything from that experience. His instinct to follow his vision and protect his mother was right. So why does Anakin not folow that instinct when he gets a second chance? Why does he suddenly, arbitrarily and without any logic, conclude that the problem was not being able to make other people immortal or the power to reanimate their bodies after their wrongful death which he was hesitant to intervene in order to prevent.

 

He doesn't withdraw the idea of a dictatorship, he endorses it: "Well, if it works". Then Padme changes the subject. It's clear from this, and Anakin's other talks of power that he simply wants more of it. See his reaction to being denied the rank of Master. It all stems from his powerless slave childhood. The death of his mother drives a wedge between him and the Jedi, maybe if he hadn't been on Coruscant, he might have been with her to protect her. Failing that, he desires the power to keep his attachments as long as he can, ignoring anyone else in the process, including Padme herself.

We know that Jedi have incredible powers, but that the Dark Side does as well. Anakin lives in a world where the Sith can generate lightning from their hands using nothing more than their minds. Is it really so surprising he gave in to a belief in holding back death, especially when the concept of becoming a Force Ghost also exists?

 

Yeah, as darkspine10 noted, Anakin further endorses dictatorship when Padme labels his proposed system as this, but she thinks he is just joking. (Personally I find her reaction a little odd, but that's another subject).


You make some interesting points nevertheless Martoto77.
On why Anakin not getting to Shmi in time would relate to Anakin's fall, I think this is more about his growing resentment toward the Jedi Order than an indicator he needs to act quicker with Padme in ROTS. He sees them as inefficient and dogmatic, to Anakin more relaxed rules might have meant he could have left to help her sooner. We know there are valid reasons for the rules, but I think this is when he is starting to lose some respect for the Jedi way.
How Shmi's death relates to the power to cheat death; that is where the greed element comes in. He kind of wants to skip the middle-man - why take measures to prevent the circumstances when you can just become all-powerful and will the desired result yourself.
He says at his mother's funeral "I wasn't strong enough to save you ... but I promise I won't fail again". I understand the flaw you see in the differing circumstances surrounding Padme and Shmi's death, but I would argue that to Anakin death is death. It is about how it makes him feel to not have them. He will do anything to avoid this. There is also an ego element in that he wants to achieve everything himself, for example with the exchange...
Padme: "You expect too much of yourself."
Anakin: "I've found a way to save you."
Padme: "Save me?"
Anakin: "From my nightmares."
Padme: "Is that what's bothering you?"
Anakin: "I won't lose you Padme."
Padme: "I'm not going to die in childbirth Anakin, I promise you."
Anakin: "No, I promise you."


Additionally, I think the original cut of the turn made a little more sense to be honest. One element was that Palpatine revealed to Anakin he had started the cell-divisions that led to Anakin's birth. This would make Anakin's belief in the dark side's power more credible because he himself is proof that it works.

 

Padme asks if he's making fun of her. He actually thinks he's impressing her by talking about politics, which he clearly knows nothing about in spite of being the closest Jedi to the chancellor, and he sheepishly withdraws his weak patter. Because he now knows that the she knows that he's talking out of is backside.

How exactly does Anakin know that the dark side has incredible powers?The first taste he has of the dark side is when he slaughters the Tuskens. What does it change? What does he learn? Nothing. It is not a euerka moment. It's a "look what they made me do" moment.

He just went full anger & hate and it did not make him any more powerful. Particluarly in the area that Anakin later decides that he needs it.

The only thing he ever sees the dark side do is light his ass up with electricity. If Anakin somehow got the notion, and it was made credible, that this lightning also restores life, as well as take it away, then his seduction by its powers would be make slightly more sense. But he receives no such indication that it is capable of reanimating people. The dark siders in the whole trilogy areshown only to be interested in controlling who dies. Namely, the Jedi and anyone else who gets in the way of their ambition to maintain personal control over the galaxy without any Jedi to threaten that hold on power. Period. If Sidious genuinely had the power to cheat death and currently has authority over the system of government for the Republic, then it's a bit strange that he isn't promoting his benevolen ability to do so while in office. Don'tcha think? It requires Anakin to assume that Sidious has just been keeping this power under his hat because the Jedi doesn't want anyone to be immortal and so will kill him for it.

Thanks for bringing up force ghosts because they prove immortallity to be acheivable and natural, after a fashion. It is proven that you don't have to say goodbye to certain people if they are important enough to your well being to keep around. And it is not associated with the dark side. The opposite is conveyed, in fact.

Anakin has the power to see that people will die a wrongful death well in advance of it happening. How he can believe that the dark side and its life shortening electricity weapon, the only distinctive power it ever displasy, is what he actually needs is a mystery. Unless Anakin is either a poorly written out character with nonseniscal or no existent logic, emotionl or otherwise. Or he is, inherently and congenitally, a completely dysfunctional and psychopahtically power mad personality to begin with.

Anakin talks a out saving Padme from his nightmares. But what Lucas actually sets him out on is a quest fo the power for there to be no consequences for Padme as a result of his nightmare.

 

Thanks. Of course, we all know that. It's what is supposed to be Anakin's motivation. You've re-stated this many times. I'm not sure why since it's never been in dispute. Point is, the way the relevant scenes are depicted doesn't present this very well

Of course she would. Obi-Wan is her next closest person apart from her husband. He's next cab off the rank (even though they were keeping it all secret from him). Clearly in a normal planned birth she'd have Kenobi standing over her as she's in the middle of the most personal intimate moment of a woman's life. He's obviously a far more likely choice for that role than one of her handmaidens. Or a nurse working at the hospital. Makes perfect sense. No wonder Anakin didn't think anything was wrong with the scene he witnesses. Just one of those standard everyday death due to childbirth situations - with Obi-Wan in attendance. Happens all the time

I can show you a script that states that Owen & Ben Kenobi are brothers. Unfortunately a script is not canon unless it's translated to the screen in that way. We see Anakin's visions. Where in the movie is it shown that Padme is in a hospital? How is Anakin able to know that from this:

As will everyone. So no doubt Anakin may have an interest in researching immortality in the longer term. However right now he has a more urgent matter to address. One that doesn't allow for going off on a tangent where you're hoping to maybe learn some Sith magic that may not even exist. He sees Padme die while she's trying to give birth. He doesn't know why, whether it's an injury, an accident or what. He can however deduce that it's some kind of unplanned emergency situation (which it is). That's bcs rather than seeing doctors & nurses as would be the case in a normal situation, he sees...Obi-Wan of all people acting as a midwife. So it should be a case of, do what I can to avoid the incident I've foreseen now. Read up on anti-death Sith magic later.

I might buy Anakin's decisions as impulsive & emotional if the alternative fit that description. It doesn't. What he does instead is commit to the unlikely & convoluted time-consuming plan of researching Sith magic. That was told to him in a legend & even Palpatine isn't sure exists. That's not being emotional, that's being idiotic & gullible. It's a completely half-assed plan that looks far more time consuming than simply trying to avoid the incident he sees involving Obi-Wan.

Of course there is. Obi-Wan is a Jedi, not a doctor or midwife. Not a family member or handmaiden. He would only be coaching her through a deadly birth gone wrong during a emergency scenario. So obviously you get Padme far, far away from anywhere that you'd previously expect her to be. Have the best medical care on hand to tend to her until the birth. Than everything is far more likely to be okay. And that plan would've succeeded.

Your counter-argument is flawed. Obi-Wan's presence isn't fatal in & of itself. He doesn't have a deadly contagious disease. His presence is however an obvious clue that the delivery doesn't occur as planned, with Padme checked into a hospital well ahead of the birth, surrounded by family, Anakin, handmaidens etc. For that not to happen a fatal & unexpected incident must occur. Which is does.

No it's not. The incident that claims her life occurs on Mustafar. Seeing what happens to Anakin & being attacked by him causes her will to live tank to spring a leak & drain all of her will to live until she dies. If that incident were avoided she would still have a full reserve of precious will to live. For example, if she'd been back home with her family on Naboo, no will to live leakage would have occurred. She would've been fine.

As usual we've gone off into the weeds with this discussion. What you guys have mainly done is examine the in-universe scenario in extreme depth. To try to make it all fit. That's not the initial point I was making. I'm saying that the reasons & motivations you've been explaining would've been better represented by keeping the visions vague, & definitely not showing Obi-Wan there with Padme. If Anakin only sensed Padme dying & he had no other information, he would understandably feel completely helpless. His decision then to turn to the supernatural as his only solution would make sense. Showing him any details of the incident that claims her life gives him the opportunity to work through what those details mean, & then try to avoid that incident. Obi-Wan's presence, while at first glance may seem minor, carries with it some very important implications. It was a poor choice to include it.

 

Obi-Wan being in the vision doesn't tell Anakin anything. Obi-Wan and Padme are good friends, so him being present at the birth in the first place isn't too unusual. Anakin only sees a tiny sliver of the whole birth scene, one that focuses on Obi-Wan. But Obi-Wan just tells Padme to hold on. He's not doing anything else in the vision, it's unclear where it's happening, so Anakin has nothing to go off other than Padme dying in childbirth. An event that cannot be avoided.

Obviously if Obi-Wan's in the vision, the only way Anakin could stop Padme dying would be to smother Obi-Wan with a pillow. Then he wouldn't be in the vision, and Padme would be perfectly fine.

Edit: In the first vision, Padme is alone, calling for Anakin, while in the second Obi-Wan is by her side. Now to the audience, it's clear that since Anakin learnt about the legend of stopping people from dying, he's drifting away from Padme towards the dark side. But from his point of view, he just needs be more powerful to prevent these visions.

 

Are you joking? Maybe "present" at the birth - ie in the waiting room of the hospital could be expected - if they weren't trying to keep it all a secret from him. But right next to her, in the delivery room?? You're trying to say they're that close? Come on. They're friendly, they're not BFF's

Padme doesn't die because of childbirth. Why would Anakin think she does? He tells her that in the vision "You die in childbirth". He's simply describing what he sees. Why would he conclude it's childbirth that kills her, & no matter where she goes she'll die during the birth? That's a ridiculous conclusion to jump to. Esp given Obi-Wan is there. An accident/injury should seem far more likelely.

You've come up with an absurd theory & then rolled your eyes at your own theory. having a Gollum/Smeagol moment?

 

You seem to think Obi-Wan is the clincher, that him being there should make Anakin do everything in his power to keep Padme and Obi-Wan separate. Then the vision wouldn't be fulfilled.

Why wouldn't one of Padme's friends be at the birth of her children, especially if things start to go wrong? If a friend of yours started dying during a birth, you'd want to be with them.

Anakin doesn't know the cause of death, only when it will happen. As Obi-Wan being there is not beyond the realms of believibility, there's little Anakin can practically do to stave off this unkown killer that ends Padme.

 

what ?
well if she dies because of an accident or injury why does he say " you die in childbirth "?
c'mon DD stop making up your own movie .

 

Because she's giving birth as she's dying. She's in childbrith at the moment of death.

 

right , and what , on balance , would you conclude from that ?

 

That it's possible, not definite, that it's purely childbirth is what kills Padme. Or something happens that means Padme cannot survive beyond the childbirth.

It turns out that neither is true though. There is no physical cause of death. She simply dies for no reason, like people never do.

 

It's not about keeping her away from Obi-Wan personally. It's about getting her away from the common circles that they both move in. Where the incident is more likely to occur. Padme lives & works on Coruscant. Obi-Wan is a Jedi based on Coruscant. Therefore the fatal incident Anakin sees in his visions is likely to either be on Coruscant or somewhere where the two have left to travel from Coruscant. Which is what happens. This is not complicated. Imagine you believed that you had real premonitions. You have a pregnant wife & you live in New York. You see your wife die during the birth, & you only see a friend of yours attending to her as she screams out your name as she's dying. There's no one with an ounce of common sense that wouldn't pack up & move to LA, or Mexico, or Australia for a while, until after the birth. Bcs there's a good chance that you were seeing an accident which leads to that unusual birth scenario. Does moving away give you a 100% guarantee of avoiding the death? No, but it has to dramatically improve your chances compared to just hanging around NYC with your fingers crossed. The key thing is there is no 100% guarantee for Anakin. Least of all the plan involving a Sith legend & some magic a dead guy once knew.

Anakin tells Padme that in the vision she dies in childbirth bcs in the vision she dies in childbirth. I don't understand your point. It's almost as if it ignores the very real possibility that a pregnant woman can suffer a fatal injury (car accident, a fall, loss of will to live) which causes her to go into labor &...die in childbirth. Which naturally doesn't mean the death was caused by childbirth.

 

I don't see how Sith magic (in a universe with the Force) is much less rational than making Padme travel against her will away from Coruscant, where she works, and leaving behind his Jedi life, thus destroying their fragile secret romance.

 

Firstly, it’s not an either/or decision. He could do both. Get her light years away from where the incident is most likely to occur AND get back to his Sith studies.
Your second point involves trivial concerns compared to the life of Padme & their child. Padme already said she wants to go back to Naboo well ahead of the birth. How were they going to keep it all a secret after the baby comes anyway? Padme rightly says their careers are probably over.

 

yeah , could be all sorts of things , so that's pretty vague . But you're the one insisting that it can't be because of childbirth and that it must be this incident/accident you're always banging on about .

where is it most likely to occur ? you seem to have seen an awful lot more in this vision than I have .

 

Anakin has no knowledge or experience of the dark side that he could rationally consider to be life preserving.

When did Padme state that she was opposed to any mitigation of her foreseen death scenario? She was there when Anakin was conflicted about responding to his instincts and, in fact, insisted he must go to his mother's aid. But only too late.

She's quite keen to get away from where she works when she meets Anakin on Mustafar.

 

Quite.

That is what the movie is about for Anakin's story.

Spending time and taking focus away from the actual character and story and somehow making it like Anakin should become some detached observer who should be obsessed with side details really makes no sense.

This is completely, utterly, uselessly and futilely fighting the story of the movie.

In Anakin's mind avoiding the incident is impossible because and I don't know how much more outright and plain it can be.

"You die in childbirth."

There is no way that he can avoid the incident since the incident is child-birth!!

Then in the next scene referencing that:



Again in Star Wars there is this thing called the Force that can do some pretty amazing things!

I really don't at all see where anyone can possibly go with this line of thinking that isn't just trying to twist the story into knots that simply don't make any sense on any level of story or character. The "incident" is unavoidable.

The only thing I can profer is that I think that you mean that the incident isn't the actual childbirth itself but the reason why she's giving childbirth at that particular time and situation and that changing that will somehow change the outcome. If it was that simple then that is something Anakin would try but the point is that he knows that is not important because the incident is that Padme dies in childbirth and nothing but knowledge of the Force can save her.

You answer your own question as well as AOTC does:

"You are asking me to be rational. That is something I know
I cannot do."