Two Lines that always really bothered me...

First one:

''It seems in your anger,you killed her.''

Alright,so I guess that line could have deeper meaning. In his angry state,he broke Padme's heart which took away her will to live. So I guess instead of what may have sounded to Anakin like 'When you were angry,you killed her physically' perhaps Sidious actually told him Padme had given up the will to live because of his turning and his constant anger.

Besides,why would he ask Sidious if Padme was alright?He showed up after the duel and by then I'm sure Obi Wan would've gotten to her [C-3po even loaded her on board before he got there] and would probably be off the planet.

And does he really trust Sidious near the woman he loves,and the unborn child inside her?

The other line:

'There is still good in him,I know there is still good.'

So if she knows deep down there is still good in Anakin why does she give up the will to live?You'd think that would make her stronger and more determined to confront Anakin again and try to bring back the good in him. Did she honestly give up? It just doesn't make sense to me she rants on about how Anakin is still a good person and then lets herself die,abandoning her twins.

Your thoughts?

 

While I'm all for new threads, don't be surprised to see this locked.

She gave up the will to live because Georgie couldn't think of a better death for her.

 

1. Bottom line is that she's dead and to ensure that Vader can still be of use to him, Palpatine calls it murder and that gets the job done. Vader asked about Padme because he was hoping that Obi-wan brought her to Courscant or Naboo, where she could get the best care. He was hoping that someone would've informed Palpatine, who would've informed him on her status.

2. It was already too late by then. Her body was already shutting down when she stated her belief.

 

To add onto what Sinister said, Padme also realizes that SHE could never turn Anakin back - which adds to her broken heart, imo.

- O_F

 

Good thread.

#1 How does Sidious know that Padme is dead? I've never quite understood this. He's on Coruscant, she goes to Mustafar, she leaves Mustafar (with Obi Wan), then Sidious arrives. How does Sidious know anything about what transpired on Mustafar? Sure, he could reasonably guess that there was a confrontation between Anakin and Padme, but as far as he's concerned, he didn't witness it. And he surely thought Obi Wan was dead after Order 66. So, as powerful as he is, he can't foresee everything.

That said, simply because Anakin was asking about Padme, I suppose that Sidious knew there'd been a confrontation and felt it likely that he'd mortally wounded her. If she happened to live after the fact, he could have had her hunted down and killed before Anakin ever realised. I guess it DOES hold up if you put a little thought into it.

#2 Padme's words and actions do seem contradictory, don't they? I guess she felt she was now beyond tackling Anakin on her own. Someone ELSE would have to confront him in some OTHER way. It is a bit of a tenuous issue. Perhaps she has the revelation AS she's dying (it certainly seems that way) and wants to make one more difference to the galaxy - by getting her revelation out - before she dies. Padme's final actions and words before joining with the Force are of profound significance for the galaxy. The scene, regardless of logic, is a beautiful bit of poetry.

 

Good thread? We covered the "why did she die?" after the movie came out.

 

"She lost the wiil to live" wasn't a scientific, medical diagnosis. It was just a cliche for the fact that they couldn't explain why she was dying. Two seconds earlier they say "for reasons we can't explain...."

 

I think Sids did not know the truth and told him that so his only purpose would be to serve the Emperor and Empire and so he would have nothing left but hate.

As far as the second line I think it was nothing more than a tie in to the OT and made sense but her death was lame.

 

The only thing i can figure is that they put her death out on the holonet immediately. Sidious blamed Vader for her death in order to make him hate himself. Notice how he smiles when Vader loses it.
As far as losing the will to live, don't we hear that all the time? One person loses it while another person is described as a "fighter" when they are dying.

 

Palpatine knew that Padme was the bridge for Anakin to cross over to the dark side. For him to tell Vader that Vader killed her would not only be the root of his self hatred, but he was telling Vader that you turned for nothing, you made all the wrong choices for nothing, you lost your power for nothing. The no that comes afterwards is Anakin's pure heart or what's left of it telling him that he should have listened to Yoda, because in the end, he was truly trying to protect Padme from himself.


Padme is dead at this point. She knew Anakin is still good, but the hopes of her ever seeing that again is extremely slim and none. She can't go on living in hope that he'd come back around, especially after he Force choked her(while she was pregant), and turned against himself, the good of the Republic and the Jedi Order. Ironically the good she claims Anakin still has was detected by their son twenty three years later.

 

Well, Anakin and Padme share a symbiotic relationship. So, as Anakin dies, so does Padme. They are kind of like ET and Elliot in the scene where ET is dying and the boy is dying too. They share that connection that means they can't live without each other. Of course, it's Anakin's actions that lead him to become Darth Vader and to destroy Anakin Skywalker, and ultimatly cause's Padme to die as well, so he IS reponisble for her death and her downfall is very much down to him. SO IMO, it wasn't that she just said, whjat the heck I'm bored with living; But rather she couldn't stop her demise due to the fact that the other person she shared a symbiotic relationship had "died" too. But that didnn't mean she didn't believe that Anakin Skywalker couldn't be saved.

As for how Sidious knows shes dead? One can only assume the Vader awakening scene happened sometime after she died. Remember the kind of funeral she has on Naboo would have taken a while to sort out, so it's possible that the Vader awaking scene and the scene's that follow were happening at differant times. Remember, in all the Star Wars films, time-lines have basically been non-existant and it's really in this area you have to suspend your disbelief the most.

 

This was by FAR my least favorite part of ANY SW movie. It seemed lazy. It doesn't fit her personality to just give up.I know it has been stated before and not surprisingly by women but I feel her character would have caused her to put up a fight when she was dying for her children. If they ever needed her it was now knowing she couldn't have Anakin around. Out of all small little loop holes and a few badly delieverd lines i just am annoyed by this. I wouldn't blame Natalie Portman for being upset at how her demise was written. In response to the original poster of this thread I agree the line of, "There is still good in him" seemed not to fit. I love the SW mirrors but not if forced. After my first veiwing in the theaters I thought she said,"There is good in him I can sense it" right after Obi-Wan leans over with Luke and I thought it was in reference to him. Which if you think about it for a minute would have be cooler I think because it would have been her reassuring herself that her son wouldn't turn in the future like his father before him (Sorry couldn't resist) I just hated the way she died. I did think the funeral scene was EXCELLENT.

 

Yeah, I know what you mean.
I thougt the end of ROTJ was rubbish too - it just didn't fit Vader's personality to save his son and suddenly turn on his Master.
Lazy.
People try to say that characters actually evolve throughout the saga, but don't you listen to them.
Story arcs? - nonsense.
Padmé wasn't a broken woman at the end of ROTS who had seen everything she loved destroyed by the man she loved, that's just silly, isn't it... she was clearly still that spunky diplomat from TPM, she didn't go on any kind of epoch-making journey over the course of 13 years...

 

Get in Gear, as much as I love ROTS, as a viewer, I would have been a little more satisfied if I had been given a better explanaton for the cause of Padme's death.

She lost the will to live?

I think a difficult birth might have gone over better with the audience than the explanation that she was just so sad ...

...that her heart stopped beating.

 

I have a theory on this. Not sure if these have been discussed around here...

At first I thought Vader himself put some kind of "force curse" or something like that on her. Perhaps he was slowly stopping her heart through the force? That would be a good explanation as to why they could not detect anything medically wrong.

It would make more sense, though, if it was the emporer who was doing it to Padma. He solves alot of problems by killing her this way. Vader lives to serve him now, as Padme is gone. Not only that, but it's fuel for Anakin's hatred. It also solves the problem of how he knows she's dead.

 

Depends how literal you want things.
If her heart stops beating and we are told that specifically, then that is closure.
Is closure a good thing?
How easy would it have been for Lucas to have had the actual birth itself be the cause of death, or Anakin's choke?

IMO, Lucas intentionally meant for us to go away and think about the significance of Padmé's death - what it means in the greater context of the saga...
That is a fundemental part of film-making, and what is "lazy" is to presume Lucas just couldn't be bothered establishing "closure".
A quick glance at the various draft revisions tells you he setlled on this account only after bypassing the more obvious and literal deaths for Padmé.
We are meant to go away and think about it... and that is a good thing, IMO.

It ties in with so many other themes of the saga in an abstract way, and there is no reason, in my mind, it should not be an abstract thing.

 

Padme died because her heart was broken and based on his violence against her, she thought Anakin hated her and would never follow her.

 

Well, Get in Gear, I have gone away thinking about it. I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to be thinking.

As interesting as it may be, I don't think I buy into Psamtik's theory about Palpatine (sorry, Psamtik) but that did lead me to another thought...

...that maybe it was part of her destiny, (as in, will of the force) that the children come into the world but be orphaned so that future events would unfold as they were supposed to?

I don't know, I'm just taking a shot in the dark here. Is this anywhere close to what you're alluding to?

 

That sounds like enough to send her to an asylum for the rest of her life.

Is it really enough to cause her internal organs to stop functioning?

edit:

sorry, didn't mean to double post.

 

I loved the fact that Anakin and Padme BOTH asked about each other
even after the force-choke incident. It's the first thing each of them
wanted to know about. Perfect. That's good writing. It tells you despite
all that had been said...there was still something there.

 

It's an old theme - you always hurt the one you love.

 

Excellent sarcasm Get_In_Gear To say characters evolving is rubbish or whatever has no validity.

1.Lucas himself discusses how Luke, Han and Obi-Wan all go through an evolution or growing process.
2. Han goes from a me first kind of guy to coming back to help Luke knowing he had a price on his head. Then he leaves to pay off this price when he decides to go back and save Leia. Then he goes on a dangerous mission to Endor.
Anakin evolves over the course of ALL the movies.
Obi-Wan himself evolves even if less slightly
Luke goes from a naive farm boy to the greatest Jedi all time(If you go by EU)

Also I personally have gone through a relationship a few years back in which after being together and in love for quite some time and the choices she made caused me to have to back off and it hurt to see the choices she made and what happened to her based on them. Obviously it was on a far far smaller scale but I didn't come close to "dying of a broken heart" That being without children being envloved. I defend Lucas for most things but to say her heart physically gave out on her? I know it was meant to be symbolic. He easily could have made it that between the pregnancy, choking and immediate stress could have caused her weak heart to go.

 

Well, I'm not really alluding to anything - I'm just suggesting that the journey id dometimes more important than the destination, if you get what I mean.
Like, just being invited to think about it actually makes it more important than it ever could have been if it was literal - and if that's a cop out, then so be it. At least it was intentional and not a... "plot hole", as some would have it.

The way I se it is that it works on many levels, which it couldn't if it was any more literal.
The importance of symbiosis is a key theme.
Padmé devoted herself to democracy and Anakin.
By turning, Ani effectively took away Padmé's life - the democracy she fought for had been destroyed, and the one person she put her faith in to give her strength had actually facilitated this destruction.
To continue the fight meant to fight Anakin, something she couldn't do, because she loved him.. there was still good in him.
If she felt there was not, then maybe she would not have died.
Feeling there was still good in him is not a reason to fight on for her, it is a reason to give up - she knows he is good, she still loves him... and yet she cannot reach him, and if she must continue the causes she fought for, she must actually consider him and enemy.
Ergo she is just cancelled out.

Then there is the vision.
Anakin saw Shmi in pain.
Shmi ended up in pain, and died.
Luke saw his friends suffer on Bespin.
His freinds suffered on Bespin.
Anakin saw Padmé dying.
...so it had to happen.
"Your focus determines your reality" - Qui-Gon Jinn.
Anakin's focus; his preoccupation with his attachment; his fear of losing her, brought about the visions. And, in turn, the visions brought about her death.

Maybe her death is unexplainable on a logical level, other than that, if you focus on such things, they will happen.
It is a chicken and egg scenario - Had Ani overcome his fears, he may never have had the visions, had he not had the visions then Palps may not have had the hook on which to hang his conversion to the Sith, had this not have happened, than Padmé may have lived.
Did the visions create Ani's fear or did his fear create the visions?
Did Padmé's death create the visions or did the visions ensure her death?

I dunno - there's loads of ways to look at it, but it's all food for thought. And to me, that's a good thing...

Apologies - I couldn't resist it.
I just don't get why people want the Padmé of TPM to be the Padmé of ROTS.
The whole galaxy has been turned inside out in that time.
So has she.
Ani and Padmé both make mistakes - her tragedy is not that she is an innocent victim, it is just her loss, and that it was all, ultimately, for love that is tragic.

 

What bothers me the most is why Anakin and Palpatine refer to their faith in the force as the 'darkside'? They didnt believe what they were doing was evil and evil people wont admit to what they do as evil because they believe they are right..thats like Hitler calling himself evil...
cant they just refer to their dark faith as 'the force'. To me that would make much more sense

 

Thanks, Get in Gear. You've given me something to chew on...

...specifically, symbiosis, also as your point about Padme's belief in Anakin still having some good in him being the reason she could never bring herself to go on and fight him...

...as well as your comment about Anakin's focus determining his reality.

I'm glad you're here to tell us these things. Should I call you 'Professor'?