What was the point of Anakin Force Choking Padme?

Please do! I find the relationship between Palpatine and his protegés most interesting. It's a pity all of that was only hinted at in the movies.

 

As soon as Anakin raise his hand to Padme, that became abuse... I mean, he nearly killed her...

just because it happened once doesn't make it OK

 

People don't call it abuse because Obi-Wan wasn't defenseless like Padme, they were both in a fight for their lives and their relationship was destroyed at that point. At that point they weren't trying to abuse each other, they were trying to kill each other.

 

True

Also, Anakin was saying to Padme at one point he was learning the power to save her, then he was choking her...

 

I never said it was okay. All I was saying is that I THOUGHT that people were saying he was abusive BEFORE he turned. I thought abuse was something that happened over and over again, but I guess I'm wrong.

 

Before or after the dark side, what difference does it make?

It's still Anakin abusing Padme.

 

As far as I know no one has ever claimed that...

*Except maybe some Tusken Raiders, but we won't go there...

The point is before he turned to the Dakr Side he would never have dreamed of doing something like that...

 

nobody in the history of the boards has said that he abused Padme before ROTS Tragicherolover132, and i've been here since 2004

 

See, that's what I meant. I had a different definition of abuse. I thought it had to be done more than once.

 

Wait, so if a woman fights back against her abusive husband, then she's not being abused? Or if a man refuses to defend himself against his physically less powerful girlfriend, then he is not being abused? I mean, Padme and Anakin's relationship is essentially over as well considering she tells him that he's going down a path she can't follow. I'm not entirely sure what your point is here, I'm sorry.

 

When did I say people who are capable of defending themselves are not capable of being abused?

Oh yeah, never. I did say that when someone who cannot defend themselves is harmed by another, it is easy to recognize as abuse.

Once Padme said she can't follow it may have been 'essentially' over, but I would say that once Anakin put the choke on her it was official.

People often say a relationship is over, and then it's not. Choking someone has a way of ending any chance of reconciliation.

By the time Anakin put the choke on Obi-Wan, they had already drawn swords with lethal intent. Abuse seems like a rather weak word to describe their confrontation.

 

Sorry about that. The way you were phrasing it led me to believe that's what you meant, so I apologize for the confusion.

I don't know about that. I would say that his refusal to relinquish his dreams of galaxy-wide domination played a larger role. Don't forget, even after Anakin choked her, she still believed in the good in him. I think it's easier to forgive someone for hurting you personally, rather than something you love.

My point was that Anakin had loving relationships with both of these people and that this is the first time that he has harmed either of them through the use of violence. We agree that the ability to defend oneself does not change the status of abuse, so I was simply curious as to why people are quick to label Anakin's attack on Padme as abuse, but not his attack on Obi-Wan. I suppose you can consider intent (such as the fact that Obi-Wan intended to kill Anakin while Padme did not) but Anakin believed that Padme was in league with Obi-Wan when he choked her.

 

I agree that Anakin's actions (younglings) and his ambition would be harder for Padme to forgive than the choke, I just see the choke as the stamp.

It is because Obi-Wan is very capable of defending himself, and it's hard for people to see him as capable of being abused. Obi-Wan had his lightsaber drawn when Anakin leaped into action.

Most people would find it hard to believe if someone claimed Maria Shriver was abusing Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold, really? But he looks (or did) like Hercules and she looks like Skeletor!

It's very easy to see Padme, weak and pregnant, being abused by someone so much more powerful than she is.

It is very possible for a physically weaker person to abuse someone physically stronger, it's just harder to see/believe. It's much easier to believe the bigger, stronger bully is abusing the smaller, weaker person.

Just a matter of perception.

 

Ah, I see what you mean. However, keep in mind that Anakin is taller than Obi Wan. But now that I think about it, the reason why Force choking Padme is so heinous is because she is a female, his wife, and pregnant.

 

I understand, but perception isn't always reality. Men are also frequently abused as demonstrated by the fact that every year, 1,510,455 women and 834,732 men are victims of physical violence by an intimate. Granted, the number of women is much higher, but that doesn't mean that men should be discounted. People who are powerful or strong can also be abused and in their situations, it's often much more difficult to get help because fewer will be willing to believe them. But, yes, I readily admit that the image of Padme being choked is far more striking so I see your point there.

 

Yes. Men are abused, and don't get help for it as much as females do because of their gender. Same thing with people who are physically strong. But I wonder how the Force Choke would be perceived if Padme were a Jedi. She'd be armed and able to hurt Anakin, so I doubt it would be called abuse if she were Force Choked then. But even if she stayed a non-Force sensitive being she could have pulled out her blaster. Now that I think about it, that would have been a good idea. Anakin was a Sith, so he was dangerous---she should have brought a weapon just in case, or not gone at all. Then again, Anakin was her husband, and had never hurt her before, so she didn't expect to be attacked by him.

 

This might sound crazy but me it seems to me the "choke" looks like "pin against wall" grip than a "I want to strangle you "one; notice how Anakin's fingers are moving slightly throughout as if he were controlling his strength...if young Vader had the intention of killing his wife he would have made his hand into a fist(as in the OT) and be done with her. My guess is that somehow Anakin went inside Padmé's mind and saw how OW got there until OW's voice brought him to the present therefore justifying his first words to OW, but that's just a likable theory of mine.

As for the deed itself, it was to show that Anakin couldn't & wouldn't let go of Padmé no matter what.

 

Well...that's an interesting theory. But yeah, he didn't completely strangle her. Maybe when he heard Padme pleading him to stop, he started to feel guilty and that's why he let her go. Because I really doubt he would listen to Obi Wan---he would be more likely to let go because Padme wanted him to.

 

No no no

Vader stopped because Obi Wane told him to let her go... remember is is his former master., and Obi-Wan repeats it in a very authorative voice. he isn't asking, he's commanding

 

Personally, Anakin force-choking Padme kind of, to an extent, ruins the movie for me. This is the point of no return. It's the reason I don't see Anakin as a full Sith or full Jedi, kind of an unstable amalgamation of both.

 

Yeah, always liked that bit...Obi-Wan Kenobi: the only being in the galaxy who ever bosses Darth Vader around.


As for the point of the Force Choke: To show how completely gone he was.

"You will not take her from me!"

He's talking about Padme as if she were an object, not his wife; she's a possession as far as Vader is concerned. All of Anakin's ugly emotional subtext in AOTC (mainly having to do with abandonment feelings, and self-blame, IMO) has gone into full-blown objectification. Padme's not a person to Vader; she's an object without any role besides to bring himself greater power.

 

Yep yep yep. In ROTS Anakin says a whole lot of "I/me/you" and not much "we/us".

 

Absolutely agree. At this point all he cares about is what she can do for him.

 

In a way, he was manipulated into thinking of her as a object. He believed that he could save her from dying because Palpatine said so. So I guess he believed that he had "earned" her when he committed all of the horrendous deeds. But he's also predisposed to thinking of her that way because of his past as a slave.

He had always been a little too possessive, but when he turned to the Dark Side, it amplified that flaw to the point of him thinking of her as a literal possession. Just as the Dark Side amplified his bad temper. What used to be a bad temper turned into a complete inability to control his anger(on Mutsafar, at least). It's funny; the Jedi encouraged detachment, and in a way, Vader is the most detached you can get---thinking of people as objects.

 

I also think it's there to show him doing one absolutely, incontrovertibly evil thing. Granted, there's also the younglings-but he's never shown actually killing them-it'd be easy to think that he just flicked on his sabre to keep them from escaping while stormtroopers lit them up with stun rays, or whatever. The adult Jedi are legitimate opponents, of a sort; the Seps are scum that the films showed really didn't deserve anything besides jail or the death sentence.

It's also part of proving how how evil Vader is-we never see Maul, Dooku, or Grievous do anything as cold-hearted and brutal as this-at least, not as a personal act. Dooku starts the Clone Wars, and Maul kills Qui-Gon-but one is a pretty impersonal act (the starting of the Clone Wars) and another is a fair kill.

We see-in full, uncompromising horror-exactly how bad Vader is; there's no way around the fact that he tried to murder his wife out of malignant paranoia.