Why does Padme love Anakin?

To answer the initial question, love is a mystery. Padmé got caught up with Anakin, and in time, she just learned to love him. Anakin has made a million mistakes, and Padmé was never happy about them, but one can't truely break apart love so easily.

For example, my ex and I. We broke up about two months ago, but we're friends right now, and in that department, it's going good. I've done terrible things. I've broken promises, I've lied, hell, I've even been cynical about it all, but in the end, she's always loved me. I never felt like I deserved it, but it still happened. The same way with Padmé loving Anakin. She's binded to him through that. How? No one knows. One can even become a murderer, and if someone truely loves them, they will be forgiven. It's the way it works.

 

I agree that Padme's love for Anakin is surprising since she said in AOTC she always will think of him of that little boy on Tatooine. I think she feels he is a good person and she is getting pressured from her mother to retire from public life and start a family like her sister (I got this from the OS). She is looking for refuge and is intoxicated by Anakin's intense passion for her. Anakin's crush stems from his encounter with her on Tatooine and his mother's death. She was a motherly figure to Anakin when they arrive on Coruscant and he never forgets this. Padme was drawn in by Anakin's power as well, I agree that who would NOT want the affection of the Chosen One, especially when he was so gorgeous? I think Padme suffers from the "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" syndrome after their first kiss by the lake. A line in that song goes "When your heart's on fire, you must realize, smoke gets in your eyes." Love has truly blinded Padme into seeing Anakin as the helpful boy on Tatooine instead of the troubled young man he has become. Their relationship is not based on trust because they both hide things from each other in ROTS (Anakin hides going to the dark side and Padme hides the Rebellion formation). Although they may love each other, Anakin's love is too possessive and Padme's love is too compassionate which is why their relationship would have never survived if certain events would not have taken place.

 

Ezekiel22x, That is a great point. In Ep. III, she talks about returning to the backwater of Naboo.

You have hit the nail on the head.

She is simply using Anakin to try to get away from it all.

 

Well, though Padmé was a very formal and regal woman, she probably had some pent-up emotions deep inside, and being around this boyish and immaturely impulsive young Padawan got those feelings unleashed. Perhaps in a way that a more mature male couldn't have. In that sense, I think Anakin's young age was fully reasonable. And although some people might think about it just as stalking I think Padmé's reaction for his pretty straightforward and unsubtle approach wasn't all that strict. She might have begun to feel it was honest and pure in a sense that he had no ulterior thoughts or motives.