PT Why were there no further efforts to free Shmi?

I'm saying if Han had been helped by & taken into the home of a kind old lady he'd help her if he could. He was the classic rogue with a heart of gold character. In any case Padme was definitely supposed to be a truly kind & sympathetic person. She thanked Shmi for all of her help by leaving her to slavery & not doing anything about it even after the Trade Fed crisis.

 

Yep. And to thread this back to a powerful observation by ezekiel22x:

And how poetic it is that this slave rebels against his masters; while coming under the power of another master. And that this transition marks the death of the Jedi Order and the Republic.

The prequels: all about the poetry.

 

Sure but characters acting with the traits & morals that have been established for them would be nice too. In-universe Queen Padme would've helped Shmi at some point.

 

Ah yes, the smuggler with a heart of gold who worked for a slaver. I should indeed keep that in mind. Such a better person than the young queen facing a planet that had been invaded and starved by the Trade Federation along with many Gungans dying in the battle to retake control. She obviously had nothing on her plate at all...

 

In all fairness, though, PH, you don't know all the circumstances pertaining to Han's involvement with Jabba in the first place. And Han is indebted to Jabba when we are introduced to him in ANH. General Rieeken also expresses a measure of sympathy for him when Han tells him he's leaving to settle his debt with Jabba in TESB: "A death mark's not an easy thing to live with."

Well, true, but compared to Han, she's sitting on bags of money. She couldn't have gone back there and helped free the planet without Anakin's assistance: twice over. So I can see why people cast a curious eye over this.

 

Is this that new thing called sarcasm?
She didn't look too stressed when she was hanging out at the celebration, handing big glowing ball thingies to Boss Nass. After the party eventually died down maybe she could've looked at her to-do list & made time to free the nice lady that helped her leave Tatooine to save her planet. Just sending a lackey with some valuables or a new ship for Watto would've sufficed. Probably would've taken her all of 1 minute to issue that royal decree.

 

I probably am being rather unfair to poor Han. It's just that, once again, an OT character is given the benefit of the doubt while the worst possible interpretation is foisted on a PT character.

Han works for a slaver? Well, obviously it must be under duress or because Jabba blackmailed him.

We don't know what happened in terms of Padmé helping Shmi? Clearly, Padmé just didn't care. It's not at all possible that she was dealing with a humanitarian crisis on her planet, the aftereffects of an invasion, or that Watto could have stonewalled their efforts to help. Nope, not at all.

See, I understand that Naboo is a wealthy planet. But I also think the film very heavily suggests that Palpatine was willing to starve and kill his own people to grab power. A phantom menace indeed.

All the talk about camps, seeing tanks rolling in, Nute Gunray remarking that the people of Naboo are dying. It all alludes to much more darkness than the surface would suggest. And I do think that is something Padmé would have to deal with immediately after the events of The Phantom Menace.

There are also other explanations of course.

 

Because people never celebrate when they've managed to free their homes from an invading force. That never happens.

Except it does.

My grandmother lived through WWII in France, Darth Downunder, and believe me, they celebrated rambunctiously when American soldiers liberated their village. My grandmother had been starving and stealing potatoes to survive and shooting rodents but when the Americans arrived, they gave her so much chocolate that she got sick from eating so much and enjoying the festivities.

Also, you're presuming that Watto would ACCEPT payment for Shmi. He already proved, in TPM, that he wouldn't sell to Qui-Gon even though he'd been willing before to bet Shmi against the pod.

 

Fair enough but I'm saying if there was time enough for a celebration there was time to tell some dude to go to nearby Tatooine & buy Shmi's freedom. It's the least they could do both for Shmi & for Anakin. Without either of their help all of Naboo would've been screwed.

Of course he would. He's a businessman, one who has recently become poor. He would've accepted something of obviously greater value. What did Shmi do for him that was so valuable? He also sold her years later anyway. There's no good excuse for Padme's inaction.

 

It's not an issue of time, though. It's an issue of whether Padmé would have been able to dedicate resources especially if Watto was being uncooperative. For the time being, Shmi was in a stable situation whereas many of the citizens on Naboo likely were not, so Padmé, understandably, would have prioritized them. But we know that Watto eventually sells Shmi and it doesn't happen near the events of AOTC.

Watto is NOT a shrewd businessman. Have you noticed he gambles? Have you noticed that by AOTC he's fallen on hard times due to his poor business sense? Have you noticed that he refused to sell Shmi to Qui-Gon after "losing everything" even though the pod was clearly worth enough to bet Shmi against it initially?

Watto also could very well have held a grudge against the Jedi or the Nubians -- people can be irrational.

He sold Shmi to Lars, yes, and if Padmé asked after Shmi after she'd been sold, what incentive would Watto have to tell her anything? He might see it as just payback to keep her in the dark as a form of petty revenge.

 

PiettsHat you're putting up a valiant effort but it's just not convincing. The Queen wouldn't need to dedicate significant resources. Just a guy & a ship to treat with Watto.

Also what is Shmi's value to Watto? What does she do that a thousand other peasant employees couldn't do for him? The Queen can simply declare that Shmi & Anakin helped save their planet. Hell you'd even have wealthy & kindhearted Naboo citizens going to nearby Tatooine to free her! Like I said, the Naboo government could offer Watto a whole ship for her release. If the Queen wanted to do it then it would've been done. Any in-universe barrier for Watto freeing Shmi for the right price (which he does later anyway) is clutching at straws.

 

Again, though, a guy and a ship isn't going to do much if Watto isn't willing to deal with them out of some form of petty grudge.

And, based on what happens in TPM, that is not at all an implausible scenario. Watto admitted he had lost everything and yet he STILL refused to sell Shmi for the value of the pod even though he had been willing to bet her against it before.

It's not an issue with the people of Naboo not being generous enough -- it's that Watto may have refused to cooperate with them.

Or that Padmé concentrated on helping her people first (since Shmi was in a stable situation) and when she sent someone to look into Shmi's situation, Watto may have already sold Shmi to Lars and have had no incentive to tell any Nubians anything out of some misplaced sense of petty bitterness.

You say that Watto would free Shmi for the right price, but we see that he flat out refuses to with Qui-Gon against the pod, even though he knew it was a fair trade (since he had bet Shmi against it earlier).

You can try to pretend that Watto is a 100% rational actor, but many many details in the PT point to this being untrue and he would be perfectly willing to pass up on a good business opportunity just to screw with someone he had a grudge against, as he did with Qui-Gon.

 

Watto is a businessman down on his luck. Of course there'd be a price he'd accept for Shmi. Your argument is not impossible but it's outrageously improbable. Everything we see of Watto suggests he'd jump at the chance to be instantly rich. Maybe a pod wouldn't do it for him but something would.

Anyway, we've reached an impasse. Let's agree to disagree.

 

And yet, being down on his luck didn't stop him from refusing Qui-Gon in TPM.

Additionally, this ignores the fact that, if the Nubians only got in contact with Watto once he'd already sold Shmi, he'd hardly be able to make a profit off selling her and may have refused to tell them anything.

 

Great points on Watto, PiettsHat.

Indeed, Lucas trusts the viewer to read into the films -- just a little bit.

You make a great observation when you say that Watto was willing to gamble away Shmi originally, but wouldn't giver up after the fact, despite saying he's "lost everything".

And that, yes, he sold her many years before the events of AOTC. Which further suggests he was initially holding a grudge of some sort, but perhaps later sobered up and then sold her once the "outlanders" had cleared off and his finances remained in the red (what with all that reckless gambling 'n' all). And who does he sell to? Of all people: moisture farmers on Tatooine.

You say that people can be irrational. That is a concrete fact. Funny, you'd think people posting on a Star Wars board, of all places, would easily grasp that.

 

The Queen of Naboo could arrange far greater payment than Qui-Gon could while on Tatooine. So Watto refusing to release Shmi then isn't very relevant IMO. Saying that Watto was holding onto Shmi out of principle is baseless assumption & head canon. What the movie suggests is that Qui-Gon didn't have enough to trade. It is a stretch that Watto wouldn't accept the pod in exchange. However it's a ridiculous stretch of galactic proportions to suggest he'd refuse the kind of wealth the Government of Naboo could offer!

 

Here's a run of events that's quite plausible

- Watto initially refuses to give up Shmi out of pride and/or spite. He lost a ton of his wealth to an "outlander" he didn't trust and who he then petulantly accuses of cheating, very nearly refusing to honour the terms of the bet. When Qui-Gon threatens to turn him into the Hutts, he relents. But he is clearly broken and wants no further dealings with this stranger or his retinue.

- The Queen of Naboo was initially wrapped up with saving her own people and the after-effects of a terrible Sith-led invasion. She expresses her concern to Palpatine on Corurscant: "I fear by the time you have control of the bureaucrats, Senator, there will be nothing left of our people, our way of life." One can reasonably imagine she had to spend time and other resources repairing the psychological damage that had befallen her people since the invasion. This wasn't an overnight thing.

- Watto is on hard times and can no longer let pride interfere with his business affairs. He finally sells Shmi to a moisture farmer (because at least they're not an outlander) and gets on with his life. The last remnants of his old life -- master to a talented slave boy and his mother -- are over. In this time, Naboo was still undergoing a cultural reconstruction, and even a reformation, and nothing was done for Shmi, who told her own son her place was on Tatooine.

This still leaves the issue of the Queen(s) of Naboo never doing anything hanging, but it does resolve why nothing was done initially.

And, again, if they had tried to secure Shmi's whereabouts, after Watto sold her, Watto may not have cooperated. He may, in PiettsHat's terms, have stonewalled them.

Furthermore, in using Naboo funds, they would have been directly funding human trafficking, and injecting money into a slave-driven economy, presided over by kingly crime lords into harems, cruel punishments, smuggling operations, and hired assassins.

 

Nice work Cryogenic. All I'd say is, the Naboo wouldn't need to use their money necessarily. They could trade goods, a ship, whatever. They could even trade with an honest merchant on Tatooine to raise enough local funds to satisfy Watto.

In any case freeing the woman who helped the Queen save the planet should be a high priority. Higher than any moral dilemma about funding a slaver. The alternative is to turn their back & let Shmi rot on Tatooine.

The Queen could delegate this quite simple task. She wouldn't need to spend time on it personally.

Again the idea that spite entered Watto's motives is speculation. No one's going to convince me this supposed spite would out-way the chance of a big payday. He even said to Qui-Gon, the only thing that works on him is money. We have to accept that Qui-Gon didn't have enough of it after selling the pod following the race. The Naboo could raise enough without raising a sweat.

 

Thanks. But that all assumes that Watto would have been willing to do business with outlanders.

I'll remind you of @PiettsHat's words:

It's not an issue with the people of Naboo not being generous enough -- it's that Watto may have refused to cooperate with them.

Technically, it was Anakin who helped the Queen, not Shmi. Shmi merely backed down when she realized Anakin was right and that he could use his talents to help. Indeed, she went a stage further, and remarked: "He can help you. He was meant to help you."

Watto was ever-so-slightly taking it out of himself when he said that about money.

Even to greedy people, at times, there are other things they value more.


Spite being a motive is entirely reasonable speculation based on what can be inferred by putting these comments alongside each other:

"Outlanders! They think they know everything."
"No pod is worth two slaves, not by a long shot."
"I lost everything."
"You can't have him, it wasn't a fair bet."
"Take him..." (said dejectedly)

Watto is greedy, but also suspicious and proud. After losing Anakin, he doesn't want much more to do with Qui-Gon and his "outlander" ways.

And I'll remind you that, at the time, Qui-Gon didn't have much to offer Watto. Yes, he had the pod, but by that time, it wasn't "nearly enough" to sway Watto (to quote directly from cut dialogue).

 

Which is just a guess based on...not much. The film implies Qui-Gon didn't quite have enough to offer Watto after the race. Not that Watto wouldn't accept any price if he'd had a vast amount of funds to offer.

She gave her consent for Anakin to race. She also gave the group a place to stay & fed them for days while they worked on their problem. Shmi's kindness was crucial in helping them get off Tatooine & on their way to Coruscant. On top of that she selflessly gave permission for her only child to leave her behind & go with them to become a Jedi. If she hadn't done that who would've destroyed the Droid Control Ship? Not Ric Olie.

That's leaping to a conclusion. Watto was poor & desperately in need of money after he "lost everything" due to his betting. Seems far more likely he'd be more willing to trade than ever. How was Shmi going to help him rebuild his wealth?? Knowing his character type his no 1 priority must've been to recoup all of his lost money. Not to stay poor & be principled. That's not his character at all.

 

Well, how much would have been enough? We don't know. You're being glib in asserting that Qui-Gon "didn't quite" have enough. Watto might have wanted a fairly preposterous sum. Again, in cut dialogue, Qui-Gon says the money from selling the pod wasn't nearly enough.

And, as verdant, lush, and elevated as the world of Naboo looks, it's actually not clear how much anyone there can spare. Remember, its society starts to break down after being blockaded.

Even its monarchy could have been maintained on a very tight and carefully-managed set of resources.

Yes, but it was really Anakin who did the heavy-lifting, and Shmi sent Anakin on his way, believing that the Jedi path had been prescribed for him.

It has already been explained why he might not have been willing to trade. We're just going in circles on this. I'm out.

 

Ok. Fact is Watto wasn't presented as a complicated character. He's just the "greedy merchant" trope. I'm sure the Naboo Government could come up with enough money to satisfy him for one slave without any particularly valuable skills. So the funds from one pod weren't nearly enough. How about the equivalent of ten pods worth? That ought to do it. That wouldn't make a dent in the treasury of an entire planet.

But you're right, we've made our thoughts clear by now. Time to move along

 

About Padme and her inaction towards Shmi.

The reasons I have seen here fail to convince me.

1) Naboo was in bad shape. Does TPM really show this?
The invasion itself was quite bloodless. The TF just landed troops and marched on the capitol.
There was no bombing of cities, no civilians getting rounded up and execute in the streets.
So it doesn't seem that Naboo infrastructure had suffered massive damage.
Also, how long did the occupation last? A week?
Now a week of occupation is nothing to sneeze at but it was no five year brutal occupation.
"The death toll is catastrophic." The message was said to be a trick so this would be to.
Also when we see Nute talking to Sio Bibble, he mentions no mass executions, just that his people were starving and that Sio Bibble would die before them. So it does not seem that the TF were not killing people on a massive scale.
To sum up, nothing much suggest that Naboo was badly hurt by the occupation or that it needed massive effort to rebuild.
Also, what does Naboo have in abundance that is very valuable on Tatooine? Water. So bring some water and sell it.

2) Watto would not sell Shmi out of spite or ask too much.
This is disproven by AotC. We are told that he DID sell Shmi and given that Cliegg Lars was a poor farmer, it is unlikely that he could pay a very high price for her. And taken with his rather poorer appearance in AotC it suggest that he didn't get big bucks for her. Given the films it is very likely that Watto had to sell her to not go under from his massive debts. So it is very likely that he had to settle with what Cliegg could pay, which wouldn't be much.
So if Watto was offered a good prize it would be totally out of character for him to refuse.
He was depicted as greedy and nothing at all suggest that he valued his pride more than his business.

3) Watto wouldn't talk about Shmi, assuming he had sold her.
Why would Watto behave like this and how would he be able to connect some random strangers showing up in his shop to Qui-Gon or Naboo? The Naboo people are humans and unless they are stupid enough to announce their identity, Watto would at most know that they are out landers, nothing more.

The solution to this is very simple, some Naboo people go to Tatooine and go to Shmi's house, which Padme knows where it is. If Shmi is there, just give her some valuable items as thanks.
"We come for the Queen of Naboo, whom you knew as Padme, and we owe you thanks."
"We hope that these items are enough to buy your own freedom from Watto."
Then Shmi buys her own freedom and when she comes back they can add.
"What will you do now? If you want to, we can take you to Naboo and live there."
If Shmi says no and that her life is here, they leave.

If Shmi is not there, assuming Watto had already sold here and she had already moved away, ask around the neighborhood. This is not complicated. Or go to Watto and barter for some stuff and make idle conversations.
If Watto has a chance to make a good deal, why would be antagonize his would be customers by being hostile towards them?

In closing, it fits Padme's character to help Shmi. And she does have the means to do so. And as I've said, nothing needs to change in AotC except from not looking uncaring and heartless.
If Padme/the Jedi's inaction was a deliberate choice by Lucas, why was there no follow up to this?
It instead seemed forgotten.

But we are just going over the same thing over and over again, so perhaps we'll leave it.

Bye. Mr "Insert-Name-Here."

 

The pod alone wasn't any more special than Sebulba's. It was Anakin's skills that were prized far more, which is why he was upset that he lost the real prize which was Anakin. Shmi's job was just to run the shop for him. Just as it was when he bought both Skywalkers in the first place. He only found out about Anakin's skills later on as the boy grew older and took on more responsibilities. He didn't separate them since the boy was too young and he didn't have the time, interest and skill to raise a child on his own. But he still needed employees and with Sebulba, the Dug was obviously never interested in partnerships. Otherwise, Watto wouldn't have even bothered with having Anakin race in the first place. And especially when it became clear that the boy was never going to win a race. He just bet on him to spite Qui-gon and ensure that he had money at the end of the day. Watto only sells her later because he's flat broke and desperate. He even said that it was business, nothing personal.

Not really. As I said, there is plenty of ways in which this can go.

That's explained in the sixth film. Michael had to recover from his injuries and is only active when the Thorn constellation is in alignment.

We only saw Theed. We didn't see the rest of the planet and we know from Panaka later on, that there were pockets of resistance fighting to survive.

PADME: "What is the situation?

PANAKA: "Almost everyone's in camps. A few hundred police and guards have formed an underground movement. I brought as many of the leaders as I could. The Federation Army's also much larger than we thought, and much stronger. Your Highness, this is a battle I do not think we can win."

Yet, Nute said to Sio that his people were dying.

NUTE: "When are you going to give up this pointless strike? Your Queen is lost, your people are starving, and you, Governor, are going to die, much sooner than your people, I'm afraid. Take him away!"

So he was telling the truth in the message.