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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

PT Padme's death (untagged TROS spoilers)

Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by Ghost, Jan 4, 2020.

  1. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    Now that we know all the Sith (including Plagueis) lived inside Palpatine all this time, and with Rey/Ben/Palpatine establishing that the Force energy of one lifeform can be transferred to heal one but drain the other... it's now my theory that Sidious used the established Force connection between Anakin and Padme to drain her life and prevent Anakin/Vader from dying. Thoughts?
     
  2. ThisIsTheWay

    ThisIsTheWay Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Nov 24, 2019
    Since Sidious seemed shocked he cold drain the Dyad to repair his body, I don’t think the theory holds up very well.
     
  3. Jedi Knight Fett

    Jedi Knight Fett Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2014
    This.
    I think she just died of a broken heart which is a real thing by the way. Although it usually happens in older people when losing a spouse or child
     
  4. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

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    Oct 13, 2003
    He was shocked that they were a dyad.
     
  5. Starwarsisover

    Starwarsisover Jedi Knight star 1

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    Dec 18, 2017
    Episodes 7-9 don’t count in my head so.....Na.
     
  6. The_Phantom_Calamari

    The_Phantom_Calamari Force Ghost star 5

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    Nov 10, 2011
    Nothing of the sort was intended when Episode III was made, and the makers of Episode IX had no intention of connecting anything they did to the prequels in a meaningful way. So you're free to believe whatever you want, but I don't think this theory makes any real sense of anything or improves either movie.

    I personally don't see the utility in taking the convoluted ad hoc Force lore J.J. Abrams scribbled on a napkin to explain his plot and retroactively applying it to a series of movies which are completely disconnected artistically and authorially from the sequels. That way madness lies.
     
  7. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    To be fair "Padme died from being drained" has been a theory for much longer than the ST has been around.
     
  8. The_Phantom_Calamari

    The_Phantom_Calamari Force Ghost star 5

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    Nov 10, 2011
    Yeah, a fan theory that completely lacks merit. There are a lot of those.
     
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  9. MarcJordan

    MarcJordan Force Ghost star 4

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    Nov 17, 2014
    If it works for you then it is. :)

    MJ
     
  10. AEHoward33

    AEHoward33 Jedi Master star 4

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    Aug 11, 2019
    I don't think so.
     
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  11. Panakas_Dawg

    Panakas_Dawg Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Jul 29, 2004
    If anything, Palps was a slimy, opportunistic weasel. He can't forsee *everything* and every possible outcome. But he's damn good at adapting on the fly. He definitely had plans for needing Padme dead, because it parallels Shmi's death and leaves Anakin alone. I do believe Palps knew about Ani and Padme this whole time and knew she was pregnant. Her death means the end of the Skywalker line in his mind. But, he knew the kids survived. It would only be a matter of time before the son grew up...

    As far as saving Lord Vader, Sidious knew he'd never be able to raise Vader to be the Supersith he wanted. Rather, Vader is kept on a leash and, once Luke reveals himself, Sidious is not surprised one bit that "the son of Skywalker" is their new enemy. Vader is surprised, but Sidious tells him to "search his feelings." Now, Vader has become the bait for another Skywalker.
     
  12. SateleNovelist11

    SateleNovelist11 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 10, 2015
    My view is that Padme is best portrayed in film as we see her in TPM. Her characterization swifts very oddly in AOTC and especially ROTS. Besides, the performance is more serious. She's a teenager pretending to be a 27-year-old in TPM.

    I don't think George Lucas knew how to write Padme. People have bashed him for years about it. But let's be fair. He had gone through a divorce, and he probably had a cynical view of marriage for a while. But the only way to rationalize the bad writing is to say that Padme and Anakin were Twilight story done completely straight. Both of them are unhealthy. Anakin wants power and to dominate, but Padme actually has him wrapped around her finger, and she likes it. I believe she calls him a lion at one point in one of the novelizations (ROTS, certainly). It's codependency, and that's why it's a bad example. She thinks that she can save him from his rage in AOTC, and then in ROTS she finds out way too late just how...unstable he is. I don't want to go into detail because it's depressing, and I don't want to trigger anyone who has suffered in domestic violence. I sometimes get too detail-oriented in my statements as I theorize, so I'll be sensitive about that.

    Padme is not a bad person. IF you watch TCW, you'll see just how heroic and smart she is, how much she wants to help civilians and the innocent. But you can get all that context in TPM. I think people tend to hate Padme way too much. Even Natalie Portman didn't really enjoy filming much of the post-1999 presentation of her. It's different from her other performances. I saw her in a great 2018 film, whose title I can't spell. I'm bad at Latin. Lol. She was amazing.

    Padme's death is sad. I think she could have been a Jedi, as implied by the ROTS novelization. She realized it too late. I don't think Lucas hated her as a character. I just don't think he tried to write her with much effort because the middle-aged billionaire had a lot to do in the prequel trilogy. But you know what they say... Lucas's good side comes out in Luke during the CT. His dark side comes out in Anakin during the writing of the PT. And he sort of admitted it half-heartedly in a 2005 interview by saying he was a young, ambitious filmmaker back in the day and he had turned into an over-intellectual ruler of a corporation in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

    But it depends on your perspective. If you're the kind of person who believes that Thomas Harris abused the fictional character of Clarice Starling by how he portrayed her in Hannibal, then you won't like how Lucas handled Padme. But if you think that Lucas was just lazy and meant no harm, then you can shrug. That said, I do think it was a problem for her to be so passive in ROTS. I think she should have eloped with Bail. I think she should have pulled that knife out on Anakin like they had originally planned. I don't think it was Lucas' idea. It was someone else's. She didn't have to win. But she had to try to protect her unborn children from Palpatine. That would have been more in character with her TPM self.
     
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  13. Alexrd

    Alexrd Chosen One star 6

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    Jul 7, 2009
    Nowhere did Lucas show any cynicism towards marriage in the movies. Marriage is in the movie as a symbolic consummation of their relationship that both are willing to take on their own accord. They are committing themselves to a path that, as they had both acknowledged before in the movie, they know they shouldn't take.

    As for knowing how to write Padmé, I would argue that as the creator of the character, if there's someone who knows how to write her, it's him.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2020
  14. AEHoward33

    AEHoward33 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 11, 2019
    I think Lucas knew how to write Padmé. I thought he had done a pretty good job in creating a rather ambiguous character. I have always got the feeling that many had expected her to be more "ideal" than she really was. Then again, Padmé's ambiguity has always struck me as a lot more subtle than the trilogy's other major characters.

    Nor do I believe that her character was "passive" throughout most of ROTS. Granted, we didn't see any scenes regarding the creation of the Rebel Alliance. Personally, I thought that would have been too soon. But by ROTS, Padmé had assumed an antiwar position, something she probably should have done at the beginning of the war, but "oh well". And in what I believe was a very questionable, she tried to convince Anakin to use his friendship with Palpatine to stop the war and step down. It was obvious that Anakin was uneasy in exploiting his friendship in that manner, but it was obvious that she didn't care. Now, I'm not criticizing Padmé's stance against the war. But I was rather uneasy in which she tried to use Anakin for her political agenda.

    As for her death . . . I never had a problem with it. As I have stated in another thread, I found the idea of Padmé giving up one child and keeping the other rather implausible and rather callous . . . at least for her. And since her relationship with him was based upon the courtly love trope (which seemed to blend with the more formal setting of the PT), I was not that surprised that the surprises and trauma of those two days - the end of the Republic, the rise of the Empire, being in her third trimester, Anakin's betrayal to the Jedi and his attack upon her in a jealous fit - eventually took a toll. A lot of people, especially women, have claimed there was no way Padmé would have given into despair. Why not? It has been verified that one's mental state can affect one's health. And considering that Padmé had experienced a series of emotional and physical trauma - including giving birth to twins - I was not surprised that she had died in that manner. Both Anakin and Obi-Wan, who were also traumatized, were lucky that they were not pregnant with twins and in the third trimester.
     
  15. Panakas_Dawg

    Panakas_Dawg Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Jul 29, 2004
    I mean, fictional characters have fictional motives for their fictional actions. And, given that in real life people die from loneliness and helplessness and despair, it makes perfect sense for her to succumb to the physical and emotional trauma she suffered.

    And we seem to be forgetting that she sensed good in him up to her dying breath. She knew who and what had been directing her husband. She knew this was no longer Anakin. I bet, had she lived, the twins still would have been taken away.
     
  16. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    @Panakas_Dawg

    Why do you think Palpatine knew the twins survived?

    They even kept Padme looking pregnant at her funeral to keep the Sith and the general GFFA in the dark about it.

    "It seems in your anger... you killed her." - My take is this in Palpy's mind is him telling Vader he lost his whole family. And they both believe it.
     
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  17. Alexrd

    Alexrd Chosen One star 6

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    Jul 7, 2009
    Palpatine knows that Padmé is not alive (maybe he sensed her dying?) so he takes advantage of that and lies to Vader by telling him that he was the cause, only to fuel and deepen his anger.

    As far as the children go, Palpatine is not aware that Padmé gave birth before she died.
     
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  18. The_Phantom_Calamari

    The_Phantom_Calamari Force Ghost star 5

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    Nov 10, 2011
    I don't think there's any evidence in the prequels of Lucas having a cynical view towards marriage. At the end of ROTS, Leia and Luke are both delivered into the arms of what appear to perfectly happy, loving married couples.

    Anakin chose a different path in one life, one that can't include marriage. But his drive to attachment was so strong that he got married anyway. That was the problem. He didn't make a rational, responsible choice about what he wanted out of life. He wanted to have it all, and he made a reckless, passionate decision based largely on desire and the fear of being alone.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2020
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  19. Dannik Jerriko

    Dannik Jerriko Jedi Master star 4

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    Sep 12, 2017
    I do not think that Palpatine was directly responsible for the death of Padme. I always believed Padme to have suffered severe psychological trauma from learning that her husband had butchered children and supported a coup, which would cause death and oppression on a colossal scale.

    After turning Padme’s world upside down and driving his wife towards a full mental breakdown, Anakin follows up with a force choke, showing himself capable of using his god-like powers to crush her windpipe. I always thought that there was a lingering physical damage from this attack, but Padme had been so mentally shattered that she didn’t have the strength to fight against her injuries. That combined with the physical trauma of birthing twins proved too much for her to endure.
     
  20. Panakas_Dawg

    Panakas_Dawg Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Jul 29, 2004
    I just figured Palps was blowing smoke up his ass just to get him to rage.
     
  21. Beautiful_Disaster

    Beautiful_Disaster Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    May 12, 2005
    I don't think Palpy knew that Anakin's children had survived. If he had, he probably would have tried to hunt them down and get rid of them before they became a threat. I don't think he knew that Luke was alive until after he blew up the first Death Star.
     
  22. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    Oh I know Palpatine lied that Vader killed Padme directly.

    I was saying they both believed the twins were dead.
    Palpatine and Vader just don't know about Luke and Leia. I didn't word my post clearly.

    Agreed.
     
  23. Thrawn082

    Thrawn082 Force Ghost star 6

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    Jan 11, 2014
    I doubt that Lucas had any conception of the Dyad in ROGS. So no, I don't think so.
     
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  24. G-FETT

    G-FETT Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2001
    If this is what you want to believe then that's fine but clearly this and the rest of the ST have been made up on the hoof by people who have no understanding of what's gone before so no... this obviously isn't what happened when Lucas made ROTS.
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2020
  25. Strilo

    Strilo Manager Emeritus star 8 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2001
    This is a very good explanation for what happened. I think Lucas would agree with your words.