PT Anakin and Padme's Co-Dependant Relationship

I never said he turned to the dark side because of her. I said Padme may or may not have had an effect on Anakin if her behavior was different. But you don't know if you don't try.

 

don't waste your time...

 

As a partner in a relationship you have a responsibility to do best for him or her. If someone has destructive behaviors, that involves confronting those behaviors and not enabling them. It does not mean you are responsible for what they do if you can honestly say you did your best for them. However, if you are an enabler, it does make you an accomplice.

 

It's a tough question.
Contrary to others, I don't think there was too much wrong with their relationship.

There was one big obstacle: the secrecy, because that led to a (probably unhealtily) strong focus on each other. They could only be truly themselves with themselves. To everyone else, they lied and denied an integral part of themselves (love).

Apart from that, though, and as long as Padmé's life wasn't endangered (to Anakin, at least), they seemed like a nice couple. I always found it interesting, btw, that Padmé seemed much more worried and concerned in both the Wedding Scene (in AOTC) and the Reunion Scene (in ROTS) which then drastically changed with Anakin's first dream.

Anakin was seriously demaged since the Tusken thing and probably would have turned anyway. I was never one of those who thought Padmé (given what she knew about the Tuskens) should have broke up with Anakin at that point or hand him over to the police (which police, btw, on a lawless planet like Tatooine?) BUT she should have brought him to a psychiatrist. There is nothing wrong with taht. He needed help, obviously. However, she was clearly emotionally attached to him by that point and therefore didn't want to ruin his Jedi career or endanger his feelings for her. Perhaps, she also thought she could help him on her own (and it kind of worked, until Anakin started dreaming again).

 

To say that his love for both Padme and his mother had no role in his downfall is to complete ignore and undermine the films. Would he have turned had he not met Padme? Maybe, I don't know, what I do know is that he turned to the dark side in a bid to save her life, so I'm inclined to believe his attachment to her brought him down.

 

I have to rewatch the wedding seen, because I don't recall a look of concern, but she seemed more relieved in the reunion.

 

Well, then you're misunderstanding pretty basic psychology. You can't always simplify a person's actions by saying "they did it because they wanted to" there are usually multiple contributing factors in a person's decisions, including experience, stakes, other options, mental state, you can't just say "because he wanted to be evil" that's a gross simplification.

MOD Warning: Double, much less tripple posts are considered Spam. The next time you do it, you may will be taking a temporary "vacation" from the boards. Darth Cyn

 

I kind of think they knew that their relationship could easily lead to disaster -- "it would destroy us" is, after all, what Anakin says when Padmé asks him if he could live a lie. Where I find their relationship realistic is that both of them seem to be isolated and emotionally "desperate" (for lack of a better word). Their largest mistake, in my opinion, was trying to do everything alone.

 

There's no factual basis for your assessment. You're basing your statement purely on your own opinion. Your assessment is like saying if "John" and "Judy" rob 5 banks together, Judy is not at all responsible for John's behavior. On any reasonable moral level a friend or lover has a responsibility to help a person overcome their problems and not make them worse. Some people are not emotionally able to do this, but it does not obsolve them of any moral responsibility. There is no slippery slope, it's not about deflecting blame, it's about each person doing there best for each other. Anakin and Padme had a toxic, codependent relationship that made Anakin's attachment issues worse.

 

I think you have an emotional reaction to this, possibly because of something that has happened to you personally, which I respect if that is the case. But it doesn't have anything to do with if Padme did or didn't turn evil. In my opinion, the flaw in your thinking is that you are thinking about the dichotomy of events as Person A and Person B instead of Relationship A. The relationship is toxic and unhealthy. It's not Padme's fault and it's not Anakin's fault, people that are in toxic relationship's often don't or aren't able to do what the healthy thing to do is. The important point is if you believe it is an unhealthy relationship. But as stated previously if you have a personal reason for your opinions that you're not willing to change it's probably best not to continue the discussion.

 

(sigh).

 

I still hold some of the blame on the Jedi Code, if they did not forbid attachments, but instead taught them to leave go of attachments if they had to, they wouldn't have to keep their marriage a secret, and they would get better council isn't. Not just. "Attachments are forbidden!"

Still in the end Anakin was fully blame-able for his actions, they loved each other, and they were not going to let anyone get in the way of it, or anything, they became so connected and attached to each other, Anakin could not let go, and then, enters Darth Vader.

 

I don't think the question is who is to blame. I think the question is given the degree of badness of someone, what amount of convincing is needed to change someone's behavior. If someone is a 10 out of 10 on the badness scale, then they probably could not be convinced to do the right thing. On the other hand, someone who is totally good would always do the right thing without convincing. Where is Anakin, say, at the beginning of Attack of the Clones? 6 out of 10? 7 out of 10? Could he have been convinced? I don't think the answer is clear cut.

 

I don't think stubbornness is what drew Anakin to the dark side. Lots of Jedi are stubborn. I think his lack of personal responsibility("It's all Obi-Wan's fault! He's holding me back!") and his desire for control were the main factors. I think one of the main points of the prequel trilogy is that we all have dark impulses, it's how we deal with them and relate to others that makes the difference. One's desire to control people is inversely proportionate to being happy and productive.

 

The only thing truly unhealthy I found about Anakin and Padme's relationship was the lie that surrounded their marriage. One could say that their attachment to each other was unhealthy. Perhaps. Then again, Luke's attachment to both Han and Leia could be described in the same manner. Or the Jedi's attachment to the Order. Attachment is expected in any relationship. It's how one deals with attachment when the time comes to let go that counts. Of all the characters in the Saga, the only one I have seen who has deal with letting go in a healthy way was Shmi Skywalker.

 

I honestly think that some folks (especially those commenting here) are WAY too hard on Anakin and Padme.

If Anakin had figured out that he could love people and not posses them, this thing would have sorted itself out.

And who is it to say that Padme didn't try to fix that? After all, I think that all of the main characters in one way or another tried to help Anakin out, be Yoda, Obi-Wan or Padme. The problem is that none of their advice was what Anakin wanted to hear, which is where Palpatine comes in and screws everything up.

Besides, let's remember that in the end Padme is also responsible to a great extent (indirectly) in bringing Anakin back-especially when Vader recognizes that he finally has the chance to save someone he loves in ROTJ.

 

I think on some level, Padme did recognize that their relationship was unhealthy. At least in TCW (specifically the Clovis arc of Season 6), she's well aware--and willing to confront--Anakin's jealousy/control issues. Ultimately she let the issue go without forcing him to address it or change his behavior, but she was clearly aware.

I agree with the people who have been saying that Anakin's choices were 100% his own responsibility. That said, without assigning blame to Padme for anything Anakin did, her choices with regards to him were also 100% her responsibility. She was obviously aware of some of the problems that would arise from a relationship between a Jedi and a Senator given her intitial rejection of him, though of course she couldn't have predicted the specific problems that arose in RotS. She chose to excuse Anakin's massacre of the Tusken village by telling him "to be angry is to be human," which, yeah, is kind of enabling, even if the onus for not him murdering people is on him, not her. Though she decided to stop seeing him in the Clovis arc, she later allowed them to reconcile without any further attempt to address the underlying issues.

All that said, even if Padme had gone above and beyond the call of duty and, like, forced Anakin to go into couples counselling with her or something, it might not have made that much of a difference. Even if Anakin had gotten to a point where he wasn't so massively co-dependent and possessive to the point where he would do terrible things in the name of saving her life without asking her first, Palpatine would probably have found another emotional vulnerability to prey on.

There's a small chance that Anakin might not have turned if Padme had done things differently, but only in the sense that she was important enough to him that any change in their relationship could have had a ripple effect. Maybe if she hadn't married him in the first place, he wouldn't have fallen. Maybe if she hadn't married him in the first place, he would have fallen a lot earlier since he didn't have her for emotional comfort/an escape from the trauma of the war. Who knows? Whichever way you look at it, it's still Anakin's responsibility to make his own decisions - even if the decisions he chooses to make may be dependent on the situation, which Padme has an effect on.

 

Here's my take on it.

On the one hand, Anakin is totally to blame for his own behaviour. But, on the other hand, we can't judge whether he was actually fully mentally stable as a person. He had a screwed up childhood: living constantly as a slave, no father, very few friends, and only his mother until suddenly a Jedi master comes along and frees him.

So, it begs the question: What if he's genuinely mentally...well, damaged? Can he still be held entirely responsible for his actions? Considering what we see in the films, I would still say yes. Nevertheless, if he is mentally disturbed to a much greater degree than the average individual in the galaxy, that also has to be taken into account.

He indeed had a possessive, unnaturally dependant relationship with Padme. It's been said that in a truly strong relationship, the partners not only compliment each other but, far from being dependant on each other for their own happiness (which is extremely, dangerously selfish and the polar opposite of anything wise or compassionate), they are instead very secure and happy within themselves before they even begin the relationship. For this reason the relationship enhances their happiness. It is not an attachment based on possessive love, lust or dependency. It is instead a partnership in which each person enhances the qualities of their other with their own unique strengths.

That would have been fine. Unfortunately, based on what we saw in the films, their relationship was the opposite of what I described above. It was incredibly possessive, self-centred on both their parts (especially Anakin's), and immature. To this day I'm still not sure why Padme ended up falling down to Anakin's level by becoming almost as dependent and possessive as he. But that is not to say that in any way I blame her for his behaviour. What could she have done? Anakin was emotionally screwed by his childhood. From everything we see in the films, it's clear that he was genuinely incapable of selflessly and compassionately loving anybody (not necessarily Romantic love, just a healthy, compassionate concern for others - what the Jedi would encourage) until Luke and Leia came along.

Nonetheless if I wanted to play Devil's advocate, it could be said that Padme didn't do enough to discourage Anakin from being possessive and self-centred about anything. Except, he was a Jedi, and he should have known to do that already. He did...but he didn't do it. Why? That begs the question if Anakin was actually a borderline sociopath. You'd have to be near that level to kill innocent children.