PT Defending Anakin and the Tusken

I would posit that Anakin is not deeply, emotionally troubled. I don't see how he is any different than most other young men.

Of course when you add in the fact that he's a former slave, powerful in the Force, plus the manipulation of Palpatine, he develops an unwavering desire to act on his personal goals - but the fears and insecurities he struggles with are not abnormal for young people trying to come to terms with the world around them and their place in it. I think the lesson of Anakin's arc in the PT is how an otherwise typical person can become a monster.


I would also suggest that Padmé's choices and actions have nothing to do with a savior complex, co-dependency, or just being ok with bad decisions. I feel that is stopping a little too short. Nor would I say those are Lucas's style.

Yes, she has a strong moral center, which is why she responds the way she does in the garage, and beyond.

Let me start by quoting a passage from the AotC novel, as Anakin is carrying his mother's body from the speeder to inside the Lars home:
"All that time, the thing that struck Padmé the most was the look upon Anakin's face, an expression unlike anything she had ever seen on the Padawan: part rage, part grief, part guilt, and part resignation, even defeat. She knew that Anakin would need her, and soon.
But she had no idea what she might do for him."

Padmé has seen that Anakin is a good person capable of great accomplishments. And she cares for him and believes in him; firstly as a dear friend and, at that point, more than that. Anakin had just found himself in the worst of all possible situations and what he needed most in his time of crisis was compassion and support. Padmé is not the kind of person to condemn or run away when someone is having a meltdown. That is not love. She is a pillar of love and understanding; and this is a classical epic love story - wherein Anakin is the archetypal protector and Padmé is the archetypal nurturer (and the Jedi guardians of peace and justice). And as has been established, this is a tale of how one's strengths can be manipulated and over-extended into leading to one's own downfall.

Padmé is not justifying Anakin's anger or the slaughter, she's merely trying to comfort him in the aftermath, on a human level. And with that, I can't imagine she was ever ok with it. She always trusted and understood Anakin. And because she saw his other good traits, she trusted him to do the right thing; to process what he did, confess it and get help.
Her role moving forward was that of continued support in his ambition to be a Jedi and to do good in the galaxy. His decisions regarding the aftermath of the Tuskens and the death of his mother was his to make, alone. It was not her responsibility to make him do what he had to do. She had the faith, and that’s what Anakin needed, but the question is, could he deliver? She 100% believed he could.
Perhaps one could say her blindspot or naiveté was that she had too much faith in her intuition about Anakin, but then again, so did Luke. And she didn't even know he was being manipulated and maneuvered by a Sith Lord like Luke did. But in the end they both ended up being right in focusing on his good side and that he was worth the gamble. So what do we take from that? Is that a strength? That's the question, and part of what makes this a compelling tale, structured around human virtues and frailties we can all relate to and find a moral in.


I think Padmé & Anakin's love story can be summarized fairly well by this line from Othello. After the tragedy occurs, Othello asks that he be written about as:
"One that loved not wisely, but too well."





I would say Padmé definitely had a deliberate reaction in the garage (not a lack thereof), and it's consistent with her character.

Take for example the scene from TPM which begins with Padmé watching the message from Sio Bibble. Her people are in need. She is deeply concerned about them and dedicated to doing whatever it takes to ensure their safety. She believes she is watching the message in private but soon takes notice of Anakin's presence. Taking concern for his well-being is the first thing she does. She wraps a blanket around him and comforts him with compassion, despite her own troubles.

Then what is the first thing Anakin does? He tries to console her. "You seem sad." He then gives her the sweet gift of the Japor Snippet.

The two of them have bonded and she states that she will continue to care for him after they arrive on Coruscant despite how much things will change, to which he reciprocates.

She then naturally intuits that he misses his mother after he falters for a moment.

Padme fully understands how much Anakin loves his mother, even at that point.

Now fast forward to AotC. Shmi dies, and Anakin confesses to Padme what he did with the tribe of Tuskens. The situation is of course much different here than in the Japor Snippet scene, but Padme is consistent. Anakin, like her people on Naboo 10 years earlier, is in need. Her caring for him has remained. He needs compassion at that point, not more heartbreak. Anakin sensed Padme's sadness on the way back to Coruscant, and now she does the same. She knows how much he loved his mother, and again, she comforts him, despite her own concerns.

Anakin then confides in her his turmoil over losing his mother and his deepest inner struggles as a growing Jedi, and she immediately goes into comforting mode, trying to reason with him, but Anakin's desires are now going beyond reason and he gives way to his meltdown. Does she run or cast judgment? No, she becomes the strong pillar for him, and asks him what's wrong. The noble, nurturing thing to do.

He then proceeds to unfold to her the horrific truth of the atrocity he committed. She is taken aback, but again, does she run or condemn him? No, she attempts to comfort him in this midst of a life-changing emotional crisis. When he ends with, "I know I'm better than this", she sees he is starting to calm down and allows him to continue to process his thoughts & emotions.



And for the record, though I understand what people are getting at with "co-dependent", it should be mentioned that this term is not even recognized by the DMS of the American Psychiatric Association. Furthermore, some psychologists consider it a good trait, but taken to excess - a theme explored in the PT. If you're interested, I would suggest rather looking into attachment-style/theory. @xezene has put together some good posts on it.
I also recommend reading Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, a friend & associate of George Lucas, which had a profound impact on Lucas while writing the PT and provides many insightful parallels into the development and crafting of the characters of the PT and their dynamics.

 

These long explanations for why Padme essentially closeted her values because she cares so much for Anakin are exactly why I cannot stand this characterization for her. It’s like a man’s idea of how women in love think. The boy they love comes always first because he needs the woman who loves him? Just, no. Anakin slaughtered a village including children. In that moment, a woman who was willing to die with her people while fighting for them isn’t going to be exclusively preoccupied with the young man she has feelings for. Padme is a three dimensional human being like anyone else. Her personal compassion for Anakin doesn’t trump her own ideals or her own personality. Anakin may need compassion, but so do the children slaughtered, and Padme is the kind of person that would absolutely feel compassion for those massacred children, just like she should have at the end of RotS. That inevitably should conflict with her compassion for Anakin. That’s the human reaction.

Padme wasn’t written to let him go. She was written to lose the will to live without him, literally while giving birth to two babies. That’s the opposite of letting him go.

 

Because every protagonist in the prequels is written with fatal flaws which destroy them, most of them related to attachment. You're the one who's choosing to single out Padme and claim that she's the only one whose fatal flaw is dictated solely by her gender.

Padme does let Anakin go. She realizes that she has to stop enabling him, and so she tells him that she can't be with him. This is a great act of strength on her part, but yes, her sadness at having to make that choice still ends up destroying her. I don't realize why this is considered an unforgivable act of sexist characterization when her male counterpart suffers from the same co-dependent tendencies she does and responds in a much, much more maladaptive way. Having to face what Padme faced would break any person's heart, male or female. Imagine having to forsake the good person you used to love because they've become a monster, and they've done it all in your name.

There's a difference between a strong character and a character who is strong in all ways. Padme is a strong character. She is a strong person in some ways, and a weak person in other ways. All the characters are. If Padme were the only character who was like that, that would be one thing. But she's not.

 

She did let him go though. That is exactly what happened but that doesn't mean she stopped believing there was good in him. He went down a path she couldn't follow but still thought he could come back. Which is what ended up happening with Luke.

Did Padme say she had lost the will to live? No. Lucas had a non-living droid say that. He could have just went with physical injuries but that would be weak. Did she look like somehow who lost the will to live? No. She looks like someone who was taken away but before she went she poured her life force into her children. Luke got her belief in Anakin while Leia got her belief in justice and freedom.

Star Wars is mythic and with the connection between Anakin and Padme she needed to die so that Vader could be truly born. Padme then lives on through her children and when Vader finds out about them then Padme is alive again and so Anakin starts to live again. He doesn't live without her and she doesn't live without him.

Quite. Padme is easily the strongest and best female character that we've yet seen in Star Wars and I don't fear that her placed will be challenged any time soon based on the new movies. The only new female character of any real note is Jyn Erso who BTW also apparently "fails" because she dies as well.

(removed - bashing) / heels

 

The phrase “let him go” to me is commonly used metaphorically, as in, “this person is moving on in life without this other person.” I don’t think the phrase applies where, as here, she begged her lover to run away with her, he choked her into unconsciousness, and then she lost the will to exist in life while delivering his twins.

She was literally crying for Anakin while she was delivering. Did GL ever say that we weren’t supposed to believe the droid? I didn’t want to believe the droid, but the scene plays out to me like we’re supposed to. The droid says explicitly that there was nothing physically wrong with her. I wish Sheev killed her, but there is nothing in the movie to imply it outside of head canon and wishful thinking.

The fact that something needs to happen for the story doesn’t negate the fact that the event needs to make sense in context. Characters shouldn’t behave in certain ways just because the story needs them to. It should be understandable why they make the choices the do. If Padme needed to die for the story (which I actually disagree with), GL got to choose how it happened. He opted for a droid telling the audience that Padme didn’t want to live without Anakin or with her children. Padme could have survived, agreed to split them up for safety (you know, she could have been granted agency over the fates of her own children) and gone ill with Leia to Alderaan knowing she doesn’t have long to live.

The entire point, to my understanding, of the no attachment stuff is that attachments are the path to the dark side for force users. Padme isn’t a force user. She can’t fall to the dark side. She was introduced as a fierce, intelligent, idealistic person of action. She stood strongly for ideals that meant a lot her. She was a survivor. The story plays out as though merely being in love destroyed her because she loves Anakin that much. It doesn’t suit her character and it’s a silly. It’s not romantic.

In terms of the idea that it’s mythical, you know a theme that also has strong mythic roots? A mother’s love. Denying Padme any agency or even shoot interest in her children’s lives deprived me of getting to see that emotional connection play out in SW, which is always focused on fathers as the end all be all. She could have been like Harry Potter’s mother. She died protecting her child. She’s the heart hanging over all of the books. Padme died from sadness because of Anakin and left her children to Yoda and Obi to figure out what to do with.

 

You're mischaracterizing what happens. She begs Anakin to run away with her, yes, because she loves him and knows he's a good person and just wants to get away from everything and start over. That's a very human response. But Anakin refuses to relent, and he goes on to confirm that everything Obi-Wan said about him, everything Padme didn't want to believe, is actually true. It's at this point that the scales fall from Padme's eyes, and she tearfully informs Anakin that she's done, that she can't be with him, that she can't follow him. Again, a very human, heartbreaking response. It's a response that I, a man, can easily empathize with. To me, Padme is just a person, a fully-realized character with virtues and flaws. It doesn't have to have anything to do with her gender unless you make it about her gender.

I agree with you here. Padme did indeed die of a broken heart, not some other cause. Though the film does visually connect Padme's waning life-force with the scenes of Vader being birthed from the ruined corpse of Anakin, I believe this is meant to be a symbolic connection further illustrating the cause for the depths of Padme's despair.

Padme did need to die. She couldn't die off-screen. That would be narratively unsatisfying.

It's not that Padme didn't want to live "without Anakin or with her children." She couldn't live with the fact that something she thought was so pure and good--the love and compassion she gave to a hurt little boy in need--could result in such monstrous consequences. Anakin slaughtered children, undermined democracy, and wrecked the entire universe for her. The unspeakable cosmic horror of it all broke her spirit so thoroughly that it could no longer sustain her physical body. It's not that she didn't love her children or want to be there for them. It's that she couldn't. I've likened Padme's condition to suicidal depression again and again because that's essentially what it is. Padme lost the will to live. It happens to people all the time, even--sometimes specifically--to new mothers.

It was also very important thematically for Anakin to ultimately be the cause of Padme's death, and for that cause to be the fact that Anakin selfishly destroyed Padme's spirit in his misguided quest to preserve the comfort her physical existence brought him. A mysterious illness wouldn't have accomplished those thematic goals.

 

I haven’t mischaracterized anything just by merely declining to state the obvious that Padme loved Anakin. Anakin at that point is not a good person, so if she “knows” that she is simply wrong. He massacred children. Anakin was gone. Just because a person loves someone, it does not automatically follow that a child massacre would be instantly forgotten if that person said “whoops, my bad.” Some people might respond that way, but very many would not. Padme imo was introduced and characterized as the kind of person that would not respond that way.

Right, I get the symbolism. Padme’s characterization was traded for symbolism.

This is a lot of talk of theme while you ignored the theme that I think should have been central in Padme’s death. She was a mother at that point first, not merely Anakin’s codependent (and entirely OOC to be codependent in the first place) wife.

It is pretty revealing about the priority of Padme’s character to trade her as a three dimensional human to just be a symbol of poor Anakin’s tragedy. She was fridged and denied character in the process.

 

I don't see how giving Padme flaws instead of making her 100% strong and virtuous (alone out of all the characters in the prequels) is trading her as a three dimensional human. I see it as just the opposite.

Anakin is the main character of the prequels. All the other characters are ultimately there to service his story. Padme wasn't "fridged." A female character dying in a story to service the arc of the male protagonist doesn't automatically make her "fridged." That's a super reductive way of analyzing art.

 

It’s not about flaws. Padme was always flawed. She had to grow into her own in TPM. It’s about being consistent on characterization. Padme’s personality does not lend itself to Padme flushing her personal value system and being pathetically codependent on a baby slaughterer over her own children. She would die to fight for her people, but she has no will to live and fight for her own children? That is character assassination.

Not all dead female characters are fridged. Padme was. Padme’s role as a mother was 100% ignored in favor of Padme servicing Anakin’s angst and Anakin’s story.

 

I wish people stopped assuming that death-by-broken-heart has anything to do with character and/or volition. Oh well.

 

So somehow they aren't her children also? Clearly they are and that is the mythic point being made as the children save the father but it takes decades and can't be done at that time. She did let him go as stated by her but again that doesn't mean she would stop believing that he could come back. If she hadn't then it's a totally different ending.

And he was for her.

That is the greatness of GL though. Maybe so or maybe not. That he didn't have Yoda say it or even some living doctor is significant. There is nothing physically wrong with her so then we are at a spiritual stage and as she dies the true Vader is born. As long as she was alive some part of Anakin would have been as well and that returned from the moment Vader actually confronted Luke.

Maybe Vader did. Maybe it was the will of the Force. It's a wonderfully open question that Lucas provides with a bland "explanation" if you want to take it. I go to the early drafts of Star Wars where Deak is killed by the Sith draining his life Force.

Lucas gives the context in the story though. It's right there. Now if you are asking for a dialogue driven 100% lock-down to the nth degree every single time then it's not going to happen in Lucas' visual imagery and musical driven movies. Ultimately of course it is a story and characters need to do what is to be done. The actual start points and end points aren't the be-all and end-all though but how they get between the two points. Lucas knew that Anakin would become Darth Vader but that is an event that will happen. How and why it happens in the context of the story is what is important. There will be a duel on a volcano planet but in 1977 no one could possibly see what would happen in ROTS in 2005.

For whatever reason many people focus on the dialogue that Lucas used rather than who said it and the actual visuals and music of the scene. I would say concentrate on those and see the heroic death of Padme who is the Earth mother who brings life before her death and the death of her husband as they die together but leave their children behind.

Yes and that would have be truly, truly awful. Why would anyone want that? Talk about really losing the will to live! Padme going out strong in ROTS is far better than simply withering away offscreen.

That is what happened though. Padme is hanging over Luke, Leia (without either knowing it) and Vader in IV-VI. Luke IS the representation of Padme's lifeforce. Once Vader actually meets and confronts him he starts to change because of Padme. Luke intrinsically believes that which is impossible for the Jedi to conceive. That Anakin can come back. What reason or logic is there for Luke to believe that? Where does this come from? This is something that Lucas never got into in the OT but the PT gives us the answer as to why Luke believes that Anakin can return. It's not accident that Padme is in her TESB moment and says there is still good in him and Luke believes that after TESB.

That whole story idea was fine before but when he actually had to deal with it then it made no sense for the simplest of reasons. If she is alive then Vader knows it and therefore he and Sidious know there is at least one child out there and they are always looking for that child. That is on top of if she is alive then that part of Anakin is also and so he can never truly become Darth Vader and the story of the movies makes no sense.

I really struggle to understand what it is you want. Earlier you said "Padme could have survived, agreed to split them up for safety (you know, she could have been granted agency over the fates of her own children) and gone ill with Leia to Alderaan knowing she doesn’t have long to live."

So Padme "losing the will to live." is OK as long as it's offscreen and/or covered over by some unknown offscreen ailment that strikes between trilogies?

Padme being a mother is 100% glorified in the OT as she saves both her husband and the galaxy through her children and her belief in Anakin which becomes Luke's belief.

That is the mythic point that the PT provided to the OT. Lucas very specifically wrote and had Padme portrayed as having all the qualities that Luke and Leia would get from her (as well as Anakin).

 

Seriously? My big complaint is that Padme’s role as a mother was ignored and you think I was trying to make a point about them not being her kids as well?

Again, letting someone go has a very clear connotation in English that does not apply to what happened to Padme.

So? I never said he wasn’t. That has nothing to do with the point I was making.

Well I go by the film unfortunately. I take the droid at its word that there was nothing physically wrong with her, ergo she died because of something spiritually/mentally wrong with her. Which the droid literally said, so there’s that.

I wish he did. It would have been a more dignified ending to Padme’s character. However, the implication of Padme sobbing for Anakin and then being told outright that she had lost the will to live makes the point pretty explicitly how she died. I have no need to write for the story a better cause of death.

What now? Huh? I don’t see Padme as “Earth mother.” I see her as a normal human mother. Too bad GL didn’t see her that way.

She withered away on screen. I would want that and think what we actually got was a total worst case scenario, so I guess my existence answers your question. On the plus side, my scenario wouldn’t rewrite Leia remembering flashes of her mother. On the double super sized plus side, Padme would have been granted the agency as a mother that her character deserved, that Luke and Leia deserved in a mother.

No that is not at all what happened. You do a lot of writing for the film and that’s just not something I engage in. Padme did not die for her children. She lacked a will to live for them.

 

I'm not doing any "writing" for the movie but interpreting things based on the way Lucas does thing over the 6 movies that is demonstrable. Besides whatever each movie does on it's own it's also part of a greater whole.

Over and again in Star Wars and the prequels particularly people say things that have more than one meaning. Time and again it's been pointed out the surface meaning that one can take as well as the visual imagery one.

If Padme has this lack of will to live you perceive then why didn't she die before giving birth to them? That kind of a lack of will to live is another thing entirely.

This idea that Padme dying is some personal failure on her part is perplexing to me. Saying that wounds only matter if they are physical like a Lightsaber strike to Qui-Gon as opposed to spiritual wounds from Anakin to Padme just doesn't take in the context of these mythic stories. So the answer then is people would be fine if Anakin's physical choke-attack killed Padme but the spiritual and soul wounding doesn't work?

Nothing was rewritten. That rewriting was done by others based on what they wanted it to be. The fact is that Leia remembers her mother as images and feelings.

Yet you called them his children like she was out of the story equation when she clearly isn't. Padme's presence is intrinsically within the OT now due to her children which it wasn't before just as Anakin's face is behind the mask of Vader all through the OT where it wasn't before.

Exactly. Everything in the PT around Anakin is earned in the story. This is no Rey to Ren situation which is utterly bizarre and unearned at all levels.

 

Padme isn’t a real person, so no it’s not a personal failing on her part. It’s a failure of the writing.

Agree to disagree. I take the story the way it was presented. GL wanted to convey the message that Padme died of a broken heart over Anakin while delivering Luke and Leia. He thought there was great “symbolism” in that. I think he fridged a great character that deserved better.

 

I just don't buy that being depressive or suicidal means you're a weak person. Padme is a person who cares and feels much more deeply than other people. It's part of what drives her to fight for what she feels is right no matter the risk to herself. She's very much like Anakin in that way.

But the flipside of caring and feeling so deeply is that an overwhelming personal tragedy can destroy her. Anakin isn't just some guy. He's her husband. He's someone she loved deeply, more than anything. She pledged an oath to him tying their fates together until the bitter end. His soul is a part of her soul. And that soul became corrupted into something horribly, monstrously evil--like a poison.

This is an epic medieval romance. It's Shakespeare. It's not a Lifetime original movie. Lucas had only one obligation, and that was to the story. It wasn't his responsibility to make sure Padme conformed perfectly to every single item on the Strong 21st Century Woman Character checklist. Padme doesn't have to represent all women, or the Ideal Woman, or whatever. She just has to be true to her own character. And she was. That's who Padme is. She's someone who puts the weight of other people's salvation on her shoulders and bears their pain in her own heart. She's done it ever since she was 14 years old and she never stopped even for a moment, and eventually the weight got to be too much, and she became a martyr to suffering.

The tragedy of Padme is that she was always so busy fighting to put others' souls at ease that she never took the time to look after her own. She never took a break, physically or emotionally. That's not good for a person.

 

We’re talking about fiction, not real life mental illness. I’m not watching SW for a lesson in post-partum depression. From the second the PT was announced, I was excited to learn more about Luke and Leia’s mother. I was excited to hear the missing part of the story and what she was willing to do for the survival of her children, despite what happened to their father. It was an entire plot thread that I couldn’t wait for that I can only assume never even occurred to GL based on what we got. The importance of fatherhood never gets overlooked in SW, but motherhood? Meh.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it agin. The idea that a strong woman in love totally loses herself in her husband comes off to me like a man’s idea of how a woman in love thinks. There are codependent women out there. They aren’t like the Padme that was introduced in TPM. That doesn’t mean they can’t fall in love. It means they have their own identity and values and they don’t need that man to survive. Padme didn’t need Anakin. It’s character assassination to portray her as needing him just to up the ante in Anakin’s tragedy.

If Padme was always fighting for others, she would have fought for her children first. In fact, I believe if she was written in character, she would have been fighting for her children first and foremost throughout RotS. She wouldn’t have spent that movie whining about Anakin. Padme is a fighter for what’s right. She’s protective of those she loves. That should have been reflected in the story with her children.

 

It was though and what's more as again clearly seen in the movies Anakin and Padme joined into one. He died and she died at the same time. Actually she died then he died right after as the one lead to the other. Anakin died physically then she did then her spirit was gone and transferred to the children and he died spiritually only to be revived by their children which means she and the galaxy live again.

By the end of ROTS both of them are dead and then both live again through their children when Anakin is brought back to life and so is Padme.

This is mythic storytelling.

I go back to what you said and many others over the years have said before as they would seem to prefer Padme "staying alive" through the end of ROTS (setting aside all the story problems that would create), then fading away between movies as somehow preferable as opposed to investing her story starkly and dramatically in the OT through the PT and the ending of ROTS.

She wouldn’t have spent that movie whining about Anakin. Padme is a fighter for what’s right. She’s protective of those she loves. That should have been reflected in the story with her children.

She didn't spend the movie "whining" at all. That is actual relatable human reaction to everything that happened after she found out Anakin had turned to the Dark side. She did fight and protect and that is reflected in the story with her children.

Yes that is what the story is telling us. One can interpret it in many ways but the character, story and related thematic message is there.

Obviously though for many people they'd rather that she simply get physical injuries that kill her which to me is far too ordinary for the myth of Star Wars and the mother of Luke and Leia.

 

The importance of motherhood overlooked in the Star Wars prequel trilogy? You must be joking.

Star Wars is a story about the real world, but couched in fantasy. That's why Padme doesn't literally suffer from post-partum depression, and she doesn't literally commit suicide. Instead, her grief saps away her life-force and she dies from heartbreak. That's what happens in fairy tales. But it's a metaphor for something that can happen in our world.

It's not about a woman losing herself in her husband. It's about how people truly, deeply in love with each other--like, intensely, passionately, dangerously in love--can end up destroying each other with that love. Did you forget what Anakin's story is all about? He completely loses himself in his love for Padme, destroys the universe, and essentially kills himself after he loses her forever, locking his body away in an unfeeling shell of metal just so he doesn't have to feel the pain of not being with her. May I point out that Anakin is a man?

You just can't seem to accept that she truly, deeply loved Anakin, and never stopped loving him. When you love someone like that, you can't just get over it. In a very real way, Anakin was a child she fought for. He was that sweet little boy she first knew on Tatooine. And look what it turned into.

The fact is, Padme couldn't be there for her children. It's unbelievably tragic. But it doesn't make her a bad person. It makes her a weak person in that moment, but we all become weak sometimes. The prequel trilogy is a tragedy. All the characters fail, and they fail catastrophically. Some of them don't make it out alive. Their failures destroy them. That's the story.

 

No I’m not joking. I wanted to know about Luke and Leia’s mother. I wanted to know what she was willing to do for her children. I wasn’t desperate to learn about Vader’s mother (although Shmi is happily one of my favorite things about the PT)

Vomit. That’s all I can say to this. I’m happy it appeals to you and it works for you but it does neither for me. Fairy tales are chalk full of human mothers showing motherly love in mythical ways. SW sure isn’t when it comes to Padme.

Anakin fell to the dark side because of many things, not just Padme. He’s force sensitive and thus susceptible. That’s not a thing in Padme’s story. She just became a cliche.

Again, vomit. Padme was a mother at that point. I’m a happily married wife and a devoted mother. I understand love of husband and I understand love of children. Anakin wasn’t her child. I’ve dated men that like to be babied by women. I’m not into it. I certainly don’t want to watch it, and even if I did, it in no way suits Padme’s character with her personality as introduced in TPM.

Padme could have been there for her children, based on the story, if losing Anakin didn’t sap her will to live. GL wrote her as weak and narcissistic in the end. Anakin was all that mattered in life to her. Then GL passed her children off on a room of men to decide what their fates would be.

 

Given what we know of her character of the past two films, her just dying because hubby became evil after giving birth to two babies is...actually pretty out-of-character for her. Maybe she becomes jaded and cynical, but I was led to believe she would keep fighting.

Hell, Obi-Wan literally lost his entire family, and the Republic he once swore his life to defend was perverted into an Empire, the man he once raised as his own son was the reason behind all that and is currently limbless and likely a charred corpse, but we don’t see him ramming his own lightsaber through his chest. If Obi-Wan could find a way to live in spite of all that, Padmé sure as **** could.

Yes, people do die of broken hearts. Yes, there’s only so much **** a person can take before they just break and can’t go on. Padmé’s character in the first two films spoke to me as someone who would trudge on. You know Leia Organa in the Sequel Trilogy? That’s who Padmé should’ve been in this movie. That’s what Padmé was in the first two movies.

 

I'm so conflicted about this.
@The_Phantom_Calamari makes some great points (and has been on several threads of late might I add), but maybe ROTS does do Padme a great disservice if I'm being honest.

I would argue in the PT characterisation's defence that remember Anakin also metaphorically dies as a result of the events of the film, it isn't shown as something exclusive to a female.

 

She did keep fighting though. What some people seem to hold against her is that she died at all. Yet obviously she was long dead by the time of the OT but for whatever reason that seems to be alright as long as it's offscreen.

I can't see the connect of withering away offscreen preferable as opposed to going out fighting and giving birth to her children onscreen exerting herself.

Except Obi-Wan is a Jedi who can detach himself from those events and has trained for that all his life. He grieves yes but he can set it aside. Padme is not a Jedi. Her whole point seem in the PT is that she feels deeply. She is attached to Naboo, the Republic, Anakin and everything in her life. She has incredible willpower often and will do her duty but she is effected. She's lost more than Anakin but the entire galaxy of freedom and democracy. It's all gone and Anakin says he did it all for her.

The first two movies succinctly set up the third. Padme has spent her entire life helping others but now it was her time to have her own life with her family and that is destroyed and everything she ever worked for is destroyed. As talked about earlier she and Anakin die together. Does any mother want to leave her children behind? No but sometimes there is no choice in the matter.

Again mythic storytelling. She and Anakin become one. He died and she died. She died and he died.

I don't see why this is taken by some as commentary on 'weakness' of females. Anakin is clearly the weaker of the two between himself and Padme. She is far stronger. She dies as Padme and goes to "heaven" while Anakin dies, becomes Vader and descends to hell.

For whatever reason there is some stance that Padme is weak but Anakin is strong and this is tied into sex as opposed to the actual story where Padme is clearly stronger and Anakin weaker. This reading that Padme is enslaved to love and subservient to Anakin simply isn't in the movies. She is in love with him, wants to save him and in total desperation even asks him to run away with him and forget everything (even though she knows that is never going to work because of what he has done).

To me it seems that showing characters who have stories and actions that are consistent and have virtues and flaws that lead to successes and failures up to and including their demise is a problem for many.

I guess for many seeing heroes die means they are weak unless they get physically cut down.

 

@Qui-Riv-Brid

I agree with a lot of what you said.
But I think perhaps the questionable execution doesn't help.

The poetic aspect is shown well, yes, with Vader's construction juxtaposed to Padme giving birth and her death.
And I do think some critics are underplaying the extent to that which is lost in this film, for Padme, for the galaxy, for Anakin.
Padme is really a symbol of the once noble Republic, and even of the good in the galaxy itself. If the Republic dies it makes sense that Padme cannot continue on.
And I have long agreed Padme and Anakin have an implied symbiotic link, take it or leave it, one cannot exist without the other. This is of course actually reinforced by how we see Vader in the OT. I do agree with those that describe their relationship as co-dependent, but still loving, until the state of it devolves.

The way Padme's ultimate end plays out on screen is a little weaker though.
It isn't really explained very well, just the medical droid saying she is physically healthy but has lost the will to live - this could have been expressed better in a different way.
In a universe where the force exists at all I think we are supposed to suspect that there is more to it, something unstated, but it relies too heavily on your own experience or reading of the meaning to get the point across.
I don't think she is weak, she seems to be struggling to give birth, and just to get the twin's names out, like the universe is fighting against her even to achieve this.
Like has been stated, it is a tragedy. All characters in the trilogy are in some way inherently flawed. Padme is just closer to the loss than most. I would agree Anakin's physical prowess dilutes some viewer's perception that he is presented as the truly weaker of the two lovers.

I love the film, and the final scenes are a really good tie in to the welcome happier ending of A New Hope.
But it does seem they rushed aspects of Padme's storyline at the very end.

 

I really don't see how in the context of what Lucas wanted to communicate unless he simply dropped any dialogue connected to it whatsoever.

Lucas is very specific that his movies exist in the visuals and music (of which the death of Padme and Anakin and birth of Vader is one of the high points of cinematic history).

Dialogue is there for support and to convey information that can be outright exposition to itself being cues to other visual narrative devices within the saga or ideas, themes or whatever device he needs to tie them to.

Who he has say what is important. So a non-living droid talking about losing the will to live is different than Yoda saying it. "Well, if droids could think, there'd be none of us here, would there?" Lucas has Obi-Wan say in AOTC. Does that mean anything to ROTS or not? Maybe, maybe not. We see how Lucas crosses and ties between the movies.

Our experience of his story though. You take out what you put in. Like his camera work Lucas allows the viewer to extract what they may. You don't have to look at the details if you don't want to. It allows for different levels of participation. Hence the difference between those who see the movies a time or two to those who see them dozens of times.

She is dying but fighting to save her children and name them thereby giving them her spirit. Now if she was limp or dead already and they had to get the kids out surgically and then the Jedi named them then I would agree that she was done a disservice but that didn't happen.

Many people actually think Vader was stronger in the armor when actually the point is that he's far, far weaker.

 

About Padme,

The reason I think RotS does her a bit of disservice is partly that she lacks agency in the film.
She is more of a plot device than her own character.
She is there to provide a) the impetus for Anakin to turn to Palpatine and b) give birth to Luke and Leia.
And once both jobs are done, she is no longer needed and dies.

About the "Lost the will to live" bit.
The dialogue is in the film and so it is totally fair for people to interpret this as Padme giving up, not wanting to live any longer etc.
Maybe that is not what Lucas intended but the dialogue is there.
If the idea was to make her death mysterious or ambiguous, remove that line.
Simply have the droid say, "She is healthy but for some reason we can't understand, she is dying."
There, now the cause of death is not given and people can infer what they want.

Some comments;
@Qui-Riv-Brid

I have said this before, this devalues and diminishes Luke as a character.
Now his insight into his father is not really his, it is his mothers that is just put there for some reason.
So he didn't do anything, it was all Padme.
Why must Luke be Padme, why can't he be his own character and have his own unique insights?
Why must his actions be reduced to other peoples actions or insights?

To me, this isn't making the story better, it makes it weaker and it weakens the main character in the OT.

Also, Anakin NEVER died, NEVER went away.
RotJ makes that very clear. Anakin was always there under the Vader mask.
He might not want to admit it himself but Luke saw the truth and managed to get Anakin to realize it as well.
So any argument that both Anakin and Padme "died" does not work because Anakin never died, either literally or metaphorically.

Wrong, Lucas wrote that the mother survived and that Leia did spend time with her mother.
The film makes it pretty clear and the novelization, which is based on the script, makes it 100% clear.
So don't try to blame the audience here.
If you read the novelization, you would have every reason to think that Luke and Leia's mother would live for a few years after giving birth.
And even if you watch just the film, the message is quite clear, Leia REMEMBERS her mother.
What she looked like, when she died, how she was like and how she was like TO her.
The simplest, most logical and most obvious way to interpret this is for Leia to have lived a few years with her mother before her mothers death.
And that was what Lucas had in mind at the time.
And then he changed his mind, why is that so hard to accept?

Bye.
Blackboard Monitor