PT Defending Anakin and the Tusken

This is completely untrue and a pretty blatant strawman. The problem isn’t that she died. The problem is she died because she lost the will to live over Anakin while delivering two babies.

Uh huh, and where is her attachment to her children in the writing?

Literally GL did present it as a question of Padme’s will, therefore there was choice. Everything Padme worked for wasn’t destroyed at that point. She had two healthy babies that were her responsibility. She and Anakin didn’t die together. Anakin made a terrible choice and he suffered the consequences for that, alive. Padme became a codependent cliche, abandoning her children in the process. This isn’t post-partum. This is a fairy tale where GL thought emphasizing Padme’s love for Anakin over her role as a mother provided better symbolism to the story.

They didn’t become one. Anakin has magical powers that make emotional attachment dangerous. Padme doesn’t. Their stories are different. Mythic story telling is big on maternal love. Maternal love doesn’t even make an appearance in this story. Padme doesn’t even get to decide her own children’s fate. That’s GL being oblivious to her side of the story.

It’s not about female weakness. Padme is not a real person and her death is fantasy. It’s about how GL, a man, chose to write a strong, tough woman with a clearly defined moral core as being completely helpless without her mass murdering husband. It’s about how that male writer denied her character any agency as a mother in a story that is defined by the power of father/son love.

Anakin is far weaker. He always was. That doesn’t change the fact that he had a complex path to the dark side that was fraught with loss and struggle, and he had that Achilles heel in the first place. For the non-force sensitive among us, falling in love doesn’t render strong, independent fighters totally incapable of life without the object of romantic affection. Padme was a mother the second she found out she was pregnant, and the script never had her take charge and start acting like it.

 

The cause of Padme's death is not given to us. The medical droid doesn't know how or why she is dying, only that she is dying.

Droid: "Medically, she's completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her."
Obi-Wan: "She's dying?"
Droid: "We don't know why."

She flatlines at the moment Vader is reborn. Palpatine tells Vader that he(Vader) killed her in his anger.

We don't the exact cause of her death, but there are a number of ideas, all equally possible.
-She died of grief
-Vader killed her
-Palpatine killed her
-a combination of these three factors

If all of these are equally possible, and equally hinted at, then we can't choose the one we don't like and criticize the author for it.

Edit: If she died of grief, then it's not simply over Anakin, but everything that has happened, and it all being her fault, or at least she would see it that way. Her beloved Republic is dead. Her friend and advisor is the most evil and powerful man in the galaxy, and now rules as emperor. Her husband has destroyed the Jedi, the only people that can stand up to this emperor. It's like the most terrible nightmare Padme could ever envision.
If she died of grief, she cannot control her body from shutting down. It's not in her power to just "live." You speak as though it were some kind of suicide. She appears to be in agony as she dies.

It's equally possible that Palpatine killed her, or Vader killed her, as Palpatine states. Palpatine has the motive, means, and because of his means, the opportunity, and the movie even hints at it.

 

You left off the most important line of dialogue from the droid:

That line of dialogue points to a very specific cause of death, and nothing in the actual script besides head canon and fan desire points to any other cause of death.

If she died because Vader or Sheev killed her, there’s no reason to imply she died as a cliche. Just put it in the script.

 

And you ignored the droid flat out telling us that he doesn't frickin know. If he doesn't know, he simply doesn't know. He also says "for reasons we can't explain" so by any logic "she's lost the will to live" in context, is not an explanation.

Ummm...what?

Palpatine: "It seems, that in your anger, you killed her" (then he smiles)
That line is in the actual script.

 

So what is it then? Just a statement of fact that she lost the will to live, and that loss of will isn’t causing her death?

Except he didn’t. We saw it. Padme was medically fine after Anakin harmed her in anger. What you seem to be reading into it is that Anakin killed her as he was reborn as Vader, and that takes writing for the script imo. It’s not in the movie. I wish it was because it would been a dignified death for Padme. Even there, there’s no reason GL couldn’t have given her a moment with her twins and some agency in deciding their fate.

 

The droid states that they don't know what's wrong with her, and don't have an explanation for what is causing her to die. Those are the only facts we have from him.

I'm not implying either. I'm saying that the movie is intentionally ambiguous on the cause of her death, and that's okay.

Also, Padme dies still believing there is good in Anakin.

 

This is fiction. GL included the line of dialogue about Padme losing the will to live on purpose. He wanted that concept conveyed. There’s a reason lots of people that like the scene have no problem with that explanation for Padme’s death. There is an amount of (totally unappealing to me) “romantic” symbolism in it.

I don’t think the cause of death is ambiguous. Sheev lies to Vader to torment him. There is no foreshadowing in the prequels that it’s even possible for a force user across the galaxy to unknowingly or knowingly steal the life force of someone else in some unknown place in the galaxy.

Ambiguity in a film is one thing. Actually writing ambiguity intentionally for a film is another. If GL wanted to convey the message that Padme somehow was killed by Anakin and/or Sheev in order to give life to Vader, hint that explicitly. It could be ambiguous in the how, but there is zero reason in that story to make the most plausible explanation for her death, the one that’s stated by her doctor, to be dying as a sexist cliche.

 

I don't read it like this, let me try and explain.

Anakin, from the point he turns up until the end of ROTS, always has this conflict - between himself as Vader and the good remaining in him. It's a conflict he has arguably been having since AOTC; but it was only a spark of Vader when he lost his mother and took revenge, he was still Anakin after that. When he pledges to Palpatine in ROTS though, he is quite consciously letting Vader become the dominant persona... basically he is letting Vader take control because he feels it will serve his goals. As Palpatine hints in his first orders to Vader, as Vader kills without hesitation or mercy the voice of his conscience will gradually become less and less.
But when Anakin/Vader hears it was all for nothing - Padme is dead and he is a cripple - the conflict disappears, there is no reason for any conflict anymore.
Vader thinks his kid(s) died with Padme, so with nothing left to live for besides the dark side he submits to it. The voice Lucas describes Vader as internally having during ROTS ("What am I doing?!?") is now gone, not to return until the discovery of a son after ANH. As you would have noticed; the conflict leading him to turn to the darkside begins when he can't stop someone he loves leaving his life (Shmi), the conflict leading him to be redeemed begins when someone he could potentially love returns.
You're observation that he isn't admitting he is still Anakin beneath the mask I would agree with, but to me this only truly applies again after ANH.

This explanation fits to me very well with the progression of the character - Vader from the "Noooo!" and throughout ANH is dead inside, there is no conflict. (Though ironically by the time he actually addresses this out loud to Luke in ROTJ, he is now actually heavily conflicted and just won't admit it). Palpatine pulled him in one direction and now Luke is pulling him back. He hasn't reflected on this stuff in years, it was buried, and Luke's existence is reminding him. A spark of Vader in losing Shmi, a spark of Anakin in discovering Luke.
Selfless love in PT Anakin devolves into selfish greed (from loving Padme to basically wanting her to join him as Vader) then selfish desire to possess Luke as a trophy apprentice eventually evolves into selfless love once more.
As we know in reality ANH was not written originally with Vader having any remaining good because he wasn't originally a fallen Skywalker, but this alternatively works with that quite well. The first time it is really apparent to the audience is his reaction to failing to turn or capture Luke in ESB. It stuns him when Luke rejects him and leaps to possible death on Bespin. He hadn't considered in a long time there could be a way different to what he was doing. His final scene in the film also reflecting this when he loses the Falcon and simply storms off without saying anything.

That might sound a little convoluted, but watching the films it makes a lot of sense that the conflict is non-existent until Vader discovers he has a son.

 

I think that is a little harsh. There are a few moments in the film where she sounds excited and determined to be a mother.


The first time she mentions it Padme describes it as "Something wonderful has happened."

Then there is this:
"Ani, I want to have our baby back home on Naboo. We can go to the Lake country, where we can be safe. I can go early and fix up the baby's room. I know the perfect spot, right by the gardens."

After Anakin's dream:
"You die in childbirth."
"And the baby?" *holding her belly*
"I don't know."

When Anakin reminds her of the dream she defiantly states:
"I'm not going to die in childbirth Ani, I promise you!"

And on Mustafar:
"Come away with me. Help me raise our child. Leave everything behind while we still can!"

She sounded attached to her unborn children to me.

 

Just a side note: It's true he wasn't written that way in a A New Hope, but that doesn't mean it wasn't planned, even if you reject Lucas's claim that he had the father twist in mind already. Remember that in the original 1974 Rough Draft, the Sith Knight Valorum is redeemed by the hero at the end, and even in the story conference tapes with Leigh Brackett, Lucas describes Vader as conflicted:

“Vader is completely consumed by the evil side of the Force. He is an instrument of the Force rather than having his own free will in terms of what he does. He really is driven by the Force. When we kill him off in the next one, we’ll reveal what he really is. He wants to be human—he’s still fighting in his own way the dark side of the Force. He doesn’t want to be a bad man, but he is. He can’t resist it. He’s struggling somehow to get out of what he is, struggling with his humanity.

I think it's likely that a redemptive arc was always in the offing for Vader if there were sequels. It was part of the original story, after all.

Yes, Padme died of a broken heart, not from having her life-force sapped away by some unexplained Sith Force power. The movie makes that clear. At least we agree on one thing! I'll write more later.

 

By all means, please point out where the movie makes this clear.

 

The medical droid straight-up tells us that Padme has lost the will to live. This is exposition. We're given absolutely no reason to doubt this, let alone to suspect that Sidious is using some never-explained, never-again-shown, narrative-breaking Force power to kill a perfectly medically healthy person from light-years away. It's a ridiculous theory.

 

The droid Straight up says it has no idea, and no explanation. How can you people simply ignore that? I'm not offering any other theory, but repeatedly stating that the movie does not give us a firm answer either way. It is ambiguous.

You can try to ignore it, but it's right there:
"Medically, she's completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her."
"We don't know why"

Unless you throw that away, you can't suddenly take "she's losing the will to live" as an objective contextual medical assessment. That's ludicrous.

Please show where Padme herself indicates that she has given up on living, or lost the will to live, or even given up on Anakin.

 

I don't remember reading that quote, that is pretty interesting.

On a side note, when I first saw the OT ('97 with the SE), Vader being redeemed came kind of out of left-field. I didn't know what to make of it, as a kid I was actually a little weirded out lol.

I also don't like that theory, honestly. It is too direct, Palpatine didn't do everything, you have to chalk some of it up to fate.

 

But you have the line about "Lost the will to live."
Why is that there if not to convey some information?

The droid says that Padme has lost the will to live.
Why say that if it is not related to what is going on?

The droid answer the question, "She's dying" with "Lost the will to live" and "don't know."

Either the droid has no answer why she is dying and then proceeds to give an answer.
Which is rather strange writing.
"I don't know where the Police Station is. It is on the corner of 5th and Main St."
This would not make sense.

Or the droid has determined the cause to why she is dying, "Lost the will to live" but does not know why.
Like there being no physical injury or trauma that could cause this.
So the droid can not say why she has lost the will to live but the lost will is why she is dying.

Or the droid is just making a guess.
That seems a bit odd, why would a droid doctor make a guess about cause of death?
Simply say "We can't explain why she is dying." and leave it at that.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

To be honest, ‘lost the will to live’ sounds like philosophical stuff that I don’t think a medical droid would’ve been programmed to know. Saying something like, “There are no obvious sign of trauma to explain this, yet she is dying.”

 

@Samuel Vimes

I wouldn't mind a response to yesterday's post, even if you completely disagree.
I made a fairly solid argument for Anakin metaphorically dying in ROTS, a rebuttal would be welcome.

 

While the Sidious drained Padme's lifeforce to save Vader is intriguing the actual onscreen story is telling us that Padme dies as Anakin dies and Vader is born. After taking the mantle of Darth Vader Anakin starts to slip away into the dark and Padme becomes weaker and weaker but still has the strength to fight on but then he gets to the final physical transformation and she dies, her spirit continues on in the children then finally Anakin's spirit follows.

In dialogue support we go from:

Medically, she's completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her.

We don't know why. She has lost the will to live.

Then Lucas give us the explanation:

Lord Vader. Can you hear me?

Yes, Master.

Where is Padme? Is she safe? Is she all right?

It seems, in your anger, you killed her.

Nothing startling there as obviously Anakin becoming Darth Vader is what killed Padme so then it's about the interpretation on how exactly that happened in the layering and to degree of mythic interpretation one can apply within a series where the Force exists.

Obviously as discussed many would have preferred a simply overt physical Force choke injury as the explanation. Lucas contemplated that but presumably decided that was far too mundane. He went out of his way to accentuate that medically she was "completely healthy".

Having a droid say she lost the will to live is interesting especially in a trilogy that so often talked about the Will of the Force.

I would agree with that overall assessment. Lucas crafts his dialogue very specifically within and across the movies to a level of detail that is quite amazing. So his words are carefully chosen.

As I've said Padme and Anakin die as Vader and the twins are being born so that is the painted picture. The question is what exactly gets us there.

The question isn't if Vader's anger killed her but how best to apply that. Once again Lucas could have made it the Force choke with no difficulty but he took that off the table which then points toward a more mystical and spritual/Force based interpretation.

 

Sorry, didn't mean to ignore you.
I just needed to think a bit to get across how I feel.

First let me start with I have only read one novelization, for Star Wars, the first film.
So I am going only on the films here.
Second, I mainly use what Luke says in RotJ, that Anakin is Vader's true name, that he has just forgotten.
Or perhaps wanted to forget.
And Anakin later says that Luke was right about him.

So basically, Anakin never went away, never "died", never had his soul sucked out of him, was never "frozen in time" or "Trapped inside a Dark Side prison."

What I think happened is this, Anakin, like most people had good qualities and less good qualities.
He was kind, helpful and generous. But he also had a side that like attention and adulation.
He had a "The ends justify the means" mindset when he was bit older.
Which can be good but can also turn really bad.

What happens to Anakin as he gets older and his emotions starts to run away with him. He is unable to let go off his attachment to his mother and can't conquer his fear of loosing her.
So that fear and also anger starts to poison his mind.
What this does is feeding his bad qualities and his good qualities becomes less prominent.

There is also what I call the "Venom" of the Dark Side.
This corrupts and corrodes your mind/soul and does an even worse job of heightening your worst qualities and drowns your good impulses.

So to me, Vader is not a different person than Anakin not would I call him a different persona.
What I would call them is sides to the overall person that is Anakin Skywalker.

So Anakin goes through a partly gradual change from TPM to say the first third of RotS.
His good side/good qualities becomes less and less part of his overall mindset and his bad qualities start to take over more and more.
He is still Anakin but one who has changed, has a different viewpoint, values, morals etc.

Then the turn happens and now the change goes much quicker as now the "Venom" of the Dark side is really taking it's toll on Anakin's mind and soul.
Now his morals and values change very quickly and he changes a lot as a person.
But he is still Anakin.

After the suit and all that, now the "good side" of Anakin is now almost fully drowned under a sea of anger, hate and dark side "Venom".
He is twisted and very evil.
But his good side is still there, deep down.
So he now fully embraces his Vader name and want to forget as much about Anakin as possible.
Because it hurts too much and because he sees him as weak.

It is not something that he acts on, nor do I think he gives it much thought.
The conflict is there, he has just done a through job of trying to bury it.
Luke reawakens it, now feelings he had thought he had gotten rid off, now make themselves know again.
He feels things he probably does not want to feel.

Vader does not not think highly of the person he used to be and now prefers not to think about that.
So when Luke prods him, he reacts.
He tries to pretend that Anakin is dead and gone but he is wrong.

Kylo Ren also looks down on the person he used to be and he is willing to do anything to rid himself of that side of him.
But he can't, so he is in considerable conflict and he wants control, to rid himself of those pesky emotions.
And so he gets the idea that he does enough evil, he will get that control. But the opposite is true.

Vader did a better job of keeping that conflict down, at least until Luke.
But I don't think it ever was truly gone.

I think it was like how Anakin tried to deal with his attachment to his mother.
He was told to get rid of it, that as a proper Jedi, he should not have those feelings or that attachment.
But he never could, all he did do was to bury it and pretend it wasn't there.
But when his dreams about his mother started and then got worse, those feelings came back.
And then when she died under horrible circumstances, those feelings exploded in hate, violence and death.

So I think Vader did the same thing, he could not totally rid himself of the conflict, he just buried it.
But it wasn't gone and came out later.

And when Vader does turn back, he lets go if his hate and his anger and be purges himself of the dark side "Venom".
He still has less good sides to him as a person. He has just managed to get them under control and let his good qualities rise to the top.
And this is just me, but I think he was a better person and a better Jedi at the end, than he had been since before AotC.
That younger version of himself could not let go, could not really handle his anger and was afraid to loose things. He was never at peace, had not been enlightened.
At the end, old Anakin managed to do that, to let go, of fear and anger and accept death as a natural part of life. He was at peace at last.

So to sum up, Anakin's character changed, quite a lot even, but he was always Anakin.
He tried to pretend that he was not, that he was no longer that person but he was, deep down.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Appreciate the response.

Most of everything you said rings true for me.
I don't know, my subjective interpretation is kind of a mix of your stance but with elements of the view Anakin was indeed kind of "frozen in time". Something that begins when he pledges and then semi-permanently sets in when Padme dies.
I know this is not neccessarilly fully implied by the films, but it makes the films work better for me.

One of the things I agree with you on that kind of contradicts my stance a little is Anakin appearing to Luke at the end of ROTJ. I prefer the original Shaw ghost largely because of what you said - the Anakin that dies after redeeming himself has had an epiphany young Anakin never did even when he was a good person.
It's a wisdom that Anakin, except at the very end, could never truly achieve. His inability to see this at any stage in the PT is the crux of his turn, afterall.
And while I see Anakin in TPM as 100% a good person, his (completely understandable) fear for his mother and fear of change, plus just his youth itself, means like you say he can't comprehend that which he does when he, much later, lets go of everything to keep his son alive. Anakin of course is focusing largely internally in AOTC and ROTS, ROTJ representing that he is letting something more important than himself occur, regardless of what it means for him.

But ANH Vader... I don't know, I just see little sign of any kind of conflict. Even one he has had practice consciously burying, even though that makes perfect sense as well with where his story ultimately goes. I couldn't see this era of Vader shedding a tear for slain victims like he does on Mustafar, in the OT the Rebels (and sometimes even other Imperial officers) just seem like an inconvenience and a pest to him.
I have heard it argued that he still has some "Anakin" in him because he talks of the power of the force being bigger than the ability to simply destroy an entire planet.
But this to me shows more of a respect for the power of the force itself. Something inherently similar to the Jedi and the Sith being their respect for the force, even though they approach it in different ways (the Jedi submitting to it, the Sith wanting to conquer it). It is something left over from his training, yes, as I'm sure Anakin would think similar in the PT.
But I don't see it as a real sign of any good.

Agreed on the corrupting effect of the "venom" of the dark side, and the fact that after this has taken hold Vader no longer want see himself as the same person, sees "Anakin" as weak and connected to his past pain. It may seem odd coming from an Anakin fan, but I think Yoda is actually correct to say of turning "forever will it dominate your destiny", yet wrong only in this one unique instance because "Anakin" was gone, and would never return without Luke's influence, for anything in the galaxy. I do think when Yoda says similar to Obi-Wan of Anakin in ROTS he was being close minded - at this stage there may have been a chance to bring him back, but it is basically lost along with Padme.

I see ROTJ Vader at his most conflicted since ROTS (the opposite conflict of course). Luke is wearing away at him with his passivity and optimism, but this at most just makes Vader regretful at where it has to go (one or more of the The Emperor, Vader, or Luke having to die). He is still locked in. Look at how long he takes to save Luke from the Emperor's torture. Something internal is going on, an awakening caused by Luke sparing his life after everything Vader has done. In my reading he is basically being resurrected here. But that's just me.

 

Lucas didn't go to the trouble of writing "She's lost the will to live" just for fun. He's giving us the reason for her death. The droids are puzzled bcs there's none of the usual physical symptoms that would cause someone to die.

 

If the Droids don't know the cause of her death, then they can't know the cause of her death.


It's not like we get this scene from Padme:



"My love has forsaken me! I have naught a life to live to live for! Into the dark abyss I shall cast myself, away from this cruel world, and embrace the darkness of death!"

 

Neither Palpatine or Vader have ever shown the ability to kill with the Force in a way that leaves no signs. A force choke would lead to asphyxiation (which a medical droid would surely be able to recognise given human coroners certainly can) and zapping with lightning certainly leaves plenty of evidence. We've yet to see them just ''will'' someone to death, so I think we can rule out either of the two Sith being directly responsible for killing Padme, even if Anakin's actions were a large part in many ways.

 

Again;
MEDICAL DROID

Medically, she is completely healthy. For reasons we can’t explain, we are losing her.

OBI-WAN

She’s dying?

MEDICAL DROID

We don’t know why. She has lost the will to live. We need to operate quickly if we are to save the babies.

This line is IN the film.
If it does not mean anything then why is it there?

As I said above, either the droids means "I don't know why she is dying, it is because X.
Which does not make much sense because it says that it does not know followed directly by saying that it DOES know.

Or the droid is making a totally random comment;
"She is dying and we don't know why, coat hangers!"
Which makes even less sense.

Or the droid has determined why she is dying, "She had lost the will to live" but can't understand why.
There is no visible trauma, no obvious medical symptoms that could cause this.

Of the three, this makes the most amount of sense.
The droid can see that she is dying and the cause is loss of will to live. But it can't explain or understand why Padme has lost the will to live.

Bye.
Old Stoneface

 

I dig the irony that Anakin was wooed by the lure of creating life/saving Padme, when he created life himself with Luke and Leia, and helped kill their mother instead.