Planned or not: Why did Padme get pregnant?

I think it went down like in the film "Knocked Up".

 

That was exactly Padme's argument in the ROTS novel. She says something like "This is Coruscant, Ani. Women don't die in childbirth here, and my medical droid says I'm perfectly healthy."

 

I don't believe they planned to get pregnant, although I wouldn't go with the theory they were actively trying not to get pregnant. Star Wars doesn't strike me as a world where birth control would be something utilised. I know its scientifically advanced and all, but it also it harkens back to a more dated, principled style. They feel like period pieces, so in that sense, I dont think birth control is really that plausible. I know its 3 years since Anakin and Padme have been married, but we must remember that with the clone wars, they've probably hardly spent any time together since they were married. So I'm not implying Anakin's been firing blanks all that time either

Yet it does happen. Anakin's vision is justified. He is seeing the future... albeit a very twisted future that he would ultimately cause, purely by attempting to prevent it actually occurring at all.

 

Why does this make me picture Anakin's sperm exiting his body and flying around like sentinels?

[image=http://www.albinjohnson.com/cool/robots/robots3/matrix-sentinels.jpg]

I see someone hasn't had that special talk with their daddy...

No more plausible than artificial limbs...

 

Of course its not technologically implausible. I wasnt reasoning that. I was reasoning its more of a stylistic implausibility, given the way the characters are presented.

 

Could you be more specific?

 

well in our world, birth control is a very run-of-the-mill ordinary and thus mundane element within our lives... although a neccessary one for the overall societies we live in. but in star wars, which of course shows us wonderful technological things unseen in our world, its all juxtaposed as part of a more romanticised, classical tale. for it to engage the concept of something so generic to us as a society (and some might argue immoral) either on or off screen would, for me, remove that classical, period feel (which isnt really ruined by things like light speed, lightsabers or any other technological things way off in the future, because they are nothing like what we have here in our normality). star wars so brilliantly mixes fantastical concepts with long forgotten styles and principles. engaging such a hypothesis and imagining it to be more like our present day for such trivial things just makes it a little bit less magical. does that make any sense? i dont know lol. its probably just me. i just couldnt imagine it as part of the concept or at play in the background, thats all.

"maybe im going crazy"

 

Like in real life, birth control is not used and then when one becomes pregnant, its a surprise?? hello. They probably didnt even think about it. Afterthought.

 

i'd have measured the predominant response of Anakin to be one of concern rather than surprise, or indeed quizzical of how their methods had failed. and we cant measure padme's reaction because she's known for some time.

if the star wars world employs all our own everyday methods on these matters, it does beg the question why the couple wouldn't consider abortion - if its unwanted, of great threat to both their careers and during a terrible time of turmoil for the galaxy. again, maybe this is just not a concept thats really at play in the star wars world.

anyway, for diplomacy sake, i guess i'll accept they could have been using the rhythm method

 

We don't know the culture of the GFFA or Naboo/Tatooine specifically and whether contraceptives are even utilized. Now I can understand Anakin not even considering such a thing if it even exists. The guy was raised in the Temple and the only birth control he'd know is to keep it in his pants, which he failed at doing. If he knew about artificial contraception, he would be too reckless to use it. It was probably a major effort just to get him to use a seat belt on a Jedi starfighter .

So it falls on Padmé. Someone as bright and as savvy as she is wouldn't dare risk pregnancy, would she? Well, I did write in a fan fic a few years ago that Padmé decides to leave it all up to fate because deep down, she did want a child. She feared Anakin might get killed in battle and she'd never have the child she wanted with him. This is actually a fairly common thing among women whose husbands/sweethearts are in war. The guy comes home for leave and nine months later, there's a baby. Sure, there's the passionate I'm-on-leave-sex where emotions overwhelm everything else but there's also the desire for a part of that man to survive should the worst happen. Padmé is a wartime wife after all.

--MissPadme

 

I wonder even if Padme used birth control, couldn't Anakin just use the Force to help his little buddies make the swim?

 

I hadn't thought of that possibility, and it actually makes a lot of sense. So in that case Padme would not have been reckless, per se, but perhaps ruled by her heart more than her reason at that moment. I could buy that.

 

I think I understand what you're saying. Although Star Wars wears the trappings of sci-fi, at heart I think it is truly a fantasy story (or space opera is a good term for it, as well!). Maybe that's why we're having a hard time wrapping our minds around concepts like birth control or abortion in a GFFA - because fantasy stories typically don't deal with issues like that. Instead, a woman would have the local medicine man mix her up a potion or chant a little spell to prevent or encourage conception!

 

I agree, I think this theory is a good one.

Also, even when the husband is not away a lot of the time and in harm's way, a lot of married couples may not know for sure if they're ready for children yet, but they are open to it happening if it does. So they're not actively trying to conceive, but they're not taking precautions against it either. I think that could have played a part.

 

I'm sure there's birth control in the GFFA. As I said before, Anakin and Padme probably just got horny and had unprotected sex in the heat of the moment. That's probably all there is to it.

 

^ That's probably it... simplest answer. But I do think that as a married couple, the thought of children entering their lives at some point did occur to them, and conciously or subconciously they were OK with it happening if it did. This happens to couples all the time, and when pregnancy does actually occur it still freaks them out a bit... and conversations like "you're a Jedi, I'm a senator" follow.

But I almost laughed out loud (courtesy of some of the earlier posts in this thread) at the image of Sidious or an agent of his sneaking into Padme's apartment and sabotaging birth control pills or poking little holes in condoms.

 

well, according to some, it wouldn't be the first time Sidious had interfered in ensuring children be conceived in the Skywalker family

 

Haha, yeah, I thought of that too... on that front, I view Anakin to have been conceived via the will of the Force, not by Sith meddling.

 

well as qui-gon says, in the GFFA "nothing happens by accident".

 

Well, I don't think "will of the Force" = "accident". But otherwise, that may support my earlier point that it could have been Anakin and Padme just letting it happen if it happened; not really an accident per se.

 

Anakin's a red-blooded passionate dude. He spends most of his time during this period around a bunch of clone dudes. The only women he really gets to meet are celibate Jedi chicks. And then he gets a couple days of leave or whatever and is immediately presented with this...

[image=http://i.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2008/natalie_portman/natalie_portman_01.jpg]

...and she's available. Knowing what we know about the guy, I doubt if he said "hang on, I gotta run to the convenience store and buy some rubbers, I'll be back in a half hour".

So yeah, Luke and Leia were probably an accident.

 

Thank you so much, I needed that laugh tonight.

A poster from several years ago had this one in her sig: "I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive."

 

Biggs: "Luke, at that speed will you be able to pull out in time?"

Luke: "Get clear, Wedge... you can't do any more good back there!"

 

"What an incredible smell you've discovered!"

"You're all clear, kid. Now let's blow this thing and go home!"

"I hope Luke wasn't on that thing when it blew."

"He wasn't. I can feel it."

 

This. I'm not a big fan of the idea of Sidious using the Force to impregnate Shmi. Of course if I had my way, there would be no "Chosen One" prophecy and Anakin would just be a very gifted Jedi. And Shmi would just genuinely not know who his father was.

I think MissPadme is right, in fact, while it's been years since I read the novels, I think that there was some talk of Padme wanting a child or children in the AOTC novel.