PT Why some people hate "Padme dying of Sadness" ?

The point is why do some people hate "Padme dying of sadness". I hate it because of the reasons I stated. Lucas stopped caring about his female lead. One could claim Lucas also stopped caring about Han and Leia by the time he finished the OT. Neither really has anything to do except try to unlock a door for thirty minutes. In the OT all the focus is put on Luke. In the PT all the focus is placed on Anakin and Obi-Wan. In both trilogies, Lucas leaves certain characters in the dust to focus on others. The "dying of sadness" is just a product of Lucas generally not caring about all of his supporting characters.

 

that may have been the intention at the time, but I think it's a more open concept, that can come from someone who doesn't know many details.

 

Within the context of her situation as a whole, I don't necessarily agree.

 

Starting with the second bit, say Padme leaves Anakin or he leaves her in ep II. She is pregnant and she knows it but Anakin does not. Anakin has talked about having a son, he even talks about he had a vision of that son etc.
So when the twins are born, Luke, the son is hidden on Tatooine just in case Anakin decides to look in on Padme. Leia is presented as Bail's daughter and he and Padme are married.
In ep III Padme is sad and not all that healthy, partly because she had to give her son away for safety but also because she sees the Republic going down and she is aware of what Anakin has become and what he is doing. And despite their split, she does still have some feelings for him.
How she dies could be done in many ways. The war is still going on and she is on a ship that gets attacked and she is injured and later dies. Or she runs into Anakin/Vader, he wants to do something, she tries to talk him out of it. There is some back and forth but he hurts her in some manner and shoves her aside. The injuries combined with her not being in good health takes her life.

To the former.
Leia's memories combined with what RotS established happened do not work together.
She remembers what her mother looked like, that she was kind to her and that she was sad about something. No way could a newborn get all this from a few minutes worth of looking at dying Padme. The first maybe but not the other two.

Leia knows when her mother died, she says this. We can assume that Leia is aware how old she is.
So if Leia is say 22 years old and she knows her mother died 22 years ago, her dialogue makes no sense.
Why say "She died when I was very young" when she knows her mother died right after she was born?
Plus, having these memories of her mother would be really confusing to Leia if she knows she never really spent any time with her mother. My great-grandfather died two years before I was born, so I never met him. I have seen his picture and my mother have told me stuff about him. But if I were to have memories of being with my great-grandfather, that would make no sense to me as I know that he died before I was born.

So does Leia somehow think that she lived with her mother for 3-4 years before her mother died?
That also does not work as Leia came to Alderaan pretty much days old and has lived with Bail and his wife for all that time. All the records, all the people around her, if she has any photos, they would only show her with Bail and his wife. There is no room for "a real mother" there.
So that makes no sense either.

Some have suggested that Bail engages in this massive conspiracy and tells the whole planet that Leias real mother lived with Leia for 3-4 years. This is both hugely impractical and involving this many people in this lie could very well lead to word reaching Palpatine and he could get curious as to why Bail is doing this.
So that theory does not work either.
Could Bail have told Leia about Padme? If he did and he used her real name, then Leia could look her up and find out her date of death. Also it would be risky for Bail to tell Leia about Padme as then Palpatine might be able to read her mind given that she later works in the senate.
So did he give some other name? Most likely but Bail would also tell Leia that her mother died soon after she was born. He has no reason at all to spinn some story that Leia lived with her real mother for a few years.

Bottomline, everything Leia would know about her real mother based on RotS does not fit with what she says in RotJ. And if we assume that the Force "gave" her these "memories" of Padme. They would not make sense to Leia. They would create a conflict with her known past.

In closing, this is not a major issue, I agree. It was a ret-con and one that makes some story sense so we could look at what Leia said as an early idea that was later changed and thus creating a minor inconsistency.
But I have argued in the past with people that say it was not a ret-con, that Lucas had planned this out way back in the 80's and it totally works and there is no issue at all.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

I have zero memories of my great-grandmother and she died when I was two. So the idea that Leia can somehow still remember Padmé despite the woman dying literally minutes after her birth is complete nonsense. As far as Leia would be concerned, Ms. Organa was her mom. And even if Bail later showed her pictures of Padmé and said, “This was your birth-mom. When she passed, we took you in” Leia would likely still gravitate to Ms. Organa. She may not have physically given birth to Leia, but she was there for the entire upbringing.

It was a ret-con that didn’t need to happen, frankly.

 

I don't agree that whether or not someone being pregnant as meaning much in the discussion. Padme is a fictional character, in a fictional world, who went through some stuff recently, along with being pregnant.

I think that doesn't serve the characters or story very interestingly. And I think it's odd that Vader would never consider that Leia is his daughter and such. I think her dying and children's deaths being faked along with it is a more cleaner story option.

I don't necessarily agree. Based on the whole powers thing, I don't see that as a stretch for someone with those powers to have memories and feelings and such.

I think all of that can line up with Leia's powers and such. I don't see why it would have to make sense to Leia. Leia can have these images and feelings, without necessarily understanding how and/or why she may have them. I think Leia saying she died when she was very young doesn't have to mean that she was 2 or 3 and such. Leia can not know the details. I don't think it matters. Of all the retcons in the Star Wars movies, I think Padme dying during childbirth, isn't as egregious as Luke and Leia being brother and sister in ROTJ.

I don't remember saying it wasn't a retcon.

Leia has something neither of us do: Powers. Leia says she remembers images and feelings. That, to me, leans into the powers thing more.

I think it raises more questions about Padme, what she did and how she died and such, and why she essentially only kept one kid and such, if it wasn't retconned.

 

To me, what was done to Padme in RotS did not serve her character or was very interesting.
She existed to be a reason for Anakin to turn and to give birth to Luke and Leia.
After that she was of no further use and so died.
She was not there as a character in her own right but as a plot device.

The "powers" thing has it's own problems.
First, it is a made up power to explain away an inconsistency, it is not established in the films.
Second, it is not consistent as Luke, who is also Force sensitive and a child of Padme and spent more time with Padme and has more experience using the Force. He has zero memories of Padme.
So as explanations go, this does not work.

And making sense matters to me. For Leia to just have these "memories" despite them making no sense
and her never once thinking there is anything odd about them.
That is also not a good explanation.
It is just "The Force did it and Leia does not think about it."

Lastly, RotJ pretty much established that the children were split up right after birth and given that Leia has memories of her mother but Luke does not. The obvious explanation is that she went with her mother while Luke went to Tatooine. This was the backstory for over 15 years and I don't recall many people having a problem with it or arguing that it must be changed.

How and why the twins were split up, why Luke went to Tatooine and why Leia went to Alderaan with her mother. There are many ways you can do that. You could have it out of Padme's hands at all. She gives birth, passes out and Obi-Wan takes Luke with him and Padme does not know where. For secrecy reasons.
If Padme does not know then she can't reveal anything.
Why Vader does not look into Leia is not hard to explain. He was with Padme for a while but left her, not knowing she was pregnant. Then he hears that she has married Bail and has a kid with him.
Why would Anakin suspect this to be his kid?
You could have that Padme was married to Bail but she had an affair with Anakin.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

The same source that had Leia's mother take Leia to Alderaan, (the ROTJ novel) also had Anakin remembering his wife:


It was a face that had not seen itself in twenty years.
Vader saw his son crying, and knew it must have been at the horror of the face the boy beheld.
It intensified, momentarily, Vader's own sense of anguish - to his crimes, now, he added guilt at the imagined repugnance of his appearance. But then this brought him to mind of the way he used to look - striking, and grand, with a wry tilt to his brow that hinted of invincibility and took in all of life with a wink. Yes, that was how he'd looked once.
And this memory brought a wave of other memories with it. Memories of brotherhood, and home. His dear wife. The freedom of deep space. Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan, his friend ... and how that friendship had turned. Turned, he knew not how - but got injected, nonetheless, with some uncaring virulence that festered, until ... hold. These were memories he wanted none of, not now. Memories of molten lava, crawling up his back ... no.
This boy had pulled him from that pit - here, now, with this act. This boy was good.
The boy was good, and the boy had come from him - so there must have been good in him, too. He smiled up again at his son, and for the first time, loved him. And for the first time in many long years, loved himself again, as well.

 

I was speaking more to the concept of them separating during ep 2 and all that. Personally, I see that as the story and characters actions happening faster than I prefer.

The movies establish the concept of feelings and sensing people and such. I don't think it's that of an out of nowhere idea that that would apply for Leia.

Something I find interesting is that, in what I interpret as Luke's surprise at not having memories of his mother. In the same conversation, Luke tells Leia that she has powers. I wonder if, in the overall concept of the story, that that's a showcase of Luke understanding that Leia has that power too and such, and questioning why she has those memories and he doesn't on the basis of that. I wouldn't assume a one size fits all experience with feelings and emotions and memories for powers like that. But, in the grander context of the characters, I wouldn't argue it doesn't make sense. Luke is someone who, when we meet him, is resistant to take action when asked. Leia, on the other hand, is active when we meet her, she takes actions. And that's only if we assume that Leia was never told about Padme, and I think I can see her being told.

I didn't say she wouldn't think there is something odd about them. But I don't see Leia, necessarily, as someone who'd may be bothered by it.

How can that be the backstory for over 15 years if it wasn't said in the movies?

I think that's a bit convoluted. Padme has the babies, but they only take and hide 1, give her the other, give Luke to his aunt and uncle, Anakin's family, for some reason, and Padme doesn't know or such, because she was unconscious.

Why wouldn't he suspect it to be his kid? He engaged in sexual intercourse with a woman, she marries someone else and not long after has a daughter? Why not suspect? Why would he find out Luke is his son and be, maybe, surprised that he also has a daughter in ROTJ, when Leia is Padme's daughter?

I prefer not to do adulterous stuff.

 

If you want to bend over backwards so that something barely fits (even though no one ever talks like that) then go for it, but I'm not going to go along with you.

 

I don't think it's really bending over backwards much, at least much more than the other thing.

I think I remember talking like that when I don't have all the details.

 

I guess people can really die from losing the will to live. Amazing Carrie fishers mother essentially of a broken heart.

 

I have mixed feelings on this. Although the inconsistency with Leia's memories from ROTJ bothers me, I'm really not sure what else Lucas could have done. If Padme survived then Vader would know his children were still alive, and hiding Luke on Tatooine would not have been feasible. I also don't think that Padme's death ruined her character. Dying from that amount of emotional stress seems feasible to me within the realm of space opera but I admit it could have been handled better. As others have pointed out, there's really no reason the medical droids couldn't properly diagnose her. Perhaps it would have been better if Obi Wan was unable to get her medical help on time and she gave birth and died without access to proper medical care.

 

She did not die of a broken heart. Debbie Reynolds died of a stroke.

 

A heart stroke.

 

A stroke brought on by a brain hemorrhage.

Her son claimed it was brought on by Carrie dying, but he is not a doctor, so it's his opinion. The medical records show a stroke induced by a brain hemorrhage.

 

Yes. So tragic. A brain hemorrhage in her heart... her broken heart......

 

Even her son Todd Fisher stressed that his mother did not die of a broken heart. He felt she'd left to be with Carrie but specifically said she didn't die of a broken heart. He seemed to think of it in the sense that she didn't fight to live when she had the stroke because she wanted to be with Carrie.

 

I get it. She couldn’t fight the stroke to stay alive with her heart broken.

 

. You almost made me choke on my popcorn

 

How did Luke spend more time with Padmé? After her death he was sent to Tatooine right away. Both Luke and Leia spent only a few seconds with their mother.

 

Luke was born first so spent more time with Padme. Not very long, some seconds perhaps but still more.
My point was that the "The Force did it!" explanation is lacking to me. Luke has no memories, despite being a child of Padme, having as much Force potential as Leia and a lot more experience in using the Force.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface