One of my personal peculiarities is that I take things at face value. The first time I saw Revenge of the Sith, I didn’t question Padmé dying of a broken heart. It seemed understandable. But of course, as I mentioned in one of my first articles for this site, college made me question everything.
The critics never liked Padmé’s death because she’s supposed to be a strong female character and yet she was weak enough to fall for Anakin in the first place and weaker still to just pine away and die because he joined the Dark Side. And yet, in the face of knowing that my opinion was still unpopular, Padmé’s death made sense to me for her character. In spite of her numerous other strengths, she had selfishly chosen to love the wrong person, and there was nothing left for her after she found out what kind of a person he was.
Last year, Joseph Tavano on RetroZap became internet famous when he suggested that Padmé’s death was not her own doing but Palpatine using the Force to suck away her life to keep Anakin alive. In fact, he wrote a second article suggesting it was part of some arcane Force-ritual to kill both Anakin and Padmé and then keep Darth Vader alive as some kind of a zombie. Yeah, Palpatine could sense Anakin on Mustafar but I don’t think that means he could manipulate the life-force of someone on the other side of the galaxy. Even if Palpatine was having the best day ever, it doesn’t make sense in my understanding of the Force and the Star Wars universe. So no, I don’t agree with his theory but he does make some good points:
- During the delivery of the twins, Padmé is alive and talking. She doesn’t act like someone who wants to die.
- Palpatine’s plot the entire time was to have Anakin completely under his control. In order to do that, he had to separate Anakin emotionally and physically from everyone he loved. So in that sense I couldn’t put it past him to use some Force mumbo-jumbo to get what he wanted.
- It wasn’t Anakin’s force choke that killed her or caused her to die (that’s kind of a no-brainer, but in case you think it was, it wasn’t—and the film makes that very clear).
- The droid who diagnosed her as “dying” said he couldn’t understand why they were losing her. It’s said sort of in passing, but it’s significant. Droids can’t detect what the Force does to a person’s body.
More recently, someone on Tumblr made the point that in order to understand what Padmé is going through in the whole film, we need to rewind to the Senate scene where Palpatine declares himself Emperor. Up until Anakin Force-chokes her, this is the absolute worst moment of her life. As Queen of Naboo, she had fought to protect the rights of her people. As Senator, she was an activist who worked to preserve the rights of all peoples in the galaxy. Now, in a moment, Palpatine—the man she had trusted and worked with for years—had revealed that he had no intention of supporting her goals. In the blink of an eye, everything she had worked for was destroyed. And the rest of the Senate went along with it. That was the moment when at least some of her heart broke. Finding out that Anakin was helping the Emperor do it would have done her in completely.
The way I see it, Padmé was selfish to not want to go on living, even in such terrible circumstances. She still had her children to look after, but I guess she took it for granted that they would both find a good home.
I also think that Padmé thought she could keep Anakin from being a bad person. She knew what his flaws were, he told her in Attack of the Clones about killing the Tusken Raiders who’d kidnapped his mother. But Padmé wanted to be with him, and so she made the terrible mistake of excusing his behavior. Maybe she thought she could change him. When Obi-wan comes to tell her about Anakin joining the Dark Side, she reacts the way she does because she in denial.
There’s a deleted scene in Attack of the Clones where Padmé tells Anakin that she wanted to settle down and raise a family. Maybe she saw falling in love with Anakin as her chance to do that. She was a politician who spent her life trying to make the galaxy better for other people, but love was something she wanted for herself.
As it turns out, she was wrong on all of these counts. Everything she worked for—a family with Anakin and freedom for the galaxy—was gone. If that’s the case, then no wonder the critics look down on Padmé for dying. A strong female character shouldn’t give in to despair.
But one thing I’ve learned from Padmé’s death is that disappointment is a part of life. And it’s OKAY. The people we admire aren’t perfect: they have strong points and weak points, and sometimes the weaknesses get the better of them.
Honestly, I don’t love Padmé any less for having this pessimistic view of her character. In fact her death some of the strengths of her character as well. And one of them is faith. Sometimes after all we’ve done, and all we can do, even if it looks like our efforts didn’t make a difference, your contribution will still pay off. The important thing is to BELIEVE in what you’re working for. Padme died believing in Anakin, just as she always had.
“There is still good in him. There is still. I know.”
And the payoff? Padmé’s love was carried on to her son. The reason I love Star Wars—the Prequels included—is the message that love for family triumphs in the end.
