response part seven (comparing Padmé)

[elizabeth_hoot]

This is where we get into the inevitable 'Luke is just like Padmé' thing, though even my speed-talking wasn't enough to fit it all into fifteen minutes. Anybody who knows me can probably guess why.

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But it’s just a different kind of strength.

As a female fan, I’ll also admit I’ve struggled at times with Padmé’s character.

...okay.

She does make some poor choices - but so do Luke, Han, Leia, Lando, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Yoda.

Yes, they all make bad choices, but not all bad choices are created equal, and not all dramatically alter their character. Like Luke whining in ANH, "I was going to go to Tosche Station!" - it's irritating, but for one, just about all the other things he complains about are pretty much sensible things to complain about, and it also completely makes sense for his character, so you don't go "what?" Or when he - in Empire, - when he defies Yoda and Obi-Wan's advice to go after his friends and basically walks straight into Vader's trap - whether that's really a bad choice is really debatable, but I think it's framed as a bad choice. But that's exactly the kind of thing he would do. He would do it out of friendship and loyalty and - you know, he'll do just about anything for the people he cares about (...as ROTJ showed). So it makes perfect sense for him.

And you know, Han - Han being overconfident and cocky? This is what Han is. You go - Lando, again, that's who he is. Even Anakin's choices ... are completely awful, a lot of them, but they make sense for him.

Obi-Wan, I think, is sort of on a par with Padmé, in that he has a couple of things that people complain about all the time, and go on and on and on about, that basically overshadow a lot of the rest of his otherwise really admirable character. And probably the thing that people talk about the most is him leaving Anakin to burn alive, because it's a completely repellent and morally disgusting act, and the reason why, I think, people go on and on and on about it, is it doesn't make a lot of sense for his character.

It seems a completely indefensible and very nearly - I mean, this is . . . is a horrific thing to do anybody, much less your son or brother. Whether Anakin deserved it or not is really besides the point. People go on about this because, yes, why would Obi-Wan does this? This isn't the kind of thing he does.

And so I think what you get with those things that people go on about, are that they're not just things that are wrong, or that are bad choices. They're things that seem not to fit.

Was it a lack of strength that caused her to fall in love with Anakin? Not at all.

I don't know? I mean ... why would that be a lack of strength? I mean, I have no idea why she fell in love with him, because we don't really see any transition in her feelings. Like, she seems vaguely creeped out at first, and then ... she's in love with him? And, like, "we can't talk about our feelings" and then "it doesn't matter so we might as well!" And we don't really see how she get from ... I can see from Point B to Point C, but I don't see how she got from A to B. I can imagine it, but we don't see it, really.

But I don't think it's a lack of strength. There's no reason to suppose that. It's something that's...more aggravating in the meta sense than in-story. I can come up with reasons why she might have fallen in love with him, but honestly I think we just have to take it on faith that she did. And that's not - eh, it's a fine thing to take.

I mean, it could have been done better. We know ... again, you look at - I keep saying this; I guess I'm sorry - but we don't have to wonder how Leia fell in love with Han. Padmé and Anakin's romance is - the romance being the heavy focus of the second movie, that's obviously ... Attack of the Clones is the prequels' The Empire Strikes Back. Or supposed to be. In the event, I think ROTS was closer, but - AOTC in terms of the romance takes the same role as Empire did. So it's not like it's impossible to show how somebody manages to go from "get the hell away fro me" to "I love you!"

Of course it was really problematic with Leia and Han, too, but problematic in a "why does he think 'no' means 'yes' way?" and not in a "I don't know what's happened" way. So it's not a lack of strength.

The biggest bad decision - to lie to everyone about their marriage - was one they made together.

Yeah, and I think that's a kind of a defensible decision. It's one that makes their lives more difficult. I don't think it's necessarily morally wrong. I guess it's because I think ... Anakin was kind of brought into the Jedi Order under false pretenses. Weirdly. Nobody told him or his mother what it would entail. Nobody told him what he was giving up to do it. They were not given enough information to make informed decisions about it.

So basically the fact that he falls in love and gets married, while it's a violation of his oath, I guess, yeah well, maybe if they'd let him know, let his mother know before they chose his fate for him - or even let him know. He was only nine, but even at nine, I don't know, if they'd been all, "no, you can't love!" [laugh] I don't know if he'd have really gone for it. I don't really see that this was a particularly immoral choice. Just one that makes their lives really difficult and is painful for them.

Yet, those two characters aren’t the only ones caught telling a lie or at least a twisted truth within the scope of the movies. Each of these characters, Padmé included, allow their feelings for others to influence the choices they make throughout the saga. Many forms of love - brotherhood, friendship, camaraderie, familial, and true love - drive each characters’ failings, and not one of them is immune. So why then is Padmé’s choice to love and be loved often met with the most disdain?

It isn't. Honestly! In terms that ... we never see her fall in love, really, so we don't know how it happened and it's difficult to accept, that's one thing. And it's the dialogue, the plot - that's not about Padmé falling in love.

I honestly don't know what she's saying here, really, because I just haven't seen it. I haven't seen people saying that Padmé is a bad person for falling in love with Anakin. That she's bad for countenancing genocide, I've heard. That she's weak for committing suicide by willpower, yes, I've heard. But I've never heard anybody say that choosing to love is some kind of moral weakness on her part. I guess maybe I just don't listen to enough fanboys.

The ability to love and connect with others - to choose our friends, brothers- and sisters-in-arms, and lovers - is part of what separates humans from animals. It is our nature to make connections, to seek out companionship, to not want to be alone. It is the love of a boy for his father that ultimately turns back the darkness in Return of the Jedi.

Sort of. I mean, I thought it was more the love of a man for his son, but ... I suppose that was sort of precipitated by the love of a boy for his father, so ...

But wasn’t that love, which is so strong, heroic and mythic in Luke Skywalker, exactly what Padmé expresses in her dying breath in Revenge of the Sith?

Yes, sort of. The thing that makes it different is Luke does not give up because of it. Luke is slowly tortured to death. There is a difference between Luke's love for his father nearly getting him killed by electrocution, and Padme's love sapping her will to remain alive.

I guess, this - this - this - I see this a lot, that Padmé's love for Anakin and Luke's love for Anakin are the same thing. And this really seems flawed to me. I realize that they were meant to be paralleled, and they do parallel in a lot of ways. But there is a really significant difference, that Luke doesn't ever give up on existing because of it. Luke has other reasons - I mean, Anakin dies, completely! And Luke goes on. He's obviously upset, but it's not like - I mean, he goes back to his friends, and it's like, group hugs.

And moreover, that - I think that there's a qualitative difference - it's verging on the Fantastic Aesop - and that's that Luke's love for his father is different because ... it's unfair, but Luke is Force-sensitive and Padmé is not. So Luke doesn't have faith in him because, solely because it's his father and of course his father must be a good person. Deep down. It's that he can actually psychically sense it the whole time. He says over and over and over again, I can feel it; I can feel the good in him; I can feel the good in you, Father. I mean, like five or six times he reiterates that he can psychically sense it. And so he's fighting for them, for something that he knows - objectively knows - is there.

So Padmé, in a way, has more faith than he does. She has - for one, he's nearly killed her, and Anakin, while - in fact, a lot of Luke's faith aside of the psychic stuff comes from Anakin not trying to kill him when he was supposed to, and had every intention of doing it, to go by his dialogue. So that's another difference there. But Padme can't sense the good in him. She believes it's still there because she loves him, loves the person he was. She believes in the face of all evidence that he's still there.

Luke doesn't have a lot of reason to care for his father, who's been nothing but awful to him, and not awful in the normal fatherly way, but like legitimately, horrifically bad to him. So he doesn't have ... Padmé has what seems to have been a very, very happy marriage, so she has an established relationship with him. Luke basically has no relationship with him except what he's been told.

And on the basis of their previous relationship, she continues to think that there must be good in him, even though there's no real reason to believe it, aside from who he used to be. Luke, on the other hand, has evidence that there is good in him and continues to fight for it, even though he's not really sure he can actually succeed in doing so.

And so, I think there is - I think those are quite important differences. And I think, perhaps, why Luke is successful is that, for one, his entire identity and reason to live is not revolving around it, around bringing his father back, or even around his father's existence, as much as he loves him. But [sigh] you know I do, think there's ... the willingness to love in the face of so much evil, I do think that's a similarity. I think that [pause] [sigh] you know, that that level of loyalty is where ... there are similarities between their love for them. But I don't think you can draw a perfect equivalence, because there are so many differences in their situations.

You have one who's judging on actual evidence, one who's judging on a previous relationship that isn't really relevant any more. And ... but - that's why she dies and he succeeds, I think. I don't think you can really argue - I don't think we can say that he loves Luke more than he loves Padmé. I mean, I guess you could argue that, but - I don't think that's what we're supposed to take from it. I think Luke was successful in ways Padmé wasn't because of the ways in which he is different from her.

[tbc...]