I Love The Love Between Padme And Anakin (dysfunctional As It Is, Im A Sucker For This All-consuming

I love the love between padme and anakin (dysfunctional as it is, im a sucker for this all-consuming brand of obsession and love and devotion). But i can NOT for the life of me understand narratively, in terms of her character, what it was that makes padme feel that way.

Maybe it's my lack of star wars Lore Knowledge. it's so clearcut why anakin would be so attached to padme. idrk why she's the same way? i trust your understanding of the characters n also u actually seem to like padme as a character and care about her characterization,, so i am hopeful you'll have some insight pretty please

i don't think you're alone, i get some variation of this ask about once a month or so. george lucas doesn't really favor subtle storytelling; if the characters don't blatantly vomit their feelings at some point, or if we're not hit with the symbolic anvil, those feelings really don't make it into the narrative, and this kind of leaves padme's story, her internal feelings and life, kind of grounds for speculation. lucas never really bothers with one of the primary aspects of his story - padme's feelings about anakin - in any in-depth way, because, let's just be honest here, icky when women have feelings, you know? i'll explain what i see.

first, the thing that i think gets underplayed or left out weirdly often is that anakin and padme a) meet in the context of him being enslaved, and b) by the end of their time together in the first episode, anakin is directly responsible for helping her end the blockade of naboo. this is often overlooked as context for their relationship because everything prior to AOTC is discounted due to the fact that anakin is a child, however i think it's important to remember that this history would change padme's perspective on anakin enormously. padme's position in TPM is agonizing; she's a queen forced to abandon her people and beg a slow, corrupt system for any help she can get, and it doesn't work. the galactic structures in place to help her are glacially slow and don't care about the suffering of the people she's directly responsible for. in a situation where padme must feel almost entirely alone, this random kid who has nothing is kind to her.

anakin doesn't race in the boonta eve classic to free himself; he does it to help padme, qui-gon, and jar jar get off of tatooine. she watches people die horribly in violent explosions during the course of that race, knowing that this is a kid younger than she is (and she's incredibly young herself) with nothing to his name, not even his body. in a galaxy where the duly appointed leaders refuse to help her and alleviate the suffering of her people, this random nine year old does. in a galaxy where the senate as institution sits on its hands, anakin - with no training, experience, or skills - is critical to the end of the blockade. i can't emphasize enough that padme has been groomed into a political position, and her entire life has been about serving her people, and the suffering the blockade induced - i mean, there's mention of people being dragged into camps - would have affected her personally. we see glimpses of that in her anger, her determination, and in one of my literal favorite padme scenes ever, that time she's a really sulky fourteen year old and goes WELL THE QUEEN WOULDN'T LIKE THAT >:( at qui-gon while she's posing as a handmaiden. she's so cute, help.

the context they see each other again in AOTC isn't two near-strangers seeing each other again, it's padme seeing someone who, in a galaxy that seemed almost entirely against her, was in her corner. and not only in her corner, but was insanely vital to that effort. he helped her save a couple million people. it was a blockade of an entire planet. that would change how you think of someone; in the same way that anakin remembers padme for that quiet moment where she asked him if he missed his mother, padme remembers anakin as someone so willing to lay down his life to help her, he is actually casual about it. and as skeptical as she was (the queen wouldn't like that! god i love her!) he didn't fail her when seemingly everyone else did.

that's why i don't find it that unbelievable that padme would have a connection with him despite how unabashedly weird he is throughout AOTC. she has the best of assumptions. in such a context, anakin's unabashed weirdness - the fact that he argues with obi-wan, stammers about how pretty she is, babbles about how life is so unfair - becomes a kind of earnestness. padme lives a life where she's frequently lied to and is lying, and we see, at the very beginning of AOTC, the effect this deception has on her - corde dies in her arms, sobbing apologies for failing her. this is gutting, emotionally, and a critical piece of padme's mental landscape going into the rest of the film. critically, corde dies because she's posing as padme. it's a form of deception, although necessary. star wars also codes politics as being inherently shady; padme has, in fact, already been lied to and manipulated by palpatine. padme's life, as a person with power, is filled with people who will do anything to either crush it, take it, or exist close to it. in a life where these deceptions have such brutal consequences, anakin is genuine to the point of constantly embarrassing himself in front of her.

this is where i would argue that anakin's complete inability to be normal was the thing that actually mattered the most to padme, rather than being this roadblock she has to mentally overcome in order to take the plunge. everyone's been theorizing incorrectly about this the entire time. anakin, critically, does not get less weird; i think it's important that he demonstrably listens to her boundaries, like when she tells him to stop looking at her like that, he does. she initiates their kisses, not him. but he does very much go YOU'RE ASKING ME TO BE RATIONAL, AND THAT IS SOMETHING I KNOW I CANNOT DO!!!! he never loses that earnestness, to the point where i am convinced he actually has no idea how many social faux pas he's added to his social faux pas counter throughout the film. he has no idea he's being odd. he's just being anakin. but, again, earnestness is the point. anakin not lying to her is the point. this is what, to padme, would be new, and refreshing - her career is filled with profoundly good orators, people who have mastered manipulative speech, and this guy goes, "i don't like sand," and just leaves that on the table! no follow up. he just doesn't like sand, simple as.

there's another aspect of this; unfortunately for us all, anakin's doofus behavior is deeply funny. padme visibly enjoys it. he does stupid shit, like trying to surf on a space cow, and then fakes unconsciousness to mess with her. they have a goofy picnic where anakin's like i'm not teasing you but i'm also so teasing you. he uses the force to float a pear to show off. these are childish behaviors, but, critically, padme laughs at all of these. in every scene outside of anakin, padme is a deeply, deeply serious person - her voice is strict, her manner is strict, her manner isn't unkind but she isn't given to wanton joy. but in these scenes with anakin, at points she almost seems overwhelmed with humor - they literally frolic in a field of flowers. for padme, who just lost someone dear to her, whose life has become so stressful that it necessitates a wizard bodyguard, interacting with anakin must be a relief; he listens to her, says every thought in his damn head like a complete fool, and is fun to laugh with. with the background that he has with her - a tragic story she's deeply sympathetic towards, that he somehow overcame just when she needed it - and clear physical attraction (sorry, guys, "my, you've grown," is just as profoundly awkward as the beautiful for a senator bit, we just need to accept that) we're ready to light the theoretical match.

AOTC happens in the context of padme losing someone close to her because of their devotion to her, and bawling apologies to her with their literal last breath. AOTC is a movie where padme's guilt about that is the unspoken undercurrent; i truly think guilt burns her alive in this film, and when shmi, a woman who had opened her meager quarters to padme in the past, who explicitly suffered more because anakin went to specifically padme's aid, dies, i think padme's response is guilt. she is constantly in the position of being the person others are suffering for. (needless to say, anakin's actions in ROTS are the ultimate betrayal of padme in many ways.) the reason padme responds with empathy to anakin's confession is because she is currently living with the guilt of someone she loves dying because of her actions. i don't think she ever thinks anakin's actions were good or moral; i think padme believes it could never happen again, because there is simply no one else in the universe anakin loves more than his mother, and frankly, at that time, this was true. padme doesn't have foresight, and personally i think she's quick to discount her emotional importance to other people because her life simply doesn't allow for a lot of those personal connections - she doesn't know anakin will be similarly motivated to do some murders in her name, someday. we, the audience, project that onto her, assume that she should know that, but she doesn't and shouldn't.

this is why i also think padme's enthusiasm to go rescue obi-wan is as forceful as it is - anakin is all but confessing that he can't go save obi-wan because it would deviate from his current mission, but padme must be completely exhausted of people suffering in her name. she must be completely exhausted of simply being the witness. i think her emotions in AOTC build quietly into this tangled mess, and then geonosis, the fear of potentially losing anakin, too, really closes the deal on padme's end - she's officially willing to hold on no matter what, because anakin has proven to be special enough in her life that she wants to keep him in it. long story short padme is literally moronsexual.

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People talk about how much chaos and/or tragedy occurs every time obi-wan and anakin are seperated in the movies bcs obi-wan is incredibly similar to a pilots gyroscope if the gyroscope was a moral compass and if the pilot was the equivalent of a mentally ill college student running on one hour of sleep, a granola bar, and the advice of his equally unhinged and heavily pregnant girlfriend who once flipped off a lion while the lion tried to claw her face off, but they don’t talk about how obi-wan is to some extent aware of this and refers to it as “anakins radius of potential mischief”

i loveeeeeee nonlinear storytelling. show me where we are. now show me how we got here. the end before the beginning. show me how it was inevitable or how many chances we had to change things(nothing was ever going to change). let's meet in the middle as all the puzzle pieces slide into place hell yeah that's the good shit.

I'm a different anon, but your answer to that person, about how we all have our own perspectives and such, got me curious if you wanted to talk about your favorite things about Anakin? I really like how he has this earnest passion in everything he says and does, no matter what the consequences are. He lets his instincts and heart influence what actions he takes. I think you could say the same about Obi-Wan too to a degree, but I think Obi-Wan errs to keeping his emotions/intentions concealed until he has the best advantage he can get. And I think that this sort of "two sides of the same coin" contrast between them is part of what makes the ship appealing. Anyway, yeah, I wanted to know what you enjoy about Anakin ^^ And that other anon too, if they want to send another ask about their feelings/thoughts

Oh man, what a question. You've activated my trap card. Anakin Skywalker is possibly my favorite character of all time. It's endlessly fascinating to read stories about him, and writing him allows me to articulate the messy, painful, thwarted parts of myself. He's half my brain, and Obi-Wan is the other half, and resolving their differences brings me deep catharsis.

Everything you said about him is so true, his earnest passion is so deeply appealing. Obi-Wan called him passionate, fearless, forthright, and he is the embodiment of those traits, but he's flawed too, and flawed in ways I feel in my bones, and regrets the same things that I regret. He's so beautiful and so damned, a fallen and risen angel, you know?

Stover wrote that the brightest light casts the darkest shadow. He ends up at just the nadir of cruelty and violence, but he begins from a place of pure generosity and light. His intentions were so good, and he was so impossibly brave. It seems like arrogance, that cocky assurance of what he was capable of, but the universe bends around him to fit his will.

He's more than human, he's half-divine, a mirror and barometer of the entire galaxy's mood. His life is coextensive with the rise and fall of an empire, his personal tragedy from greed is both archetypal and relatable, and he is the scaffolding the narrative rests inside. Luke is the hero of the story but Anakin is the embodiment of the world he strives against.

He is painfully earnest and a liar, a villain and a victim, naive and jaded, brilliant but foolish, perfect and deeply flawed. It's so easy for me to understand why he was so beloved. He's absolutely the other side of Obi-Wan's coin, the heart to Obi-Wan's head, the passion to his reason, the instinct to his experience. The Team together is one complete and fully realized being, separation means incompleteness and disaster.

Vader is just one of the most iconic villains of all time, and Lucas defied all expectations in the prequels. He used his character to tell a cautionary tale about greed rather than give excuses for why he became such a monster. He is intentionally shown to be so generous and kind as a boy, handsome and daring as a man, with infinite wasted potential for good, it's incredible.

Idk man, I like him and I love him, I hate him and I want him; he's one of the best characters of the modern age.