By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
The Star Wars prequels were full of stupid moments, from that awkward “I hate sand” speech to almost every second Jar-Jar Binks was on screen. In general, however, most fans agree that the absolutely the stupidest At that time, Padmé Amidala was dying of a broken heart. Even in a galaxy far, far away, it’s difficult to accept that a former queen and mother of the galaxy’s greatest hero would simply die of sadness. However, some fans tried to redeem this idiotic plot development of Padme’s death with a simple theory: that Anakin Skywalker unknowingly drained her of her life force in order to survive.
The Theory of Padme’s Death
Credit where credit is due: Revenge of the Sith had some clever editing moments, including intercut scenes of Padmé giving birth to Luke and Leia and scenes of Anakin Skywalker’s robotic rebirth as Darth Vader. Part of what made this rebirth so scary is that we’ve already seen Anakin dismembered and then gone up in flames and die by former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi. This didn’t sound like something even a powerful Force user could survive, and according to this theory of Padme’s death, the only way Anakin managed to live was to suck all the life out of his wife (husbands, n ‘isn’t it?).
An interesting side effect of the Padme death theory is that it also redeems another stupid prequel moment. Darth Vader’s stupid “NOOOOOOO” shout when he is told that his wife is dead. Palpatine had just told his new student that “in your anger you had killed her”, and Vader’s scream was frightening because it seemed like he was being very easily fooled by the most obvious liar in the galaxy. According to this theory, however, Palpatine was actually telling the truth and Vader, blinded by anger, unconsciously drained Padmé’s life force in a way that could not be detected by medical scanners.
More than one theory of Padme’s death
While this theory of Padme’s death is compelling, there are variations and other theories that are just as interesting. For example, the main theory assumes that Anakin did all this unconsciously, which is why he is so surprised and distressed when he learns that his wife is dead. Others believe he sucked his life force away intentionally (perhaps starting with that Mustafar Force choke or even earlier), and he only felt bad when he discovered he had gone too far. away and had killed her (talk about post-bot clarity!).
Of course, the most popular variation of this theory of Padme’s death is that it was actually Palpatine who sucked out her life force rather than Anakin. This would fit with a persistent theory that it was Palpatine who sent Anakin visions of his wife’s death, essentially planting the idea of her death so that he could then offer the false carrot of giving her eternal life . By deliberately sucking the life from his body after all this manipulation, the newly crowned Emperor could ensure that his powerful right hand had no reason to live other than the Empire.
Obviously, your mileage may vary on whether this theory of Padme’s death actually redeems the Prequel Trilogy. Even if George Lucas came out tomorrow and gave us his best Han Solo (“that’s right…all of that”), we would still end up with horrible dialogue and a shoddy plot. Plus, it’s a little embarrassing that fans have spent nearly two decades trying to correct every mistake in a movie whose plot has more holes than the hull of the Millennium Falcon. Again, given how much Disney is currently launching this franchise, the fans and their theories can be our only I’m hoping for some good Star Wars storytelling for the foreseeable future.
