| “ | I will sign no treaty. My fate will be no different than that of my people! | „ |
| ~ Padmé rejects the treaty Palpatine planned as a trick. |
| “ | To be angry is to be human. | „ |
| ~ Padmè infamous line normalizing mass pedicide. |
| “ | So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause. | „ |
| ~ Padmé Amidala during Emperor Palpatine's declaration of the New order, her most famous quote. |
Padmé Amidala is one of the main protagonists in the, Star Wars franchise, specifically the Prequel era, serving as the deuteragonist of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, the tritagonist of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, and the animated TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. She also serves as a major character in the animated film, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and a posthumous character in the original trilogy, the miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the animated anthology webseries Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi. She is the heroic young queen of Naboo turned Senator, as well as the loving wife of Anakin Skywalker and the mother of Luke and Leia, two of the protagonists of the Original era. She was devoted to both her husband and democracy in the Repubic(through it is a matter of debate among fans as to what she is devoted more to) and expressed her belief in her husband's goodness even as he became Darth Vader in order to prevent his visions of her death from coming true and even in her final moments.
She is portrayed by Natalie Portman in the films, and voiced by Grey DeLisle and Catherine Taber in The 2003 Clone Wars microseries and the 2008 Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series respectively.
What Makes Her a Base-Breaking Character?[]
What Do People Like About Her?[]
- Regardless of how polarizing her role was in Episodes II and III, she is generally seen as at her best, even by Prequel detractors, in The Phantom Menace, where she took a direct role in fighting against the Trade Federation's blockade of Naboo with the help of the Gungans.
- Her defenders appreciate her highly consistent courage and selflessness, especially when she says she wasn't elected to watch her people suffer as the Senate committee overanalyzed the Trade Federation's horrible crimes.
- She plays a role in starting the Rebel Alliance in the last days of her life by meeting with people like Mon Mothma and by giving birth to Luke and Leia, future saviors of the entire galaxy.
- She has a large wardrobe filled with memorable and beautiful outfits suited for multiple occasions, both as a queen and as a senator. Her defenders also like her because they think her actress is extremely cute and pretty in general.
- For those few that find her relationship with Anakin romantic, their interactions (before when he goes off the deep end at least) can be seen as very wholesome and romantic. They are also the source of various memes, particularly the "picnic date" scene in Episode II.
- Even for those that do see said relationship as poorly written or exceptionally toxic, the various Expanded Universe novelizations (particularly Attack of the Clones by R.A Salvatore, Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover, the books of Karen Miller set during the Clone Wars era), and Brotherhood by Mike Chen are credited for making the relationship more loving and believable and even very sexy for both fans of the ship and detractors.
- Her defenders feel that the "cringe" and "stilted" nature of her dialogue with Anakin make sense considering their upbringing away from society and being groomed for positions of power. They also think Portman and Christensen had chemistry and Lucas was the one writing awful dialogue for them.
- The deleted scenes in Episode II, which shows them getting to know each other and Anakin getting to know her family is generally seen as giving their relationship the development that the final cut lacked. The fact that many of them were incorporated in the novelizations allowed fans of the relationship to view them as canon.
- Despite the possessive nature of his actions, some find the fact that Anakin only turned because of Padmé and wouldn't have due to any other situation to reflect the depth of his love for her and the tragedy of their story.
- The Clone Wars animated series expanded on her role as a politician seeking peace and democracy in the Galactic Republic and fighting for these causes. It also gave her some wholesome interactions with Anakin as well and showing how they sincerely tried to make things work.
- Many fans loved her interactions with Ahsoka, along with how Ahsoka caught on to her and Anakin and effectively served as a daughter figure for them.
- She had a great speech advocating for peace in Season 3 of the Clone Wars. Her episodes, while polarizing, at least get credit for showing the moral ambiguity within the Clone Wars and the internal rot within the Republic that would give way to the Galactic Empire.
- Of the scenes of her and Anakin in the show, their interactions in "Destroy Malevolence", "Hostage Crisis", and "Shadow Warrior" have been particularly enjoyed.
- Despite Anakin being indirectly the cause of her death, her love for him is posthumously vindicated by Luke's faith in his father leading him to come back to the light and destroy Emperor Palpatine on the second Death Star.
- Within Legends Continuity, their love is posthumously vindicated even further with Luke's New Jedi Order choosing to foster healthy attachments rather than suppress attachments altogether, which could indicate that the approach of the old Jedi Order in forbidding romantic love as "attachments" was ultimately flawed and contributed to Anakin's fall to the Dark Side.
- People generally think Natalie Portman was iconic in her role as Padmé and did well with the lines given to her regardless of their viewpoint on the prequels.
- Despite the discourse surrounding her character, she is one of the most popular characters to be used in Prequel-era fanfiction, especially fix fics that prevent Anakin's fall and allow her to live happily ever after with him and their twins. Even her detractors write fanfiction and Prequel rewrites in order to "fix" her character and make her more aware of Anakin's "red flags"(or remove them altogether and make Anakin more straight-up heroic until his fall).
What Do People Hate About Her?[]
- While she was almost universally loved by the fandom in Episode I, her detractors' hugest problem with her is that she had a quintessentially toxic relationship with Anakin Skywalker and her over-reliance on that for the last three years of her short and unhappy life. Her dialogue, while well-polished in Episode I, was seen as cringeworthy and stilted in Episodes II and III alongside Anakin's lines, even though both Christensen and Portman are seen to be scripted to intentionally lack chemistry to highlight the unhealthiness in the Anmidala relationship. A segment of fans feel that her role was slowly reduced in Episodes II and III to solely be Anakin's love interest and eventually get pregnant and die, a far cry from her more proactive role in Episode I. not helping much is the deletion of multiple scenes in Episode III exploring her political beliefs.
- Even with the modern-day reevaluation of the Prequels, her relationship with Anakin is an extremely polarizing topic among fans, with many seeing it as too toxic to be sympathized with despite Padmé being treated as The Pollyanna by the narrative because of criticism towards Anakin's supposed creepiness and abuse and how he inhumanely choked her on Mustafar when she finally had enough of his power-hungry extremes.
- Her behavior in the "Clovis Arc" of the Clone Wars animated series has been criticized by both fans of her relationship with Anakin and detractors of said relationship. The former questions why she is so keen to work with Rush Clovis despite the fact that working with him in the "Senate Spy" episode got her poisoned, the fact that he tried to force himself on her multiple times and in general felt the narrative made Anakin out to be too much of a villain because they used a moment that could be easily seen as Anakin trying to stop a man from sexually assaulting his wife to highlight Anakin's possessiveness; some even go as far to disavow the entire Clone Wars animated series because of that specific arc in favor of the multimedia project(despite the fact that Padmé was barely a footnote in that project). The latter questions why they even got back together after Anakin saves her at the end of the arc despite her wanting a break from the relationship.
- Those that find their relationship extremely toxic feel Anakin and Padmé's interactions in The Clone Wars episodes "Hostage Crisis" and "Shadow Warrior" to be two people deciding to slack off and make love when they had more pressing duties to deal with. In the latter episode Padmé is accused of having jeopardized the war effort in order to get her husband back by exchanging a captured General Grievous for him after Dooku captured the former.
- Through to be fair, given how Palpatine wanted Anakin to be his apprentice ever since they met at the end of Episode I and how Dooku's goals were to either push Anakin to the edge or to capture him for Sidious rather than kill him, it is arguable that Padmé actually saved her husband from turning evil much earlier.
- In general attachments are heavily implied to be more of a purely "bad thing" and inherently possessive in Disney-era canon, where "non-attachment" is presented as far more immutable given the choice Luke gives to Grogu in the Book of Boba Fett to either be a Jedi or a Bounty Hunter with the Mandalorian combined with the implication that his Jedi Order adhered strongly to celibacy too. By contrast, in Legends there is more of a genuine distinction between "attachment" and "possession" in Legends given the fact that multiple romances exist in legends between force users that may be seen as sacrilegious to the Jedi Code, the fact that non-toxic attachments have redeemed characters from the dark side(ie: Revan saving Bastila from the dark side drawing on their attachments), and how Luke's Jedi Order handled attachments in Legends. This contrast can make her relationship with Anakin even less sympathetic in canon in contrast to Legends.
- Those that find their relationship extremely toxic feel Anakin and Padmé's interactions in The Clone Wars episodes "Hostage Crisis" and "Shadow Warrior" to be two people deciding to slack off and make love when they had more pressing duties to deal with. In the latter episode Padmé is accused of having jeopardized the war effort in order to get her husband back by exchanging a captured General Grievous for him after Dooku captured the former.
- She is in general seen as wasted potential by multiple fans as both a love interest and a political leader. Not helping much is that she couldn't feature much in Legends Continuity because George Lucas didn't want any potential storylines to affect her impending pregnancy and forbade the Clone Wars multimedia project from delving into her relationship with Anakin too much and in general both Legends and Disney continuity tend to emphasize Anakin's relationship with Obi-Wan to a greater degree, and Disney continuity also emphasizes his bond with Ahsoka over his relationship with Padmé (though her detractors think his relationships with the other two was far healthier anyway). Meanwhile her role in the Delegation of 2000, the undermining of Palpatine's plans and in laying the seeds for the Rebel Alliance tend to be overshadowed by Bail Organa and Mon Mothma in both continuities(and in the Canon continuity, Luthen Rael).
- The explanation that she simply "lost the will to live" is generally seen as nonsensical and in sufficiently explained, if not outright ridiculed, with many people preferring to interpret her death as dying from a fatal complication during Luke and Leia’s births invoked by her declining health after Palpatine drained her life force (which was commonly accepted by the cast and crew), being caused purely by Anakin choking her or as stated prior by Palpatine draining her life force to revive a near-death Vader following his defeat on Mustafar.
Trivia[]
- She is the current icon of the Stub Template of this wiki replacing NostalgiaSquare.
External Links[]
- Padmé Amidala on the Disney Wiki
- Padmé Amidala on the Wookieepedia Wiki
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 Base Breaking Characters
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Animated Films Beauty and the Beast Pocahontas Other Live-Action Films Animated Television Live Action Television Video Games Fanon
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 Base Breaking Characters
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Anakin Skywalker | Luke Skywalker | Padmé Amidala | Jar Jar Binks | Ewoks | Kylo Ren | Count Dooku | Rey Palpatine | Rose Tico | General Hux | Supreme Leader Snoke | L3-37 | Mace Windu | Trace & Rafa Martez | Chopper | Alexsandr Kallus | Reva Sevander | Omega | Barriss Offee | Kazuda Xiono | Tamara Ryvora | Hype Fazon | Ferus Olin | Jabba the Hutt | Grand Admiral Thrawn See Also | ||
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Animated Films Other Live Action Films Transformers Film Series Other Animated Television King of the Hill Family Guy Futurama Archer American Dad! Bob's Burgers Other Live Action Television 24 How I Met Your Mother American Horror Story Other | ||