The only female main character of the Star
Wars Prequels, Padmé Amidala, is portrayed as an independent, resourceful woman
with an affinity for politics and is therefore liked by many, however, taking a
closer look at her personal background, relationships and character development
throughout The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and the Revenge
of the Sith, it becomes clear that the character is shaped to fit the plot,
inconsistent, blank, and even controversial at times.
To begin the analysis her political career
should be examined. In The Phantom Menace, she appears as the queen of
Naboo, age fourteen. She gives the impression of someone strong-willed and
resolved to serve her homeworld, however, her age itself raises some questions
whether she is the monarch because she is a political genius, or rather the
opposite: chosen because even though she represents values such as purity and
innocence as a child on the throne (giving ways to popularity), she is also
easier to manipulate through her naivety and lack of experience.
That is exactly what we see in the first
part of the movie: Padmé is surrounded with advisors who can clearly tell the
intentions of the Trade Federation and warn her about the incoming invasion,
but she seems to ignore the threat by saying “I will not condone a course of
action that will lead us to war.” Further on, she seems to disagree with the
jedi protecting her as well, but she keeps on doing as told (allowing them to
take a huge risk by letting the boy Anakin race on their behalf, and not
replying to any transmissions even though they imply that her people are dying).
Even in the senate she seems to be under the influence of Senator Palpatine and
acts according to his instructions. Therefore, the question whether she does
anything on her own as a political achievement appears to be relevant. Even
when it looks like she is taking action, she is actually just voicing her unpleasant
feelings or expressing the sadness of reality while waiting for others to
intervene. The acting does not help either to give a convincing image: “The
line readings of Portman and Lloyd are often flat, or flat-out wrong”. (Richard
Corliss)
Then, interestingly, after returning to
Naboo, she takes a U turn and prepares to take aggressive counter-measures to
battle the army of the Trade Federation. The pacifist spirit of Padmé Amidala,
which was emphasised so much at the beginning of the film, is gone. Her change
of heart might look even less logical if we consider that the Senate is about
to elect a new leader thanks to her speech and is soon likely to intervene to
help her people. She, however, decides to put it all aside and make alliances
on her own. She befriends the gungans and comes up with a plan to capture the
Viceroy. One might argue that her reasons for fighting are actually credible,
because she just wants to prevent any more of her people from dying. That may
be so, but countless lives will be lost in the upcoming battle as well. The slightly
increased chances of victory seem to be a poor motivating factor in the war
suddenly becoming justifiable. Whether that is the case or rather the fact that
she is sacrificing the gungans and not her own people is unclear, but neither
makes much sense regarding the character’s value system. Not to mention that
disabling the droid army is only the result of the accidental crash-landing of
Anakin Skywalker inside the mothership and blowing it up from the inside. Is
it, hence, not political greatness, but sheer luck that turned the events in
favour of Padmé Amidala.
In Attack of the Clones she is a
senator returning to Coruscant to vote against the creation of an army for the
Republic, and the viewer is told she has been working on the case for a year,
leading to an encounter to a problem that seems to be a common theme in the
Prequels: characters are talking about off-screen events that never have been
seen or heard about before, but according to them they should be common
knowledge as they are never explained in detail. That is why it is not possible
to judge Padmé as a political figure this time either. To make it worse, when
her life is endangered by the assassination attempts and she is forced to go
back to Naboo, she is seen turning to the one character who would surely fail
to take her place and properly fulfil her job in the Senate: Jar Jar Binks, the
character in The Phantom Menace who is exiled by his own people because
his actions are usually followed by “catastrophic” events. Nevertheless,
somehow she thinks that he is up to the task, which is clearly not the sign of
being a political genius.
Furthermore, in Revenge of the Sith,
we do not see her doing anything political. Those times when she is concerned
with politics, she is either turning to Anakin (so that he would talk to the
Chancellor) or making horrified statements about the current events (“So this
is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.” [01:33:11-01:33:17] ) but she
never actually does anything to make a difference.
All these occurrences contradict the idea that
she is strong and independent. In fact, she is constantly depending on others
to do what she wants. Her superiority, wherever present, seems to be coming from
her rule as a queen in The Phantom Menace, or as a status of a more
experienced, older person concerning her relationship with Anakin in the Attack
of the Clones. However, even those aspects are lost in Revenge of the
Sith.
As for her relationships with other
characters, there are probably two main groups: Anakin Skywalker and everyone
else. It looks like Padmé’s role in the trilogy is reduced to being a plot
device. Her main purpose in the story is to have a relationship with Anakin so
that the fear of her loss would set him up for falling to the Dark Side, while
her actual loss cements that fate.
Yet, at a closer look their relationship
only makes sense from Sykwalker’s viewpoint. Anakin has been obsessed with her
since they met on Tatooine when he was a boy. He found her beautiful and she
was probably the first woman (besides his mother) who recognised him as a human
being as opposed to being a slave. His affection therefore is a logical
consequence of events.
From Padmé’s side on the other hand, it is
completely different. When they meet at first, she only sees a child. Maybe she
grows to care for him after all he does to help them, but still, that would in
no way induce any romantic feelings in her. Then ten years pass (Attack of
the Clones), they meet again and Anakin’s feelings are revealed. However,
even if she would find him physically attractive by then, emotionally there is
still no reason why she would form a deep bond with him.
In fact, Anakin’s behaviour, such as trying
to impress her by breaking rules and making promises, throwing tantrums and
murdering sand-people, would only encourage the exact opposite reaction and
would make her still see him as an immature person.
The portrayed relationship is also hindered
by the lack of meaningful dialogue. Roger Ebert, in his review of Attack of
the Clones, says “Too much of the rest of the film is given over to a
romance between Padme and Anakin in which they're incapable of uttering
anything other than the most basic and weary romantic clichés, (Roger Ebert).
As for the other characters, the viewer
cannot see them forming much of a relationship with Padmé. The only ones she
seems to be close with are her decoys and perhaps some of her handmaidens, but
since they are barely seen interacting in all three movies it is just another
thing to add to the list of off-screen happenings. She is, of course, on good
terms with Obi-Wan, but then again, most of their conversations tend to be
about Anakin, so it raises the question how much their relationship actually
counts as an identification of Padmé’s character.
That seems to be all as the spectator does
not really see her having any other meaningful conversations throughout the
Prequels nor is she seen engaging in any activities that would tell the viewer
about her personality. Overall, this gives the character a kind of blankness – an
emptiness that can be filled by the spectator’s imagination; a possible reason
for people liking the character and finding it relatable.
The epitome of the inconsistency of her
character development, however, is her final reaction to Anakin’s betrayal in Revenge
of the Sith. The scene takes place on the system of Mustafar after Padmé
has learned that Anakin switched allegiances, killed younglings in the Jedi
Temple, and helped to murder most of their mutual allies without even talking
to her about it first or taking into consideration that they are about to have
a baby. In his craze Anakin is babbling about securing his new empire and
taking over the universe, yet Padmé’s reaction is “All I need is your love”. Now,
she may be in denial, but perhaps it would be more of a human reaction to get
angry and be critical of a person who is clearly delusional and turned the
whole world upside down on a whim, and explain why they are making terrible
decisions. She on the other hand, defying everything that her character has
stood for, her strong will, smartness, independence, puts up no resistance
whatsoever and dies of sadness.
In conclusion, it appears that Padmé
Amidala is a consistently inconsistent character. To quote Glen Oliver: “The
inconsistencies are limitless, […] The dramatic crux of Episode III is driven
by sheer stupidity, but NOT the involving, high-brow, human-nature kind of
stupidity one might expect to see when dealing with themes of politics and
‘power’ […]” (Glen Oliver). Because of the lack of personal background
information, the absence of well-defined relationships, and for the
contradictions of her actions and reactions throughout the Prequels, Padmé’s
character development is practically non-existent. In fact, the more the
spectator sees of her, the more detrimental the story is towards the integrity
of her character.
Works Cited
Corliss, Richard “Cinema: The Phantom
Movie” Time, May 17, 1999
www.content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,990986-1,00.html . Accessed 5 December 2016.
Ebert, Roger “STAR WARS -- EPISODE II:
ATTACK OF THE CLONES” rogerebert,
May 10, 2002
www.rogerebert.com/reviews/star-wars-episode-ii-attack-of-the-clones-2002 Accessed 5 December 2016.
Oliver, Glen “STAR WARS: EPISODE III -- REVENGE
OF THE SITH REVIEW” IGN,
MAY 11, 2005
www.ign.com/articles/2005/05/11/star-wars-episode-iii-revenge-of-the-sith-2 Accessed 5 December 2016.
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