Here is Part 1. I promise I am getting to the original question 🙂 @corseque & @superkeenstarwarsbean thank you for your patience!
We’ve talked a lot already about how across the saga films, the Force theme has two main iterations in terms of orchestration, tempo, emotional feel, etc. The first is the more meditative, mystical form, and the second is the more militaristic, adventure/heroic form.
We’ve also established that the Force theme is often used to foreshadow events, specifically events that the cosmic will of the Force is intending to bring into being, shaping the fate of the galaxy.
And finally, we’ve seen that the Force theme can apply to many different characters & situations because of the innate flexibility and expansiveness in how the melody is constructed, as well as the rhythm and underlying harmony, and the different ways that JW chooses to orchestrate. It’s built to represent a struggle and striving toward an ultimate climax and resolution. And I believe the Theme is playing out this struggle across all 9 films, as the Force itself is trying to achieve balance.
Let’s get in to the Prequels now. Note: I have mad prequel love. I saw them at a very impressionable age – 16, 19 & 21. It’s very real for me that the OT represents childhood, the PT represents adolescence, and now the ST represents adulthood in all its messy, complicated glory. So I fully acknowledge the flaws inherent in the prequels, I just choose to focus on the good.
So I’m watch Revenge of the Sith and I hate how much I agree with Palpatine, you know?
He’s like “if one is to understand the great mystery one must study all its aspects” and like… he’s right. He’s really right and I wanna kick him in his teeth because of course his motives aren’t pure or good but he’s still right and I hate that. (But I also love it in a well-crafted manipulator character way.)
Also that part happens literally half-way through the movie.
This is just something I got to thinking about as I was writing my PadMay Day 2 Post. Why is it you rarely, it seems to me anyway, hear people complain about Luke going to redeem his father–and throwing away his lightsaber rather than kill him and compromise his principles–but you hear people complain that Padme didn’t draw a weapon on Anakin and betray her principles? Surely, people do realise that what Luke did and what Padme did are the same thing, right? Actually, what Luke did was arguable “stupider”.
What Luke Knew About Darth Vader
He’s a mass murderer
Has committed genocide
Is a Sith
Cut of His Hand
Is Loyal to the Empire
Has Killed Many of His Friends and Comrades
Was, allegedly, a Good Man Once
Threatened to Turn his Sister to the Dark Side
Dueled him to protect the Emperor
What Padme Knew About Darth Vader
He was a good man
He was a sweet and kind-hearted boy
He loved her
He loved their child
He loved Ahsoka
He loved Obi-Wan
He loved his mother
He loved people
He wanted to help people
He had a lot of compassion in his heart
He’d been lost and confused lately.
He’d been friends with the Chancellor since he was a boy
Obi-Wan said he’d turned to the Dark Side
He’d even killed younglings
He has the potential to be quite Dark
Maybe he did go Dark…But Why?
From the above we can observe that Padme had far more reason to believe in her husband than her son did to believe in his father. He has been her beloved husband of three years. She’s seen him do lots of good things. When Padme goes to Mustafar, Anakin hugs and kisses her. He clearly still has some kind of caring for her. She’s horrified by what she discovers, but is trying to get through to him when Obi-Wan interferes and Vader turns on her. She is strangled by a Sith while she is weaponless.
Luke, on the other hand, has nothing much to go on, but the vague impression that Vader doesn’t really want to kill him, and might have been a good man once. He knows for certain, Vader has already cut of his hand, and indirectly killed his family, and has committed numerous other atrocities when he goes to face Vader. Nevertheless, after all that has happened, and Vader defends the Emperor, and Luke uses his rage to win a duel, Luke throws away his lightsaber, when the Emperor is right there, rather than betray his ideals. He does not want to become someone who will kill, his own father no less, in anger. He gets electrocuted by a Sith for it while he is weaponless.
Why is it then that Padme is the naive, “weak,” delusional one? Whose reactions were more reasonable and understandable in which situation? Why the double standard? Both Luke and Padme were coming from the same place. Whether you admire or disdain their choices, they were both making the same fundamental choice.
It’s because Padme is a woman. There’s always that double-standard where a female character is criticised for doing something while a male character who does the same thing isn’t criticised and might even be praised. People are obsessed with the idea of a strong female character and whenever any female character does something that could be seen as cliched/stereotyped they criticise them mercilessly. They see Padme’s actions but they seemingly don’t understand or choose to ignore her motivations and reasons. Yes Padme confronting Anakin/Vader on Mustafar was reckless and unwise and ended in her death. If she’d lived maybe people wouldn’t be so harsh on her, but she didn’t.
And not only did she die, she died because she ‘lost the will to live’. Most people assume that it’s a cliche feminine stereotype. However, they fail or refuse to understand that Padme had understandable reasons for ‘losing the will to live’. She lost everything that she cared about. She literally saw everything she’d worked so hard for go down in flames. It sent her into acute depression. She lost her drive and before she could get it back again she went into labour and she died having ‘lost the will to live’.
Now Luke, on the other hand, is a male character and by throwing away his lightsaber he’s going against male cliches/stereotypes. People like that.
(Feel free to tell me if I’ve gotten something wrong. Meta discussions are not my forte. I really don’t want to be jumped on for anything.)
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