"I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life..."
Padme to Anakin in AOTC

Why Padme says this at this moment has always eluded me! I have come up with all kinds of half hearted explanations that involve premonitions of the future and ripples in the Force, but no theory I have come up with feels the least bit emotionally satisfying. What has always bothered me is that Padme is speaking about the past not the future. She feels that she is already dying, not that she will die. Padme is a character known for her strength. Outwardly, at this point Padme seems the same as ever. Despite her shift in wardrobe she is working hard to maintain a level head, she leaves the safety of the Lake Country to go to Tattooine, and persuades Anakin to come with her to rescue Obi-Wan. This is the image of a young woman who seems vibrant, confident, strong-willed, and independent. So, why this sudden admission of vulnerability? Why does she enter head long into an admission of love (other than the fact that she felt their lives were about to end anyway), while at the same time linking the feeling to an already dying self? Most of the time people associate new love with renewed energy and spirit, feeling it is a step into the light, not into the darkness.

Well, I have a new theory. This theory is linked to one of my previous blogs about the Skywalker Women, and then Angel wrote a blog inspired by Jedilily, that sparked some new thinking too. It's all wound up into something that may or may not work for others, but in the SW galaxy of my imagination it all makes sense. I think that what Padme was feeling was the death of her independent self. She could feel that to be in relationship with Anakin she would be giving 100% of her emotional self to that relationship, that her old sense of self would have to let go to make room for this new Padme who, instead of living "in and of herself," and for her ideals, would live for another person. For Padme to do this it would require a death of one part of her life and a rebirth into another, and that rebirth was as a Wife. This rebirth ushers in a whole new era of vulnerability for Padme. Her existence, her sense of self is for the first time tied to someone else, and that someone is both powerful and unstable. Padme knows this on some level. She loves Anakin but is "not blind to his faults" (ROTS novel), and she knows that becoming one with him means that her destiny will for the first time in her life be determined by someone else's. It is the first time in her life that who she is is, in some ways, out of her hands.

When I think of it this way Padme's physical death at the end of ROTS doesn't seem so sudden. Each step through AOTC is a step towards death for her. She herself dates the origins of these feelings not from actual attempts on her life, but from the re-appearance of a very grown-up Anakin. There is a part of her that has already died in order to be with Anakin at all, and the part that was left behind, or created, was a part that was not as resilient as what had been before. Padme as wife is vulnerable to the "slings and arrows" of Anakin's fortune. It is a tragic shift for her, but I'm not sure it's one that she regrets. She was true to her word. She was not afraid to die, and not afraid to die for him over and over again.




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