"The dark side clouds everything." -Yoda

There are so many Padme lovers on this site, so I was a little wary about writing this. First of all, I want you to know that I love Padme! I'm one of you!! It pains me to be thinking these thoughts! That's why I decided to sleep on this before posting. Alas, I woke up to the same conclusion: Padme was surrounded by the Dark Side and was the principal agent in Anakin's turn. Let me clarify: I DON'T THINK PADME WAS CONSUMED BY THE DARKSIDE! I just think her good, beautiful soul was surrounded and manipulated unwillingly by it. Obviously, she wasn't the only factor the DS played upon, but she was an agent of its power nonetheless.

First, let's look at all the reasons why one might not see Padme as such an agent:

1. She loves. She loves her family, her husband, her friends, her people, and liberty itself.
2. She's a life-giver. She does her best to preserve the lives of her people and she gives birth to two children.
3. She's beautiful, inside and out. The DS is an ugly thing and turns it's users into hideous monsters, yet Padme remains beautiful, even in death.
4. She's has no Force abilities (that we know of). The DS uses Sith and their powerful abilities in the Force, yet Padme is just a politician, though a darn good one.

She has other positive qualities that could go either way. She desires peace, but so does Palpatine in many ways, as long as he's in control of it (the difference is he certainly doesn't mind using violence to reach it). Dictatorships can be peaceful, after all (Machiavelli, anyone?). Padme also truly loves Anakin. Love is good, yes, but she loves Anakin at the expense of her own safety and his. (See below.)

Now let's look why the DS seems to center around this beautiful, strong woman:

1. Palpatine is drawn to her. She is central to his evil plan on numerous levels. We learn from Anakin while they are in hiding that she is not weak-minded, so this cannot be Palpatine's incentive for attaching himself to her. He knows he cannot even begin to overpower Padme with manipulative mind tricks, but there must be some reason why he feels he needs and can use her for his master plan. If the DS surrounds Padme, Palpatine would have naturally been drawn to her from the start and he would have known he could manipulate her.

2. The Jedi could not sense her. They couldn't sense that she was the Queen when in disguise during their first visit to Tatooine. Neither Obi-Wan nor Qui-Gon had any idea that Padme Naberrie was actually Queen Amidala. WHY?!? Those are two powerful Jedi minds, yet they could not sense this crucial fact even after spending a significant amount of time with her. As Yoda reminds us, the Dark Side clouds everything. If the DS was truly surrounding Padme, the clouding of her identity from the Jedi makes sense. Also, none of the Jedi, including Master Yoda himself, could sense two children in Padme. Both these children grow up to have significant Force abilities, so why couldn't the Jedi get any sense of this while the kids were in mommy's womb? Again, the Dark Side clouds everything.

3. She became Anakin's purpose in life. He did everything for her and with her in mind. Why would this indicate the DS surrounded Padme? Well, as Qui-Gon tells Anakin, "Your focus determines your reality." She was his focus. The Dark Side then became his reality.

4. The Padme/Anakin relationship remained a mystery until the end. So many Jedi were fooled, having no idea that Anakin had betrayed them by taking for himself a wife. Again, the DS clouds everything. The DS surrounded their very marriage, allowing it to remain hidden from the rest of the Jedi. Their marriage seems to me to be a plot intertwined with the very DS itself, and the one thing the lovers didn't expect, a child, was the way the Good Side intervened.

5. She was full of fear. Yoda tells us how dangerous fear is, and Padme herself tells us how afraid she is. She fears for her people and her political situation in TPM, she fears for her safety as she goes into hiding in ATOC, and she is completely full of fear as everything falls apart in ROTS. In all of the instances that I recall her speaking of her fear, Padme is talking to Anakin.

6. Padme loves Anakin. Her love, however, transcends what she knows is best for both of them. She encourages him to be human (think ATOC just after the Tusken Raider slaughter) when she should have been encouraging him to be a Jedi. Jedi have a higher calling than most people and can't afford write off their mistakes as "being human." Jedi must rise above being human or whatever species one happens to be. Padme even encouraged Ani to disobey Mace's orders in AOTC in order to save Obi-Wan. Noble cause, sure, but it was still disobeying orders. In ROTS, her love encourages him to act impulsively yet again, and this terrifying act results in Mace's death and Anakin's pledge to Palpatine. Her love convinces Anakin that he cannot live without it, yet all is destroyed because of their love. Funny, they agreed aloud that their falling in love would destroy their lives...

(Pamde pretended that she didn't want Anakin's affections, but her actions did not support that claim. At the lake, Ani touches her, gazes at her, and even kisses her, and it takes Padme quite some time to pull away. Look at what she wore while they were in hiding on Naboo for crying out loud! Guys- could you honestly resist a woman dressed like that? That lake dress? The fireplace scene?!? She was asking for it...)

There are other elements as well. Anakin's conflicts concerning Padme are always what he should do v. what he wants to do. He knows what is right, yet he often chooses the other because of Padme. Also, we see Anakin's patience, wisdom, and selflessness after he spends time with Obi-Wan, away from Padme. Yet when Anakin and Padme are reunited, his trust in Obi-Wan begins to waiver and all Kessel breaks loose. (I can see how one would argue this is due to Palpatine as well.) Shmi even plays into this to a degree. The center of good in Ani's life dies with Shmi, allowing Padme to step in as his comfort and his #1 focus. With her, the DS. Her presence is indeed soothing, but he learned to associate this comfort with the DS as it surrounded Padme.

The Dark Side needed her. It chose her. It used her.

The biggest reason why I feel Padme had a dark conflict surrounding her? She lost the will to live. That girl never lost the will for anything, yet she gave up on life. One would think Padme would have more to live for than ever after the birth of her twins, but the conflict of her good soul shrouded by the Dark Side was too great a burden to bear. More importantly, in letting herself die, Padme was implementing a last-ditch effort to save her children and her husband from the pressing darkness. She tells us that there is still good in Anakin, but her death tells us that she knows her life would only deepen his burden. Padme knows she could not save him. Padme also knows that the choice is ultimately Anakin's to make, but that the darkness surrounding her brought him to the line and place the very decision before him. Concerning the children, Padme sacrifices herself so that they might escape the cloud that loomed over her life. The ultimate good in Padme sacrificed itself to dissolve the ultimate evil that somehow had clung to her being. Death was one thing she was not afraid of.

If Padme were here to defend herself, I'm sure she'd take a cue from the OT boys and give us a good, "It's not my fault!" and I'd have to agree with her...to a point. I think she began to feel the influence of the Dark Side, but shut it out and refused to acknowledge its pull until the very end of her life. Maybe Padme really did not feel it until her final moments, but maybe she couldn't bear the thought that her love caused some of the torture that was occurring in Anakin's soul.

Thank you for taking the time to read this VERY long idea of mine. Now please, let me know what you think! (Just don't strike me down with all of your anger...) In my best Zam impression, "It's just a blog."

Forcefully,
JP