So, I've probably mentioned this before, but I'm writing a story called Lest Ye Be Judged. Actually, it's a rewrite, since the original version was written in 250 single-spaced pages before the release of Episode III. The new version has been ongoing since a week after Episode III's release and is now 606 pages long. It's a story about Darth Vader, repentant, being put on trial for his war crimes with his daughter as his defense attorney.

Now, I have very interesting readers on this project. I have people from Argentina, Germany, Ireland, Australia, Utah, etc. I have a recent law school graduate and an Irish lawyer. The latter has been in regular contact with me about certain points of interest in the story as he sees it. Usually, it'll be something to do with the effectiveness of a witness or to predict something that I'm already intending to do in the next post.

Well, over the weekend, I posted a bit about Padme and her role in the entire thing because Anakin is being tried under Naboo law. Since she is the foremost 'authority' on the Naboo at the time, she is asked to make her recommendations both as a former Naboo magistrate and as the defendant's wife in the sentencing deliberations.

Now, Naboo is supposedly a democratic monarchy, but the Irish lawyer guy, Kevin_Solo, mentioned that in most societies, the idea of a 14-year-old queen having that much real power is highly improbable. We came to an agreement based on the recollection that it is hardly unusual for a monarch to have a regent in place until he or she comes of age. That brought up the issue of the potential disadvantages to her youth.

I agree that after having a corrupt predecessor, her youth and relative inexperience would have been a breath of fresh air. On the other hand, we see that she has a strong tendency as all teenagers do to think of things in anything but shades of grey. It serves her well at times for purposes of audacity, but one has to wonder if she would have been as easily manipulated in The Phantom Menace (by my boy Palpatine, no less) if she weren't someone who should have been passing notes in study hall.

And frankly, she never quite grows out of that absolutism. If Sith deal only in absolutes, she is not the only Skywalker on the Dark Side, but I would not go that far.

Sure, she had a council, but we see repeatedly in the movie that she is more independent than that and they might as well have been advisers in name only. What were they thinking to be that desperate in the first place? Did they really think that she had the life experience and foresight necessary to rule?

Not only that, but there is a strong thread of nepotism in Naboo society, since Padme mentions that she is appointed to the Senate by the queen rather than elected. It would be equivalent to Dubya getting to pick the next ten presidents of the United States from his cabinet.

Is it any wonder that in such an absolutist society, Palpatine thrived?