Anonymous asked, "
Genuine question, Anakin and Padmes relationship was never meant to be portrayed as healthy right?
"
archer3-13:
agoddamn:
Given that the whole thing ends with him choking her, I really don’t think so.
I’ve never been able to get my head around the fandom embrace of their relationship (ie all the desires for them to reconcile as Force ghosts or “good ends” and such) because they always seemed like a very visible, on-purpose disaster of a relationship.
The instant marriage? The secrecy? The control? The self-righteousness? The violence? I don’t understand how everyone read that as a healthy relationship. There’s a quote from Pablo Hidalgo about how even in AotC, Anakin thinks of her like an object–“your presence is soothing to me”, not “I’m happy to be with you”.
Relationships can be something significant to you, something you’re deeply invested in–and still be terrible for you. Someone doesn’t have to be beating you with a bat for a relationship to be bad for you.
Even before falling, Anakin forces Padme to compromise herself to hide his slaughter. Even before falling, Anakin is demeaning and dismissive of her ideals. Even before falling, Anakin is manipulative and controlling of her attention (TCW).
And he tries to kill her the second she inconveniences him by not being a doll.
Even in a universe where Palpatine got eaten by the Zillo Beast, that relationship was bound to detonate and you can’t convince me otherwise. Maybe they could have salvaged a friendship for the sake of the kids, if they still got born, but no way can I picture them in a house with a picket fence. They’re both deeply ambitious and Anakin’s critical flaw is that he can’t accept NOT having everything. That’s always gonna become a critical problem.
Something funny–I’ve heard people say that Anakin looks at her so lovingly when she tells him she’s pregnant in ROTS, but I saw that movie at 12 midnight at release and I thought that emotion was horror. He looks completely shaken by the idea of tangible consequences before he scrapes a false smile back on.
IIRC even the novelization says he’s happy in that scene so this is just my personal (in?)ability to read faces here, but I could never understand why people thought they were such a good couple when Anakin’s immediate reactions were to be disgusted and then start shutting Padme out instead of committing himself to her and taking responsibility. He never even addresses the whole “Jedi don’t marry” thing in ROTS! All his agony is about the nightmares!
Nowhere was he like “alright, time to own up to my choices and do what’s best for my family. I should start talking to Obi-Wan about what my options are”. He keeps on operating in a dream world where consequences don’t exist and Padme’s personal needs aren’t relevant to him.
If i had to liken him to anyone, it often goes back to characters like macbeth and oedipus [oedipus rex] in terms of the tragic archtype anakin most takes after. That is to say, his man of action heroic ideal qualities are what prove to be the driving factors of his tragic flaws and ultimately his undoing. Their men of action who fall to ruin because of it, oedipuses pride at being the best of everything leading him to self fufill the prophecy around him, macbeths ambition and drive pushing him into hasty decisions and deeper paranoia, anakins hero complex being the driving force behind his blind greed [and hence why the redemptive act of killing sidious is important in the context of anakin doing it selflessly rather then selfishly].
like, if i could rewrite one aspect of the prequels it would be to give anakin a group of jedi in his age group that flatter and compliment him that he eventually either slaughters or turns to the dark side as a manner of highlighting the very one sided nature he tends to view relations in.
Yeah, totally. That’s why it always drives me nuts when there’s a fanon push to recast him as a helpless victim of circ*mstance; the whole point is that he made a choice, didn’t just step in a bear trap. Same reason I don’t like fanfic about someone being “forced” to the Dark Side–that’s the opposite of the point. Hell, Anakin slaughters children and still hasn’t actually chosen the Dark Side at that time. You can do evil things without being Dark Side. He doesn’t Fall until he actively commits.
•298 notes •4.11 •3:32 AM
