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In the Star Wars franchise, there are several powerful female characters. Most of them are respected and loved, but there are a select few who are reprimanded for no reason. One of these specific characters, who is most commonly trashed, is Padme Amidala Naberrie. Padme Amidala is a character from the prequels, and makes her first appearance in The Phantom Menace where she is the Queen of Naboo. Afterwards, she is then seen as the Naboo Senator in Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and both the Clone Wars 2003 and 2008. Along with those shows and movies, she also has several appearances in books and comics. 

Despite the fact that she is in all of these different things, she is mainly known for only two things. People see her as the person who married Anakin Skywalker despite his red flags and also for dying from sadness. Although both of these things were technically true, they’re not the best representation of her character. Because of these parts of her character that have become so popular, she has become one of the more hated female characters in the franchise. Of course, you’ll still find those who really know her character, but many view her as both weak and stupid. She is neither of those things. 

Queen Amidala

I think that in order to correctly dive into her character, we need to start from the beginning. In both The Phantom Menace and the novel, Queen’s Peril Padme is the Queen of Naboo. Something a lot of people seem to forget is that in both the novel and the movie, Padme is only 14 years old. She explains in Attack of the Clones that she wasn’t the youngest queen ever elected, but she was certainly one of the younger queens. It’s already quite a feat for someone the age of a high school freshman to be queen of a planet, but it doesn’t end there. While she was queen, Naboo was invaded by the trade federation, where she was told she had to sign over her planet or face the consequences. Of course, Padme loved her planet so she wasn’t going to submit to these threats. 

Padme, in this time, made the difficult decision to head to Coruscant to try and find somebody who would be able to help her planet. While there, she basically overthrew Chancellor Valorum by calling for a vote of no confidence. Though this was frowned upon by many and everyone knew Palpatine was pulling the strings, it was still pretty powerful of her. 

Another thing that she did in The Phantom Menace was restore peace between the Gungans and the Naboo. The dislike between the Gungans and Naboo was ancient and the fact that at 14 Padme Amidala was able to change the course of Naboo history is a major girlboss moment. 

Senator Amidala

Moving on to when Padme became Senator. After her two terms as Queen were up, Padme considered heading back to Tatooine to try and resolve some of the problems with slavery. However, her handmaidens convinced her that she could do so much more on the Senate floor. With that, Padme decided to take the job of Senator, but it was an uphill climb to reach where we see her in Attack of the Clones. She was known for the Queen who caused so much chaos in the senate while playing as Palpatine’s puppet, and because of that, not a lot of people liked her. Knowing this, Padme knew that she was going to have to fight for respect.

When she became Senator she quickly tried to earn a positive reputation, which she did by joining as many helpful committees as she could. Along with that she made sure to take time to personally help with planetary aid. Padme has always worked to have her actions speak for her since words aren’t always enough. She also tried to earn the respect from very well respected Senators knowing that if others saw the respectable Senators thinking highly of her, they would soon follow. 

Obviously, Padme was working herself to the bone because by the time we see her in Attack of the Clones she’s a well respected Senator. In fact, she had such a powerful voice that there were several people who were trying to silence her. And guess what! She survived every assassination attempt. If that’s not a powerful move then I don’t know what is. Not to mention, that at the end of Attack of the Clones while they were in the Geonosian arena, she was definitely on top of things. She fought just as hard to stay alive, if not harder, than the other Jedi present. Plus, she fell out of a gunship and still managed to get back up and keep fighting. Someone who is “weak” and “stupid” would not be able to pull off such a stunt. 

Moving to during the Clone Wars, there are several times when Padme does something that a normal person, even a Senator, wouldn’t dream of. At the beginning, she confronts Ziro the Hutt and then later Jabba, one of the more feared and powerful hutts. Padme also managed to give a speech only a little after an assassination attempt. And, at one point, she even tried to start peace talks between the Separtist Alliance and the Republic, something that no other Senator had even attempted. 

Revenge of the Sith

Finally, we move on to the part of Padme’s life where she gets the most hate. In Revenge of the Sith, we don’t really get a chance to see much of her in the film. Because of the fact that we don’t see her being a girlboss, people think that it just never happens. They are very wrong however. Unfortunately, though most of the scenes with Amidala were cut out of the final film, but for those who have bothered to do more search, they find that Padme was more than just Anakin’s wife. We get the chance to see that Padme was actually one of the earliest members of what would become the Rebellion. It was her who helped organize the committee of Senators, who were prepared to speak against Chancellor Palpatine’s long rule. They were also the committee ready to speak about peace and ending the war. 

Another huge thing people have a problem with is that despite Anakin killing literal children, Padme still loved him. That’s the main part of why people accuse her of being stupid. The truth is that Padme knew that the actions of Vader were not the actions of her Anakin. It was Vader that killed children, Vader that killed the Jedi, Vader that killed her. Despite that, she knew that Anakin was still in there somewhere and could still be saved. I would argue that this doesn’t make her stupid it makes her even better. People who are able to know that there is still good in someone are so amazing and far from stupid. It shows how compassionate and caring they are. 

In the end, I definitely think that it’s ridiculous that people keep hating Padme’s character. She is one of the most powerful and influential female characters in Star Wars and needs to be given more credit. I might be a bit biased because she’s one of my favorite characters but when you look at all the facts I’m not wrong. Hopefully, I was able to give a new perspective on Padme Amidala’s character, and until next time May the Force be with you!