One of the most popular characters in the storyline of Star Wars is Padme Amidala because she was the one who gave birth to Luke and Leia Skywalker and was the worldly attachment that pulled Anakin Skywalker over to the dark side. Of course, during the events of the original trilogy, she was already dead for around two decades. In Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, we saw her getting Force-choked by Anakin out of rage, as she died at the end of the movie after giving birth to Luke and Leia. So, did Anakin kill Padme?
Emperor Palpatine told Anakin that he was the one who killed Padme. However, the truth is that Padme died of a broken heart because she simply refused to live after discovering what Anakin had done and how far he had fallen. Her vital signs were stable, but she just didn’t want to live anymore.
While it might sound dramatic, it is scientifically proven that a broken heart can kill you because the emotional effects of getting your heart broken figuratively can lead to extreme stress enough to kill a person on rare occasions. In that regard, Padme dying of a broken heart can seem odd, but it can actually happen in real life. So, with that said, let’s take a good look at how Padme died.
Events at Mustafar
Throughout the events of the Star Wars Skywalker Saga, the one person quite underrated in her overall role in the storyline is Padme Amidala. Of course, we know that she is the mother of both Luke and Leia. And we saw in the prequel trilogy how the love story between Padme Amidala and Anakin Skywalker developed.
Elected as a young queen by the people of Naboo, Padme was a powerful political figure that was incredibly important in bringing to light the heinous acts of the Trade Federation in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. However, the one who acted as the queen of Naboo was her bodyguard, who served as a stand-in for her. She met Anakin back in Tatooine when her ship got stranded there and when she was posing as a simple handmaiden, as no one among her companions (except for her trusted bodyguards and handmaidens) knew that she was actually the true queen Amidala.
After her term as the queen of Naboo was over, she was called to serve as a senator representing Naboo, especially after the former senator, Sheev Palpatine, was elevated to the position of chancellor. In that regard, her battle throughout the prequel trilogy was political, as she tried to expose the Separatists and worked to bring about reforms. Through her role as a senator, she and Anakin met again and fell in love with one another.
Of course, considering that it was forbidden for Jedi to have wives and families, Anakin wed Padme in secret, as only a few people knew about the truth behind their relationship. They kept everything private.
But we also learned that Anakin fell to the dark side due to his dreams about Padme’s death. He wanted to prevent her death so much that he decided to join Palpatine, who was secretly Darth Sidious the entire time, as his new apprentice because the chancellor promised him a way to prevent the death of a loved one. And that was what forced Anakin to contribute to the fall of the Jedi Order and the death of younglings.
When Obi-Wan told a pregnant Padme of this, she couldn’t believe what she had just been told. As such, she personally visited Anakin at the Mustafar system to confront him about what he did. Of course, he didn’t deny his actions, as he thought they were for the betterment of their relationship and the Empire that Palpatine had just created. But Padme told Anakin that he was breaking her heart and walking down a path she couldn’t follow.
Obi-Wan, however, secretly snuck onboard Padme’s ship to Mustafar. When Anakin saw him, he thought that Padme personally took him with her to kill him and that he was the one who pulled Padme away from him. As such, Anakin proceeded to hold her in a Force choke. But before he could kill her, he released her at Kenobi’s behest.
Of course, after the fight between Obi-Wan and Anakin, Kenobi took Padme with him and brought him to Bail Organa. The stress brought about by Anakin’s fall to the dark side forced Padme into labor. Bail’s droid helped Padme deliver, as it was discovered that she was actually carrying twins. After giving birth to Luke and Leia, Padme’s vitals dropped for reasons the droid could not understand. Padme simply died after giving birth to her children.
When Anakin was turned into the robotic creature known as Darth Vader, he asked Emperor Palpatine whether or not Padme had survived. Sidious, of course, told him that she died due to Anakin losing control over his anger. But that wasn’t actually the case because Padme was still alive even after Anakin Force-choked her. And the droid that delivered her babies even said she wasn’t sick, injured, or anything.
In that regard, while Vader probably carried the sin of being the one who killed his wife throughout his entire life, he did not kill Padme. Nevertheless, his actions still indirectly led to Padme’s death. That’s why some people can still attribute Padme Amidala’s death to Anakin Skywalker.
How Did Padme Die?
While Anakin’s Force choke was not responsible for Padme’s death, he still contributed to her death. That’s because Anakin going over to the dark side and doing heinous actions broke Padme’s heart as she was disappointed in what her husband had become. As she herself said, Anakin was going down a path that she couldn’t follow because she didn’t fall in love with a man that was willing to kill children and cause the deaths of millions of people for the sake of “order” in the galaxy.
As such, Padme died of a broken heart. The droid that delivered her babies confirmed that her vitals were actually stable after she gave birth. It was just that she just didn’t have the will to live anymore after her husband tore her heart into pieces in a figurative sense. Her broken heart was enough for her to lose the will to go on.
Of course, it might sound strange that a broken heart killed Padme, but there have been rare instances when the emotional stress of heartbreak has actually killed people. In Padme’s case, she was placed in a stressful situation where she had to learn the truth about what her husband did. On top of that, she was choked while she was pregnant and at her weakest emotional and mental state. As such, when she gave birth, she seemingly lost all semblance of energy to keep on living, as what she went through in a short span of time was more than enough to kill her due to stress and heart.
