Theory: How Did Padme Really Die?
Medical droid (about Padmé): Medically, she's completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: She's dying?
Medical droid: We don't know why. She has lost the will to live.
These words were the inevitable build up to Padme Amidala’s expected death in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith. No other explanation was given in the film for her death. Over the years there has been much speculation as to whether it was as simple as that or if there was something else at play?
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Let’s start with things as they are presented in the movie. Before giving birth, Padme had seen Anakin change under the influence of Emperor Palpatine, with his behavior becoming more erratic and his paranoia being on full display. Seeing him change so much must have been very hard for her and despite her best efforts she could not break though Palpatine’s thrall. Her final interaction with Anakin culminated in him Force choking her.
Based on this unspeakable turn of events, could she have just given up on life as the result of a broken heart? Lots of people dismiss this as a silly notion and think her death was ridiculous, but the "broken heart theory" does have a grounding in real world science. “Broken heart syndrome” is medically referred to as Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy. Intense grief can cause a stress reaction between cytokine and catecholamine. This stress reaction can lead to heart failure as it impacts the heart’s ability to pump blood. If you have ever encountered the emptiness caused by grief, then it's not difficult to imagine that her heart was truly breaking over what had happened to Anakin and she just gave up in her grief.
"Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise? I thought not. It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you. It’s a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life… He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful, the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself."
We know that Palpatine used this story to lure Anakin to the dark side in the belief that he could save Padme from dying, after he foresaw it in a vision. Could it be that Palpatine had managed to train himself in these unnatural abilities and was able to use it to channel Padme’s life force to save Anakin while he was undergoing his medical treatment after his failed battle against Obi-Wan on Mustafar? What better way to fully turn Anakin than to kill Padme by draining her life through the Force and channeling it into healing Anakin and then declaring to Anakin that he had killed her himself. Given the surprise return of Palpatine in The Rise Of Skywalker, and the experiments that were happening on Exegol, it could be that he had been working on and developing the teaching that he had received from Darth Plagueis.
Another possible option is that Anakin was also somehow able to tap into the same energy through the Force as hinted at by Palpatine and was able to use that to help his own healing. It is clear that Anakin was one of the strongest Force users to ever exist so new abilities are not beyond the realm of possibility, draining Padme’s life through the Force could also have resulted in her dying without an obvious cause that could be detected medically.
Lucasfilm, to date, has not really released any information to fully clarify exactly what caused Padme to die so questions will continue to endure for the foreseeable future.
What do you think? Did Padme loose the will to live from a broken heart, did Anakin channel her energy to save himself, or did Emperor Palpatine drain her life force to help with Anakin’s healing? Or is there another explanation?
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Source(s): Screen Rant, Harvard Health Publishing