Cloning the World: Re: Re: Re: Palpatine's Influence

» FernWithy - Re: Re: Re: Palpatine's Influence

In response to message posted by steverino104:

I think that Palpatine was trying to cause trouble between Anakin and Obi-Wan with the Padme issue... he ends up shooting himself in the foot, but that's because, while he understands the more base nature of what he's doing, he doesn't have the first idea about the higher nature. By playing matchmaker for Anakin and Amidala, he ends up engineering his own defeat through their marriage/love/son (I don't think there's any separation among those concepts, ultimately).

The novelization says that Anakin hasn't been in to see Palpatine very often, but that Palpatine has always been the way he seems to be. Now, I don't take the novelization as the be-all, end-all, but in this case, I think that makes sense. Too much interest would have caused a lot of suspicion. But during those times, Anakin would undoubtedly have thought, "Hey, he's Naboo... I can ask him about Padme." And no matter how he couched those questions, Palpatine would have picked up on them. And, just for kicks, what if Padme had said, "Say, Chancellor--you deal with the Jedi from time to time. How is little Ani getting along?" Bells go off. I think at this point that he's not thinking so much of turning Anakin as he is of splitting Anakin from the Jedi Order, just in case that pesky prophecy turns out to be true.

And, to get back to the teaching themes here, I've been in conversations elsewhere that point out the extreme difference in the way Palpatine treats Anakin and the way Obi-Wan does. Anakin is clearly someone who responds to positive reinforcement well--any time someone gives him a vaguely encouraging comment, he lights up like the twin suns. Obi-Wan, afraid that Anakin is suffering from hubris and arrogance, spends a lot of time correcting and reminding him that he must learn his place, etc, etc. Obi-Wan has good reason for this, but he seems not to realize that he's being countered and challenged by Palpatine, who only tells Anakin, "You're wonderful, you're powerful, you know what you're doing, you're competent..." That he does this very cynically is part of what makes him disgusting. He's capitalizing on a very human need that's not being met, not because Obi-Wan is a bad person, but because Obi-Wan is basically a first-time parent, and he's making a fairly common first-time parent mistake.

As to Shmi, I doubt that had anything to do with Palpatine. That was just either bad luck or bad fate. Given that it's SW, I'd guess the latter.

-- posted by FernWithy