#sure don't distill down to her being the tragic mother of the twins either but

[bornesorrow]

listen, i have zero time cause of an event coming up this weekend and i’m technically still over on @ofsquadrons but i HAVE to get this out of my head.  this may be preaching to the choir, but on the off chance it is not, here it is:

(under a read more because this is longgggggg and y’all might not want to read an essay about femininity)

i truly believe the reason why padmé is both so adored and ignored (or hated) in and out of universe (honestly the parallels are astonishing) is because of her femininity.  those who dismiss her often seem to do so because of the visible signs of this: her appearance namely in both, but out of universe this idea that she is, on some level, vapid, that she thinks she can ‘fix people’.  they think she is weak, that her connection to those around her is not as strong, not as genuine, as those of the men.  now, this is not to put down the men (or more masculine women for that matter) in star w.ars because dammit, we DO NOT advocate for hypocrisy here.  and i love them all, so if you think i’m attempting to put them down, shame.  however, as often is, even in more female dominated fandom spaces, there is a focus on men, both masculine and feminine, (and if we’re lucky, more masculine women) at the cost of, at best, dismissal of anything outside of that.

padmé would not have been able to accomplish even half as much as she did without her femininity.  no, not the aesthetics of that.  not the clothes, though i may love them, not her beauty, which is undeniable, but what really is at the core of that, beyond the stereotypes of what a feminine woman looks like.  femininity, at its core, strives to nurture.  it wants to bring beauty into the world, for things to live and thrive, and it will do anything to create it.  that, along with her humility, her compassion, and her vulnerability are all what makes padmé the force to be reckoned with that she is.  yes, she is a politician with real power who can kick ass and take names, but that’s NOT what makes her a strong female character any more than just that would create a strong male character.

she wants the republic to live, to thrive, even as she recognizes its faults.  and if you think she is blind to its faults, then you really must think her vapid.  she knows them, has witnessed what they do to the beings she personally represents, let alone countless others.  she’s the daughter of the president of the galaxy’s most effective refugee aid organization and has been involved since she could barely walk.  she’s seen the worst, and she knows where those stem.  but she also sees where, without what the republic should be, what the galaxy would become.  so she pushes, constantly, uncompromisingly, for the republic to become that entity.  she did that on naboo as its queen and continued to do so as the sector’s senator.

her humility, her ability to accept that she was wrong brings people over to her side constantly.  that’s how she made friends in the senate, even amongst those who were afraid she was some sort of puppet of palpatine.  it’s how she prevented rodia from siding with the separatists.  it makes her friends out of people who are wary of her, as well as makes people willing to work with her.

however, her compassion and her vulnerability are what make people loyal to her.  she cares, truly cares about what happens to beings across the galaxy, not just those in her sector.  she fought for clone rights, for self determination, for freedom, for general sentient rights both for humans and non-humans because she cared.  and for those she felt even a morsel of safety in doing so, she was vulnerable.  she might hide things, but she would open herself to harm just so others could see her care, could see that she was just another being.

without these, she wouldn’t have known as this beacon of justice by both loyalists to the fallen republic and the empire after her death.  they both would not have coopted her in their own ways for their messages without these key parts of her.  and more importantly to her, anakin likely would not have fell in love with her at the very least the same way without them.  padmé never thought she could fix him, but if she loved him, cared for him, allowed herself the tiniest of selfishness for once, maybe, just maybe, like she had with so many others, anakin might find the space, the support to grow into the person he wanted to be.  and he probably would have if it wasn’t for palpatine mucking up everything she did.

padmé is the amazing, literally galaxy changing woman she is because of her femininity, not in spite of it.  and any attempt to minimize or dismiss either the impact she had or the importance her femininity had in those is just sad, because it displays a fundamental misunderstanding not only of her character, but of what it means to be feminine.