Anghraine

Re: Leia -- thanks! I do think she is the family's administrative genius! But I think she needs a good deal of space and freedom in which to do it, and she needs to be in charge. So ... ideologically suited to be a Rebel, temperamentally suited to being galactic empress. I don't think we see the dreamy restlessness we do in Luke and Anakin, so I don't think she'd be all "gah, boring" about the minutia of running an organization like they would, as long as she had cool things to do too. Leia/New Jedi Order OTP

Oh! I think it would have been awesome if Anakin had been clearly using the Force and Just That Powerful -- which would match up nicely with Obi-Wan being all o_O about it in ROTJ.

I really wish there were more about the Padmé-Palpatine relationship, because there unquestionably is one that falls apart at some point, but we don't see it or anything. I had a blast writing a Padmé-Palpatine side-story for Revenge, ha.

Anakin... I really think would have basically said "Yes dear" to anything Padme came up with politically and then shoved it down the rest of the galaxy's throat with his lightsaber.

THIS. In fact, I think that's exactly what he wanted and settled for Palpatine as second-best. And if Luke had accepted his offer on Bespin, that's what would have happened there, too. Even as Vader, his patience with politics seems to reside somewhere in the vicinity of negative infinity. (A scenario I think would be especially interesting is if he made the offer to both of them -- suppose Luke and Leia were both sent to Tatooine [I'm still not sure why they're separated, honestly, though I fanwank reasons for fic] -- and they accepted and ... yeah.)

And yeah, I think Leia as Empress would be marginally less disturbing (assuming she's not Dark Siding) just because there would be people around to go 'wtf?!'

I can actually see Anakin attempting the high moral ground here, as a former slave of the Hutts

Oh, that's interesting! And honestly, I think he ... might have a point? Anakin, as far as we can tell, completely believes the Empire is Right and Just and Bringing Order. Even though he does things that are so much worse morally and Han has every right to loathe him for the rest of his life, Han knew exactly what Jabba was and what was going on. And I don't get the impression that the Empire had much tolerance for slavery as a system, so when it comes to that issue specifically, Anakin would have some moral ground as a former slave who opposed slavery for his entire life. Just not, ah, in general.

And oh my word, but I LOVE the idea of Han being a mediator in Three-Way Skywalker Family Regularly Scheduled Rages. (I also love that term for it, btw.)

Ahahahaha, thank you! Even in a less dysfunctional setting, I suspect they just need to scream at one another every once in awhile. And Han's much more low-key than they are, so once he got past OMFG VADER, I think he'd go between "pass the popcorn!" and ego/righteousness-puncturing.

Ha, I definitely think Padmé's real reaction can be summed up as "oh, dear."