Well, I'm not sure Padmé is designed to be a tragic hero -- Obi-Wan and Anakin both are, in different ways, but I tend to think that Padmé is intended more as the casualty of other people's tragic flaws than tragically flawed herself. A lot of the "wtf Padmé?!" we see comes, I think, more from fandom's canon-welding than any consistent fatal flaw of hers.
Like I said above, I think Padmé occupies Han's role a bit, as a badass normal who gets caught up in this epic saga thing, which is a cool character, but seems (at least in SW) to inevitably hit a snag in the end -- once the character's done their thing, there's not much to do with them in the framework of the epic saga thing. I know that people tore their hair out over what to do with Han in ROTJ, and you can see it in his comparative irrelevance there. Padmé has sort of the same problem; as it becomes more and more the tragic start of darkness, there's less and less to do with her, so she's mostly reduced to a couple of necessary roles. None of which are "model for young girls."
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ninetydegrees
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on 2011-10-26 10:38 pm (UTC)Like I said above, I think Padmé occupies Han's role a bit, as a badass normal who gets caught up in this epic saga thing, which is a cool character, but seems (at least in SW) to inevitably hit a snag in the end -- once the character's done their thing, there's not much to do with them in the framework of the epic saga thing. I know that people tore their hair out over what to do with Han in ROTJ, and you can see it in his comparative irrelevance there. Padmé has sort of the same problem; as it becomes more and more the tragic start of darkness, there's less and less to do with her, so she's mostly reduced to a couple of necessary roles. None of which are "model for young girls."