Star Wars FAQ
1. Why do you write so much about Padmé?
Because it's a challenge. She is one of the Star Wars characters who are least like me in terms of personality and way of thinking. When I first saw the prequels, she was a puzzle, as were her motivations. I only started to understand the contradiction that is her character, and why she does the things she does, after writing nearly 50 000 words of fanfiction about her (never posted and probably OOC). When I was in politics, I knew some people who were altruistic idealists like her. Some I disliked and some I respected and even admired, but they were always the ones whose perspective I found difficult to understand, and that made me want to understand it all the more.
I could focus on writing about and from the point of view of the characters who think like I do. It's easy. I've been complimented on how well I do it (and doesn't it feel ridiculous to be praised for something that takes no effort?). But that isn't why I write. I write to grow. To stretch my ability to see from other points of view. Each of my stories is an attempt to understand, an exploration of something unfamiliar.
Oh, and because she's hot - looks and personality. ;)
2. What is the most important lesson you learned in politics?
That I shouldn't be in politics. To try to see from other points of view, always. Because it isn't about the speaker, it's about the audience. Your intention doesn't matter. What you say doesn't matter. All that matters is what people hear - the meaning they give to your words through the filter of their knowledge, experience, and preconceptions, which are always more or less different from yours. If you want to persuade, or even if you just don't want to be misunderstood, you have to study your target audience and understand how it thinks. Your success depends on trying to predict people's reactions. Trying is the key word. It's guesswork. At best, you'll be wrong every other time, and that's all right as long as your opponents are no better. Risk is a constant in politics; it's a hectic, intense, and in a way, addictive lifestyle. (But I've met some people who got it wrong all the time and who never learned. *sigh* Nowhere is the narcissism epidemic as obvious as in politics.)
It isn't surprising, then, that politics as a field tends to attract people with sociopathic personalities. Or is it that politics is a climate that encourages good people to develop sociopathic tendencies? What researcher will try to find out?
3. Why was Padme so out of touch with herself, to the point of sometimes being unaware of her emotions?
Because it's what politics does to people. Politicians in general are the least self-aware species I've encountered on earth. As Lise Payette, former government minister, writes in her autobiography: "in politics, there is a terrible lack of time to sit down and look within oneself", but it's more than a lack of time. I think the expectations of the public and the media are to blame. Self-awareness means constantly questioning yourself. It means doubting yourself and your decisions. But doubt is seen as a weakness when you are in a position of power. You are supposed to make decisions and stand by them no matter what. If you don't, people stop respecting you and consider you untrustworthy (though if it was the wrong decision, they'll hate you either way).
Politicians aren't allowed to change their minds; they are judged harshly when they do. The media uses derogatory terms like "U-turn", "flip-flop", or in Quebec French, vire-capot and volte-face. Opponents try to discredit you by digging up proof that when you were twenty, your stand on some issues was different than it is now, as if changing your mind, growing, realizing you were wrong... is a crime. Is it any wonder then that an overwhelming majority of people in politics never second-guess themselves? It's learned behavior.
This is linked to my answer to question #2. There is a concept that social psychology calls self-monitoring: being conscious of the "camera". Constantly paying attention to the effect you (and what you say and what you do) have on people. To be successful in politics, you need to have a high level of self-monitoring. You are a "public person", constantly under scrutiny, so you learn to think about how the audience will feel about what you say before saying anything. There is danger in this. You are so focused on other people's feelings that you relegate your own feelings to second place if not put them out of your mind entirely - otherwise they just distract you from what you have to do. I think what happened to Padmé was that she got so used to directing her attention outward that she stopped even noticing what was happening in her own head and heart. She learned too well, and that's no wonder if she got into politics when she was just a child (and nothing short of her death could make her quit).
4. Why don't you like Anakin/Padmé as a pairing?
It's personal. A lot about Star Wars is personal to me. I have an irrational emotional reaction to Anakin/Padmé because their relationship is eerily like my parents' was before their divorce. From AOTC onward, Anakin and Padmé's romance displays elements of the destructive dynamic of obsession and codependency*, high on passion and low on communication, that sometimes leads to domestic violence. One of the most remarkable things about the Star Wars movies is their psychological realism, and in this case, it hits too close. It's like a trigger - it sends me back to the emotional state of a child watching mom and dad destroy each other in the name of love. (Someday I will write real meta about this.) However, writing it is never triggering; writing is a way to relive the past while being in control, which can even be cathartic (in the common sense, not the anger-release sense used in social psychology, which in my experience doesn't work).
* Codependency as defined by the psychologist E.J. Bourne: "the tendency to put others' needs before your own. You accommodate others to such a degree that you tend to discount or ignore your own feelings, desires and basic needs. Your self-esteem depends largely on how well you please, take care of and/or solve problems for someone else (or many others)". I think that describes Padmé pretty well in her attitude both towards work and towards Anakin.
Because it's a challenge. She is one of the Star Wars characters who are least like me in terms of personality and way of thinking. When I first saw the prequels, she was a puzzle, as were her motivations. I only started to understand the contradiction that is her character, and why she does the things she does, after writing nearly 50 000 words of fanfiction about her (never posted and probably OOC). When I was in politics, I knew some people who were altruistic idealists like her. Some I disliked and some I respected and even admired, but they were always the ones whose perspective I found difficult to understand, and that made me want to understand it all the more.
I could focus on writing about and from the point of view of the characters who think like I do. It's easy. I've been complimented on how well I do it (and doesn't it feel ridiculous to be praised for something that takes no effort?). But that isn't why I write. I write to grow. To stretch my ability to see from other points of view. Each of my stories is an attempt to understand, an exploration of something unfamiliar.
Oh, and because she's hot - looks and personality. ;)
2. What is the most important lesson you learned in politics?
That I shouldn't be in politics. To try to see from other points of view, always. Because it isn't about the speaker, it's about the audience. Your intention doesn't matter. What you say doesn't matter. All that matters is what people hear - the meaning they give to your words through the filter of their knowledge, experience, and preconceptions, which are always more or less different from yours. If you want to persuade, or even if you just don't want to be misunderstood, you have to study your target audience and understand how it thinks. Your success depends on trying to predict people's reactions. Trying is the key word. It's guesswork. At best, you'll be wrong every other time, and that's all right as long as your opponents are no better. Risk is a constant in politics; it's a hectic, intense, and in a way, addictive lifestyle. (But I've met some people who got it wrong all the time and who never learned. *sigh* Nowhere is the narcissism epidemic as obvious as in politics.)
It isn't surprising, then, that politics as a field tends to attract people with sociopathic personalities. Or is it that politics is a climate that encourages good people to develop sociopathic tendencies? What researcher will try to find out?
3. Why was Padme so out of touch with herself, to the point of sometimes being unaware of her emotions?
Because it's what politics does to people. Politicians in general are the least self-aware species I've encountered on earth. As Lise Payette, former government minister, writes in her autobiography: "in politics, there is a terrible lack of time to sit down and look within oneself", but it's more than a lack of time. I think the expectations of the public and the media are to blame. Self-awareness means constantly questioning yourself. It means doubting yourself and your decisions. But doubt is seen as a weakness when you are in a position of power. You are supposed to make decisions and stand by them no matter what. If you don't, people stop respecting you and consider you untrustworthy (though if it was the wrong decision, they'll hate you either way).
Politicians aren't allowed to change their minds; they are judged harshly when they do. The media uses derogatory terms like "U-turn", "flip-flop", or in Quebec French, vire-capot and volte-face. Opponents try to discredit you by digging up proof that when you were twenty, your stand on some issues was different than it is now, as if changing your mind, growing, realizing you were wrong... is a crime. Is it any wonder then that an overwhelming majority of people in politics never second-guess themselves? It's learned behavior.
This is linked to my answer to question #2. There is a concept that social psychology calls self-monitoring: being conscious of the "camera". Constantly paying attention to the effect you (and what you say and what you do) have on people. To be successful in politics, you need to have a high level of self-monitoring. You are a "public person", constantly under scrutiny, so you learn to think about how the audience will feel about what you say before saying anything. There is danger in this. You are so focused on other people's feelings that you relegate your own feelings to second place if not put them out of your mind entirely - otherwise they just distract you from what you have to do. I think what happened to Padmé was that she got so used to directing her attention outward that she stopped even noticing what was happening in her own head and heart. She learned too well, and that's no wonder if she got into politics when she was just a child (and nothing short of her death could make her quit).
4. Why don't you like Anakin/Padmé as a pairing?
It's personal. A lot about Star Wars is personal to me. I have an irrational emotional reaction to Anakin/Padmé because their relationship is eerily like my parents' was before their divorce. From AOTC onward, Anakin and Padmé's romance displays elements of the destructive dynamic of obsession and codependency*, high on passion and low on communication, that sometimes leads to domestic violence. One of the most remarkable things about the Star Wars movies is their psychological realism, and in this case, it hits too close. It's like a trigger - it sends me back to the emotional state of a child watching mom and dad destroy each other in the name of love. (Someday I will write real meta about this.) However, writing it is never triggering; writing is a way to relive the past while being in control, which can even be cathartic (in the common sense, not the anger-release sense used in social psychology, which in my experience doesn't work).
* Codependency as defined by the psychologist E.J. Bourne: "the tendency to put others' needs before your own. You accommodate others to such a degree that you tend to discount or ignore your own feelings, desires and basic needs. Your self-esteem depends largely on how well you please, take care of and/or solve problems for someone else (or many others)". I think that describes Padmé pretty well in her attitude both towards work and towards Anakin.