She may be a huge tease (seriously, you wear a dress that tight by a roaring fire and then reject a guy?) and have horrible judgement when it comes to choosing boyfriends (Surely the whole I killed them all. The women and the children too thing should have been a deal breaker) but that aside, Padmé Amidala is not a woman to cross. The Phantom Menace is the best display of Padmés strength of character as she is the elected Queen of Naboo, has the sense to protect herself with expendable decoys, manages to affect a colossal change in the Galactic Senate by calling for a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorums leadership (Though in hindsight, thats more of a con than a pro since its part of Palpatine's plan), and leads a successful guerrilla attack to reclaim Naboos capital city of Theed. All at the age of fourteen. Ten years on, she was Naboos senator and had gone a bit hippy by opposing the Senates military creation act but still had a lot of guts by going to rescue Obi-Wan after he was captured on Geonosis and was the only non-Jedi to fight against the Separatist droid army before the arrival of Yoda and the first wave of Clone Troopers. To put that into perspective: about one-hundred-and-eighty of the two hundred Jedi who fought in that battle died. Padmé had a Blaster and survived. Either shes insanely lucky, Mace Windu recruited some of the worst Jedi ever for that mission, or she had some serious skill. During the Clone Wars, her actions were largely restricted to the Senate and she was less impressive but constantly pining after your husband and getting pregnant will do that to you. Her marriage may have put the brakes on her being a Blaster-wielding freedom fighter but before that, she was pretty damn impressive.
JG Moore is a writer and filmmaker from the south of England. He also works as an editor and VFX artist, and has a BA in Media Production from the University Of Winchester.
