Padmé Amidala's 8 Dumbest Decisions in Star Wars, Ranked

Padmé Amidala could stand up to an invasion, argue with the entire Galactic Senate and fight her way through an execution arena. Then Anakin would say something terrifying, and suddenly her judgment went out the window. I'm counting down eight of her dumbest decisions in Star Wars. Some worked out despite the plan. Others helped destroy the Republic.

And at number one, she didn't need to know the future. He told her exactly what happened.

8. Personally leading the mission to capture Nute Gunray put the queen within the enemy's reach

I'm starting with one she pulls off, because a plan working doesn't automatically mean everybody involved made a sensible decision. In The Phantom Menace, Padmé returns to occupied Naboo and puts herself right in the middle of the operation to capture Gunray. She's 14 years old. She's the queen, and she's running through her own palace shooting at battle droids.

Give her credit. She refuses to sit somewhere safe while other people fight for her planet. I get that. It's commendable. That's leadership. And the decoy trick is clever, because Padmé understands that Gunray doesn't even know which person he's supposed to be capturing.

But the stakes here are ridiculous. If the Trade Federation captures the actual queen and forces the treaty issue, Naboo has a much bigger problem. She puts the person the enemy needs most directly within reach of the enemy. Yes, the palace is hers. Yes, she knows the building. "I know where everything is in my house, too. That doesn't qualify me to clear it out of armed robots." Brave, absolutely. Successful, thankfully. A reasonable assignment for a head of state who is 14? Probably not.

7. Padmé treated assassination protection in Attack of the Clones like an inconvenience

By Attack of the Clones, someone is actively trying to kill Padmé. This isn't a vague warning from some security briefing. Her ship gets blown up and people die. Her response to being told she needs more protection is to argue that she doesn't. They have just left the explosion.

I understand why she's upset. She has an important vote coming in. She cares about her work. Hiding means the people threatening her get to influence what she does. It's a legitimate concern. But there is a point where determination becomes refusing to accept the situation happening directly in front of you. She doesn't have to stop being a senator. She does need to recognize that protecting her life is now part of keeping her effective as one.

The frustrating thing is that Padmé knows what these people are capable of. This is not her first encounter with political violence. She already lived through an invasion. Unfortunately, her survival instinct occasionally seems to operate on the assumption that being very committed to your job counts as body armor. It doesn't. Plot armor, maybe. And that habit becomes a much bigger problem at number six.

6. The Geonosis rescue turned one captured Obi-Wan into three hostages

Obi-Wan gets captured on Geonosis, and Padmé decides she and Anakin should go help him. Her reasoning is wonderfully convenient. Anakin has orders to protect her. If she goes to Geonosis, he has to tag along. You can practically hear him realizing she found a technicality.

Here's the problem. They know Obi-Wan is in trouble on a hostile planet. They have passed his message along. Help is being organized. Instead of coordinating with that help, they head in themselves. Padmé hopes a diplomatic approach can accomplish something. What they actually find is a droid factory, industrial equipment trying to turn them into spare parts, and eventually an execution arena. They went there because one Jedi had been captured. By the end, the enemy has that Jedi, another Jedi and a senator. That's a very productive afternoon for the Separatists.

To be fair, Padmé handles herself incredibly well once she's in the arena. She picks her restraints, climbs a pillar and starts working on her own escape. Nobody has to pretend she's helpless. But being good at escaping a terrible situation does not erase the decision that put you there in the first place. Obi-Wan needed reinforcements. What he initially received was some company.

5. Giving Rush Clovis another chance in The Clone Wars trusted a compromised man

For this one I'm going into The Clone Wars, because Padmé's questionable decisions weren't restricted to the movies. Rush Clovis has a romantic history with her, connections to the Banking Clan and a spectacular ability to make every situation more complicated. During the earlier investigation, Padmé helps expose his involvement in a Separatist droid factory project. That's a substantial thing to have on somebody's record.

Later, when he comes back with information about corruption in the banks, she works with him again. Investigating that corruption makes sense. The bank matters to the entire war, and you don't ignore useful information because the person carrying it is unpleasant. But useful information and a trustworthy person are two different things. Clovis has already given her plenty of reason to keep firm boundaries and question his motives.

And before anybody says Anakin was right about everything: no, his jealousy does not excuse his behavior. Clovis trying to force a kiss on Padmé is Clovis's responsibility. Anakin's violence is Anakin's responsibility. Her mistake is giving a compromised man more confidence than his history has earned. Padmé wants to believe people can do right, and that's one of her best qualities. But sometimes she gives people credit before they've done anything. Keep that in mind, because it's about to become a theme.

4. Padmé married Anakin with no workable plan for keeping it secret

At the end of Attack of the Clones, Padmé and Anakin secretly get married. Beautiful location, quiet ceremony, and two droids who are apparently expected to keep the biggest secret in the galaxy. And then what? Seriously, what is the plan for the marriage? He's a Jedi. She's a senator. They both have demanding public lives. His order forbids the kind of attachment they're committing to, and they're entering a war that will keep sending him away.

Padmé understands these problems. Earlier in the movie, she's the one explaining why a relationship wouldn't work. Then they nearly die, they admit their feelings, and apparently all those very accurate observations go out the window.

I believe they love each other. That part's not the issue. The issue is building a marriage around hiding it while never solving the reasons it has to stay hidden. Are they going to tell Obi-Wan? Is Anakin going to leave the order? What happens if they have a family? They don't need every answer immediately. I'm not saying that. But they probably need a conversation longer than the wedding, because secrecy doesn't only make the relationship difficult. It leaves Anakin increasingly afraid to ask for help when the stakes get higher.

3. The vote of no confidence handed Palpatine the opening he needed

This is the biggest political consequence on the list. In The Phantom Menace, Padmé goes to Coruscant looking for help. Her planet is occupied, her people are suffering, and the Senate responds with procedure. She's angry. She needs action. They want another discussion. Then Palpatine encourages her to challenge Chancellor Valorum's leadership. She calls for a vote of no confidence, and Palpatine gets his opportunity to rise.

I'm not going to act like a 14 year old should have looked across the room and identified the secret Sith Lord. The Jedi spent years having meetings with him, and they had no clue. But she does make an enormous political decision under pressure, guided by a man who stands to benefit from the result. She knows Valorum is struggling to help. Removing him doesn't guarantee the next person will do better, and it certainly does not get an army to Naboo that afternoon.

In fact, she eventually leaves and pursues her own solution. That's what makes it so painful. Palpatine gets the opening he wants, and Padmé still has to go home and solve the original crisis herself. He gets a promotion. She gets more work and stress.

2. Padmé went to Mustafar without a plan for the possibility that Obi-Wan was right

Obi-Wan tells Padmé that Anakin has turned to the dark side and killed younglings. She can't accept it, and she goes to Mustafar to reach him herself. Emotionally, I get this decision more than almost anything else on the list. That's her husband. She's pregnant. Her entire world is collapsing, and someone she trusts is telling her the person she loves has done something unimaginable. Of course she wants answers. She thinks she can fix it.

But she approaches the situation with no protection she has deliberately arranged and no clear plan for what happens if Anakin really has become that dangerous. Obi-Wan secretly comes aboard. She doesn't knowingly bring him as backup, and she absolutely doesn't deserve Anakin attacking her. I think the mistake is relying almost entirely on their relationship to make this encounter safe.

Once Anakin starts talking about ruling the galaxy, the problem becomes impossible to explain away. He's not only upset. He's describing a future that horrifies and terrifies her. Padmé finally tells him he's going somewhere she can't follow. She recognizes that line in the sand. The tragedy is how much warning came before that moment, because number one happened years earlier.

1. Hearing Anakin's Tusken confession and still moving toward a life together

Anakin tells Padmé he slaughtered the Tusken camp after his mother died. He made it clear that the victims included women and children. This is where the list stops being about a reckless mission or a political gamble. Padmé knows. She doesn't know about Darth Vader. She doesn't know about Order 66. She doesn't need to know to understand what he just told her.

His mother's death is horrific. His grief deserves compassion, but compassion for his suffering does not resolve the fact that he just killed everybody. What we see from Padmé is comfort without the confrontation that confession demands. We never see her insist that he tell Obi-Wan. We never see her make accountability a condition of continuing their relationship. Instead, the movie moves right to their marriage. That is an enormous thing to leave sitting between two people.

That's what makes the later tragedy harder for me, because the warning wasn't hidden in a prophecy. It wasn't something only the audience could recognize. Anakin said it himself. Padmé's compassion is part of what makes her a good person, but here she lets her love for him get ahead of what his actions required. She can believe there's good in him and still recognize that other people need protection from what he's already done.

I think that's why it's number one for me. Palpatine deceived her. The Senate failed her. Geonosis overwhelmed her. This time, she had the truth in her face. I can defend a lot of Padmé's choices. That last one, I can't. That one's hard.