Queen Padme Amidala
Padmé Naberrie Skywalker, also Her Royal Highness, Queen Amidala of the Naboo and later Senator Amidala of Naboo, is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe played by Natalie Portman. "Padmé" is Sanskrit for "lotus flower," while "Amidala" is the spiritural manifestation.
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
Padmé is the wife of Anakin Skywalker and mother of Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker. She was the democratically-elected Queen of Naboo before representing the planet as a Senator in the Galactic Senate. Amidala plays an important role in the last years of the Old Republic.
In The Phantom Menace, she fights hard through political and violent means (of which she participates in personally) to rid her planet from the blockade of the Trade Federation. Aged in her early teens in this movie, she forms a close friendship with the very young (nine-year-old) Anakin Skywalker.
In Attack of the Clones, set ten years later, she is a Senator in the Galactic Republic's Senate after her two terms as Queen expired, leading a faction opposed to the establishment of an army to quell a separatist movement (surprisingly, given her career change, she retains an elaborate fashion sense and a constantly-changing wardrobe). After an assassination attempt on her life, Anakin, now an apprentice Jedi, is assigned to protect her. The two fall in love, though both of them are duty-bound to deny it. In the process of rescuing Obi-Wan Kenobi, they become directly involved in the first massed battle of the Clone Wars, where Amidala again shows herself to be rather more handy in combat than might be expected of a politician. The movie ends with Anakin and Amidala marrying in a secret ceremony attended only by R2-D2 and C-3PO.
Based on the anticipated plot elements for the upcoming Episode III, their consequences, and the fact that Leia spoke of her mother only in the past tense (in Return of the Jedi), Padmé Amidala is generally assumed to be deceased by the time of the original Star Wars trilogy.
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