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Is the romance between Anakin and Padmé really that unrealistic? I think it is a psychologically accurate portrayal of a woman falling in love with a man suffering from Bipolar Disorder, an occurrence which happens much more frequently than you would imagine.
What?
It was pretty obvious that Anakin suffered from Manic Depressive Disorder or Bipolar Disorder.
These are common symptoms of Bipolar Disorder:
Delusions of grandeur (“I will be the greatest Jedi ever. I will even learn how to stop people from dying”)
Either sleeping excessively or experiencing insomnia (Anakin wakes up early because he cannot sleep)
Extreme restlessness and extreme depression (Anakin is constantly active, has intense bursts of energy, throws things, weeps bitterly, and massacres the Tusken Raiders when his mother dies)
Rapid and unprovoked mood swings (Anakin’s mood is always unpredictable)
Hallucinations or visions (Anakin sees hallucinatory visions of his mother)
An inability to concentrate (Obi-Wan always tells Anakin to concentrate)
The problem is not that Anakin isn’t realistically portrayed as a jerk, it’s that he acts like a jerk at all. He’s supposed to be one of the main characters, in the OT he was described as a great man and a good friend, we should be relating to him and care for him, not cringe at his creepy attempts to seduce Padme, even if this creepiness was intended.
The same can be said of all in-universe explanations of the PT’s faults. Sure, Palpatine can use the dark side to make the Jedi order stupid, but does it make for a good movie if the protagonists are a bunch of idiots?
These inconsistencies between how Obi Wan describes the Jedi and Anakin in Star Wars vs. how they are portrayed in the PT transforms him from a wise wizard to a senile old man, when his character was already weakend by making him a liar (from a certain point of view) in Empire.
If you watch the Clone Wars animated series, you will see that Anakin really wasn’t a jerk at all, and really was how he was described in the OT.
