The latest issue of the new Star Wars comic series centering around Darth Vader has uncovered the hidden truth about the significance of Padme Amidala’s funeral.
Before Revenge of the Sith came out, fans knew that at its core, the movie would serve as a tragic interpretation of the fall of the Jedi Order and the rise of the Galactic Empire. So, despite going in prepared, Episode III still had many gut-punching moments that left people in an inconsolable state. The execution of Order 66, the purge of the Jedi Temple, Anakin’s fall to the dark side, and ultimately, the battle of two brothers to decide the fate of the galaxy, to name a few, all made the concluding entry in the Prequel Trilogy the darkest Star Wars movie in the history of the franchise. But perhaps the story’s most tear-jerking moment involved the funeral of Padme Amidala on Naboo.
Being the strong leader that she was, Padme’s death actually set several events in motion that would ultimately lead to the destruction of the Galactic Empire. In the novelization of the third movie, she was one of the senators who signed the Petition of 2,000; the appeal that called on Palpatine to renounce his emergency powers and end the war against the Separatists. While most of these people were either killed or arrested, some of them lived and E.K. Johnston’s novel Queen’s Shadow revealed that they came together during Padme’s funeral and resolved to find out the truth behind her death.
As seen above, Grek Pak’s Star Wars: Darth Vader picks up that subplot and unveils that this group became an influential rebel cell who worked against the Empire. Sabé, one of Padme’s handmaidens whom Vader mistook for his deceased wife in the previous issue, was one of the members of the cell.
Owing to this latest development in the world of Star Wars, the death of Senator Amidala wasn’t merely a tool to serve the tragic gravitas of the story, and now we know that through her death, she sparked the very first light of the Rebellion.
