Anakin chokes Padmé

Anakin’s attack on Padmé is a decisive rupture in their relationship and, in Slavoj Žižek’s reading, a revealing weakness in Revenge of the Sith’s tragic structure. After learning that she helped Obi-Wan find him, Anakin turns his anger against her; the later contrast between this violence and his grief over her fate, Žižek argues, leaves the film oscillating between opposed moral positions instead of tracing how attachment to the good can lead to evil.

Discovery and Attack

Anakin learns that Padmé has helped Obi-Wan locate him. He responds by attacking her with the Force, lifting her off her feet and throwing her against a wall, where she suffers a head injury. The action marks a sharp turn: Padmé’s assistance to Obi-Wan becomes the immediate circumstance of Anakin’s violence against the person he loves.

The Later Outburst

The attack is later echoed after Anakin’s duel with Obi-Wan. When Anakin regains awareness and asks where Padmé is, Palpatine tells him that he killed her. Anakin then unleashes another destructive outburst, damaging the medical facility and forcing Palpatine to shield himself. The two episodes place rage against Padmé beside rage born of remorse and love for her.

Narrative and Thematic Significance

Žižek treats this pairing as evidence of the film’s failure to give Anakin’s reversal the tragic force it needs. The scenes make him appear to swing between a bad position, fury at Padmé, and a good one, grief over her. In Žižek’s account, the stronger tragic logic would have shown Anakin’s excessive attachment to Padmé—and his insistence on doing good for those he loves—carrying him toward evil. The attack is therefore both a pivotal act in Anakin’s fall and, in the book’s analysis, an instance where the film does not fully connect his love to that fall.