About

The Padmé Pedophile Debate is a viral discussion and series of memes concerning the fictional character Padmé Amidala from the Star Wars prequels and whether her relationship with Anakin Skywalker should be regarded as pedophilic, considering she meets him when he is a child and later bears his children.

Background

In the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, the romantic story takes place between Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker. In the first film, The Phantom Menace, Padmé (Natalie Portman) first meets Anakin (Jake Lloyd) in a junkshop, and they immediately start calling each other "beautiful" and "cute." Throughout the film, the two characters spend much time together and become well acquainted, including a scene during the film's ending where they smile intensely towards one another.

During the events of the first film, Padmé and Anakin are 14 and 9 years old respectively. The actors portraying the two, however, are 18 and 9 respectively, making the age gap appear much larger than it canonically is, especially to an uninformed viewer.

The second film, Attack on the Clones, takes place ten years later, with the characters being 24 and 19 years old respectively. Padmé remarks on how much Anakin (Hayden Christensen in this film) has grown since they last met, and tells him "Ani, you'll always be that little boy I knew on Tatooine", seemingly implying that he will always remain a 9-year-old in her eyes. Despite this, they quickly fall in love during the film and eventually marry. During the third film, Revenge of the Sith, they have children together.

The context of the two characters' relationship has been debated often throughout the years across the internet.^[1][2][3][4] The first memes commenting on the matter are believed to have emerged in 2018, with the below example being posted on December 23rd and gaining 10,700 points (shown below).

Spread

The matter continued to be the subject of several memes, with many labeling the character as either a "pedo" or a "predator."^[5][6] The below example gained 76,800 points in six months after being posted in /r/prequelmemes by user getdownmrsobama on December 20th, 2019.

The debate also lent itself to other formats, some of which involving Chris Hansen. The below examples were posted on September 27th, 2020, and March 28th, 2019, gaining 12,700 and 1,600 points respectively.

During the March 2021 Subreddit Blackout, r/PrequelMemes participated by going private. One day after the blackout ended, the following image was posted to the subreddit in reference to a picture frequently posted during the scandal, gaining 19,400 points in two months.

Various Examples

Search interest

External References