Is Love Blind or Just Plain Stupid?
Movies are probably the last thing you want to judge in terms of realistic portrayals of just about anything. But let’s do it anyway.
In Star War II: Attack of a Meandering Plot, a conflicted and horribly emo Anakin Skywalker massacres an entire village of sand people, women, children, all of them. He runs home and confesses his crimes to Padme who, in what can only be described as a monumental leap in logic, comforts him. There, there, that’s my little mass murderer. Not only that, she later elopes with him and has hot Jedi relations.
The women I have met in my life time would have slapped the shit out Anakin and called the Jedi Council to take his murdering ass into custody. Love can forgive many things, cheating, leaving the toilet seat up, watching professional wrestling. But mass murder is usually a line that love cannot cross.
Or can it?
There are countless stories of serial killers and murderers setting love letters from women who, despite knowing the full horrors of their crimes, want to marry them. Some women marry murderers while they’re still in prison! Having no real data to work from, I suspect that the actual numbers of women who fall in love with convicted killers is infinitesimally small. But the phenomenon exists and quite frankly, baffles the shit out of me.
Does love make you monumentally stupid or is it just so powerful that you are able to delude yourself into forgiving even mass murder? A little of both, maybe?
Let’s step back from the mass murderers for a second. We’ve all had friends with significant others who, in our heart of hearts, we knew were totally wrong for our friends. And no matter how intelligent our friend may be, he or she is still able to overlook the faults of that significant other. Hell, you’ve probably been in a horrible relationship yourself without knowing.
So back to Padme. As baffling as her actions were, I could almost imagine a situation where she could forgive or maybe just overlook Anakin’s killing spree. I’m sure in her right mind, she would have seen Anakin as a dangerous child. In absolute love mode, all she could see was a hurt and confused child who just lost his mother. I’m glad Padme starts to actually come to her senses in the third movie. A little too late, unfortunately. In real life, sometimes we too realize too late that love has blinded us stupid.
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May 9th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Wait, wasn’t Anakin using some sort of force mind-control spell on Padme?
May 9th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Using your Star Wars example, in Padme’s particular situation she was about as messed up as anyone could be. Nearly a decade or more of aliens making attempts on your life is bound to make you cling to the first bit of constant though questionable manliness in what could only be an ocean of hostility. I mean, everybody was dying around her except Jar Jar Binks and the Jedi. In a situation like that, who would you pick to be your baby’s daddy? Regardless of her problems though, Padme was definitely a keeper for any guy, I mean c’mon she’s good looking, rich, not too clingy, powerful, could handle herself in a fight with the Trade Federation. Frankly, it’s a downhill ride if any guy can’t make that work.
All in all though, I’d have to say that love isn’t blind or stupid. Plenty of folks get turned down because of their lack of good looks, or sharp wit, for me to think otherwise. More often than not, it’s just the people who engage in it that are stupid and blind, and when you’re desperate for male companionship that won’t likely die on ya, you’ll do some really stupid things like Padme did.