Of all of the deaths in Star Wars, Padmé’s Star Wars: Episode III is up there as one of the dumbest.

We all know Padmé needed to be cleared off the board as the Star Wars prequels wrapped up, given she’s not around in the original trilogy. But dying of a broken heart after giving birth? They did my girl so dirty.

As Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith comes to a close our former friend Anakin – who’s now a fully-fledged child-murdering bastard – decides to end his day with a bit of light domestic abuse. He force-chokes his bride until she passes out, and we next see her giving birth to Luke and Leia.

After the birth, a medical droid tells Obi-Wan and Yoda Padmé is absolutely medically fine, but she’s “lost the will to live.” Basically, the plot killed her.

Naturally, Star Wars fans refuse to believe there wasn’t more at play, and have worked out there must have been more going on. I’m going to choose to agree, because what these fans are saying just makes much more sense, even if it does break my heart.

Over on the Star Wars subreddit, fans believe there were multiple factors at work. The biggest is that Padmé and Anakin were linked by the Force, and it was the Force that snuffed Padmé out in order to move Anakin’s destiny along.

As one Reddit user explains: “We also can’t forget the will of the force itself. It’s possible that she had to die in order for Anakin to fulfill his purpose as the chosen one, so the force itself intervened in ways the medical droids could not comprehend. If she had lived, Anakin would have fallen even farther into darkness to the point he could never be redeemed.”

This is, one could argue, largely the same as her dying because the plot needed her to. But at least it makes slightly more sense in-universe, and reminds us the Force is neither good nor evil, and is simply part of everything. Who knows, maybe George Lucas will edit the prequels somewhere down the line if we’re lucky.