The Acolyte Official “The Acolyte” Series Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

We got a reference to Obi-Wan loving the jedi as his family and explicitly comparing it to Leia's loving adoption, and a sympathizer selling out people to an authoritarian regime as a lesson that seemingly friendly people can be dangerous.

If that is moral relativism, then no story has ever been black and white.

 

Yeah, plus whatever minor critiques of the Jedi we get are to show where they strayed from serving the light quite as effectively as they could have. It’s not a critique of the light itself.

 

^^Yep. As much as I enjoy watching heroic characters struggle to overcome their inner demons, I don’t want to see actually evil Jedi because that would suck.

Spoiler

Those rumours about ancient Sith making cameos in this show sounds super cool.

 

The mole person who welcomed the order brought by the Empire is not meant to be a statement by the writers that perhaps authoritarianism is good. It just shows that the Empire has supporters among the general public. And Obi-wan’s story shows that yes, there are complexities when it comes to the “good guys,” but there’s certainly no sense that the ways of the Jedi are comparably evil to galactic fascist warlocks the Sith. I think you meant to say that there is some moral complexity in Star Wars from time to time, not that there is ambiguity about who’s wrong and who’s right. Authoritarianism and the Sith are to be opposed. Full stop.

 

True. Even his face was identical to some Orange Kylo fans I’ve encountered.

 

I was hoping he was supposed to have made that thing himself. It was not at all up to Imperial standards!

 

I mean we're really splitting hairs with semantics here but the fact that the Empire has supporters among the general public is pretty evident of the lack of black and white lines in the SWs universe. There are people that view rebels as terrorists. The Sith are just practitioners of the dark side of the force, which isn't inherently evil in and of itself just as the Jedi aren't necessarily morally virtuous despite adhering to the light. Palpatine touches on it in his conversation with Anakin in RoTS. Clearly we're not going to agree on this but that's just my take away from the franchise.

 

yeah, there’s no semantics when it comes to how the Empire is presented in the films, they are presented as the villains, end of story

I’m all for Star Wars delving into new time periods, as seems the case with this show, but there’s no need to mix up the good vs evil dynamic

 

You think the audience is meant to agree with the cackling genocidal demon man in black robes?

 

I am honestly baffled here - I really can't tell if this is a serious argument or some chain-yanking...

In case it is not though - there is a big difference between a character having a point of view and that point of view being treated as equally valid by the text. Yes, there are people who believe that the empire brings order and the rebels are terrorists...but they are wrong. The audience is shown repeatedly that they are objectively wrong in every way. That people who believe such things are either fools tricked by propaganda or self-righteous hypocrites spouting propaganda.

And that's without even getting into all the behinds the scenes stuff where the creators talk about good and evil as major themes, all the way down into the visual design.
As I said before, if Star Wars represents moral ambiguity and relativity, then those terms are meaningless because every story would be like that. I could see a stronger argument for Lord of the Rings being morally grey.
(Plus, it is one thing to say that a certain amount of moral greyness can be squeezed out of a setting, it is another thing to claim it is a major theme.)

But I suppose this is a big tangent, to turn back to Acolyte:
Yeah, I doubt we will get anything treating the sith as right and the jedi as evil, but I imagine there could be a lot of interesting fun to be had with examining why someone might become a sith - or at least someone who was not a jedi unable to handle their negative experiences (like Vader) or raised as a Sith (like Maul)

Similarly, it should be interesting to see how exactly the sith build up their network of political and economic allies that they need to pull off their plan. Plagueis had some great stuff with that, with the sith ironically almost being taken out by business rivals that didn't even know they were sith.

 

I think if nothing else, it’s been proven again and again that you can have evil or malicious protagonists in a tv series without trying to insist that they’re morally correct.

Something like Hannibal for instance. The guy’s a cannibalistic serial killer who may or may not be Satan himself in human form....but damn if he’s not classy and charismatic.

 

@SyndicThrass - Hello Tarkin.

We recognise the good guys because they are struggling with the evil temptations and actions and villains. One of those struggles being, of course, "unlimited (authoritarian) power!!" Aswell as struggling with anger, on a more personal level.

 

This is what I’m hoping to see.

 

It’s not an argument so much as a discussion of perspectives. I’ve really no interest in arguing and being snide. I think SWs started out very simplistic with ANH (“evil Empire” literally in the scroll lol) but evolved into something more complex and nuanced over the years. It very much mirrors real life in that the good and bad can sometimes be a matter of perspective. Palpatine was evil incarnate but his machinations were effective in large due to the flaws and hypocrisy of the Republic and the Jedi. Perhaps it was the words I chose that made my thought so objectionable but doing the wrong thing for the right reason is a very prevalent theme in SWs, again, IMO.

 

Politics and social commentary in my Star Wars? Say it ain’t so.

 

My hopes for the Acolyte series is that we’ll get a Banite Sith Lord. There’s so much potential in both lore and storytelling here, especially since Headland is borrowing elements from the EU. I heard from some folks in that the show brings on a sense of gravitas. I hope that’s true.


Books like Darth Bane: Rule of Two and Dynasty of Evil, as well as Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter and Darth Plagueis spring to mind. Those books showed Sith operating in the shadows in a galaxy where the Republic was in power, and it shows that even a story where Sith are a essentially underdogs and are limited in what they can do can make for interesting storytelling.


The modern Sith were essentially led by hunger for power and revenge from the massacre of ancient Sith by Jedi, so I can see a reverse Order 66 dynamic here of Sith-in-hiding. In EU being a member of the Sith Order is a death sentence, and I imagine in canon, too. We can all see Mace was itching to give Palpatine a summary execution.


My hopes for the series is seeing the main character, assuming she’s a Sith, have all those internal struggles. Being one half of an entire order, having to deal with being a Sith and what that entails, the live-or-die lifestyle, as well as having to rely on cunning, deception and ingenuity instead of her powers like the Jedi can openly do.


The struggle to see any fruits of the seeds she places will only grow in the future and she perhaps won’t live to see it, and if that’s even worth it. The seemingly impossible idea of bringing down the Republic with the groundwork of only two people. I definitely would love to see that explored. The “why” of a Sith.


It can offer interesting challenges, and perhaps even make the character wonder about past Sith Lords of the bygone eras, like rumored-to-be-in-series Bane, Revan, etc and how their quest and ways differed from the modern Sith. That was very strong in the Bane and Plagueis novels.


There’s room for the competitiveness of the dark side, how not many dark-siders can thrive for too long without some manner of internal strife. Maybe the master is training more than one apprentice unbeknownst to the main protagonist, who also is plotting the death of her master and seeks out ancient holocron and eldrich Sith spirits for knowledge and wisdom; visiting old worlds like Exegol or Morriband/Korriban or Dromund Kaas.

They can guide her much like Ben/Obi guided Luke. She can carry a pocket Sith like Momin’s mask or the Sith inquisitor from SWTOR.


I want to temper my expectations but I have hopes:

• Sith apprentices competing for power.
• Master and apprentice dynamic.
• Ancient Sith worlds and lore
• Political shift. Sith infiltrating Republic.
• Sith philosophy explored and explained.

Also, it’s safe to say the main character is a Sith or dark-sided if the title and synopsis didn’t indicate. Lesley pretty much confirms this in her latest IGN interview.

“I was coming at it as a fan who was much more into the RPG [role-playing games] that the Extended Universe feeds on," she added. "I knew the timeline really well. And I was like, 'I think if you want to explore Star Wars from the perspective of the bad guys, the best time to do it is when the bad guys are wildly outnumbered. When they actually are essentially the underdogs, for lack of a better term.' So this would be that era."-Lesley Headland.


While Star Wars is about “good” vs “evil”, there’s definitely stories told from the perspective of the “bad” guys. We have tons of stories in canon and legends, from the Sith-centric stories to Tarkin to Lost Stars to Inferno Squad to Thrawn.


I don’t think they’ll make them a mustache-twirling villain or sadistic space wizard like Darth Sidious. I’m sure they’ll make us relate or sympathize with the character. We don’t have to agree with them. Definitely not. But I see no problem with that. What’s stopping them from telling a Sith story? We have countless Sith stories in books and video-game storylines.

Besides, not all Sith are sadistic like Sidious; there are levels to their bankrupt morality I suppose. Darth Bane in legends never killed out of sadistic pleasure or desire to torture, and he himself said it was counterproductive and stupid to do so, for a Sith should only kill if they can profit from it, or it serves a purpose to a greater plan. Just because they have the power to kill doesn’t mean they should. The only difference between them and the Jedi is their reasoning; Jedi knows killing for pleasure is wrong, some Sith don’t do it because it isn’t advantageous.

The thing about writing “villains” is always having someone worse than them in a story. Maybe a dark-side faction that’s sadistic and deranged that the Sith must put down in their galactic chess game: A High Republic Bando Gora or something lol. Inferno Squad’s main characters were elite special forces soldiers for the Empire fighting against literal space terrorists which strapped explosive jewelry on themselves to kill civilians.

The story itself will be more contained compared to the others.

Headland said: “I actually went more toward martial arts films, and storylines that are a little bit more personal and less global and galactic. Those warriors were on missions that were deeply personal, with people feeling wronged and having to make it right. Wuxia Films and martial arts films from King Hu and the Shaw Brothers, like Come Drink With Me and Touch Of Zen. They're monks that are also martial arts heroes."


She goes on to say, “What's so exciting about those [influencing] stories is that you don't always know exactly who the bad guys are and who the good guys are," Headland added, teasing one of the potential mysteries that viewers will ponder over. "You're not quite sure whether you can trust the heroine in this case as a result of that."

 

My apologies if I came off as irritate, combative, or dismissive, I should have been more careful with how I phrased my comments. And yes, you are right that many other stories do add some complexity to the universe, or at least try to. I will agree to disagree on the topic if you are willing to.

 

The obsession with and misinterpretation of moral ambiguity or "moral greyness" among consumers of media is one of the worst things to happen to modern pop culture

 

Ultimately, dumb people aren’t good at interpreting things in a non-dumb way.

 

There’s been a very large number of people clamoring for a Sith-oriented story time and time again. And I’m really curious how Disney is going to tackle this. Lesley knows how to write character with muddied backgrounds. She said in an interview she enjoys writing characters that most people in society don’t consider good.

Now how the main character will translate well from script into screen remains to be seen. I don’t expect ground-breaking character study in a Disney show, especially if the main character is a Sith, and they can only do so much to humanize them. But in all honesty every Sith we’ve seen are morally reprehensible; the dark-side in nature is said to be cancerous and vicious. It thrives on violence, and suffering, and death. So by its very nature the user must engage in those things, plus the Sith philosophy is added on that. So it will be interesting to see them tackle this.

As mentioned, the bad guys have their own truth and perspective. Doesn’t make it right, but it does add more layers to them. Disney for sure won’t ever make a case for fascism, or anything of the sort. I still DO want to see a story told. Some of the best Star Wars books were told from a Sith’s perspective.

Breaking Bad? The protagonist goes from bad to worse as time goes on. We know he’s a terrible person, and we as an audience don’t condone his actions, yet we understand where he’s coming from and why he does it. We don’t have to necessarily root for him, certainly not agree with him. But we understand. Besides there a good supporting cast to balance things out.

Game of Thrones have morally-skewed characters. Jamie Lannister is one example; pushed a boy out of a window to hide his incestuous relationship, murders his cousin to escape prison, but has also tarnished his life-long reputation and sacrificed his honor by killing a madman king to save half a million innocent people from being burned alive. He’s still a scummy person wavering in the balance.