Mini Series "The Acolyte" Season 1 Discussion (Spoilers Allowed)

I wouldn't expect a happy ending. This show is from the Sith POV, so even if Osha is the main protagonist, protagonists don't need to be heroes. Protagonists only function is to push the plot forward.

So logic tells us that none of these characters who know the Sith exist can survive or return to the Jedi (Osha isn't becoming a Jedi, for instance).

Best case scenario for Osha and Mae is that they somehow escape everyone and hide away on a planet somewhere.

 

Leslye has talked about how there needed to be consequences, such as Qimir killing everyone that saw his face.

I don’t see how Sol can survive, unless he turns to the Dark Side. He knows Qimir is a Sith, Sol has seen his face. Not only that, but he’s the loose end of Mae’s test.

Leslye had made it sound like Qimir was originally not supposed to be unmasked until season 2, which makes me think he will get out season 1 alive.

Vernestra seems to be aware that whatever transpired on Khofar is tied to tipping the balance. With the idea being put forward that Sol might be a suspect.

And if Qimir manipulated Mae to get to Osha to turn Sol and Sol is the the Jedi whose “dream” is killed by him turning to the Dark Side, then I’m not sure where that leaves the twins going forward.

Sol falling could create the scandal that gives the Senate direct oversight of the High Council and maybe creates more centralization within the Jedi.

Honestly, I am more interested in Sol and Qimir and the witches than I am Osha and Mae. But the story is told through their eyes. It seems like Sol dying would be necessary for Osha to turn, and to leave Mae without a mentor, which is the common Star Wars trope.

I’m assuming things are going to come to a head between Mae, Osha, Sol, Qimir and possibly the Vernestra. I don’t see everyone making it out alive.


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That's not all the protagonists do in a story. We see the story through their POV, their eyes. Its their journey we are witnessing, and in most cases - even if they're the villain - we tend to empathize with.

Osha can do dark, but if she starts killing people, even former masters, I don't think she can be our protagonist any further. Same as when Anakin becomes Vaders, he's no longer our protagonist in that story, and we hope off the Anakin train.

Sol killing himself, as an act of sacrifice, actually fulfills the "kill a Jedi without a weapon" order. Just in a way that Osha and Mae may not realize. A Sith would never sacrifice themselves for someone else. It's what ultimately brings Anakin back to the good side too, but in a way that finally ends the Sith for good. Killing a Jedi this way, kills them by their own ideals and beliefs, which is interesting.

Almost think of it like in Harry Potter when Dumbledore asks Snape to kill him so that Draco doesn't have to do that dark deed himself. Thus saving him from that fate.

I don't think Sol survives. As I said up top, I'm leaning with he sacrifices himself to save the twins and correct his former actions. That still may not bring the twins to the good side. But it still means Sol is out of the picture. And then maybe even blamed by the Jedi for the entire ordeal.

 

Yikes that does add up as a in universe way to hide the evidence of a sith attack. Sol dying would be more likely too. No evidence.

 

I can’t remember. Does Vernestra ever know for sure that there is a twin, or is she just taking Sol’s word for it?

I know Vernestra questions Sol as to why he never told her there was a sister. And Jecki says there is no mention of Mae in Osha’s profile.


If Vernestra finds Sol and Mae (in Osha’s clothes), and were to kill or arrest them as a splinter order, would she know there was another twin still out there? Or would she believe Mae was a lie to get his apprentice out of jail?

Everyone else that had encountered Mae or knew about her has been killed by either Mae or Qimir.


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Thinking more about this:

• Osha wants to kill Sol, in order to become the Acolyte. She has the anger and motivation to do so.
• Something happens similar to the events from 16 years ago.
• Sol saves both Osha and Mae, trying to make amends for his actions in the past.
• Sol sacrifices himself and dies in the process.
• Qimir then sees Sol's dead body, and thinks that Osha has completed the ritual/task and is now ready to be his Acolyte. The two fly off together.
• Rwol sweeps in late and assumes it was all Sol, or Sol's fallen former padawan. Nobody thinks the Sith are back. The audit takes place.

End Season

Season 2:

• Osha is an Acolyte. But deep down something isn't right. She's not as powerful as she should be. She knows she never passed the ritual. Just like she didn't pass the Coven ritual, or the Jedi Ritual, ,she didn't pass the Sith one either. Sol saved her from that dark fate and this little seed of doubt and regret build in her secretly.
• Mae is on the good side, or just rogue, and is trying to get her sister back.

 

No, a protagonist does not need to be a good person. You're right they are the POV character, but there endless examples of criminal POV characters.

Remember, it depends on the genre whether the protagonist is heroic, villainous, or an anti-hero. In the noir genre, it's quite normal for the protagonist to be an anti-hero or a villain.

It's a mistake that people make all the time equating the protagonist with a hero.

And yes, this is done for subversive reasons all the time because the POV character does create empathy with the audience. Writers do this intentionally to estrange our normal way of seeing.

 

In Episode 2 there is a scene where Sol communicates with Vernestra after finding Osha in the crashed ship:

Vernestra Rwoh: Osha has a twin sister?
Master Sol: Her name is Mae. She was presumed dead 16 years ago. But I believe she is responsible for Indara's murder.
Vernestra Rwoh: I'm inclined to agree. There's been another incident. A suspect matching Osha's description broke into a local Jedi temple.
Master Sol: Where?
Vernestra Rwoh: Olega. She could hardly be in your custody and committing another crime at the same time.
Master Sol: Would you like me to investigate or bring Osha back to Coruscant?
Vernestra Rwoh: Go investigate. Take Osha with you. She could be an asset.

 

I didn't say a good person. I said we tend to follow in their POV and empathize with them. I even said there are villain protagonists. There are plenty of villain protagonists in movies and stories. One of my favorites is Quick Change. A very old Bill Murray comedy where he steals money, and where you root for the villain to win. But this IS still SW, even if its a Sith centered show. The Sith are still likely to lose, at least for another 100 years or so. If Osha starts killing people, innocent people or not, I don't think she'll be our POV character. Just as Mae isn't our protagonist now because she's been murdering people all season. In fact, that kind of makes me wonder if next season Mae is the POV character and she's somewhat good, and we see the rest of the journey through the other twin's eyes.

 

Regarding all of the bolded above, I'm not sure who is arguing what but here's my general take on the quotes we've been given:

Obi-wan says that for over a thousand generations the Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice in the old republic. It doesn't mean there wasn't conflict, it just means that the Jedi were there, present as the guardians of the peace. IE they defended the peace when it was threatened or some sort of conflict actually did break out.

The other quote we have from that Naboo senator I believe is that there hasn't been a full-scale war since the founding of the republic. Not that there haven't been wars or conflicts.

We're talking about a galaxy with hundreds of billions of systems potentially (not exaggerating, galaxies really can have hundreds of billions of stars and even many many times more). I have a hard time imagining it was a tranquil place for that long.

Look at our own planet. From the Cold War or even from the end of the Cold War international relations have generally been considered to have been at "peace" and "stable", but there have been countless times of instability and conflict (Cuban Missile Crisis, Korean, Vietnam wars, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq War, recent Syrian and Ukranian wars etc.)

 

Sol is quite powerful, he beat Qimir in hand to hand combat and was ready to finish him before stopping in front of Osha.

Granted, I think the jury is still out on how powerful Qimir is because we don't really know how strong the Knights he beat were.

 

Solid stuff so far; I think the show's only major crime was being released at an inopportune time. A lot of fans are coming into this carrying the baggage of disappointing previous projects, which isn't fair. Many people still say that's why Solo underperformed. True, we were faced with the declining quality of The Mandalorian and the flat-out disappointments of Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi, but this show seemed to take some longstanding Disney criticism to heart: that Star Wars needed to expand beyond the main cast of identifiable characters, and that an Old Republic story would be ideal.

Fan criticism has gotten blown way out of proportion based off the admittedly poor initial looks at the show and how Leslye Headland didn't have the strongest background for taking on the project. True, Disney has an awful track record of hiring up and coming directors that are not equipped to handle a big budget production like Star Wars. I felt like Kenobi felt cheap and suffered from poor direction. But to Headland's credit, the show has a cinematic feel to it, and actors are given better direction.

People doubling and tripling down have completely lost the script. I was wrong about the show being a flop; I'm happy to be wrong because I just want to watch decent Star Wars. This is a weird place we're in where genuine fans have splintered off from reactionary influencers, whereas they were largely on the same side against journalists when it came to the sequels. But you can always root out the disingenuous side by just going outside and talking to real people. There is no huge controversy/coverup.

 

I think the problems with the show one would point out are probably due to restrictions placed by Disney:

"You get 8 episodes, around 30-40 minutes each do what you can with it".

There are a lot of potentially interesting characters and story threads that the show just can't fit in...would love to have seen more of Indara, Yord, Jecki, Vernestra etc.

Maybe they also thought that doing the show from the Sith POV was too risky or whatever as well.

 

And I’d agree… but it’s Headland who has specifically set this 100 years before the PT when it could have been 200 or 500. Clearly the show is designed to segue into the PT… and Headland has said as such… we will get to see how the Sith will infiltrate the senate (although probably not literally).

The Darth Plagueis book alone covers close to 70 years… so what you’re proposing is just a flexing of ledgends but from a different direction.

 

Quite frankly, I could have watched a whole series just from Jecki's POV. The story of a padawan who's beliefs in the Jedi order are shattered upon the revelation of her Jedi Master's dark past.

It would be probably be jarring for mainstream audiences to watch a show from the Sith's POV right from the get-go because we all know them as the villains in Star Wars.

 

Makes me wonder what the Sith were really doing for 1000 years.

They can't be fighting wars, or killing too many Jedi, or else they get noticed quick. Maybe they spend their time positioning themselves into society, in order to over take it one day far in the future. Maybe the kill a Senator in order to replace him. A banking clan magistrate or something.

But that's probably not all that fun. Darth Maul certainly would have grown bored of that kind of work. They're probably just spending their days at their day job, and then at night watching Sith movies and then quickly deleting their browser history. Maybe they meet up for a ritual now and then. Play their version of D&D where they retake the galaxy in some sort of fantastical made up way.

But all in all, it was probably some very quiet centuries. Patiently waiting for the day when they could retake the galaxy and finally have their revenge.

 

There is a superficial disconnect between what Obi-Wan says regarding the Jedi being keepers of the peace for “a thousand generations” (~25,000 years), and what Palpatine says about how he won’t let the Republic which has stood for 1,000 years be split in two.

I believe Legends generally handled that by saying the Jedi had existed for 25,000 years as the defenders of peace and justice, but sometimes there were interregnums where the Republic was essentially overthrown.

In RotS, Palpatine refers to the Sith ruling the galaxy once more, suggesting that there was a time previously when they were in control.

In TCW, Sidious says, “long have Sith empires been built upon the backs of slaves” referring to there having been multiple Sith empires.

In Ahsoka, Baylan says something about how when he looks at history, he can see the cyclical nature of it with the Jedi failing and empires rising over and over again, which implies the Republic fell multiple times.

When Palpatine refers to the Republic standing for 1,000 years, the implication is that he is referring to the most recent incarnation of the Republic, founded 1,000 years earlier, which coincides with the timeframe in which the Sith were defeated.

Sio Bibble’s line I take to mean that there hasn’t been a full scale war since the defeat of the Sith 1,000 years early. In the previous 24,000 years of the Republic, it is entirely possible that there were many full scale wars.

In the High Republic novel “Light of the Jedi” there is a point when Jedi are talking and one says that the Jedi are not soldiers, and another responds by saying that in their earlier history they were soldiers.


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Maybe it's my imagination (or the networks I see), but it seems that the excitement generated by episode 6 of Acolyte has really silenced the hate messages.

I guess these people still hate but they won't comment so much when they see a fairly positive reaction from other people.

 

I think it's a mixture of excitement and exhaustion; you can only spout "this show is getting worse" or "this show is destroying Star Wars" so much until it becomes repetitive and meaningless.

 

Seeing the normal level of hate on social media and youtube regarding that last episode. Although I'm seeing a lot more by the fans who like the show now, who are theorizing who Qimir is, or who the Sith Master might turn out to be. So that's a bit more fun when scrolling.

 

I must say that the algorithm for my default web browser has actually done a good job of keeping me in the dark regarding hate for the things that I like. When Shogun was airing, I was interested in it a lot. Then I would search the web for information regarding Rings of Power Season 2 and now The Acolyte. And I watched Shang-Chi for the first time a couple days ago and looked up Simu Liu.

So now my browser's home page is pretty much exclusively positive stuff about exciting Rings of Power news and how great Acolyte is, and the future of Shogun and any little tid bit about the future of Shang-Chi.

It's not until I wade into YouTube that I see any kind of negativity. Which I refrained from doing until recently. I honestly had no idea how much vitriol it was getting - though I could kind of assume based on reactions to previous shows.

 

TBH, I think they're shifting their laser beam focus of hatred to Superman this week. With all the filming being done in Cleveland ... they have BTS videos to take a part in detail and make some click bait money.

 

No need to speculate anymore. This is the Sith Master. I got the inside scoop.