#acolyte speculation

[portrait-of-ariel]

I want Qimir to retwist Osha’s clay locs, taking his time to learn the texture of her hair and appreciate how different it is from his own. I want him to interlace his fingers around the coils, then massage her temples while he cleanses her scalp, as they shower together. I want Osha to trust him so immensely that she lets him do these wonderful things to her without protest or fearing judgment for her texture. Instead she leans into this new comfort, luxuriating in all the ways he makes her feel beautiful and special.

As a black woman, this would mean so much to me—having her be loved on in such a way that’s rarely shown on television.

[fulcrum-art-fox]

Osha “maybe I wasn’t a very good student” deserves to know that the circumstances of what happened and the choices of the Jedi practically set her up to fail. Like she needs to know that. I know at this point it’ll probably make everything worse but she deserves to know. And she really needs to know before she and Mae cross paths again because she still thinks Mae killed everyone she knew and loved and I’m terrified of what Osha might do to Mae if she persists under this lie

[fleetcaptain]

I'm half convinced the big twist is going to be that qimir is a grey jedi

[twinsunstars]

wait. qimir said “don’t you remember me?” to sol. what does that mean

[shield-and-saber]

okay okay, hear me out

qimir's scar is twisted and jagged. he was abandoned (""abandoned"" could mean anything right now) by his master.

vernestra has a light whip. she believes strongly in the jedi, the jedi code and the order and what they stand for, how the republic views them. maybe enough to become desperate, to make a mistake

vernestra was qimir's master ???

edit: qimir would likely have been driven by intense emotions and vernestra would likely have cautioned him against that, tried to reign him in like obi wan did with anakin and. well, we all know how that ended

[jedikali]

One thing at the end of the Acolyte that puzzled me at first was the fact Vernestra and her Jedi team gave Sol a Viking burial on Brendok after they had retrieved the bodies of the murdered Jedi on Khofar for burial.

We see the same in Tales of the Jedi with the murdered Jedi Master.

Then I realized that it was a cover up.

Vernestra told the Senate Committee that Sol had taken his own life. If she had taken Sol’s body back to Coruscant for burial then there would have been an official autopsy and it would have revealed that he couldn’t have taken his own life and Vernestra couldn’t lie about the manner of his death.

Burning his body on a pond/lake would make it virtually impossible to retrieve any bones that hadn’t been destroyed in the fire and reveal the truth.

I’m reminded of the book Clone Wars: Wild Space where Padme and Obi-Wan admit to Bail Organa that they have known about the Sith being back for ten years and that every one who saw Maul on Naboo was sworn to secrecy to prevent panic.

Qui-Gon’s body being burned on Naboo helps solidify the idea of a cover up as it prevents too many people seeing that Qui-Gon has an obvious lightsaber injury to his gut.

[space-blue]

Acolyte theory stuff...

In the trailer and in the youngling training scene, Sol says this:

Close your eyes. Your eyes can deceive you. We must not trust them.

And it REALLY jumped at me, due to my theory that Mae was not actually there with Osha on that gangway. They both think she fell to her death, but has been shown running through the forest on fire, and also the next day is neither injured nor even singed.

We also have Yord tell Osha that the Sith "gets in your head and stays there", which Osha replies with "My mother could do that".

We have this yet unseen shot of all of them with black eyes, so I think we're yet to see the witches "true" work.

There's also a shot of Kelnacca attacking Torbin, and Torbin getting on a speeder at night. There's no way of knowing though if Torbin is defending or attacking, or if Kelnacca is black-eyed in this shot or not.

We have a lot of hints that Qimir was actually there that night. He expects Sol to remember him. He thinks Sol has "hiding his face", which could mean lying to Osha.

The way he speaks about his inner darkness, I wonder if the witches' power reveals the real darkness hidden inside their heart or something?

Also!! While Torbin went on to isolate himself and feels awful enough about it all to commit suicide over it, Kelnacca has been studying the witches' symbols, crazy old man style :

It's the same design Mae has :

Clearly Kelnacca has been obsessed with it since then, so it has to be relevant somehow. It's possible that the Jedi fucked up by interrupting the ritual.

Finally... There's obviously a theory that Mae and Osha will actually switch. And I kind of agree. Rewatching episode 4 today with friends, I noted how Sol once again asked Osha to have faith in Mae. He does so in episode 2, and in 4 he says "but she remains your family". Implying she should make her peace and believe in her.

And MAE does that to Osha. Even after accusing her of being brainwashed, she's so overwhelmed with their reunion, she embraces her fully. She follows Sol's lesson more than Osha, who again displays very black and white thinking. She's extremely binary against Mae. And there she twists her arm and calls her a criminal, even though she could have soooo easily asked Mae to be understanding and to help her get Sol to the ship and at least hear him out.

Osha is constantly unable to forgive. I think she's going to get Qimir's twisted version of events, and Sol will give Mae his version, and each will fall into place.

Now that being said... Sol will have bad spaceship issues (next episode most likely, from the trailer shots of the ship tumbling through space ice and Sol piloting) and since he and Mae both heard the word "Sith", I don't actually like their chances of survival.

Osha will become acolyte, and Qimir and her will found the knights of Ren or whatever. The real mystery being WTF happened on Brendock.

[tremendouskoalachild]

if Qimir is a Sith then he's the funniest motherfucker in the galaxy. all the legends Banites are either 100% hidden or have high status day jobs - politicians, bankers, successful businessmen, scientists, engineers. and then there's this little homeless guy running around trying to discreetly give pointers to his clueless apprentice who sees him as an annoying coworker.

[camuca-art]

I keep thinking about why Osha left the order, she says it was her own decision and it was related to her inability to let go. But now that we've seen what happened, I wonder if Sol didn't have something to do about it. He was attached to Osha from the start, but attachment is the root of the problem. What if Osha tried to let go, but Sol wouldn't let her? Not consciously though, but maybe his own inability to let go made him pull her towards him and that fed into Osha too.

[a-heart-of-kyber]

No, no cuz listen.

@dealingdreams and I have discussed how Qimir/The Stranger gives trapped animal vibes. And she mentioned how maybe it was something similar to Ben wherein someone spoke to him from a young age in his mind.

(Kylo theme plays in the distance)

(It literally also played while Kelnacca...had someone else...in his head.)

And idk where, but someone pointed out that his cave has those Cortosis veins. So it, or maybe even the whole island, potentially has a similar veil of protection as the helmet aka blocking thoughts/energy etc.

Which means, if that's the case, this dude is hiding and has been hiding for a long time.

He only seemed to take on the "Qimir smuggler rat man" persona because Mae wasn't doing what she was supposed too and he wasn't even sensed by the Jedi in the force. Overall, he probably assumed he had laid low long enough to go unnoticed without the helmet.

Then he made himself very obvious, and if someone were looking/feeling/sensing they probably found him. Aka, his display on Khofar led Plagueis to the Unknown Planet.

Cuz remember...the helmet broke. He didn't have it on for hours after that fight.

I am personally not going to assume EU stuff is canon until it is made canon. So, while it could be Bal'Demnic, that has not been confirmed. Additionally, just because it could be Bal'Demnic it doesn't mean Plagueis has tapped that resource yet. It could still be unknown to even him until right now.

Now, whatever happened between Qimir and Vernestra, we know she thought he was dead. Aka, he was either actually dead or very close to dead.

(Additionally, this would mean that he initially had no reason to hide from her if he could assume she thinks him dead. So, if he has been hiding, he's been hiding from someone else.)

Plagueis most likely scooped that boy up and treated him like a science project for a bit. Screwing with him mentally in the process (a nice bit of further Sith ideological brainwashing). Then, of course, Qimir became the Apprentice.

(This would make him a bit of an analog of Darth Venamis. Far from the same, but taking bits of him...but also, surviving/escaping being an experiment.)

Which could mean he has been fed the Sith code and the Jedi code by those masters, but he has already had traumatic experiences with Both sides...leading to this lack of care for rules/wanting freedom.

(Aka Power of Two, not Rule of Two "rules rules rules if you never follow them, you never have to break them.")

And Qimir has repeatedly been compared to a Vampire in interviews and has comments and imagery within the narrative that lean that way as well.

(The floating/disappearing, "it was a very long time ago", the implication that when Sol knew him Sol was probably a child...being carried away in a swarm of bats-I mean moths)

I know so many people think Plagueis is involved with Osha and Mae...but I don't think he is, yet.

At the moment, I still think he's there for Qimir.

(Also, I'm not really pro having this guy show up for 3 seconds and suddenly literally everything is about him and he did it all. If he already did everything, where is he meant to go within the narrative exactly? If he already knows how to create life and Has Created Life?...anyways)

I think he's checking in on his potentially immortal or at least inhumanly long-lived test subject... I mean Apprentice (who may or may not have actually been resurrected). And, somehow, said Apprentice has linked up with a woman who was created using the force.

These two are literally Plagueis's version of Christmas.

P.S. I think he wants an acolyte for exactly the reasons he said. We have been repeatedly shown and told that Qimir/The Stranger speaks the truth...or, at least, his truth.

But...this doesn't necessarily disprove my other idea that he wants to draw out Vernestra have her go against Plagueis so he does not have to do that.

Going back to the idea that both of these Masters are powerful and they have both screwed him up royally.

And despite this, he can still fight blind in the force.

He is extremely balanced for someone who realistically shouldn't be if he's fully dark.

[pearls-and-ramen]

He set up a whole seduction suite and seems so like her in temperment and goals, and Im still convinced this is just part of a plot to get her bound and loyal... only to strike her down and receive his Darth title from his Master.

He's seducing the audience just as much as Osha. I feel a left hook is coming.

[portrait-of-ariel]

🛑 Controversial Opinion 🛑:

Mother Koril doesn’t get enough respect or appreciation in the show. Aniseya created the twins but Koril carried them, and I would argue she’s just as much their mother as Aniseya. There’s nothing wrong with having two mothers. Also let us never forget that four Jedi who went meddling on Brendok led to the deaths of nearly fifty women. An entire coven perished in a span of a few days because of the Jedi’s colonizing, strong-arming dogma. I said what I said 🤷🏾‍♀️.

[thehollowprince]

My theory for what really happened during the fire on Brendock is that Mother Koril turned on Mother Aniseya for allowing Osha to choose to leave. Some kind of coup happened amongst the coven, which is why Aniseya's body was found separately from the rest of the witches.

I'm also guessing that the coven put another mind-whammy on either Torbin or Kelnacca, which is why in one of the trailers we see the latter leaping into battle against the former, lightsabers lit.

This turned into a very big thing and we haven't been shown the whole picture yet. It wasn't just Mae starting a fire.

[moonssugar]

okay so planet khofar from the acolyte. my bio loving brain immediately theorized that those giant trees in the background could be a clonal colony because of their uniformity and density, also because they've pushed other tree species out leaving the ones in the valley. they look like a mixture of baobab and redwood to me with some rain forest tree species inspiration as well. even cooler that a tree in a rain forest like environment is clonal, thats less common and most trees in those kinds of environments disperse seeds instead

[twinsunstars]

if sol ends up falling to the dark side or worse i will crumble and it will be solover

[shield-and-saber]

i was contemplating what a future season 2 of the acolyte might look like, who lives, who dies, etc etc, and i really want to be hopeful and say that sol's gonna make it out alive but...

leslye is inspired by the skywalker saga, by the notion of twins finding themselves in the force, and she draws upon all the generations of lore that came before her

what always happens to the master who coaches the acolytes pupils? like,

or

or,

or,

or,

or,

basically, the master always dies, and especially when that master has withheld information from his apprentice (i.e., "have you told me everything that happened on brendok?", "what i told you was true. from a certain point of view", luke lying to rey about why kylo tried to kill him)