Spoilers The Acolyte
- Thread starter Gordie
- Start date
One of the sins of The Acolyte was, after deciding to include him at all, not giving Darth Plagueis a substantial part.
I think it had exactly the right amount of Plagueis. It placed him there in the equation, but didn't make it clear what the dynamic was, or the history; just implied. That's all the story needed.
I sometimes think fans confuse the word "story" with "wikipedia entry with sound effects". Stories are not beholden to explain *everything*. Indeed the very best stories (*cough*A New Hope*cough*) explain as little as possible; only giving the audience what they need.
For the first time, or even semi-casual Star Wars fan: "creepy evil looking alien bloke lurking in the shadows (literally)" tells them there's more going on than Darth Biceps was letting on, and Osha doesn't know what she's signing up for.
For the more lore fluent fan: "obviously Darth Plagueis in a cave" adds wider implications to the story and raises some obvious questions that future stories are clearly intended to answer.
That this likely won't end well for Osha is a given. This is Star Wars after all, and she willingly chose the dark side. That never ends well for anyone. Best case scenario: she gets to die moments after changing her mind. Worse case: her disembodied mind gets uploaded to the Sith Throne on Exogol with all the other dead insane Sith Lords to exist in an eternal limbo of non-life. Whether that doom comes from us assuming* that Palpatine was Plagueis's apprentice is besides the point. We're given enough to roughly connect the dots, and that's all that was needed.
I sometimes think fans confuse the word "story" with "wikipedia entry with sound effects". Stories are not beholden to explain *everything*. Indeed the very best stories (*cough*A New Hope*cough*) explain as little as possible; only giving the audience what they need.
For the first time, or even semi-casual Star Wars fan: "creepy evil looking alien bloke lurking in the shadows (literally)" tells them there's more going on than Darth Biceps was letting on, and Osha doesn't know what she's signing up for.
For the more lore fluent fan: "obviously Darth Plagueis in a cave" adds wider implications to the story and raises some obvious questions that future stories are clearly intended to answer.
That this likely won't end well for Osha is a given. This is Star Wars after all, and she willingly chose the dark side. That never ends well for anyone. Best case scenario: she gets to die moments after changing her mind. Worse case: her disembodied mind gets uploaded to the Sith Throne on Exogol with all the other dead insane Sith Lords to exist in an eternal limbo of non-life. Whether that doom comes from us assuming* that Palpatine was Plagueis's apprentice is besides the point. We're given enough to roughly connect the dots, and that's all that was needed.
* . . . And it is an assumption based on implication, so far as the story is concerned. We don't actually know for sure (no, I don't care what some reference book or novelization says) that Palpatine was Plagueis's apprentice. It's possible Osha was Palpatine's Master, and she's the one that took everything Plagueis knew about midichlorians and murdered him in his sleep (and then/already having murdered The Stranger to death.) Then Palpatine has a 10 year old Maul shiv her, or something, because it's secret apprentices all the way down!
Unfortunately for the very casual fans, that dude could be Penry the mild-mannered janitor for all they know, because there really isn't anything implied. So I kinda both agree and disagree that there was the right amount of.... him.
And we already had clues in to it because Mae and Qimir discuss "him" as well. Qimir even says, "That's what he does; he collects people."
The story has enough drops in there to imply everything is not as it seems.
Sure there is! He's a creepy, evil looking alien on the same tiny island on a supposedly deserted planet, peering out at Osha and The Stranger from the literal shadows. If that doesn't scream "The Stranger's Master", I don't know what does. The bare minimum it implies is that there's a third player in this equation that Osha is ignorant of. That's all that's really needed.
But that was when Qimir was pretending not to be him. So it plays as a reference to himself.
It says so on the OS, for one thing. Also, Lucas' intention on the matter was sufficiently clear, for whatever that's worth.Reverend said:
Or to Plagueis.
Are you suggesting a character who's most consistent core trait has been misdirection, half-truths, and outright lies may have said something that wasn't 100% what it appeared to be!? Well I'd call that a radical interpretation of the text!
I don't necessarily want to know every detail about him, it just that he's a pretty big part of the Sith's history, and now that he's kind of been introduced, it would be nice to see even just a little more of him.
What does this mean?
Official site is my guess.
There’s also a visual echo in the shot of Plagueis of the shot of Sol sneaking through the forest watching the twins in the flashbacks, suggesting he’s an analogous, opposite character.
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Sure, and if they hadn't have cancelled the show, I'm sure a second season would have at least touched on it.
Honestly though; I don't consider Plagueis to be all that big of a deal in the grand scheme of Sith Lords. A footnote at best. Personally I'd be much more interested to learn more about things like the original Sith Lord first mentioned in the Terry Brooks TPM novelization, and a canon telling of Bane's story. Both because those two are the real pivotal figures, and because I was never much of a fan of the EU version of events.
But then I was never a fan of the idea that Plagueis was still creeping around at the time of TPM either. In no version of events can I see Palpatine suffering a Master a picosecond longer than is *absolutely* necessary. Indeed, I can see him setting the record for going from Sith Apprentice to Sith Master.
I never read the book that revealed that, but it always seemed like a strange idea, I find it hard to believe that Palpatine's master would still be alive by the time he was as old as he was in TMP. Not to mention that his easy manipulation of everyone in that movie, would also seem to show that he was more than capable enough to not need a master hanging around.
Somebody in the collecting community got their hands on the upcoming Vintage Collection Jedi Master Indara.
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