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Credit: LucasfilmBarely 48 hours after episode three premiered on Disney+, the Star Wars fandom is absolutely tearing The Acolyte apart. Along with the divisive storytelling from showrunner Leslye Headland, fans are calling out Osha and Mae for essentially making Anakin Skywalker’s existence pointless… and they’re wrong.
Set during the High Republic Era, The Acolyte is an entirely different look at the galaxy far, far away. One hundred years before the events of The Phantom Menace (1999), the new chapter in the saga shifts focus on the Dark Side of the Force as a sinister presence starts murdering Jedi Masters one by one.
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Although the series is undoubtedly compelling and a critical success, this week’s episode has led to one of the biggest divides in the Star Wars community since The Last Jedi (2017). Ultimately, the issue comes down to the creation of twins Osha and Mae (Amandla Stenberg) and how their fate mirrors Anakin Skywalker’s, but that’s not entirely true.
Why Viewers Hate The Acolyte
In the third episode, “Destiny,” viewers are given the twins’ backstory and introduced to a coven of witches on Brendok who clearly have ties to the Dark Side. The issue viewers call Lucasfilm out on is that Osha and Mae were conceived through the Force, something that both Jedi and Sith could never do.
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By creating the twins this way, the fanbase feels it diminishes Anakin’s divine birth and position as the Chosen One who would bring balance to the Force. Yes, they have every right to be upset, but only if that was what truly happened in the case of Osha and Mae.
It would be one thing if the twins were conceived in the exact same fashion with such ease, but it is thematically and verbally implied that this is not the case. As Star Wars Mandalore points out in his takeaway below, the truth behind their existence is far more sinister than Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) would have viewers believe.
@star_wars_mandalore Did Star Wars The Acolyte Ruin The Prophecy Of The Chosen One? #starwars #starwarsfan #starwarstiktok #anakinskywalker #theacolyte #clonewars #jedi #sith #lightsaber #fyp
It’s implied that Osha and Mae were created by manipulating the threads of the Dark Side, presumably in some form of Sith Alchemy, and that’s the most prominent factor that so many viewers are missing. They were not created through pure Force energy; they were created because the witches (possibly with the help of a Sith Lord) upset the natural order of the universe.
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Try as they might to make the coven a morally gray entity and to portray the Jedi as invasive religious monks who try to take their children, all innocence goes out the window when dabbling with the dark arts of the Sith. Because of this, we have the duality of the twins that represents the binary nature of the Force.
The Power of the Dark Side
Osha might be our protagonist, but Mae has a familiar evilness to her that fits more in line with The Omen’s Damien than a child conceived through the Force. While her younger version’s performance might have left much to be desired, we are seeing the formation of a serial killer before the ascension begins.
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From her first few minutes on screen, we see that she can manipulate the Force to hurt small animals, threatens her sister, and later tries to kill her when she chooses to go with Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae), it’s clear that there is something broken about Mae. Because she was conceived through the Dark Side of the Force, she embodies everything Master Yoda warned us about years ago.
“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.”
Mae’s fear of losing Osha leads to her anger at her sister, which causes her hatred to motivate her murderous intent, which ultimately leads to the suffering of her and those around her by the time the credits roll. Over a century before Anakin is even born, she has already demonstrated the foundations of a Sith in the making.
As far as official Star Wars lore is concerned, Anakin is still the Chosen One, but Mae has a far more villainous origin story than Darth Vader. With Vader, Anakin had to be seduced by the Dark Side and manipulated into becoming a Sith Lord, but Mae was damaged from the moment of conception.
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The consistent amount of vitriol from the fanbase flooding social media proves that they either aren’t paying attention to the more subtle narrative elements, or they are simply joining in on the I-Hate-Star-Wars bandwagon. While much more will undoubtedly be revealed, the series’ “most hated episode” is more important than some might realize.
Will Mae be the newest threat to the balance of the Force? Tell Inside the Magic what you think in the comments below.