The Acolyte Episode 3 Didn’t Actually Break Star Wars Canon

Summary

• The Acolyte
  unveils a new Force conception, adding depth to
  Star Wars
  lore without undermining Anakin’s status as the Chosen One.
• The series explores a new class of Force users, reminiscent of the Bene Gesserit from
  Dune
  , broadening the galaxy’s mystical elements.
• The Acolyte
  ‘s development is well within
  Star Wars
  canon, enriching the franchise’s history and legacy.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Acolyte episode threeThe Acolyte has become one of the biggest talking points of the summer. The series has gotten positive reviews and landed Disney+’s biggest premiere of 2024 so far. Yet, the show has become the latest target in review bombing leveraged against Disney series with women and people of color in the lead roles. Even before the series aired a single episode, there was a negative wave of criticism leveled at it, with rumors popping up that the third episode of the series would make a major retcon to Star Wars.

Obviously, retcons are nothing new to the Star Wars franchise, with the franchise’s most famous moment of Darth Vader revealing himself to be Luke Skywalker contradicting everything said in the previous film. Yet a certain subset of the Star Wars fandom seems to have their knives out for anything added to the Star Wars franchise by Disney. Now that The Acolyte Episode 3 has finally aired, the supposed “retcon” to the franchise doesn’t ruin the Star Wars franchise or take away from the main films. In fact, it might actually lend weight to a long-thought-after Star Wars fan theory.

The Acolyte Features a New Force Immaculate Conception

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The third episode of The Acolyte is a flashback, revealing much about Mae and Osha’s upbringing and partly seeing what made Mae begin her hunt for the four Jedi from her past. It is revealed that Mae and Osha were raised by a subset of witches who looked to use the Force in a different way. They are all women, and notably, Mae and Osha are the only children, similar to Wonder Woman’s origin in DC Comics from the Island of Themyscira. This is by design, as it is revealed that Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) manipulated the Force to create Mae and Osha, who were carried to term by Mother Koril (Margarita Levieva).

This means that Mae and Osha are both characters immaculately conceived by the Force. This is the same as Anakin Skywalker, for when Qui-Gon Jinn discovered this, he called Anakin a vergence in the Force and believed him to be the one the prophecy spoke about bringing balance to the Force.

Obviously, the big question on fans’ minds following this revelation is whether Mae and Osha are also created using the Force, which detracts from Anakin Skywalker’s uniqueness. Does this development take away from Anakin being “The Chosen One” if there is more than one? After all, it implies there can only be one, yet here are two more?

No, it does not undercut Anakin’s status as the Chosen One. It was not the fact that Anakin was an immaculate conception that made him the Chosen One but a factor in what made Qui-Gon Jinn believe this. The Chosen One prophecy only says that a Jedi will bring balance to the Force, but nothing more is added. Anakin Skywalker’s birth circumstances, combined with his midi-chlorian being off the charts, lends weight to Qui-Gon’s theory and makes the Jedi Council consider it. Plenty of Star Wars material still supports Anakin Skywalker being the Chosen One; The Acolyte does not undercut it.

Mae and Osha were created by a Force user manipulating the Force itself. Star Wars has already established other factions using the Force apart from the Jedi and the Sith, including the Nightsisters of Dathomir. While it seems like Mother Aniseya and her coven of Force witches are separate from those on Dathomir, they are clearly a new class of Force users, one that takes a different approach to it. In many ways, this new class of witches has much in common with the Bene Gesserit from Dune, further tying the two sci-fi franchises together in their nature of informing one another.

The Acolyte’s Development Lends Weight to a Long-Held Star Wars Fan Theory

The revelation that Anakin Skywalker was not the only Force-created child lends weight to a long-held Star Wars fan theory: that Palpatine himself manipulated the Force to create Anakin Skywalker as a way to enact his long-term plan to wipe out the Jedi Order. In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine tells Anakin the story of Darth Plagueis the Wise, a Sith Legend that turns out to be the story of Palpatine’s former Sith master.

Plagueis was a Sith Lord so powerful he could manipulate the midi-chlorians to create life. He passed all his knowledge down to his apprentice, Palpatine. This catches Anakin’s interest, and both he and the audience are meant to speculate if the Sith Lord orchestrated Anakin’s creation. It is implied in the movie but left to the audience to interpret.

The fan theory speculates that Palpatine manipulated the Force to create Anakin by manipulating the Jedi’s belief in the prophecy. The Jedi would find this creation of his, bring him into the Jedi Order, and then he could manipulate them into bringing down the Jedi from the inside. The theory hits a speed bump when one remembers that Anakin was born on Tatooine, a planet far outside the Republic and the Jedi Order. The theory among fans has been that Anakin was just one of many Force births the Sith Lord orchestrated, and he was the one found by the Jedi. This is very similar to the concept of Neo being just the latest in a long line of “The One” in The Matrix series, which also deals with a chosen one prophecy like Star Wars.

While Lucasfilm has said outright that neither Palpatine nor Plageuis created Anakin and that he is, in fact, the will of the Force, this hasn’t stopped fans from speculating and forming their own headcanon, which is somewhat supported by later Star Wars text. In Darth Vader #25, written by Charles Soule and illustrated by Giuseppe Camuncol and published in December 2018, the comic has Vader enter the realm of the Force in an attempt to save Padme’s life. He sees events from his own life, including his mother, Shmi Skywalker, who has Palpatine behind her, with his hands forming Sith sorcery, forming the swirl of energy inside her that would one day emerge as Anakin. This implies that Palpatine did create Anakin Skywalker, but it is a Force vision and open to interpretation.

With The Acolyte set 100 years before The Phantom Menace and audiences seeing the story of a young Acolyte hunting down Jedi under the training of a mysterious Sith Lord, The Acolyte may be confirming this long-held fan theory that the movies only ever alluded to. With both Mae and Osha coming from these Force witches, the series may see one of them becoming the new Sith Master, and they will pass this knowledge to manipulate the Force to their apprentice, Plaugeis, who will then teach it to Palpatine. The Acolyte might have just introduced the in-universe explanation for how Plagueis learned this technique.

This Does Not Break Star Wars Canon

In terms of “breaking canon,” Star Wars has done far worse. There was a time in The Clone Wars when Anakin Skywalker had the idea of carbon-freezing his squad to infiltrate a Separatist base. It was done with no danger, despite The Empire Strikes Back establishing that being frozen in carbonite is a dangerous procedure nobody knows can safely be done despite Darth Vader (Anakin Skywalker) having done it in his youth. Mae and Osha being created using manipulation of the Force only adds a new layer to the larger tapestry, laying the foundation for the Skywalker Saga generations before.

Mae and Osha, created by The Force, do not negate Anakin Skywalker as the Chosen One or him being special. It doesn’t break canon because in a giant galaxy and over a century apart, it is not unlikely that there would be separate cases of individuals born from the Force. Just because fans never knew about it doesn’t mean it “breaks canon”; it was just something audiences never thought to consider until now, with the creators of The Acolyte exploring this concept in detail. It fills in the rich history of the Star Wars galaxy, moving the franchise just beyond the Skywalker bloodline, being the end-all-be-all of the franchise. The irony is that for all the criticism of The Acolyte breaking the canon, it is actually enforcing it. The Acolyte is streaming now on Disney+.