String Theory

The Acolyte Episode 3 "Destiny"

SPOILERS REFUSE TO LIE

So, let’s talk about witches.

Witches are a rather big part of my life. My spouse Pam hosts a popular podcast called The Witch Wave, now in its seventh season, and wrote an seminal (if her husband may say so) book on the modern witchcraft movement called Waking The Witch (happy five year anniversary, Waking The Witch!). She was an editor of the Taschen tome Witchcraft from the Library of Esoterica. She was even stylishly photographed and written about in 2019 in the New York Times. (My Star Wars figurines are mentioned, so, you know, synergy with Ahch-To Baby.)

In Pam’s book she writes: “Show me your witches, and I’ll show you your feelings about women.” The archetype of the witch has encompassed every aspect of womanhood, and has historically been used as a pejorative or a curse. To accuse a woman of being a witch, even in some cultures today, is to condemn her. But, as feminism and spirituality centered on the feminine have become an alternative path to faith for people of all genders, the archetype of the witch has been reclaimed and reconsidered. In many circles it’s no longer considered synoymous with evil. Rather, ‘witch’ describes a woman whose power flows from no one but herself.

This is a subject Pam writes about much more eloquently than I can, so I recommend you read her on the subject, especially as Star Wars leans harder into the existence of witches in its narratives. As a close reader of Star Wars, though, I think I can identify an evolution. From the sinister Nightsisters of Dathomir in Ahoska and The Clone Wars, to the Coven on Brandok revealed in “Destiny,” there has been a change that embraces rather than others female-centric communities and their relationship with the Force.

Yes, the Nightsisters are not strictly speaking evil, the way they are coded, the way the word ‘witchcraft’ is used in Ahsoka, is definitely Dark Side. They look dangerous, their powers crackle with green toxic fire, and they side with villainous characters like Thrawn. They make Zombies and live on haunted planets. It’s an old-fashioned notion of the witch that equates her with any other type of monster - witches and vampires and werewolves - found in the Monster Manual.

The Acolyte doesn’t code its Coven this way. They’re a small hidden community living in a reclaimed Fortress, led by Mother Aniseya (the outrageously charismatic Jodie Turner-Smith) in fabulous purple. And their history seems fraught: misunderstood, perhaps, and going extinct. They’re a tribe of outsiders. They’ve brought Force-sensitive children into existence through a mix of magic and surrogacy (Mother Koril carried them, Mother Aniseya made them… somehow), and they don’t want the children taken away. Twins are the Coven’s life-line and legacy. Even if they were made with abilities some consider to be… unnatural.

This community is loving and safe, which makes the Jedi’s incursion deeply complicated. By refusing to treat the Coven as if they’re doing something wrong, the show puts the Jedi Order (and apparently Republic law!) up against a religious and cultural group that is neither seeking nor inviting their intervention.

“Destiny,” is too smart a piece of storytelling to condemn the Jedi outright. Instead, the Jedi come off as powerful and well-intentioned. The younger Sol is gentle and open, warm. Who wouldn’t want to go with this sweet man and learn the ways of the Force? The show would make our lives as viewers easier if it portrayed him as headstrong and evangelical, bullish, to create a firmer contrast with his regret later. Instead, it shows him as the same good man. The practice of the Jedi bringing children into their ranks isn’t judged, just portrayed. It leaves the viewer to decide if the Jedi Order is being unethical or principled. Both interpretations feel supported by what we see.

In the prequels, reaching Force-sensitive children early is meant to prevent those same children becoming dangerous. The proof is in the plot: Anakin Skywalker is treated as too old to begin his training, and that concern plays out as feared. His attachments are exploited by Darth Sidious, a vulnerability used to convert him to the Dark Side. Even so, it’s hard to watch a boy who is less than ten years old taken away from his mother, and inhumane to watch the Jedi advise him to feel as little as possible about it. Even Obi-Wan Kenobi tells young Princess Leia that he thinks he has a brother. We don’t see him express this with deep pain, but it’s a powerful reminder of the sacrifice the Jedi Code demands.

Here, finally, we get the subtext made text. There’s just no way for what the Jedi do in this episode to be spun as respecting the wishes of the community. They impose their orthodoxy, and that imposition causes chaos. It tears this community apart, and leaves them in ruins.

But is it entirely the Jedi’s fault? The episode offers a counterpoint: Osha wants to get away from the Coven. Not because Mother Aniseya is cruel or dangerous (again, the easier dramatic choice). Osha loves her mother. But Osha also longs to meet other children, and senses she’s meant for a different path.

Chillingly, she also wants to escape Mae. I thought that The Acolyte would be the story of inseparable sisters, torn apart by tragedy. Instead, it’s the story of one sister trying to self-actualize, and the other lashing out in response. That’s starker and more frightening. It makes Osha’s decision more understandable, perhaps. But again, she’s just a child. How can she know what she wants?

I’m sure there will be viewers who feel like this episode condemns the Jedi (it doesn’t), but it certainly allows us to see them as making a mistake here. I think that makes the Jedi Order a more dramatic group of characters to explore. Don’t many of our biggest mistakes come from good intentions? Isn’t it possible that the Jedi can be both right that attachments are dangerous; and be wrong about human nature?

I also loved how the Coven is presented as a fully formed alternative interpretation of the Force. It’s worth noticing that Mother Aniseya’s demonstration of using the Force is very similar to how the Jedi use it. There’s now weird green fire, it’s another way of interpreting the same power. The Coven feels like Force-users whose relationship with the Force is distinct but related to the Jedi, the way one sect of Christianity might believe in transubstantiation and another may not, but they’re both reading from the same Bible.

The Coven also uses different metaphors to connect with the Force, describing the connections between things in terms of threads or strings instead of light and darkness. I’m not a physicist, but years ago I read The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. In this book (decades old, so I’m sure the theories have changed and refined) he lays out the concept of String Theory in layman’s terms. The basic idea (which I’m about the butcher, forgive me) is that quantum physics and Newtonian physics didn’t seem to play nice together; that the subatomic world seemed to be operating on different math-based rules than the physical world we can see and experience. String Theory was an attempt to reconcile the two by proposing the building blocks of the universe are not particles but vibrating strings that occupy reality differently than a single point would.

This resonates with the Star Wars universe. Star Wars has themes that vibrate throughout the Saga, as if certain characters are simultaneously occupying the same place in the story at different moments in the timeline. The characters have their souls in a sort of superposition. Osha/Mae’s origins echo with Anakin Skywalkers: they had no father. And, like Anakin, a path is placed before them. They are given the choice. Like Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace, Osha is a little older than most Jedi who train, and will eventually leave the Jedi Order. And like Anakin, Osha decides she ‘wants to be a Jedi’ and is taken away from her parents.

Anakin’s dark side lives within him, and the tragedy that befalls the galaxy is because that darkness is stoked by the forces of evil. He eventually transforms from one person into another, his light self consumed by his shadow. In The Acolyte, Osha’s darkness is externalized. Instead of a roiling darkness inside her, her darkness lives in Mae. I still suspect that Mae is a kind of manifestation of Osha’s shadow-self, a product of the process that created them both. But no matter how that theory turns out, “Destiny” shows how vibrationally in tune The Acolyte is with the Prequels. It’s just vibrating at a different frequency.

The Acolyte’s first three episodes have me vibrating too: I’m absolutely in love with this show so far. It’s threading a needle between being utterly faithful Star Wars in the Young Adult Fantasy mode; and tapping into something new by dabbling with the language of the witch and alternative spirituality. I am very much here for Mystical Star Wars.

I have one more pet theory to toss out there. Just for kicks. What if the relationship between the way Mother Aniseya created these Twins and the power of Darth Plagueis Tthe Wise is not merely thematic? What if it’s the same power. What if the story of The Acolyte is of a Sith progenitor who discovers the abilities the Palpatine describes in the Episode III opera scene? What if we’re seeing the origin of the power that Anakin is tempted with (maybe even created by?); in the same way that Qui-Gon Jinn’s story is actually a way of explaining the Force Ghost? Could Osha and Mae’s occult conception pave the way for the birth of Anakin Skywalker?

I don’t know! That’s probably not what’s going on! But I’m excited about eveything that’s hiding in plain sight. This series is woven with so many threads. The Acolyte is magic.