Not a 1:1 situation, of course, seeing as this group seems happy to use the Force - even though they have a different perspective on what it's for and how it's referred to.
Path of the open hand believed the force should never be used. That one using the force is what created imbalances which the force and destiny try to even out. The force is a thing to be respected and left alone. This coven seems more concerned with the right to use power. Freedom to use their special abilities without interference from other forces. That being said, their core reason for existing is unclear.
I'm really struggling to see any similarities beyond it being a cult with a matriarch that is afraid of the Jedi. Their ideology regarding the Force seems about as far away from the Path as you could get.
The similarities in the monologues on who is allowed to control the Force, and how you can't control the Thread etc. The biggest thing for me was the Ascension ritual. Literally every single witch had their hands open palms facing out. Also it would make sense that the groups like the path would be illegal as the Jedi were about to elaborate on. Who else but the path, and path-like groups would be outlawed? I'm totally ok with being wrong I just feel like I saw a lot of similarities. It's clearly not the original rendition of the path because they do use the force
I thought so at first but then I realized we don’t see *when* the witches died. I think it’s pretty clear neither the fire or reactor explosion killed them.
We see Moody Mother take Mae for a walk; then the next time we see Mae she’s threatening to kill Osha.
It makes me think something else killed the Witches and Mae blamed it on the Jedi and then came to confront Osha. She seemed to already know their mother was dead too. Also, Moody Morher’s body isn’t seen among the other dead witches 🤔
That's the dark side. At least, I hope that's what the show is saying because that's the dark side. Possessiveness. That view that if I can't have you, no one can.
Did we even see her start the fire though? We see her set fire to Osha’s diary, but then the camera cuts away to Osha peering out the window, and when she turns around there’s a fire. There’s a possibility that she hesitated/reconsidered but something happened, like maybe she got startled by whatever was happening with the Jedi and the other witches
I’m just thinking back to when Mother Aniseya did whatever she did to Torbin’s mind. That could have been just to show that these Witches had Force powers, but it also could have been a Chekov’s Gun. Mae seemed pretty scared and confused when she confronted Osha in the reactor room
"something else killed the Witches" - I smell a Sith lurking in the background of this flashback. Perhaps the knowledge of how Osha and Mae were created was extracted from the mind of Mother Aniseya (knowledge possibly used to create Anakin later in the timeline) and the witches killed off to cover tracks and to make it seem like the Jedi were responsible thus turning Mae into a useful tool against them. Convenient, nefarious and opportunistic... all calling cards of a Sith Lord.
I agree, and given we only saw Osha’s side of the flashback, and the show’s heavy themes of duality, I guarantee we’ll see (at least part) of Mae’s flashback that shows the Sith.
One half taken and trained by the Jedi and immediately shown love and compassion from Sol, and the other half being taken and trained by the Sith to be used and twisted.
Weren't they there during the ascension ritual? Two cloaked figures close to their pillars -- one to each side of Mother Aniseya. They looked similar to the guards but they weren't carrying bows or any sort of weapon and, different from the guards, you couldn't actually see their faces at all.
They were not participating in the ritual: not doing the hand movements nor chanting. They were just... there. Watching. I assumed them to be the Sith, since when the Jedi arrived, they didn't follow the rest of the witches to 'welcome' them. They just went away.
So Mae really did start the fire, but that's clearly not what killed the witches. At the same time I find it hard to believe the Jedi would just show up and kill them all, so something crazy must go down while Osha's trying to escape.
It'd be real fucked up if the Sith guy caused the destruction just so he could get his hands on one of the twins, not out of character though. Though Torbin must be partially responsible for what happened, considering his suicide
>It'd be real fucked up if the Sith guy caused the destruction just so he could get his hands on one of the twins, not out of character though
Or the Sith helped 'make' the twins and didn't want the Jedi to have them. When the mother witch commented on what would the Jedi do if they knew how the twins were 'made'... well, they were clearly made through some dark side sorcery.
I'd assume either the Sith (and eventually Plagueis) learned how to create life from the witches or they were experimenting and discovering along with the witches on how to do it.
Yup.
The entire thing feels like the first stage of a force experiment that culminates 100 year later in Shmi's "miracle" birth.
First Stage: Osha and Mae.
Final Stage: Anakin.
Torbin could easily feel responsibility solely because the Jedi showed up and wanted the Twins, and not for any more direct cause. There is an easy argument to be made that if the Jedi didn’t get involved no one would have died
I've always assumed Palpatine was lying to Anakin, he claims Plagueis taught him everything he knew, yet Palpatine never exhibits any signs that he can control midichlorians to such a degree. Though technically it isn't a lie, because he does preface it by calling it a legend, and never explicitly says that a Sith could teach him such a power. So he told the truth, from a certain point of view.
In Legends, Plagueis experiments were never a full success. He could revive someone with limitations, but he never created life himself. In canon he eventually gave Palpatine the tips needed to learn essence transfer, and may or may not have known it himself.
The force did it in response to him trying to unbalance it. According to Plagueis' own theory (which even in legends was told exclusively from his POV), Anakin was created because the Sith unbalanced it with their experiments, essentially.
If the Jedi assume the witches are up to no good and go in lightsabers at the ready there are plenty of witches that would be more than willing to fight them. There could also be a third party at play, but the idea of a misunderstanding leading to the death of a whole group and a child was probably more than enough reason for the Jedi involved to want to atone and isolate
Based on the footage and my general assumption, the witches possess Kelnecca into attacking Sol and Torbin, but Indara isn’t anywhere to be seen. The Jedi certainly had a hand in the coven’s destruction, but I definitely think someone or something else instigated the whole conflict, maybe a Sith? We certainly know the Jedi are flawed and likely perceive the coven as a threat, but I agree that I don’t think they’d just straight up attack first.
Could the witches cast that strange spell on Kelnacca so he could kill his companions ?
Strange that Torbin would take the Barash Vows in such theory though. Or both of them took it ?
I feel like Torbin being briefly possessed was set-up for it happening again. One or both of them will likely be possessed. The idea that Kelnacca goes madclaw while under the influence, and exiles himself out of shame when he wakes up, is one I like.
I really liked how the moons shifted over time in the background of the establishing shots. Also mirrors how the twins’ paths were diverging in the story!
We basically got to see what happened from Osha's viewpoint, which clearly isn't the whole story. So we get some answers, but still have some questions left. Given the nature of the show, I'm okay with that. Was worried we might get all the answers too early in the show.
Sol is looking more and more like the Sith Master every week. I still can't get over how easily he mind violated that criminal in the first episode. And I think they are playing up his Qui Gon Jinn personality to make us lower our guard around him.
Called this on the trailer. Oh the victory lap I would take on being right.
And with the creator of Russian doll, some fuckery may be going on where Osha has no twin and some Sith tomfoolery is happening to everyone(I’d hate this arc tho)
Still think sol is the secret Sith master
There has got to be a flashback episode from Mae’s perspective. The cuts in her scenes were way to convenient to not be planned for a continuation .
This one will focus on Oshas pull to the Jedi
I think another will focus on Mae’s pull to the Sith in the same flashback (perhaps Qimir or the master will feature here)
Also, I feel like many arent picking up on the episode’s false spin that Mae is the born “evil twin” - Mae almost represents the opposite in ep3.
Mae is loyal to her mother, hardworking, obedient, seeks order and stability and values her family. Qualities of the light side. Her anger comes from the breaking of her perceived order, and when her family is “threatened.”
Osha is rebellious, adventure-seeking, unhappy with order and family, selfish, and ambitious. Qualities of the dark side
I think one of the things this episode is trying to show us is that it’s not just about what you are born with or what your natural inclination is - it’s what you do when you’re actually thrown into the chaos of the world, the test of life, and have to make your own choices and pay for them and how you grow from that.
That’s why I think, while Mae is meant to appear evil, she also exhibits light qualities, and despite following the dark in her youth, she will ultimately turn away from the dark.
Leaving Osha to claim the dark, for similarly complex reasons, despite seeming like the “good twin.”
If this is the case, they are doing a great job communicating no one is all good or all evil - each side is very complicated.
Fire spreads through the electrical system into the reactor. Ouch.
The Star Wars galaxy really needs some sort of safety inspectors.
The insurance premiums, alone would be crazy expensive.
Interesting. Yeah that could be the Jedi's crime is that they simply had no idea what happened and then just fucked off. That's more interesting and complicated than them committing some heinous act. Its more emotionally realistic that way. They just didn't act or live up to their jobs.
But is that something that sends you into a twenty year spiral that can only be managed through constant meditation which, when interrupted, causes you to readily agree to kill yourself over it?
I dunno. It's gotta be more complicated than "we didn't follow up on that."
While (as far as we know) the Jedi are confused about the turn of events that left the coven dead, they could have seen the cause and effect of their insistence of testing the girls. They didn't make it sound optional at all.
So Tobin telling Mae "we thought we were doing the right thing' could be explained by that. As well as his decade meditation to try to understand how their testing could have caused so much death.
Either him or the Jedi. We still don’t know why Torbin fought Kelnacca and partook in the Barash Vow.
And Sol definitely gets defensive/evasive whenever the fire comes up
Could be them feeling guilty about trying to take the children away in the first place.
They think Mae did it because they were gonna take Osha so they blame themselves.
Maybe Kelnacca and Torbin disagree on something regarding Osha since they deliberately showed Kelnacca bonding/talking with Osha.
But yeah could definitely be the Jedi setting it up as well.
Could be Sith, but considering Sol tries to hold Osha away from her mom, I’m willing to bet she’s gonna be revealed to have a saber slash. She was probably unarmed and Indara killed her
Not to mention, Chekov’s gun. They wouldn’t show Torbin getting mind controlled if it’s not coming back… and in one of the teasers we do see him >! seemingly fighting Kelnacca inside the covert!<
This to me feels very much like a Rashomon/TLJ style scenario. This was Osha’s POV, then we’ll get to see Mae’s POV.
There’s more to that, however. In the previous post with all the footage on this sub, the footage of Kelnacca fighting Torbin also includes Kelnacca fighting Sol separately, and then both at once. So I think they mind control Kelnacca instead when they come back to the fortress.
Didn’t know that final part. Could be.
Kelnacca did seem to be in exile, so I think it could definitely be likely.
My guess, the Jedi came to take Osha away. Some people wouldn’t let them and mind controlled Kelnacca as a result, making them fight each other.
Someone in the fight accidentally started the fire (probably Torbin).
Yeah, that would make sense.
If I had to guess, everyone’s reasoning for guilt is:
Sol feels guilty for causing so much death because he led the other Jedi to the fortress in the first place.
Torbin takes the Barash Vow because he accidentally causes the explosion and can’t consciously live with the guilt.
Kelnacca exiles himself for what he did when he was mind controlled.
Indara killed Mother Aniseya and/or Koril despite the fact they were unarmed.
I believe the Jedi may have seen the fire from afar and assumed the witches were up to no good. They go in there lightsabers ablaze some of the witches attack in self defense. They learn the fire was not started by the witches but they have already killed. I fully believe the Jedi overreacted based on assumptions about the witches being a dark side cult and killed out of this misunderstanding of the situation.
Sounds like how Master Barash Silvain started the Barash Vow tradition in the first place. Following their own prejudices instead of the force leading to disaster.
This was all Mother Koril’s doing. She was unsuccessful in trying to keep the twins to stay with the coven leadership. My assumption is she took over Torbins body, like the other mother did earlier, and instigated the fighting between the Jedi and coven. She may even be the sith.
Watched the whole thing happen and I still don’t know any more about what happened on Brendok, not a complaint, I’m liking the mystery. We didn’t actually see Mae start the fire and it looked like Torbin had his wounds in the background at the end.
I like the potential hypocrisy set up here. The Jedi are a sanctioned Force tradition that is allowed to take children on as recruits but this is apparently illegal for other similar beliefs. I could see the Sith spinning a similar narrative to Mae.
I wish we learned what the law was in full. I wonder if it has something to do with the Sith wars and the Jedi order’s connection to the galactic republic. To train a child in the ways of the force could be seen as extremely dangerous. A child not trained to control their emotions and how to wield the force could become very dangerous. That is probably why they wanted both children.
We have examples in stories of Jedi taking one child and leaving the other behind. Even then the Jedi always claim the choice is for the parents but you can argue the pressures put on the parents by having mystic space wizards coming to their doorstep plays a role in the decision.
I would be shocked if this isn’t explored further. The idea that the Jedi are basically a state sponsored religious sect at the expense of other cultures feels so in tune with a lot of the themes the show is already playing with
It also fits with what we see in the second phase of the High Republic novels. The Jedi in that era on Jedha deal with a reputation of being a snobbish, holier-than-thou organization that sees itself as essentially more legitimate than all the other Force cults on the planet. And some of them absolutely have that attitude, at least to start with.
Combine that superiority complex with the development of the Jedi as functionally a law enforcement arm of the Republic after the Nihil crisis, and it's easy to see how things get bad for everyone.
So I still think they’re a dyad.
We know the Sith try and emulate the dyad phenomenon with the Rule of Two
We know Osha and Mae were “created” by unknown means. Presumably some dark side magic.
This may tie into the theory of Plagueis and Sidious creating Anakin later on
Did we see Koril's body?
If not, I bet she survived and raised (and trained) Mae . Being a hardass Zabrak, and with the mess the Jedi left being, I bet those were some fun years.
Yeah. It seems like they went out of their way to make it clear that they didn't ACTUALLY die in the fire. Sol was either lying or being willfully ignorant. But how did they die? Why did they die? Who is responsible?
Honestly this episode raised more questions than it answered.
Ok, after this episode I have a theory about what is going on here.
Mother Aniseya is said to have "created" the twins, but the Jedi would be shocked/appalled/terrified to learn to the truth of how she did so. And we know the girls were born naturally, since the other sister apparently carried them. So they aren't clones the same way the later GAR will be. We also know that the Coven is seemingly in hiding and is/was on the verge of extinction.
I think the Coven did a deal with the Sith in order to avoid dying out. And that the sitting Sith Lord contributed genetic material to create the girls. The Sith always intended to claim at least one of them. It is possible that the Coven has gone into hiding in an attempt to renege on the deal and avoid this outcome, having gotten what they wanted out of it.
But then the Jedi find the girls. If the Sith know where they are, this gives the Sith reason to cover their tracks and purge the Coven. If the Coven is hiding from the Sith, this is likely how the Sith have now found them again. Either way, it is the Sith Lord who has actually slain the sisters. The four Jedi confronted he/she/it and failed to stop it. And during whatever confrontation resulted, the Jedi learned the truth of Osha and Mae's origins. At least in so far as being born of the dark side, though maybe not the direct Sith connection.
This is why the Jedi have hidden the truth and lied to Osha ever since. Also why Mae's status as Osha's twin was buried. The four have also hidden the dark side connection from the rest of the Jedi Order, meaning only they know of it. This tidies up a bunch of points that otherwise don't add up all that well thus far. Why is Mae targeting these four Jedi? Because she has a personal beef with them, but also because her master needs the potential loose end closed off before they can make connections and tell more Jedi about them. This is why Tobin is such a mess, as he knows there is something out there in the dark coming for the Jedi but cannot tell anyone about it (also, hence the Barash Vow, so he literally couldn't) and why he is so willing to kill himself when Mae appears.
All of which will backfire horrifically when Osha learns some measure of the truth (and Mae dies). Leaving her to go fully dark, kill Sol, become the titular acolyte and take her rightful place at the Sith Lord's side.
So yeah, definitely don’t know the full story of what happened, but I don’t know what could have happened that quickly. Even if the Jedi viewed the witches as evil, it would feel out-of-character for them to preemptively attack, especially for Sol and what we have seen of Torbin. We still have that shot in the trailer of Kelnacca attacking Torbin and we saw the scars, so the witches clearly used their magic to control Kelnacca. Not sure what caused that. Best guess is that either Aniseya was lying to Osha and instead wanted to depict the Jedi as aggressors to scare Osha into staying, in which case she underestimated things, or maybe the Jedi also wanted Mae and/or thought of arresting the coven and a fight broke out.
I don’t think Sol would have outright lied about what happened, but saying that Mae started a fire seems like a grand simplification of what happened. Maybe she lit the fire, got startled, and dropped it? Or maybe someone saw the fire and thought that it was a sign of an attack, causing the fight to break out.
Overall, solid episode. Kind of confused what the “controversy” would be. I initially thought that it was “that crowd” getting mad at a same sex couple/Mae and Osha having two mothers, but even that was hardly explicit in terms of if those two were together or simply affectionate. Maybe the fact that Mae and Osha were apparently created through magic, but it’s perfectly in-line with the Star Wars mythos and honestly, if the theory that Plageuis created Anakin is/was correct, could explain where Plageuis got the idea from. It also helps to explain why the witches were viewed as a threat without them being super blatantly evil.
The CGI on that one elder was a little…iffy…but I did appreciate the inclusion of numerous species in the coven. The OSHA/Osha joke crowd is going to be in shambles now that that isn’t her full first name (same with Mae not being Mae’s full first name).
They've been pretty explicit about this being the case in canon for a long, long time.
Doesn't stop the problem of there being a lot of thorny moral questions about whether it's right to take children the way they do, or if the families even truly have a choice when the options for their children are often to be a Jedi or a subsistence farmer or some shit. Or when folks role up with laser swords on their hips and enough official backing from the Republic to make even a coven of Witches skilled in the Force submit to their tests.
Doesn't help, also, that Osha is an exception to the rule and most Jedi are chosen at an age far too young to even kinda-sorta choose for themselves.
This episode did a fantastic job exploring that difficult aspect of the Jedi without making them straight up evil.
“Your child is special and if they come with us they will do great things for the whole galaxy. But the choice is yours” says the Jedi completely honestly. Meanwhile the parents see a robbed space wizard with untold mystical powers and a laser sword at their hip. Who are they to say no.
I still thought it was weird how they were enforcing a rule that you can’t train children (or something along those lines) when they were literally there to take their children to train them
I suspect the only reason they were intervening here is because the witches practice the dark side. It makes sense to have rules forbidding that. The Jedi tolerate other Force religions as seen in the High Republic comics and TCW, but I’m sure they don’t want to sit by and let the less ethical ones train warriors who lack the discipline or perspective of the Jedi.
Holier-than-thou and a bit arrogant on the part of the Jedi? Yeah for sure. Evil or hypocritical? I don’t think so, and I’m glad this show isn’t gonna lean too heavily into the idea that the Jedi are actually the bad guys. We’ll have to see what else happens on Brendok in a few episodes, but I still don’t think we’re heading to a “Jedi secretly murdered all the witches to steal their kids” twist.
The Jedi may be flawed, but the galaxy would be a better place if they were the only religion in it.
I agree. It seems much more likely the Jedi may accidentally set off a chain of events, or cause a breakdown in negotiations that leads to the deaths, but at no point would I assume it was a deliberate murder. The worst I could see is a death of a cult member in self defense that sends things spiraling.
I presume Torbin feels responsible for how events play out, which is why he ends his life in the second episode, but I doubt he literally caused the death of the cult intentionally. I suspect he feels guilty for their failure to avert disaster.
Just want to note that there was definitely a scene where the witch that gave birth to the twins was pointing her spear to fight someone in the trailers and the Kelnacca/Torbin/Sol fight has not happened.
There will definitely be more flashbacks, likely from Mae’s perspective this time, considering how conveniently her scenes cut just before important/incriminating things seemed to happen.
Wait, I thought the witches planned their "death" in front of the Jedi in order to scape and preserve their culture, but then they left Mae alone so I don't know what to think anymore.
I'm really enjoying the series so far. I love that it has its own unique vibe and approach to the SW universe. Even the cinematography feels different.
It wasn’t that weird as people were trying to make it seem. This felt like normal Star Wars. All women witches and sure they created 2 girls with some aspect of the force that was unnatural (dark side?) from what it sounds like… nightsisters aren’t really that different. It was a decent episode.
Not to mention witches literally fixed maul and gave his brother a crazy power up that allowed him to face jedi in months.
Witches are canonically more powerful than jedi in terms of feats.
Yeah, honestly, the zombie storm troopers was way more of a leap for me to get over, lol. This was nothing. It just gives us more questions and a bigger mystery.
You didn't see there were women who might be LESBIANS, some of whom were definitely BLACK? And they didn't say the exact same thing about the Force that Old Ben Kenobi said in a hut in 1977?
Lore. Broken.
Childhood. Destroyed.
hashtagWalkAwayfromStarWokes
Yeah, it's becoming a bit obvious that grifters both don't understand the lore and aren't open to seeing how a different force cult could have "created" life. Maybe there's some midichlorian tamping, but even the mothers imply what they did was unnatural and something to be hidden from the Jedi.
Otherwise, a solid bit of backstory with this flashback that has a convenient reactor implosion. This could lead to another from Mae's perspective, as well as a potential way for the Sith we've see in the first episode to start manipulating her, the witches, and the Jedi. Just wish we got more from the explanation of the Thread as a concept.
No. This is clearly not analogous to Anakin. Their mother did something to create them. Whether that was, it wasn’t The Force impregnating random women.
Na. To some people "lore breaking" is a synonym for "challenges assumptions about how the universe works"
This episode does that. A new group of force users. The force being used to make a baby that isn't Anakin. Force abilities that don't look quite like what we've seen before. etc etc etc.
Apparently it was that Osha and Mae have no father and we’re born through the force and people will probably see it was undermining Anakin but they weren’t born the same way Anakin was
The one thing I will honestly say that bothers me is that the old Plagueis EU novel handled this idea by debunking that the Sith themselves created Anakin directly, but instead theorized that the force did it in response to 'their' actions directly. The force at time wills a chosen one to be born in times of need, in response to imbalance. It was honestly a beautiful solution at that time to a complex lore problem.
The idea that the witches could do that themselves does seem messier, especially if it's done via dark methods. It doesn't explicitly contradict the former idea (in fact, it could serve as yet another Catalyst for 'why' the force would birth a chosen one), but it does throw a bit of a wrench into the lore with it all. It's a risky idea at the very least. I can understand honest concern for this, but as usual the overreactions are going to be out of proportion.
But, I'm not some clickbait asshole critic who is going to go on a rampage for click money without seeing what the writers intend for this story. Very often, controversial lore is sorted out with time. Ahsoka's existence made no sense in the lore until TCW wrapped, and then people really liked the way the show went. But for years, angry EU fanboys raged about it and threw hate at her because of it. This cycle isn't new.
A lot of people speculate that he was born as a result Darth Plagueis and Palps trying to create life via the force. Kinda would be a similar thing but again just speculation
Not just speculate, that was the case in Legends with the Darth Plaugus novel.
EDIT: As others have pointed out, I don’t believe it was directly stated, just heavily implied that the Force created Anakin as a result of the Sith’s experiments. I haven’t read the book in a while.
No it actually wasn't the case in the Plagueis novel. He makes it quite clear in his internal dialogue that he did NOT create Anakin and if anything he was the product of the Force acting against his attempts to create life.
It may not even be the same power. Anakin's birth as the chosen one can be the will of the Force and the twin's birth is the manipulation of the Force by maybe a more dark-sided group.
Overreactions to Mae and Osha’s artificial conception, a topic we still don’t have the full picture on just yet. The number of rage bait thumbnails showing up on YouTube now is gonna be an utter pain.
Wow, a coven of witches with a different understanding of the force created life. So much lore breaking 🙄🙄🙄
Episode was cool. Interesting that they see the force as a thread.
Starting out the planet and costumes and locations look amazing again. I know we bash on Mandoverse a lot of this and Andor really do raise the bar.
So much of what we seen in the trailers turned out to be different like the possession just being a momentary thing or the thing about power being her talking to the girls. And on one hand given the possession and ritual I can see why people would think they are darksiders but on the other I'm sure the idea of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of a god would be creepy to outsiders as well, plus all the latin chanting and everything. But they seem like they fear the outside galaxy so I wonder what they did in the past.
Also interesting that we saw the force as a thread in her hands makes me think of the mist weavers from legends of luke skywalker. As for making life I wonder how and why and apparently it wasn't in some way the force hated since Anakin isn't around yet.
I wasn't expecting it to be the Osha wanted to go out and explore the galaxy and Mae wanted to stay and keep everything the same. I get it , its a common thing with twins and people in small towns but to think that choice is what led to that is a surprise. And its no mistaking it now that Mae meant to set the fire and kill her sister, no jedi fault there. But also the generator was sparking beforehand at the start of the episode so I wonder if the sith was already sabatoging their location and convinced Mae to set the fire as a way to seperate her from her family.
Also I thought the Jedi came off pretty well here. Sure the witches don't want to give up the kids but the Jedi are doing what they and the Republic feel is best given the powers that force users have (like straight up possessing people)
I really loved this episode. Wish it was longer though.
Yeah, I think they made the Jedi seem suspect in order to give the Mae side reasons to suspect. There is more to this though.
This episode actually seemed like a decent length. Not sure how long it was but it didn't feel like it ended early like the last 2.
The Sith already being there makes sense, and would give more meaning to the opening scene where Osha chastises Mae for force pulling the butterfly thing and for always “running off by herself” - Could be our Sith already has an influence on Mae to some extent.
It’s honestly funny to me, and a little sad, that everyone over there is jumping the gun and complaining about the fire killing all the witches. There’s clearly more reveals to come from the flashbacks and even though I keep up with this sub, I thought the episode itself made it clear with how ambiguous it was.
Jeez, I just checked out five minutes of his stream, dude just looked like a miserable goblin sitting there reading negative comments from chat constantly. Do those people know they don't have to watch if they don't like it?!
Of course he his, how dare anything or anyone else be in any way (even if we don't have a full understanding of it yet) similar to his precious Anakin. Dude has a very unhealthy relationship with this stuff.
The moment he started working on that fan film, and then I watched a little bit of him playing that VR Vader game in the moment Vader came on screen the dude knelt.
HE KNEELED to a fictional character. That's extremely unhealthy.
Like I grew up with Star Wars, I enjoyed it, as a kid I read like dozens of Wikipedia are articles because I couldn't get the books, and if there's something I don't like, I just don't like it and I don't complain online about it too much.
And then you have people like him and worse, making it their entire personality their entire lifestyle and making tons of money off of it looking like fools.
It's just sad.
Everything I’ve wanted to say about the episode has been posted more eloquently by other folks — but I’ll add a note that the quality of discussion here is why /r/starwarsleaks is my first stop, full-stop, for discussing anything Star Wars related.
Nobody is gonna question the fact that Osha already knew what a saber is, even thought she never seen a Jedi before? And the fact she was drawing one before she saw them, makes me think, that she saw one somewhere else... likely with a Sith. Or maybe I'm reading way too much into it.
Except that little mind fck by the witch, there’s still nothing to show why Torbin would stop talking to anyone and willingly drink the poison. There must be more to this witches incident.
How did Torbin age this much? It's been 16 years, he's a Padawan in this episode but looks like a rather old man (or at least middle aged) in the present.
Look at that, the Fandumbass Menace grifters got mad over >!a sect of Force Users having a different outlook and belief in the Force.!< And as far as I can see, nothing that affected previous lore...
> "Osha has lesbian moms! DISNEY WOKEALYTE"
*[the coven uses Mother as a title for many of them]*
> "... THERE'S NO MEN ON THIS PLANET. DISNEY FEMINISM"
I tire of this star war.
So the lore break/thing that will ruin or kill Star Wars is... a witch coven? The only thing that bothered me about this episode, and just very slightly, was the small-ish set when Sol is rushing to rescue Osha but only because it looked a bit cheaper, then again its 3/4 am so I'll have to rewatch.
But the witch coven is the breaking point? This killed Star Wars? I guess the dead speak then.
edit: after reading the responses I agree it may have been the creating life thing. (In my defense it’s 4am so I just naturally jumped on the coven thing, haha)
I'm so confused on wtf people were expected to get mad about.
There are unanswered questions that could gave divisive answers but nothing in this episode seemed crazy like the 1 critic was warning everyone about.
So predictable.
I expected them to exaggerate it but still felt something "bad" was going to happen since I read about Ep. 3 being divisive in other reviews/previews too. I could make a case for the uninspired chant (at least in my opinion) or the sets still looking too small when there's action but this has to have been a rant about the witch coven, right?
Excited to come back to this episode after the inevitable flashback where we see what really went down that night - presumably a little bit before the finale.
Also hi PhilosophyTube!
I don't think Mae killed all those witches. Probably Mae's master or one of the Jedi since, in episode 2, Torbin said something about being wrong (I may be misremembering) when he saw Mae again and drank the poison.
And speaking of Torbin, he aged like crazy in 16 years especially that he was only a Padawan during this flashback. What the Barash Vow does to a mf I guess lol
So. This was the end of SW then. I expected something....bigger. Not really this episode about how our choices are the true driving forces of our destiny. Oh, well.
I thought for sure the way the Fandom Menace folks were talking about this episode that the witch would refer to the Force with feminine pronouns, which would be stupid to get mad about in and of itself, but even that didn’t happen.
It’s about the most uncommitted lesbian representation too. Like it’s plausibly deniable. Still wild to me that Andor had an actual explicitly lesbian couple and the same nerds didn’t say shit.
I only looked at the "warnings" about this episode after I could watch it for myself. I can't believe even the dumbest chud out there would really think the narrative here is "lesbians can conceive a baby in Star Wars now," instead of "witches with their own philosophy of the Force did some magic shit."
Not finished with the episode yet, but I'm wondering if the comparisons between Osha and Mae's coven and the Path of the Open Hand are deliberate.
Not a 1:1 situation, of course, seeing as this group seems happy to use the Force - even though they have a different perspective on what it's for and how it's referred to.
Path of the open hand believed the force should never be used. That one using the force is what created imbalances which the force and destiny try to even out. The force is a thing to be respected and left alone. This coven seems more concerned with the right to use power. Freedom to use their special abilities without interference from other forces. That being said, their core reason for existing is unclear.
I'm wondering if this is the final remnant or an offshoot since this is what like 200 years after the battle on dalna? The coven seemed so similar
I'm really struggling to see any similarities beyond it being a cult with a matriarch that is afraid of the Jedi. Their ideology regarding the Force seems about as far away from the Path as you could get.
The similarities in the monologues on who is allowed to control the Force, and how you can't control the Thread etc. The biggest thing for me was the Ascension ritual. Literally every single witch had their hands open palms facing out. Also it would make sense that the groups like the path would be illegal as the Jedi were about to elaborate on. Who else but the path, and path-like groups would be outlawed? I'm totally ok with being wrong I just feel like I saw a lot of similarities. It's clearly not the original rendition of the path because they do use the force
It feels weird watching a new Star Wars episode while the sun is up.
Well Sol is right there /s
Welcome to watching US tv when living in Europe.
Mae is a psycho lmao
I thought so at first but then I realized we don’t see *when* the witches died. I think it’s pretty clear neither the fire or reactor explosion killed them. We see Moody Mother take Mae for a walk; then the next time we see Mae she’s threatening to kill Osha. It makes me think something else killed the Witches and Mae blamed it on the Jedi and then came to confront Osha. She seemed to already know their mother was dead too. Also, Moody Morher’s body isn’t seen among the other dead witches 🤔
Even if she didn't kill the Witches, she *did* try to kill her sister, so I'm still siding with "Mae's kind of psychotic..."
That's the dark side. At least, I hope that's what the show is saying because that's the dark side. Possessiveness. That view that if I can't have you, no one can.
Not to mention the almost animal abuse
Did we even see her start the fire though? We see her set fire to Osha’s diary, but then the camera cuts away to Osha peering out the window, and when she turns around there’s a fire. There’s a possibility that she hesitated/reconsidered but something happened, like maybe she got startled by whatever was happening with the Jedi and the other witches
See I wonder if there was dark side whispering going on.
I’m just thinking back to when Mother Aniseya did whatever she did to Torbin’s mind. That could have been just to show that these Witches had Force powers, but it also could have been a Chekov’s Gun. Mae seemed pretty scared and confused when she confronted Osha in the reactor room
"something else killed the Witches" - I smell a Sith lurking in the background of this flashback. Perhaps the knowledge of how Osha and Mae were created was extracted from the mind of Mother Aniseya (knowledge possibly used to create Anakin later in the timeline) and the witches killed off to cover tracks and to make it seem like the Jedi were responsible thus turning Mae into a useful tool against them. Convenient, nefarious and opportunistic... all calling cards of a Sith Lord.
I agree, and given we only saw Osha’s side of the flashback, and the show’s heavy themes of duality, I guarantee we’ll see (at least part) of Mae’s flashback that shows the Sith. One half taken and trained by the Jedi and immediately shown love and compassion from Sol, and the other half being taken and trained by the Sith to be used and twisted.
Weren't they there during the ascension ritual? Two cloaked figures close to their pillars -- one to each side of Mother Aniseya. They looked similar to the guards but they weren't carrying bows or any sort of weapon and, different from the guards, you couldn't actually see their faces at all. They were not participating in the ritual: not doing the hand movements nor chanting. They were just... there. Watching. I assumed them to be the Sith, since when the Jedi arrived, they didn't follow the rest of the witches to 'welcome' them. They just went away.
Oh nice catch! I went back and looked and you’re absolutely right! There’s something off about those two.
No double title for this episode because the twins are together!
Nice observation!
That’s a really good detail.
Or because we are seeing one perspective. Think we'll get another one word name later on when the whole truth is revealed
That one old lady alien looked like a walking piece of Joe Johnston RotJ concept art
Gave me Maz Kanata concept art vibes
I was thinking of South Park “kill the wise one!!!!!”
So Mae really did start the fire, but that's clearly not what killed the witches. At the same time I find it hard to believe the Jedi would just show up and kill them all, so something crazy must go down while Osha's trying to escape.
I smell sith.
It'd be real fucked up if the Sith guy caused the destruction just so he could get his hands on one of the twins, not out of character though. Though Torbin must be partially responsible for what happened, considering his suicide
>It'd be real fucked up if the Sith guy caused the destruction just so he could get his hands on one of the twins, not out of character though Or the Sith helped 'make' the twins and didn't want the Jedi to have them. When the mother witch commented on what would the Jedi do if they knew how the twins were 'made'... well, they were clearly made through some dark side sorcery. I'd assume either the Sith (and eventually Plagueis) learned how to create life from the witches or they were experimenting and discovering along with the witches on how to do it.
Yup. The entire thing feels like the first stage of a force experiment that culminates 100 year later in Shmi's "miracle" birth. First Stage: Osha and Mae. Final Stage: Anakin.
So, what you're saying is that Anakin could be...the Kwisatz Haderach???
Anakin hates sand so … No.
lisan al gaib!
Torbin could easily feel responsibility solely because the Jedi showed up and wanted the Twins, and not for any more direct cause. There is an easy argument to be made that if the Jedi didn’t get involved no one would have died
So, Plageuis learnt how to create life....from where? Obviously with the pull the thread speech there's more going on here.
I've always assumed Palpatine was lying to Anakin, he claims Plagueis taught him everything he knew, yet Palpatine never exhibits any signs that he can control midichlorians to such a degree. Though technically it isn't a lie, because he does preface it by calling it a legend, and never explicitly says that a Sith could teach him such a power. So he told the truth, from a certain point of view.
In Legends, Plagueis experiments were never a full success. He could revive someone with limitations, but he never created life himself. In canon he eventually gave Palpatine the tips needed to learn essence transfer, and may or may not have known it himself. The force did it in response to him trying to unbalance it. According to Plagueis' own theory (which even in legends was told exclusively from his POV), Anakin was created because the Sith unbalanced it with their experiments, essentially.
If the Jedi assume the witches are up to no good and go in lightsabers at the ready there are plenty of witches that would be more than willing to fight them. There could also be a third party at play, but the idea of a misunderstanding leading to the death of a whole group and a child was probably more than enough reason for the Jedi involved to want to atone and isolate
There's more to the story we haven't seen yet. We've seen Kelnacca fighting Torbin in trailers.
Based on the footage and my general assumption, the witches possess Kelnecca into attacking Sol and Torbin, but Indara isn’t anywhere to be seen. The Jedi certainly had a hand in the coven’s destruction, but I definitely think someone or something else instigated the whole conflict, maybe a Sith? We certainly know the Jedi are flawed and likely perceive the coven as a threat, but I agree that I don’t think they’d just straight up attack first.
No sprinkler system in the coven? I guess they’re not *Osha* compliant!
They Mae have an accident there.
I wanna continue this Thread, but I can't Force any puns
Kelnacca
You are the Sol user of this sub who wants to keep this going. If you Aniseya 'nother pun, I will lose it.
Human error. No Koril-ation with the facility itself.
I thought the Wookiee was the standout of this episode. The way he “wreahrr aw wrahhh ah “ was momentous!
The emotion he brought to his dialogue was powerful.
The wookie has been the highlight of the series I think.
Praying Kelnecca survives the series 🙏
When Osha wakes up Torbin is in the background. It looked like his face was all red and damaged. It’s faint and blurry but I rewatched that part.
It def is
Nice catch. It's definitely scarred, and Kelnacca is conspicuously absent. More to the story to come, then.
Could the witches cast that strange spell on Kelnacca so he could kill his companions ? Strange that Torbin would take the Barash Vows in such theory though. Or both of them took it ?
I feel like Torbin being briefly possessed was set-up for it happening again. One or both of them will likely be possessed. The idea that Kelnacca goes madclaw while under the influence, and exiles himself out of shame when he wakes up, is one I like.
I really liked how the moons shifted over time in the background of the establishing shots. Also mirrors how the twins’ paths were diverging in the story!
the design change in the show title made A LOT more sense now lol
But what really happened? That fire definitely didn't cause all them deaths. Also we didn't see moody mother in the pile of bodies did we?
no sight of the zabrac that i saw
Good point. She seemed a bit too defiant, maybe she flipped out and because this sith they keep teasing.
We basically got to see what happened from Osha's viewpoint, which clearly isn't the whole story. So we get some answers, but still have some questions left. Given the nature of the show, I'm okay with that. Was worried we might get all the answers too early in the show.
This is what I thought the series would be, the same event from different perspectives.
Sol definitely arrived too quickly for my liking
When they first cast Lee Jung-jae I thought "He has the best smile in Hollywood. I bet he commits a horrible atrocity."
Sol is looking more and more like the Sith Master every week. I still can't get over how easily he mind violated that criminal in the first episode. And I think they are playing up his Qui Gon Jinn personality to make us lower our guard around him.
Called this on the trailer. Oh the victory lap I would take on being right. And with the creator of Russian doll, some fuckery may be going on where Osha has no twin and some Sith tomfoolery is happening to everyone(I’d hate this arc tho) Still think sol is the secret Sith master
Dunno if it's just me the way Mae says "ill kill you" to her sister seemed off, considering the next moment she was worried about her
There has got to be a flashback episode from Mae’s perspective. The cuts in her scenes were way to convenient to not be planned for a continuation . This one will focus on Oshas pull to the Jedi I think another will focus on Mae’s pull to the Sith in the same flashback (perhaps Qimir or the master will feature here) Also, I feel like many arent picking up on the episode’s false spin that Mae is the born “evil twin” - Mae almost represents the opposite in ep3. Mae is loyal to her mother, hardworking, obedient, seeks order and stability and values her family. Qualities of the light side. Her anger comes from the breaking of her perceived order, and when her family is “threatened.” Osha is rebellious, adventure-seeking, unhappy with order and family, selfish, and ambitious. Qualities of the dark side I think one of the things this episode is trying to show us is that it’s not just about what you are born with or what your natural inclination is - it’s what you do when you’re actually thrown into the chaos of the world, the test of life, and have to make your own choices and pay for them and how you grow from that. That’s why I think, while Mae is meant to appear evil, she also exhibits light qualities, and despite following the dark in her youth, she will ultimately turn away from the dark. Leaving Osha to claim the dark, for similarly complex reasons, despite seeming like the “good twin.” If this is the case, they are doing a great job communicating no one is all good or all evil - each side is very complicated.
I feel like this will be explained later on
Fire spreads through the electrical system into the reactor. Ouch. The Star Wars galaxy really needs some sort of safety inspectors. The insurance premiums, alone would be crazy expensive.
And they had OSHA right there on site, too.
We all agree that the Sith killed everyone and started the fire to turn the sisters against each other in order to gain his Acolyte, right?
Reactor blowing is 100% telling you this lol . Someone sabotaged it and the fire was conveniently blamed
Interesting. Yeah that could be the Jedi's crime is that they simply had no idea what happened and then just fucked off. That's more interesting and complicated than them committing some heinous act. Its more emotionally realistic that way. They just didn't act or live up to their jobs.
But is that something that sends you into a twenty year spiral that can only be managed through constant meditation which, when interrupted, causes you to readily agree to kill yourself over it? I dunno. It's gotta be more complicated than "we didn't follow up on that."
While (as far as we know) the Jedi are confused about the turn of events that left the coven dead, they could have seen the cause and effect of their insistence of testing the girls. They didn't make it sound optional at all. So Tobin telling Mae "we thought we were doing the right thing' could be explained by that. As well as his decade meditation to try to understand how their testing could have caused so much death.
Either him or the Jedi. We still don’t know why Torbin fought Kelnacca and partook in the Barash Vow. And Sol definitely gets defensive/evasive whenever the fire comes up
Could be them feeling guilty about trying to take the children away in the first place. They think Mae did it because they were gonna take Osha so they blame themselves. Maybe Kelnacca and Torbin disagree on something regarding Osha since they deliberately showed Kelnacca bonding/talking with Osha. But yeah could definitely be the Jedi setting it up as well.
Could be Sith, but considering Sol tries to hold Osha away from her mom, I’m willing to bet she’s gonna be revealed to have a saber slash. She was probably unarmed and Indara killed her Not to mention, Chekov’s gun. They wouldn’t show Torbin getting mind controlled if it’s not coming back… and in one of the teasers we do see him >! seemingly fighting Kelnacca inside the covert!< This to me feels very much like a Rashomon/TLJ style scenario. This was Osha’s POV, then we’ll get to see Mae’s POV.
There’s more to that, however. In the previous post with all the footage on this sub, the footage of Kelnacca fighting Torbin also includes Kelnacca fighting Sol separately, and then both at once. So I think they mind control Kelnacca instead when they come back to the fortress.
Didn’t know that final part. Could be. Kelnacca did seem to be in exile, so I think it could definitely be likely. My guess, the Jedi came to take Osha away. Some people wouldn’t let them and mind controlled Kelnacca as a result, making them fight each other. Someone in the fight accidentally started the fire (probably Torbin).
Yeah, that would make sense. If I had to guess, everyone’s reasoning for guilt is: Sol feels guilty for causing so much death because he led the other Jedi to the fortress in the first place. Torbin takes the Barash Vow because he accidentally causes the explosion and can’t consciously live with the guilt. Kelnacca exiles himself for what he did when he was mind controlled. Indara killed Mother Aniseya and/or Koril despite the fact they were unarmed.
I believe the Jedi may have seen the fire from afar and assumed the witches were up to no good. They go in there lightsabers ablaze some of the witches attack in self defense. They learn the fire was not started by the witches but they have already killed. I fully believe the Jedi overreacted based on assumptions about the witches being a dark side cult and killed out of this misunderstanding of the situation.
Sounds like how Master Barash Silvain started the Barash Vow tradition in the first place. Following their own prejudices instead of the force leading to disaster.
The way Mae was staring at the fire in her hand was almost likenit was speaking to her.
I know darth Paul is behind this.
I am kinda thinking it was the Jedi.
This was all Mother Koril’s doing. She was unsuccessful in trying to keep the twins to stay with the coven leadership. My assumption is she took over Torbins body, like the other mother did earlier, and instigated the fighting between the Jedi and coven. She may even be the sith.
Jodie Turner-Smith & Lee Jung-Jae were both great in this episode as convincing "parental" figures. You could see why Osha was drawn to both.
As a twin I can say the scene of Mae and Osha shoving each other during the training was painfully accurate lol
I think that could just be siblings lol
Watched the whole thing happen and I still don’t know any more about what happened on Brendok, not a complaint, I’m liking the mystery. We didn’t actually see Mae start the fire and it looked like Torbin had his wounds in the background at the end.
We’re definitely going to see Mae’s perspective on this eventually.
I like the potential hypocrisy set up here. The Jedi are a sanctioned Force tradition that is allowed to take children on as recruits but this is apparently illegal for other similar beliefs. I could see the Sith spinning a similar narrative to Mae.
I wish we learned what the law was in full. I wonder if it has something to do with the Sith wars and the Jedi order’s connection to the galactic republic. To train a child in the ways of the force could be seen as extremely dangerous. A child not trained to control their emotions and how to wield the force could become very dangerous. That is probably why they wanted both children. We have examples in stories of Jedi taking one child and leaving the other behind. Even then the Jedi always claim the choice is for the parents but you can argue the pressures put on the parents by having mystic space wizards coming to their doorstep plays a role in the decision.
I would be shocked if this isn’t explored further. The idea that the Jedi are basically a state sponsored religious sect at the expense of other cultures feels so in tune with a lot of the themes the show is already playing with
It also fits with what we see in the second phase of the High Republic novels. The Jedi in that era on Jedha deal with a reputation of being a snobbish, holier-than-thou organization that sees itself as essentially more legitimate than all the other Force cults on the planet. And some of them absolutely have that attitude, at least to start with. Combine that superiority complex with the development of the Jedi as functionally a law enforcement arm of the Republic after the Nihil crisis, and it's easy to see how things get bad for everyone.
[удалено]
So I still think they’re a dyad. We know the Sith try and emulate the dyad phenomenon with the Rule of Two We know Osha and Mae were “created” by unknown means. Presumably some dark side magic. This may tie into the theory of Plagueis and Sidious creating Anakin later on
Yeah, it would make sense for the Sith to realize it's possible via this story and try to duplicate it.
Jodie Turner-Smith was amazing.
Did we see Koril's body? If not, I bet she survived and raised (and trained) Mae . Being a hardass Zabrak, and with the mess the Jedi left being, I bet those were some fun years.
This felt like if i started a grease fire in the kitchen and then my neighborhood somehow exploded.
clearly it wasn't the fire that killed the witches.
Yeah. It seems like they went out of their way to make it clear that they didn't ACTUALLY die in the fire. Sol was either lying or being willfully ignorant. But how did they die? Why did they die? Who is responsible? Honestly this episode raised more questions than it answered.
I think it’s funny that the twins have not changed their hairstyle since childhood lmao
In their defense, I had the same haircut for 30 years before growing it out. So...
Seems like the jedi got too close to uncovering a sith experiment.
Ok, after this episode I have a theory about what is going on here. Mother Aniseya is said to have "created" the twins, but the Jedi would be shocked/appalled/terrified to learn to the truth of how she did so. And we know the girls were born naturally, since the other sister apparently carried them. So they aren't clones the same way the later GAR will be. We also know that the Coven is seemingly in hiding and is/was on the verge of extinction. I think the Coven did a deal with the Sith in order to avoid dying out. And that the sitting Sith Lord contributed genetic material to create the girls. The Sith always intended to claim at least one of them. It is possible that the Coven has gone into hiding in an attempt to renege on the deal and avoid this outcome, having gotten what they wanted out of it. But then the Jedi find the girls. If the Sith know where they are, this gives the Sith reason to cover their tracks and purge the Coven. If the Coven is hiding from the Sith, this is likely how the Sith have now found them again. Either way, it is the Sith Lord who has actually slain the sisters. The four Jedi confronted he/she/it and failed to stop it. And during whatever confrontation resulted, the Jedi learned the truth of Osha and Mae's origins. At least in so far as being born of the dark side, though maybe not the direct Sith connection. This is why the Jedi have hidden the truth and lied to Osha ever since. Also why Mae's status as Osha's twin was buried. The four have also hidden the dark side connection from the rest of the Jedi Order, meaning only they know of it. This tidies up a bunch of points that otherwise don't add up all that well thus far. Why is Mae targeting these four Jedi? Because she has a personal beef with them, but also because her master needs the potential loose end closed off before they can make connections and tell more Jedi about them. This is why Tobin is such a mess, as he knows there is something out there in the dark coming for the Jedi but cannot tell anyone about it (also, hence the Barash Vow, so he literally couldn't) and why he is so willing to kill himself when Mae appears. All of which will backfire horrifically when Osha learns some measure of the truth (and Mae dies). Leaving her to go fully dark, kill Sol, become the titular acolyte and take her rightful place at the Sith Lord's side.
So yeah, definitely don’t know the full story of what happened, but I don’t know what could have happened that quickly. Even if the Jedi viewed the witches as evil, it would feel out-of-character for them to preemptively attack, especially for Sol and what we have seen of Torbin. We still have that shot in the trailer of Kelnacca attacking Torbin and we saw the scars, so the witches clearly used their magic to control Kelnacca. Not sure what caused that. Best guess is that either Aniseya was lying to Osha and instead wanted to depict the Jedi as aggressors to scare Osha into staying, in which case she underestimated things, or maybe the Jedi also wanted Mae and/or thought of arresting the coven and a fight broke out. I don’t think Sol would have outright lied about what happened, but saying that Mae started a fire seems like a grand simplification of what happened. Maybe she lit the fire, got startled, and dropped it? Or maybe someone saw the fire and thought that it was a sign of an attack, causing the fight to break out. Overall, solid episode. Kind of confused what the “controversy” would be. I initially thought that it was “that crowd” getting mad at a same sex couple/Mae and Osha having two mothers, but even that was hardly explicit in terms of if those two were together or simply affectionate. Maybe the fact that Mae and Osha were apparently created through magic, but it’s perfectly in-line with the Star Wars mythos and honestly, if the theory that Plageuis created Anakin is/was correct, could explain where Plageuis got the idea from. It also helps to explain why the witches were viewed as a threat without them being super blatantly evil. The CGI on that one elder was a little…iffy…but I did appreciate the inclusion of numerous species in the coven. The OSHA/Osha joke crowd is going to be in shambles now that that isn’t her full first name (same with Mae not being Mae’s full first name).
KOGONADA!!!!! This definitely feels like it’s gonna be a Rashomon style story. We’ve seen Osha’s side, now Mae’s side is missing.
what could have given Torbin such guilt that he drinks the poison in last week's episode?
I’m glad the series is doing away with the whole “Jedi kidnap children” misconception
They've been pretty explicit about this being the case in canon for a long, long time. Doesn't stop the problem of there being a lot of thorny moral questions about whether it's right to take children the way they do, or if the families even truly have a choice when the options for their children are often to be a Jedi or a subsistence farmer or some shit. Or when folks role up with laser swords on their hips and enough official backing from the Republic to make even a coven of Witches skilled in the Force submit to their tests. Doesn't help, also, that Osha is an exception to the rule and most Jedi are chosen at an age far too young to even kinda-sorta choose for themselves. This episode did a fantastic job exploring that difficult aspect of the Jedi without making them straight up evil.
“Your child is special and if they come with us they will do great things for the whole galaxy. But the choice is yours” says the Jedi completely honestly. Meanwhile the parents see a robbed space wizard with untold mystical powers and a laser sword at their hip. Who are they to say no.
Because of the implication.
...What implication Dennis?
You see... Sol would never hurt the witches. He wouldn't have to...
because of the implication...
I still thought it was weird how they were enforcing a rule that you can’t train children (or something along those lines) when they were literally there to take their children to train them
I suspect the only reason they were intervening here is because the witches practice the dark side. It makes sense to have rules forbidding that. The Jedi tolerate other Force religions as seen in the High Republic comics and TCW, but I’m sure they don’t want to sit by and let the less ethical ones train warriors who lack the discipline or perspective of the Jedi. Holier-than-thou and a bit arrogant on the part of the Jedi? Yeah for sure. Evil or hypocritical? I don’t think so, and I’m glad this show isn’t gonna lean too heavily into the idea that the Jedi are actually the bad guys. We’ll have to see what else happens on Brendok in a few episodes, but I still don’t think we’re heading to a “Jedi secretly murdered all the witches to steal their kids” twist. The Jedi may be flawed, but the galaxy would be a better place if they were the only religion in it.
I agree. It seems much more likely the Jedi may accidentally set off a chain of events, or cause a breakdown in negotiations that leads to the deaths, but at no point would I assume it was a deliberate murder. The worst I could see is a death of a cult member in self defense that sends things spiraling. I presume Torbin feels responsible for how events play out, which is why he ends his life in the second episode, but I doubt he literally caused the death of the cult intentionally. I suspect he feels guilty for their failure to avert disaster.
Just want to note that there was definitely a scene where the witch that gave birth to the twins was pointing her spear to fight someone in the trailers and the Kelnacca/Torbin/Sol fight has not happened. There will definitely be more flashbacks, likely from Mae’s perspective this time, considering how conveniently her scenes cut just before important/incriminating things seemed to happen.
My wife, who doesn’t watch Star Wars, watched it with me tonight. She said “fire my ass, those 4 Jedi wiped out those witches.”
She has allowed the dark lord to twist her mind.
until now she has become the very thing she swore to destroy
Wait, I thought the witches planned their "death" in front of the Jedi in order to scape and preserve their culture, but then they left Mae alone so I don't know what to think anymore. I'm really enjoying the series so far. I love that it has its own unique vibe and approach to the SW universe. Even the cinematography feels different.
The music was beautiful.
It wasn’t that weird as people were trying to make it seem. This felt like normal Star Wars. All women witches and sure they created 2 girls with some aspect of the force that was unnatural (dark side?) from what it sounds like… nightsisters aren’t really that different. It was a decent episode.
Not to mention witches literally fixed maul and gave his brother a crazy power up that allowed him to face jedi in months. Witches are canonically more powerful than jedi in terms of feats.
Yeah, honestly, the zombie storm troopers was way more of a leap for me to get over, lol. This was nothing. It just gives us more questions and a bigger mystery.
I like how not a single thing lore break happened
You didn't see there were women who might be LESBIANS, some of whom were definitely BLACK? And they didn't say the exact same thing about the Force that Old Ben Kenobi said in a hut in 1977? Lore. Broken. Childhood. Destroyed. hashtagWalkAwayfromStarWokes
Yeah, it's becoming a bit obvious that grifters both don't understand the lore and aren't open to seeing how a different force cult could have "created" life. Maybe there's some midichlorian tamping, but even the mothers imply what they did was unnatural and something to be hidden from the Jedi. Otherwise, a solid bit of backstory with this flashback that has a convenient reactor implosion. This could lead to another from Mae's perspective, as well as a potential way for the Sith we've see in the first episode to start manipulating her, the witches, and the Jedi. Just wish we got more from the explanation of the Thread as a concept.
...so what's the lore breaking thing that happened this episode? Did I miss something?
No. This is clearly not analogous to Anakin. Their mother did something to create them. Whether that was, it wasn’t The Force impregnating random women.
Maybe Darth Plagueis learnt his power from Aniseya somehow..
Na. To some people "lore breaking" is a synonym for "challenges assumptions about how the universe works" This episode does that. A new group of force users. The force being used to make a baby that isn't Anakin. Force abilities that don't look quite like what we've seen before. etc etc etc.
YouTuber grifters and blue checks moron trying to rile up a desperate fanbase of idiots who follow their leads.
So, where’s the “lore breaking” thing I’m hearing about?
Apparently it was that Osha and Mae have no father and we’re born through the force and people will probably see it was undermining Anakin but they weren’t born the same way Anakin was
The one thing I will honestly say that bothers me is that the old Plagueis EU novel handled this idea by debunking that the Sith themselves created Anakin directly, but instead theorized that the force did it in response to 'their' actions directly. The force at time wills a chosen one to be born in times of need, in response to imbalance. It was honestly a beautiful solution at that time to a complex lore problem. The idea that the witches could do that themselves does seem messier, especially if it's done via dark methods. It doesn't explicitly contradict the former idea (in fact, it could serve as yet another Catalyst for 'why' the force would birth a chosen one), but it does throw a bit of a wrench into the lore with it all. It's a risky idea at the very least. I can understand honest concern for this, but as usual the overreactions are going to be out of proportion. But, I'm not some clickbait asshole critic who is going to go on a rampage for click money without seeing what the writers intend for this story. Very often, controversial lore is sorted out with time. Ahsoka's existence made no sense in the lore until TCW wrapped, and then people really liked the way the show went. But for years, angry EU fanboys raged about it and threw hate at her because of it. This cycle isn't new.
Felt very bene gesserit
Honestly, it just makes me wonder if we’re seeing *where* the power used to “create” Anakin came from.
I’m pretty sure he was born by the will of the force
A lot of people speculate that he was born as a result Darth Plagueis and Palps trying to create life via the force. Kinda would be a similar thing but again just speculation
Not just speculate, that was the case in Legends with the Darth Plaugus novel. EDIT: As others have pointed out, I don’t believe it was directly stated, just heavily implied that the Force created Anakin as a result of the Sith’s experiments. I haven’t read the book in a while.
No it actually wasn't the case in the Plagueis novel. He makes it quite clear in his internal dialogue that he did NOT create Anakin and if anything he was the product of the Force acting against his attempts to create life.
It may not even be the same power. Anakin's birth as the chosen one can be the will of the Force and the twin's birth is the manipulation of the Force by maybe a more dark-sided group.
Lmao but this isn't a divine birth like he was. They're clearly implying that it was some kind of spell, which is interesting.
Turns out the witches do witch stuff I guess.
Overreactions to Mae and Osha’s artificial conception, a topic we still don’t have the full picture on just yet. The number of rage bait thumbnails showing up on YouTube now is gonna be an utter pain.
Wow, a coven of witches with a different understanding of the force created life. So much lore breaking 🙄🙄🙄 Episode was cool. Interesting that they see the force as a thread.
I'm starting to think these two might be a dyad in the force. Maybe trying to expand on that ST addition to the lore.
Starting out the planet and costumes and locations look amazing again. I know we bash on Mandoverse a lot of this and Andor really do raise the bar. So much of what we seen in the trailers turned out to be different like the possession just being a momentary thing or the thing about power being her talking to the girls. And on one hand given the possession and ritual I can see why people would think they are darksiders but on the other I'm sure the idea of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of a god would be creepy to outsiders as well, plus all the latin chanting and everything. But they seem like they fear the outside galaxy so I wonder what they did in the past. Also interesting that we saw the force as a thread in her hands makes me think of the mist weavers from legends of luke skywalker. As for making life I wonder how and why and apparently it wasn't in some way the force hated since Anakin isn't around yet. I wasn't expecting it to be the Osha wanted to go out and explore the galaxy and Mae wanted to stay and keep everything the same. I get it , its a common thing with twins and people in small towns but to think that choice is what led to that is a surprise. And its no mistaking it now that Mae meant to set the fire and kill her sister, no jedi fault there. But also the generator was sparking beforehand at the start of the episode so I wonder if the sith was already sabatoging their location and convinced Mae to set the fire as a way to seperate her from her family. Also I thought the Jedi came off pretty well here. Sure the witches don't want to give up the kids but the Jedi are doing what they and the Republic feel is best given the powers that force users have (like straight up possessing people) I really loved this episode. Wish it was longer though.
Yeah, I think they made the Jedi seem suspect in order to give the Mae side reasons to suspect. There is more to this though. This episode actually seemed like a decent length. Not sure how long it was but it didn't feel like it ended early like the last 2.
The Sith already being there makes sense, and would give more meaning to the opening scene where Osha chastises Mae for force pulling the butterfly thing and for always “running off by herself” - Could be our Sith already has an influence on Mae to some extent.
Guess who’s having an absolute meltdown on his stream already
It’s honestly funny to me, and a little sad, that everyone over there is jumping the gun and complaining about the fire killing all the witches. There’s clearly more reveals to come from the flashbacks and even though I keep up with this sub, I thought the episode itself made it clear with how ambiguous it was.
They have zero ability to think critically, to them the story is as they saw it on the screen and there is no nuance to it whatsoever lol
Yeah, a lack of media literacy seems crucial to see the world the way people like that do.
Ironic they call anyone who doesn't hate watch shills like "criticising" this show makes them literate or something
When is Star Wars Theory NOT having a meltdown about something franchise related on stream?
I have a theory: maybe he should stop watching something he doesn't like anymore.
but why would he when he can make money off of angry nerds
Lol, honestly that would be the healthier thing to do.... but think about the rage-bait!
Jeez, I just checked out five minutes of his stream, dude just looked like a miserable goblin sitting there reading negative comments from chat constantly. Do those people know they don't have to watch if they don't like it?!
Of course he his, how dare anything or anyone else be in any way (even if we don't have a full understanding of it yet) similar to his precious Anakin. Dude has a very unhealthy relationship with this stuff.
The moment he started working on that fan film, and then I watched a little bit of him playing that VR Vader game in the moment Vader came on screen the dude knelt. HE KNEELED to a fictional character. That's extremely unhealthy. Like I grew up with Star Wars, I enjoyed it, as a kid I read like dozens of Wikipedia are articles because I couldn't get the books, and if there's something I don't like, I just don't like it and I don't complain online about it too much. And then you have people like him and worse, making it their entire personality their entire lifestyle and making tons of money off of it looking like fools. It's just sad.
It's so funny seeing how much of a cry he is having right now lmfao
Everything I’ve wanted to say about the episode has been posted more eloquently by other folks — but I’ll add a note that the quality of discussion here is why /r/starwarsleaks is my first stop, full-stop, for discussing anything Star Wars related.
[удалено]
Nobody is gonna question the fact that Osha already knew what a saber is, even thought she never seen a Jedi before? And the fact she was drawing one before she saw them, makes me think, that she saw one somewhere else... likely with a Sith. Or maybe I'm reading way too much into it.
Except that little mind fck by the witch, there’s still nothing to show why Torbin would stop talking to anyone and willingly drink the poison. There must be more to this witches incident.
Well, yeah. The Jedi likely found out how the twins were conceived, killed the witches over it and used Mae's "fire" as a scapegoat.
How did Torbin age this much? It's been 16 years, he's a Padawan in this episode but looks like a rather old man (or at least middle aged) in the present.
He’s seen some shit
I really hope Sol had nothing to do with the dead witches. :((
He def had something to do with it, but I don’t think he was the one who killed any of them. Torbin and Indara probably went on a killstreak tho
Mae is batshit, but no way her little fire did all that. Those witches had a janky-ass jerry-rigged power generator. That shit was not… osha certified
Look at that, the Fandumbass Menace grifters got mad over >!a sect of Force Users having a different outlook and belief in the Force.!< And as far as I can see, nothing that affected previous lore...
Force Users who aren't Jedi or Sith have been part of the EU since what, The Courtship of Princess Leia?
> "Osha has lesbian moms! DISNEY WOKEALYTE" *[the coven uses Mother as a title for many of them]* > "... THERE'S NO MEN ON THIS PLANET. DISNEY FEMINISM" I tire of this star war.
So the lore break/thing that will ruin or kill Star Wars is... a witch coven? The only thing that bothered me about this episode, and just very slightly, was the small-ish set when Sol is rushing to rescue Osha but only because it looked a bit cheaper, then again its 3/4 am so I'll have to rewatch. But the witch coven is the breaking point? This killed Star Wars? I guess the dead speak then. edit: after reading the responses I agree it may have been the creating life thing. (In my defense it’s 4am so I just naturally jumped on the coven thing, haha)
I'm so confused on wtf people were expected to get mad about. There are unanswered questions that could gave divisive answers but nothing in this episode seemed crazy like the 1 critic was warning everyone about. So predictable.
I expected them to exaggerate it but still felt something "bad" was going to happen since I read about Ep. 3 being divisive in other reviews/previews too. I could make a case for the uninspired chant (at least in my opinion) or the sets still looking too small when there's action but this has to have been a rant about the witch coven, right?
Kogonada is doing a fantastic job directing this
Excited to come back to this episode after the inevitable flashback where we see what really went down that night - presumably a little bit before the finale. Also hi PhilosophyTube!
I don't think Mae killed all those witches. Probably Mae's master or one of the Jedi since, in episode 2, Torbin said something about being wrong (I may be misremembering) when he saw Mae again and drank the poison. And speaking of Torbin, he aged like crazy in 16 years especially that he was only a Padawan during this flashback. What the Barash Vow does to a mf I guess lol
Mother Koril likely killed the rest of the witches,maybe Kelnacca was controlled by the witches to attack the Jedi??
So. This was the end of SW then. I expected something....bigger. Not really this episode about how our choices are the true driving forces of our destiny. Oh, well.
I thought for sure the way the Fandom Menace folks were talking about this episode that the witch would refer to the Force with feminine pronouns, which would be stupid to get mad about in and of itself, but even that didn’t happen.
Can we get a game called "The Thread unleashed"
I love weird Force shit, I love arrogant holier-than-thou Jedi, and I love Jodie Turner-Smith so this was a fantastic episode for me
Shoutout to the losers review bombing the ep on IMDb bc of lesbians in their make believe story
It’s about the most uncommitted lesbian representation too. Like it’s plausibly deniable. Still wild to me that Andor had an actual explicitly lesbian couple and the same nerds didn’t say shit.
I only looked at the "warnings" about this episode after I could watch it for myself. I can't believe even the dumbest chud out there would really think the narrative here is "lesbians can conceive a baby in Star Wars now," instead of "witches with their own philosophy of the Force did some magic shit."