The Acolyte is About to Massively Retcon Anakin Skywalker's Origin Story
Virgin births are all the rage these days.
Star Wars loves a humble yet mysterious hero. Luke Skywalker was just a farm boy, but he was also Darth Vader’s son. Anakin was born a slave, but he was also “born of the Force.” Rey’s parents were “nobodies,” but she also was technically related to Emperor Palpatine.
The latest in this line are Osha and Mae, twins from the distant Brendok whose birth was as mysterious as Anakin’s. Both were seemingly virgin births, and now a new quote from Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland suggests there may be more connections between these two mysteries than we thought.
In a conversation with Nerdist, Headland was asked about the strange circumstances behind Osha and Mae’s birth, which was apparently achieved by witches Mother Aniseya and Mother Koril with the help of Brendok’s Force vergence, a spot where the Force is unusually powerful.
Aniseya and Koril seem desperate to hide Osha and Mae’s origins from the Jedi.
“I did hear that there was a bit of a dust up in terms of the girls stepping on Anakin’s creation storyline line, which I had mixed feelings about,” Headland said. “I would say that you might be missing the forest for the trees in starting an argument about that, instead of seeing that this is a power that could have existed in the world way before Anakin. And that power was being pursued by someone.”
The presumed truth of Anakin’s birth is that the Force itself spontaneously produced him, but there are other theories. The comic Darth Vader #25 heavily suggests Palpatine influenced Anakin’s birth, but this is later reframed as a dream sequence.
Headland’s comments suggest Anakin’s conception wasn’t something that happened, but something that someone achieved, which would be a huge and intriguing retcon of the franchise’s most important villain. “If the girls are a test run, being able to improve on what that power is and being able to perfect it, that would be something if I were a Sith I would be interested in,” she said.
Palpatine’s supposed effect on Anakin’s birth.
To Headland, the twins are the first effort in an experiment to create life with the Force. “The girls are guinea pigs,” she said. “They’re patient zero for this sort of power. It didn’t work perfectly. Therefore the girls on their own can never be as powerful as Anakin. Their full potential together has yet to be explored. They’ve been separated too long.”
Mae and Osha may be weaker than Anakin, but they’re clearly connected through the Force. The Mandalorian and the sequel movies have shown us that Palpatine disposed of countless failed clones in his attempt to achieve eternal life. There may very well be multiple instances of failed attempts to create a powerful Force user with just the Force itself.
There’s still mystery swirling around Mae and Osha’s birth as we head into The Acolyte’s Season 1 finale, but it seems like the question of how they were created will be answered. “There are a lot of things you do save for a season two, but that kind of question is not one of them,” Headland told The Nerdist. Hopefully, the answer will also shed light on how their birth paved the way for Anakin’s — and changed Star Wars canon forever.
