The Acolyte Just Revealed the Dark Side Isn’t As Black and White As We Thought
Maybe Yoda got his facts wrong!
The Jedi and the Sith may be two sides of the same coin within the Star Wars universe, but we know way more about the Jedi. The Sith are a mysterious bunch, with their dark magicks, strange rules, and general shadowy existence. While the Jedi oversaw the galaxy for centuries, the Sith were “extinct for millennia,” at least according to Ki-Adi-Mundi.
But in The Acolyte Episode 6, we finally got a firmer explanation about how the Sith — or at least the Sith in this era — operate, and it throws everything we know into question.
Spoilers ahead for The Acolyte Episode 6, "Teach/Corrupt"!
Qimir’s take on the Force echoes Yoda’s grave warning — with a twist.
One of the most basic things we know about the way the Force works is how fear leads to the Dark Side, as explained by Yoda in The Phantom Menace. “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering,” he says.
In The Acolyte Episode 6, we get a different take on this concept from Qimir after he brings Osha to his lair. “There is another way,” he says. “Below the surface of consciousness are powerful emotions. Anger. Fear. Loss. Desire.”
“That’s the path to the Dark Side,” Osha replies, but Qimir dismisses it as semantics.
The addition of “loss” and “desire” completely changes the way we look at this line. Yoda warned that anger is a slippery slope to the Dark Side, but Qimir redefines it as fuel for accessing the Force. There’s more than just the Jedi way, you could also use the Force just by tapping into the emotions that they would discourage.
Will Osha use the emotions the Jedi taught her to repress to use the Force?
The concept of desire leading to the Dark Side is more than just an encouragement for Oshmir shippers: it’s something that The Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland has contemplated for a while. “I always really loved the line in A New Hope when Obi-Wan says “Vader was seduced by the Dark Side,” she recently told Inverse. “Always loved that word, “seduced.”
Just as the Jedi reject attachment and desire as a distraction, we now know the Sith embrace this as something that could amplify a connection with the Force. The inclusion of “loss” is also interesting, as we know that the effects of Osha’s loss were part of why she left her Jedi training.
The Jedi and Sith are more than just “the good guys” and “the bad guys.” They are two different sides to a complicated philosophy and show that there’s more than one way to use the Force. Now that Osha is hanging out with Qimir, we hopefully will see her tap into these powerful emotions to reconnect with the Force. And, if certain fans are right with their speculation, she may explore her desire for Qimir as well.
