“I carried them.”
“I created them.”
“And what happens if the Jedi discover how you created them?”
We knew The Acolyte, which takes place more than a century before The Phantom Menace, would show the early days of the Sith plan to destroy the Jedi. But the series’ third episode raised an unexpected and troubling connection to Darth Vader and the Skywalker Saga. Like Anakin, The Acolyte‘s twins Mae and Osha have no father because they are children of the Force in the Star Wars universe. While it’s not clear what that means for the power, it is a dark omen for the role they might play in bringing darkness to the galaxy far, far away. It’s also a sign the Jedi helped create their own destroyer.
“Who is his father?”
“There was no father. I carried him, I gave birth, I raised him. I can’t explain what happened.”
Shmi Skywalker told Qui-Gon Jinn her son Anakin was a miracle conception. Star Wars comic books have expanded the lore surrounding the Chosen One’s birth since The Phantom Menace. His creation is canonically more sinister and less magical than it comes across in the film. Palpatine is responsible for Anakin’s virgin birth. He used dark side powers to manipulate midi-chlorians in Shmi’s womb. Even with that revelation, though, Anakin’s very Star Wars existence remains rooted in the Force itself. He is a literal child of the Force. He also grew up to kill countless beings.
“You and your sister are special, Osha. I want you to stay special.”
Now, long before Shmi will give birth to Anakin, Star Wars: The Acolyte has introduced two more like him. The twins Osha and Mae were conceived in a similar, possibly identical way to Anakin. Mother Aniseya, the witch some accuse of using dark magic, created her twins via the Thread, her name for the Force.
They “have no father.” Unlike Shmi and Anakin, though, The Acolyte’s Mother Koril carried the twins to term. Why did Mother Aniseya do this? The show suggested that the outcast coven forced into hiding had been unable to grow their ranks any other way. The girls are a “miracle” that offers the group hope. But it’s not yet known exactly what Mother Aniseya was trying to create in terms of their power. No matter her intentions, though, like Anakin, capable of both light and dark, the two girls seem to represent both sides of the Force. And if you know Star Wars lore, you know why breaking up a powerful duo like that is so dangerous.
“Ascension is about walking through fear. It’s about sacrificing a part of yourself.”
During the Ascension, two celestial bodies over Brendok, one red and the other blue, converged in the sky. Only the two sisters meant to ascend together did not converge. Mae, so full of anger and already capable of hurting others, went through. The reluctant Osha didn’t even get the chance to refuse her mother, though, because the Jedi showed up and stopped the event. That Jedi interruption, rooted in Jedi hubris and a desire to control a Force that belongs to all living things, produced the very danger they were hoping to avoid in the first place.
The Jedi did not want any unauthorized people using the Force/Thread, especially witches thought to harness their power from the dark side. But Mae and Osha seem to be two parts of the same whole (maybe even a Force dyad). They are a living, natural balance of the very Force that created them. And very bad things happen when the Force is not in balance.
Without their other half, each girl became lost. Mae was lost to the dark side, while Osha gave up on the light side. Separating the two drove Mae to embrace her natural darker nature we saw on display at the episode’s start. Meanwhile, taking eight-year-old Osha away from her protective and adoring sister resulted in so much loss. That experience left Osha with lifelong scars she has yet to heal from. They prevented her from becoming a Jedi. The Jedi meddling in Mae and Osha’s lives led to the twins’ entire coven dying. This The Acolyte occurrence mirrors how the Jedi taking a young, scared Anakin from his mother led to all those Tusken raiders dying. And the Younglings. Alderaan…
Anakin’s fear, hate, and anger led to innumerable suffering. Suffering only he was able to stop when a family member showed Anakin there was another way, the way Osha might have shown Mae on The Acolyte. Instead they’re both angry at one another. For Osha that has meant walking away from everything she wanted. For Mae, it has led to anger. That anger has led to hate. That hate…we know where that leads, both now and in the galaxy’s future.
By creating two girls with the Force, Mother Aniseya might have been trying to embrace her coven’s mantra that the power of two not only overcomes the power of one but gives you the power of many. If nothing else, she recognized her daughters were stronger together, not because both were flawed but because they balanced each other. Only, her girls never had the chance to grow together or ascend together because the Jedi believed they knew better and only they had the right to use the Force.
That hubris pushed Mae to follow a Sith leader we know will help ultimately bring down the Jedi. Osha and Mae’s story, a story of the Force out of balance, will make Palpatine’s rise possible one day. That means the Jedi will have created their own destroyer in The Acolyte, just as they did when they took Anakin Skywalker from his mother without concern for what that would mean.
The Jedi believed they, and they alone, had the right to use the Force. But the children of the Force continue to show why such an attitude is anything but balanced.
