EIII: ep 8 – The Acolyte S1-e4 – "Day"

[00:00:00] This summer, we enter a new era of Star Wars. You mean the dawn of the Star Wars Canon Timeline Podcast? Yeah, yeah sure, that too. But I was obviously talking about The Acolyte. We've got to cover that on the Lorehounds.

[00:00:18] Oh, but the Star Wars Canon Timeline Podcast is exactly at that point in the timeline, the end of the High Republic, 100 years before the prequel trilogy. We've got to cover it there. Why not both? Okay, deal. It's the first live action Star War outside the Skywalker saga.

[00:00:38] Nobody can miss this. Listeners, kick off your hot Lore Summer weekends with scene by scene breakdowns of The Acolyte, found in both the Star Wars Canon Timeline Podcast and the Lorehounds Mother Feed. And the Lorehounds Star Wars Feed.

[00:00:52] Wherever you like to listen a couple of days after each new episode is released. Welcome to the Star Wars Canon Timeline Podcast. And the Lorehounds Star Wars Podcast. I'm Jon. And I'm Alicia. And today we're dissecting our glimpse of day, the fourth episode in the Disney Plus

[00:01:37] Star Wars series The Acolyte. We've reached mid-season and the Master is finally ready to see some Jedi about some lightsabers. Listeners for this crossover podcast series will be following the Star Wars Canon Timeline Podcast spoiler rules, which means we might mention a character, vaguely reference a

[00:01:53] well-known event from later in the timeline for those who know those stories. So we promise not to spoil any of the big twists or story arcs to come. And obviously, we're going to be spoiling everything that's happened in this series

[00:02:04] so far and also anything that's happened in the eras of Star Wars leading up to this series, The End of the Hyrule Republic. We'll save any trailer based speculation about what's still to come in the series for a special section at the end.

[00:02:17] See the show notes for timestamps for that. And then watch out for a special subscriber episode about how the first half of The Acolyte connects with events later in the Star Wars timeline to drop in the Canon Padawan and Lorehound Supercast and Patreon feeds.

[00:02:31] We'll talk more about that at the end of the episode. Before that, Jon and I will check in with some community feedback. And it looks like you guys aren't done yet talking about witches and the weird ways of the energy the Jedi call the Force.

[00:02:44] So we've got an extra lore drop at the end with some more varieties of force users and all the different names that the Force is called in other cultures in Canon and Legends. We'll wrap it all up with a look at what's ahead on the Lorehounds network as

[00:02:59] Hot Lore Summer continues to heat up. Check the link tree in the show notes for links to all the podcasts we host plus our Discord where the Acolyte discussion is going strong. And for the record, this conversation was recorded on June 20th, 2024.

[00:03:16] So, Jon, what did you think about episode four day? This was a great first half of an episode. You know, this was. I'm really honestly surprised they didn't just do seven episodes and do day and night.

[00:03:31] Yeah, well, I'm wondering if this is going to wind up being like a mirror, like a symmetrical kind of mirror image structure for the episodes and episode titles. So I do think that we have the same director for the next episode, and we also

[00:03:49] have one of the same writers. So I think that we are going to pick up with the next episode right where we left off, not have a flashback. And I'm wondering if then we might have a flashback after that.

[00:04:01] And sort of although I don't know, some people some people said that the flashback might be and the next flashback might be seven. But who knows? We don't know because even the people who got screeners at this point are don't have that access anymore.

[00:04:16] It's just very confusing, honestly. I think the thing that would most easily explain it would be if episode five is like an hour and they said, OK, well, we can't do an 80 minute episode in the middle of this 40 minute episode season, which I don't know if that's true

[00:04:33] either because it's streaming. And I think we've we've kind of moved past that. Yeah, I'm with someone who said I saw someone on like Twitter or something and said streaming has broken people's brains. Streaming has broken people's brains.

[00:04:46] It is perfectly normal for an episode to just to end and you wait a week for the next one and talk about what's going to happen because then whatever you do, you're going to be stopping in the middle of the action until the end of

[00:04:59] the series more or less. You know, it's always going to leave you wanting more. And I think that's no, I totally understand that. I think what I like and I've I've talked about this.

[00:05:08] I don't know if I talked about this with you or with David, but how I really like, oh, I did with you. It was about Dr. Who? Like I like a cliffhanger where it's like it's not what's going to happen. It's how are people going to react?

[00:05:20] What are the implications of it? And I think if we had seen the fight and at least seen what happens with that, then the next episode could be the aftermath. And that's totally fine. I'm just I'm just a little confused about where they stopped it.

[00:05:34] But that's my biggest criticism of the episode. I thought otherwise the episode was very good. I really liked seeing Basil. That was my favorite running bit was just, oh, that's Basil. Like they're just very confused that she's even asking.

[00:05:49] I mean, Jackie is just like so low key hilarious just the way she delivers all her lines. Like later on she says, yeah, later on she says, I'm looking for a Wookie, you know, big hairy guy. Yeah, that was good. Interviews people. Yeah.

[00:06:03] The only way you can describe a Wookie. I mean, she better not watch the Star Wars holiday special because she's not going to be able to tell anybody apart. You know, big hair guys. So sorry, just to go back for a second to the cliffhanger thing.

[00:06:18] I was wondering, because there's been like talk about there being an alien versus predator kind of episode and I'm wondering if that might be the next one. So it might not just be a quick fight, but it might be an episode

[00:06:31] long, like chasing with action happening and things revealed. And yeah, so, so I mean, they definitely teased it with the whole, the bugs coming at them and they go, oh, it's attracted to light. And then all of them light their lightsabers as soon as it turns night. Yeah.

[00:06:48] That's a lot of light. That's a lot of light. That's true. You're right. They're probably setting that up. They also really, really showed how powerful this master is because he, she, they can, you know, force push an entire squadron of Jedi away. Yeah. Mm hmm.

[00:07:08] And we've seen Jedi be able to push back and I think the powerful push actually weighs more in favor of it being mother coral or another one of the witches. Mm hmm. But now that I've seen the hands, because I was all aboard the

[00:07:24] mother coral train that, you know, I was even looking, I was like that mask definitely fits horns. But then I saw they did a close up of the hands in the last shot and I was like, no, that's, that's not a mother corals hands.

[00:07:37] That looks like many of your sins those hands, if anybody's, I mean, you know, or like, it looks like a man's hands basically. Well, I will say, I hope it's not many. I hope it's not Chimera Chimera. Is that how we were pronouncing it again? Yeah. Okay.

[00:07:56] I mean, I hope it's not him. I think that would be kind of. Sheep. But at the same time, it would make a lot of sense since she left him hanging up there and it could be, you know, and how did the master get there that quickly? Right.

[00:08:10] And I mean, even if, even if it is him, um, and I agree. They've been pointing so hard that you're almost like don't want it to be, but you, I mean, I guess in a way it would be satisfying too, because it's like, well, yeah, duh.

[00:08:23] And if it is him, then that doesn't, I don't think that this is like the master, you know, like this is the person that may was calling master, but I think this person has a master who is like the real master. Yeah.

[00:08:39] If we're talking about this as like a Sith perspective, since that's what we keep being told about the show, perhaps this is a dark side hierarchy set up by a Sith apprentice. You know? This is something that's like meant to so discord without

[00:08:55] them having to actually do anything. So around this point in the timeline, um, in legends, there was Darth Tenebrous. We've talked about him in, especially in the Acolyte preview episode. Um, and so Darth Tenebrous took on an apprentice named Darth Plagueis.

[00:09:14] And of course these are all their Sith names. They would have had also other names in the regular lives before that. But Darth Tenebrous also took on, and this is something that we said Sith regularly would do. He took on like a kind of secret second apprentice

[00:09:30] because then the Sith like to pit their apprentices against each other, you know? And the second apprentice was named Darth Venomous in legends. And Darth Venomous, one of the things Darth Venomous did was levitate. But in legends, Darth Venomous is a Bith, which also

[00:09:53] Darth Tenebrous is the master. So Bith are very distinctive looking buggy type, definitely not human characters, but that's in legends. So they can basically pick and choose whatever from legends they want. So for all we know, Darth Tenebrous did exist as did Plagueis of course. All right.

[00:10:11] Fair enough. Fair enough. So just throwing that legends lore out there may or may not mean anything. All right. Yeah, yeah, the legends stuff. I mean, Filoni, I know Filoni is not quite as involved in this, although he still oversees, I believe, right?

[00:10:27] He oversees everything coming out on TV, Star Wars right now. Yes, he definitely, he definitely was involved with Leslie Hedlund. They talked about this stuff a lot, but she's also deeply into legends lore and she has said in the past that she's been able to bring over some

[00:10:43] legends lore into canon. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah, I think Filoni is known for being really fast and loose about pulling what he likes and leaving what he doesn't like from certain legends aspects. Like, you know, the thrones. Oh, I can't say I can't talk about that. Believe me.

[00:11:01] We can say we've we've already said that the thron exists. I'm going to refer to Thrawn at the end of this episode. He exists later in the timeline. He's the Chiss Admiral. Well, yeah, I mean, I mean, and there's some books

[00:11:14] about him that are very popular in both legends and then, yeah, rewritten by Timothy Zahn in canon kind of, I mean, not rewritten, but like new versions, new books, new stories. Reimagined, let's say. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I, I like some of what Filoni does and other things.

[00:11:31] I'm like, that feels a little disrespectful to the writers, but you know what? I would be OK with him bringing in some names and not necessarily following the exact lore. Yeah, I mean, it seems like in this case is very much Leslie Hedlund cherry picking her

[00:11:48] favorite things from legends and Filoni telling her OK or, you know, or guiding her in the case of the witches. She wanted the Nightsisters and he's like, or maybe we could do something else. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, makes sense. Although I take more Nightsisters out with

[00:12:05] that. Yeah, well, I'm sure we'll get that as well. Yeah, I think probably his his whole thing with that is he's he's got plans based on what we saw in other series. He's got plans for an origin that maybe conflicts with what she wanted to do. Right.

[00:12:19] And the Nightsisters are referenced in the High Republic stuff too, so. OK. Yeah. And we got another yet. I'm on the very last High Republic Phase 2? Phase 2 book. Yeah. OK. I'm on the YA path of vengeance. OK, cool. And you're reading the comics too, you said?

[00:12:36] I haven't started them, but I bought. OK. A compilation of a few of them. OK. Yeah. John was very excited to hear that. Did you brought comics? I think probably because the comics are expensive if you buy them. I bought this one because it was like a nice

[00:12:53] hardcover one that pricey. But I think what I'm going to do is I'm just going to subscribe for a couple of months to Marvel Unlimited and just go through what I need to go through. They have a great deal for people in the US every holiday season.

[00:13:06] OK, maybe I'll wait for that. Just watch out for that. So have you been seeing the hashtags? Yeah, I was saying the force is strong with the hashtags on this show. So we've got of course the Yord Horde. There's also Soul Patrol. And there's Baz Batch.

[00:13:22] And I have to give a shout out to my friend Ubiu and Kenobi who is talking about the Chimier Cuties. Who else needs a hashtag? We need Jackie. Jackie. The Jackie jokes. Jackie jokes, yeah. Jackie's got jokes. I don't know.

[00:13:41] Also, I want to just shout out the first time I saw the username Ubiuan Kenobi or Ubiuan Kenobi, I started cracking up. I had to show my wife. I thought it was so funny. I'm sure she'll be glad to hear that.

[00:13:56] All right, shall we dive into the episode? Yes, let's do it. This half episode. I'm going to keep calling it that. It's part A. Okay, so episode four, day. Episode five has got to be called night or we're all going to riot.

[00:14:14] Yeah, so I'm wondering like when they have these solo titles, does that mean that it's more from one perspective? Because no, this one was rather split actually. I think what happens is that every single episode to decide the name of it, Filoni and... Headland. What's... Headland, yeah.

[00:14:36] Filoni and Headland have a lightsaber duel, like a fake lightsaber duel. And whoever wins gets to pick the name of the title. But for the first two episodes, it was a draw. Oh, okay. Yeah, canon. This is canon now. It is now. All right.

[00:14:51] So the writers credited in this episode are Claire Kekal, who worked on the Watchmen TV show and the OA amongst other things, and Cor Adana, who... Yeah, his biggest prior credit was Mr. Robot and he's also working on the upcoming Doom Prophecy.

[00:15:09] But this is the writer who's also credited for next week. And also credited for this and next week is director Alex Garcia Lopez, who's done a lot of superhero and comic book stuff, like the Netflix Marvel shows. Nice. Nice.

[00:15:24] And just FYI, I'm going to be combining some scenes in this recap if they cover the same stretch of plot. But we start with a really brief cold open. We see what I'm calling Kel Nakka's last day. Oh. We see Kel Nakka... Oh, come on. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe.

[00:15:43] Well, I mean, he looks pretty dead. Well, no, I'm not saying maybe he's not dead. I'm saying maybe he's a bad person based on the past. We just don't know. Right. That's true. We don't know yet. Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what happened.

[00:15:57] So we see Kel Nakka coming back from, it looks like foraging or hunting, and he cooks a stew in his remote hideout on the jungle planet of Kofar. Which, Kofar... So Kofar is in the outer rim, whereas Kashyyyk, the usual Wookiee planet, is in the mid-rim.

[00:16:13] But it just looks so very Wookieish with the bugs and all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. Definitely something that could just be Kashyyyk. I wonder why they didn't do Kashyyyk. Maybe because it's too well... Right. Yeah, this is supposed to be somewhere remote, I guess. Right.

[00:16:35] But maybe that's why the Jedi thought he would be uniquely qualified to be stationed there because it's so like his home planet. Yeah, maybe he was supposed to be charting and he's like, no, no, no. I'm having this... Somebody said Kashyyyk has sheik.

[00:16:52] That's what he's doing all day. And he's making art on his walls. He's making art on his walls. He's got these spirals all over the place. So like, is this spirals of guilt? Or is he trying to work something out mentally? I noticed some of them,

[00:17:09] I plopped a picture in the notes. Sorry, in our notes for recording. And some of them look like they're dotted with dots. Do you think that could be stars? Oh, yeah, maybe. Because we have that whole thing...

[00:17:27] Well, we see in a later series that there are star maps. And so maybe that's what this is. Maybe it's the origin of the witch cult before they got exiled. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm wondering if he learned something about whatever is connected to.

[00:17:41] Because this does look specifically like the spirals on the witch's heads because it's got also those two yin-yang dots in the center, even for the ones where the rest isn't dotted. But I don't know. He's working on something. Yeah, definitely. This is his cork board.

[00:17:57] I've been making fun of the cork board in House of the Dragon. So now I'm going to bring that over to the acolyte. Meanwhile on Coruscant, Sol has indeed taken the Jedi group back so he can attend that lesser council meeting at the Jedi Temple.

[00:18:11] Osha is ready to slip away, and she says she will leave finding Mei to the Jedi. She says goodbye to Jecki, but not to Sol, who is in a meeting with Vernestra and other Jedi masters to decide what to do about the Mei problem.

[00:18:25] Vernestra wants to send Jedi Master Holden to extract Kel'naka and Mei, probably violently. Sol defends Mei to Vernestra, expressing his wish to save her. And Vernestra agrees to let him get together a mission to go looking for her and Kel'naka on Kofir himself.

[00:18:42] And she demands that he brings Osha, actually. A team of Jedi, including Yord, set off with Osha along in their very stylish civilian uniform she swore she wouldn't wear. Good comedy. Good comedy there, the cut to her. I absolutely knew. I was waiting for it,

[00:19:03] and I thought that that was a great design because it looked like it was functional, but it was absurd. Right, well and it's just like the most bland gray, you know? Right, right. I'm not wearing that. Cut to, yeah, it is such a trope when you do that,

[00:19:22] but I don't mind it. I think it's cute. I always like it. Yep. As long as it's not overused, of course. Right. Why do you think she didn't want to say goodbye to Sol? Do you think she was afraid he wouldn't let her go or something?

[00:19:36] I do think she's riddled with guilt. She's wracked with guilt. She's like, I think she meant it when she said I've caused him enough trouble. I think she lives very much in that guilt mindset her whole life between May, between, you know,

[00:19:52] like her trying to leave was what caused May to make it and start the fire. And I think she just holds that guilt in her. You have your leader saying May has always been your wound. Uh-huh. And now she's transferring that to Sol.

[00:20:09] Like, I've just caused all this and I just want to go away. But also on the flip side, I feel like Sol needs to cast himself as the savior. Like, he needs that for his own self-worth. Like, maybe that's the way that he deals with

[00:20:25] whatever happened on Brandoc. I mean, he clearly knows something. We were wondering earlier in the season, does Sol just not know what else happened because he was too busy trying to save the kids? But apparently he knows something. Oh, he knows something. Yeah.

[00:20:42] When he goes, oh well, unfortunately, it gives me Ned Stark saying to Jon Snow, the next time we speak I'll tell you about your mother. No, yeah. It's, uh, I'm going to retire in two days. It's not great. Yeah. Yes, but on the more fun side,

[00:21:02] Daphne Keane, she said in an interview with Decider that she indeed is playing Jackie as if she has a crush on Osha. So if anyone's noticing flirtation, it's there. Fair enough. Daphne Keane's really doing a great job in this role

[00:21:17] and I would not have recognized her had I not looked it up. No, yeah. Well, because she's a Thelin hybrid. Right, right. There's also been jokes about the ginger Jedi master. Like people just fixated on him, the one who was training Jackie and her fellow Padawans.

[00:21:35] So for anyone who wants to know his name is Master Lakshay and people are like, because people have been complaining about the diversity. They're like, look, they gave you a white guy and they're like, actually it's a ginger. It's still a minority. Oh, stop yourselves. Stop yourselves.

[00:21:51] Yeah, people were having fun with it though. Yeah, yeah. I can see where the poking fun is happening. Yeah. But it is interesting that the training he was giving was very much emphasizing defensive moves. So he's like, minimize your need to strike. Yeah.

[00:22:11] Kill a Jedi without a weapon. He's the master. Sorry, go ahead. Yes, secretly. So speaking of controversies, we have to address the biggest one from this episode. Every episode is going to get the fandom menace in a tizzy. And this week it's about Ki-Adi-Mundi.

[00:22:30] So when they had that council meeting, we saw a younger version of this character, the one with like the squid-like head, egg head, which makes him a Syrian, which is Syrians have binary brains, which is supposed to make them great at reasoning.

[00:22:50] And they also have two hearts for the fun facts. So they're time lords? Yes, exactly. And so we also said that Zabraks have two hearts, so also time lords. Okay. So in Legends, Ki-Adi-Mundi was born after this point in the timeline. Just repeat that.

[00:23:11] In Legends, he was born after this point in the timeline. In Canon, it's never been defined when he was born. And so apparently Syrians are another long-lived Star Wars species. It seems like everybody except humans are really living a long time. Yeah, humans get the short end.

[00:23:28] And yet the humans for some reason are the ones who are able to amass power in the sun and whatnot. Yeah, well I also think about that with even dungeons and dragons and things like that. Why are these short-lived creatures the ones that keep getting into the power?

[00:23:44] Right. But yeah, so I think the reason though that people are most upset about Ki-Adi-Mundi, and by the way, I mean by people, I mean a very particular group that's looking for anything they can to complain about the show about.

[00:23:56] But the reason those people are so upset, I think is exactly the reason why he's here. And it's about something he says during the prequel trilogy, which I'm not going to go into now for spoiler reasons,

[00:24:07] but we're definitely going to be talking about this in our spoiler subscriber episode that's coming out this week. So I think though that's the thing that he says basically, where he is in total denial about the existence of the Sith. That's exactly why he's here.

[00:24:27] And of course we're going to talk about this more when we get to the movies in the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast, but basically this is a guy who is supposed to be the smarty pants, you know, supposed to be great at reasoning,

[00:24:39] but he is continually wrong about, you know, just... So I have to read from the official episode synopsis on StarWars.com. They have a couple of really telling sentences. They said that he was Syrian-splaining away the most inconvenient truths facing the Jedi.

[00:25:00] A century of dismissiveness begins in conversation among a select few elders of the Order. So he's exactly there to demonstrate, you know, how the Jedi are burying their head in the sands and just plugging their ears even when given evidence of things.

[00:25:20] And there's a whole thing of, you know, the lack of communication between the Jedi is really a problem. And this idea of being obsessed with optics rather than being obsessed with transparency and the truth that seems to keep getting them into trouble. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:25:44] Yeah, and that's definitely something you... I mean, because this is the thing. Are you concerned with looking good or are you concerned with doing good? Because sometimes when you do good, it gets messy and it doesn't always look good.

[00:25:58] You know, when you take the risks that are required to actually try to help people. Yeah, they're risks. They might not pan out and they might be messy. Yeah, I think of the Battle of Jeddah that I can actually talk about. Yes.

[00:26:15] Because, you know, the Jedi largely get blamed for that for a while. Right. Right. And they were just trying to forge peace. And yet they just did it anyway. They just solved the problems anyway. Right. Right. Exactly.

[00:26:27] Yeah, and we can certainly think of many international organizations put in or big countries with a tendency to put their noses in other countries' business. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So the Jedi Master, there was an older human woman named Holden

[00:26:44] and she notices, by the way, just talking, harking back to what we talked about with the studying the moves of May to try to find her master. So we really do see them studying this hologram of May fighting

[00:27:00] and she's saying she's fast but weak since her emotions guide her in combat. And she also wonders, are we dealing with a splinter order or something worse? So definite like total they do not know that the Sith still exist. They think they were defeated hundreds of years ago.

[00:27:17] Right. They just don't even want to think about it. They don't want to say the S word. Right. Yeah. I mean, I'm guessing that's something worse. But yeah, the Sith are also a splinter order. They started that way.

[00:27:27] But yeah, so Ro does believe that May was taught by a Jedi based on the way May is moving, which is interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but the thing about this whole thing is

[00:27:44] aren't a lot of the Sith trained in Jedi ways just to understand how to fight them basically? I mean, the Sith like there should only be two technical Sith at any given time at this point in the timeline, the master and the apprentice.

[00:27:59] But it's there's a good chance that they are actually Jedi who are the secret Sith. So yeah, there's a good chance that they are actually in the Jedi order. Yeah. And even if they're not the whole modern, you know, current era Sith time,

[00:28:19] the current era Sith line of teaching comes from Darth Revan. From was a Jedi. Yeah, yeah. I know Bane solidified the whole rule of two. Yeah, that's true. Based on Revan. Right. Right. So there should be Jedi teachings involved in this.

[00:28:37] And wasn't didn't Bane also train? I did read those books actually. Didn't Bane also train with like a corrupted Jedi? Yeah, I mean throughout like regularly the Sith were a splinter order of the Jedi to begin with.

[00:28:54] And then regularly the Sith, especially since they've since the rule of two, since they've become secret, they are often in the Jedi order because yeah, why wouldn't they be therefore sensitive lightsaber users and also like keep a handle on the pulse?

[00:29:10] Right. Right. And the idea of this rule of two is to worm your way in and expose the rotten corruption and destroy from within and then take control. Right. So yeah, but so he's the voice of reason or kindness here.

[00:29:27] And he says that he basically wins Vernester over to his side by saying that if holding kills May, the knowledge of her master will be lost to them as well. That's so sad, though, that he has to appeal to practicality to get them to not kill this person.

[00:29:44] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because I mean, Vernestra, a lot of people want to see her as a hero from the earlier books and she is so far queen of bureaucracy. Yep. Yep. Absolutely.

[00:29:57] Yeah, but there he does say something cynical. He says May won't surrender without getting something in return and Sol says he has something that she wants. So I'm wondering what that is. But he also says I assume that was OSHA. That's probably true.

[00:30:12] But then Vernestra is the one who kind of insists that OSHA go with them. Yeah, or we don't actually see them on screen, right? We don't see that happen on screen. We don't see the insistence. OK. Oh, so you think he just said that to.

[00:30:27] Yeah. OK. I think it's possible. I'm starting to have some suspicion. That's all I'm saying. Well, so he says during this conversation that he swears again. He thought there was no way May could have survived. Do you believe him?

[00:30:42] Do you think he really believes that? Yeah, I do. I think. OK. I mean, I think possibly. I mean, we've seen Jedi before use the force to break their fall. We know May was strong with the force, perhaps out of survival instinct.

[00:30:58] She pushed against the ground before she hit it. OK. Yep. I think that's the way she could have survived that or so. So there's a lot of talk about the hooded figure from the ceremony, from the Ascension. OK. I wonder what that was.

[00:31:16] And a theory that I've been seeing kicked around, which I kind of am starting to agree with, is something else. A third party attacked both groups, which is how this whole thing went down. And the third party being the Sith or something. Yeah, something like that.

[00:31:30] Yeah. And where is Mother Coral? True. Yeah. So we I'm worried about Osha, I have to say, at this point more than May, which I kind of wondered if that was going to happen. But she has more anger toward May than Saul does.

[00:31:46] And we just see she's constantly talking about her inability to let go of her resentment and sadness and anger. Mm hmm. Yeah. Although there there was another telling line from the Star Wars dot com.

[00:32:01] A summary of the episode, it says it's Osha's attachment to Saul that feeds into May's jealousy over her sister's decision to leave her family and join the Jedi Order in the first place. And yet they're still good in May, Saul knows it.

[00:32:15] So I wonder, though, based on what happened this episode, I don't know that I agree. I feel like Kymeer tried to make May jealous of Saul to feed her negative side. But it's actually Osha who's been the more questionable.

[00:32:36] I mean, Osha is not killing people, though. No. So it's true. Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to go with impact over intent here. May wants to stop. It's like it's like quitting smoking. You know, sometimes it takes a few days.

[00:32:51] I don't know. I do. I do like that seeing her sister is alive did change something for her. Mm hmm. And and I am enjoying that we are moving away from the kill bill aspect of this story. Right. Like this is becoming something that we didn't expect.

[00:33:13] Right. Yeah, no, I'm glad it's not just yeah, let's just that it's not dragging out until the end on May wants to kill all the Jedi. And then the last episode something happens, you know? Right. Yeah, I'm glad it's twisting already at the halfway point.

[00:33:28] So, yeah. And Vanessa also says she fears May is only a small part of her master's larger plan, a plan that is difficult to see some sort of shift, something to tip the scale. So this is why she really wants to know what the master's up to.

[00:33:42] I feel like the difficult to see thing, I wonder if that has to do with the fact that she was known to get occasional force visions when she was younger. So I wonder if she's seeing things in that way.

[00:33:56] Yeah. And also something to tip the scales implies that there's something else on the other side of the scale that you're in balance with. Yeah. So are you acknowledging the Sith? I don't understand that. Yeah.

[00:34:09] So David was asking on Twitter if we should be suspicious of her in particular. I don't know. I feel like she's gotten lame and that she is bending the rules in a way she thinks is for the greater good, but probably isn't.

[00:34:24] But I don't know if she's a secret Sith. What do you think? No, I don't think she's a secret Sith. I think she's just the banality of evil, right? Is the bureaucracy that's boring. Right.

[00:34:36] That's not really the proper use of that term, but I'm going to use it anyway. My favorite theory for the who's in the mask is like five Basils standing on each other's shoulders. I love it. I love it. That's very Bojack Horseman of you.

[00:34:51] Yes, yes. So yeah, so we get Basils our new gopher like Jedi tracker character and his species is Tinnon.

[00:35:00] And this is a species from Legends. It was first mentioned in Canon in Rogue One, but basically is one of the ones that Leslie Hedlund's like, I like this species and I want one of these in my show. And Filoni is like, OK. Right.

[00:35:16] They're known for having an aptitude for bureaucracy, but also I guess, you know, tracking skills. Yeah, that is interesting. An aptitude for bureaucracy, but they don't speak basic.

[00:35:27] Yeah, but I loved your's come back to that. He's like most Padawans learn Shreve, but I spent my free time learning something more nuanced. He is a hipster. Oh my gosh. He is. That explains the hair. There you go.

[00:35:44] And yeah, I notice in this like Osha on the one hand, she seems like she's trying really hard to be a good friend of your and he's kind of being addicted.

[00:35:51] But then when she comes out and says she basically is like, be prepared to kill May if it comes to it. Like first of all, whoa. And then that's when he actually kind of starts acting like a friend or her.

[00:36:04] And he tells her maybe you need to face her or maybe you need to face yourself. And he correctly predicted. Souls at least stated goal because later he's like, oh, you're here to face your past. It's like, OK, all right. Well, that's exactly what your said. Right.

[00:36:20] I mean, so I have to say your hoard. I might like snicker at your but I'm really enjoying him as a character. Yeah, he's complicated, right? He's he's this cocky guy, but he also has good intentions and sometimes can be very insightful. Right. Indeed. He's just yeah, too.

[00:36:38] I mean, he's he's very Jedi in line with what we're seeing from Vernestra and from Gary Mundi. And, you know, although I don't know, your doesn't seem like the type that would bury his head. He's still got that like vigor to investigate.

[00:36:53] We also need to give a proper PIP appreciation moment. I like to exchange with Basel where Basel is like being too curious about PIP and PIP just squirts him in the face.

[00:37:04] But I love I love that PIP is like just like an everything pocket tool, like welding that syncs with tech puts out fires. That one scene in that episode where she rips off his head to use like a screwdriver sort of thing that was like, whoa.

[00:37:20] So this is a was a design by Neil Scanlon, who did the creatures also Basel and stuff. And he says it was inspired by retro gaming consoles, Sony Walkman, Tamagotchi's and the pencil cases of our youth. I feel that I think that's that's a great inspiration there.

[00:37:37] Yeah, definitely. Yeah, like a Walkman everything tool with intelligence. It speaks to the 90s kid in me. Right. Yeah, I want a PIP. I want a real PIP like I want a replica PIP, but then I want one that actually does all the things.

[00:37:53] Yeah, yeah. I wonder I wonder if I'll ever get to the point of having these like robotic companions. I'm sure we will. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, we will.

[00:38:02] Well, maybe maybe by the time where we're getting on in years, we'll have that in hell for to help us. You know, there you go. I'll I'll just be an aged Jedi at that point. I'll look like Palpatine.

[00:38:16] Don't move to Tatooine. That's it does that climate does terrible things to your skin. Yep. So, yeah. So speaking of the Yord horde, that briefing scene was definitely peak Yord.

[00:38:27] So I have to ask you, John, what would you rather do? Attend a Yord briefing or go to the dentist? I attend a Yord briefing. It was fine. It was fine. I mean, we all have jobs. We all have jobs. I think as Osha pointed out.

[00:38:43] We yeah, it was very thorough. Very but comprehensive, I think she said. But yeah, I've certainly heard briefings like that just in regular work so I could deal with that. I'd rather that than the dentist. Yeah. OK. Fair enough.

[00:38:58] How about you? No, I mean, I'll go to the briefing. I was being tongue in cheek. OK. But we find out in the briefing that Kelnaka see it is useful. We find out that Kelnaka was actually stationed there, but we don't know why.

[00:39:13] We don't know for what purpose and they haven't heard from him in over a year. And he did not respond to their transmissions warning them that may was coming after him. So the Jedi land on Kofar. Kofar, Kofar, Kofar. Wherever you want to be. Yeah.

[00:39:29] And we're going to pick up with their journey through the jungle as well as another pair's journey through the jungle right after a quick break. So while the Jedi are traveling, May and Kymere have already arrived on Kofar,

[00:40:03] which Kymere says he risked his life to scout to help May reminding her that she needs him to make it through the jungle and find the Wookie.

[00:40:11] As they hike, he quizzes her on her task to kill a Jedi without a weapon, a task she calls impossible, though he insists it's not. She just needs to think as they get close to Kelnaka's lair.

[00:40:23] May sets a trap so that she can string Kymere up in a tree to go on to confront Kelnaka alone, because now that she knows her sister Osha is alive, she's not sure she wants to kill him after all.

[00:40:34] She might like to turn herself in or at least talk to him. And she knows Kymere won't let that happen. So yeah, it was interesting. Kymere's in real teacher mode here. This is one of the things that just really makes it look like he is the master.

[00:40:48] Yeah, they're definitely. Here's the thing. They're laying it on so heavily that he's some Esther that I don't think he can be in this role in the story. I don't think they're going to let that on. Well, I think maybe he's her master, but he's not the master.

[00:41:03] You know, he's definitely got a master, someone else. I did laugh though, like just the way he keeps delivering things in this bumbling way, but then says cutting things like he's like, you failed so much. Yeah, that did make me laugh out loud. Yep.

[00:41:20] And May tells Kymere that her confrontation with Kalnaka is not a test. She says the master's exact words were your final lesson is one you teach yourself, you will kill a Jedi without a weapon. So I think it almost sounds like the master's posing a riddle to her.

[00:41:39] Maybe maybe the lesson is you have to corrupt the Jedi and turn them the dark side. Right. Exactly. Yeah, that's basically what I was thinking. But what do you think Kymere's deal is with Osha, like, oh sorry, with May?

[00:41:52] Does he have romantic feelings for her or is there some other connection that May might not know about? He seems to have this intense interest in her even though she's kind of, you know, brushes him off constantly. Yeah, good question. Good question.

[00:42:09] I wonder if he is one master, like the middle tier master, maybe this is his way of just micromanaging her but also seeming like a doofus because it's easier for her to dismiss like this golden retriever guy. Right.

[00:42:28] Than it is for her to, like he wants to be able to see her without her guard up. Right. That's true. But if it's not the master, perhaps the master, you know, has a deal with the master maybe. I owe the master.

[00:42:43] Maybe it's go watch her and make sure that she trusts you. Right. Yeah. Yeah, so he says he didn't make a deal with the master. He says he owes him. Right. But points out the master collects people.

[00:42:58] And when May asks if he's seen the master's face, Chimier says she knows he hasn't but May looks really doubtful about that. So yeah, I don't know who to trust. I don't know if we can trust a single thing Chimier says.

[00:43:11] I feel like it's more interesting if he is telling the truth about things, you know, but maybe not in the way that we expect. That we interpret it. Right. But yeah, he's definitely he's not happy with May having her doubts now.

[00:43:26] He says a Jetta will put her in prison. Jay May, she may is basically already to play the like I'll tell you what I know card. Yeah. And that's obviously that's when we really see him drop his act.

[00:43:39] He's hanging upside down, but he's just like he'll kill you. And that's really it feels like the most real he's ever been. But almost in a way, it wasn't like I'll kill you, but almost in a way like I care about you for whatever reason.

[00:43:52] That's not that seems to still be a secret and you will die if you do this thing. Yeah, and I really don't understand how the master is this powerful where the master can just wipe it down a, you know, knock down a whole squadron of Jedi.

[00:44:08] Like what who is this person? It's right. That was a great that was that was a good cliffhanger with that. Yeah, it was a good coming around. I'm coming around.

[00:44:18] I keep thinking about the hand and then I'm like, because it's also it's nighttime too, because then I was like maybe the hand actually had a slightly darker skin tone than Chimera does. But maybe that's just darkness. Right.

[00:44:34] What do you think about some people are complaining that May's turn back to the light so to speak is too sudden for I mean, I think learning your sister is alive can change everything. But what do you think? Oh, I don't think it's turned to the light.

[00:44:48] I think it's just a turn away from the master. Right. It's a change of loyalties and I do think that she felt alone in the world and she found out she's not right. She always wanted OSHA to stay.

[00:45:01] So yeah, I don't think this was I don't think she went light side. I think she when just just changed allegiance is OSHA side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and she also says the master will kill her if she backs out.

[00:45:15] So that's that's a wrinkle in everything too. Right. So elsewhere in the jungle, the Jedi work their way toward headed toward the same destination as May and Chimera or Kel'nakka's hideout. Basel leads them through a grove of trees with strange lumps that turn out to be giant insects.

[00:45:35] When OSHA accidentally awakens one, it becomes aggressive and Saul kills it with his lightsaber. They worry about the approaching darkness as Basel disappears from the group. His cries piercing the jungle may has been found.

[00:45:49] So first of all, they they have a whole bunch of red shirts with them. I have to assume. Yeah. Yeah. And among amongst them is a Kel'dor character.

[00:46:02] We talked a bit about what Kel'dor are, but they're like these barnacley brainy looking species with masks sunken into their faces. And the most famous is a Plo Koon who I think he would be alive now and we meet him later in the timeline.

[00:46:19] But it has been confirmed. This is definitively not Plo Koon. This one's probably going to die. But for anyone who wants to get to know this new glup shit, it's Jedi Ithia Palm. OK. All right. Sorry. I am a big Plo Koon.

[00:46:37] But I'm in the Plo Koon platoon. Would you? You're not a Plo Bro. You're a Plo Koon. It's a Plo Bro. Somebody called a Plo Koon platoon. Is better than a Plo Bro. I think so. I don't know. OK.

[00:46:54] Both of them are tongue twisters actually or like lip twisters to be specific. By the way, I love in this show, I noticed specifically the transition here, but throughout the episodes they have these classic transitions like especially the circle transition.

[00:47:11] This makes it just adds a touch of nostalgia for me. I love that Star Wars has never abandoned this because it's interesting. It's interesting. You know, when you when you watch like an early 2000s movie, they often do this like this was a style that happened.

[00:47:26] And Star Wars was like, no, that's ours forever. Yeah. This is this is how you know it's Star Wars. There's going to be lightsabers and there's going to be circle transitions. I also the creature department on this show is on fire.

[00:47:42] The Umber Moths, the kind of giant flying millipedes were really cool. Very Kashyyyk like and they've you can find like these new creatures being introduced there in the Star Wars databank.

[00:47:55] So on Star Wars dot com, they have an encyclopedia of official canon and that's the Star Wars databank. And so, yeah, sometimes they drop information like this creature is called the Umber Moth and a collection of Umber Moths is called an eclipse. Yeah. Pretty scary stuff.

[00:48:18] I would not like that. I don't like bugs in the real world and I would not like giant ones. No. But what did you did you think that that was aggressive of Saul to kill it like that?

[00:48:28] Because it actually was just hovering above and didn't go for them until Saul ignited its lightsaber because then it was drawn to the light. Good question. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe maybe Saul sensed the aggression.

[00:48:42] We know Jedi can sense some of the minds of animals sometimes. Right. Yeah. Speaking of which, OSHA said that she she felt it. I guess that's why she reached out to touch it. Right.

[00:48:56] So she seems to be one of those Jedi and she feels guilty that she felt it. She destroyed it and then it died. Right. And we also saw her with the with a jelly fly too.

[00:49:06] So I think she seems to be one who's interested in animals, has a connection with animals. And yeah, Jackie replied that it's an honor for something to transform into the force like fuck you, Jackie. Yeah. Yeah. That was so like company line. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah.

[00:49:30] No, I'm with OSHA on this one when she says she she struggles to accept death. She says she's not a great Jedi basically because she's like, I'm not cool with people dying around me. And Jackie's and Jackie is nice about it. She's like, you have lost a lot.

[00:49:42] And she's and Jackie says this line that a lot of people have been repeating since since episode aired. We're not defined by what we lose. We're defined by what we survive. Right. Right. I actually did like that a lot. Yeah, I like that too. I like that too.

[00:50:00] Yeah. And then we get Sol's promise that he's going to tell everything when we get back to the ship. So now I know you're going to die. Yeah. Yeah. That was his Ned Stark line. Yeah. It says you're not going to face me.

[00:50:14] You're going to face your past. Both of us will. So yeah, Sol is maybe looking a little less innocent. But then Sol's suspicion grows. Mm hmm. So the final confrontation. May has been found.

[00:50:30] She's now trapped inside Kelnaka's hut where she found him dead, a fresh lightsaber wound through his chest. She knows her master has beaten her here.

[00:50:40] Outside, a dark figure in a helmet with a spooky silver smile, an entity the internet has collectively dubbed Darth T or Darth Toofs if you're feeling cheeky. Slowly floats down into the ground behind the Jedi.

[00:50:55] Osha turns and the two are face to face as teeth ignites his red lightsaber with clearly no intention to harm her. He forced tosses her to the side so that he can confront the Jedi directly who all ignite their lightsabers as the screen cuts to black.

[00:51:12] Yeah, much cliffhanger discourse. We already talked a lot about that. But don't you? Don't you think it looks like Kelnaka did not put up a fight like this is a wookie like stuff should have been broken and messed up if he was fighting someone. Dude was high.

[00:51:31] Dude was just baked to oblivion and and couldn't even comprehend putting up a fight. I mean, if he's been out there smoking for at least a year, then then he's used to it. Let's do a math problem. How much hashik can a wookie smoke per day?

[00:51:51] Then I mean the four flux. Yeah, and he's a big dude too. No, in seriousness, though, I think it seems like either the master didn't even enter the home and just like did something with the force before come out.

[00:52:10] Before come out, I could even wake up or came up from behind.

[00:52:15] OK, or I put two other possibilities on the on the table or the master Kelnaka knew the master and didn't suspect who it was until it was too late or Kelnaka did pull the Torb and was like, oh yeah, kill me. Yep. All right. Fair enough.

[00:52:38] Those are those are definitely possibilities. I hope I hope they don't leave a lot of these mysteries until season two. I hope that they resolve everything at the end of the season and then have like a little cliffhanger or like a big picture cliffhanger for season two. Right?

[00:52:54] Yeah, no, I don't think that I think that it's going to be pretty well wrapped up this season just because of what Leslie Headland said about wanting to take a break between seasons. Although it's pitch is a multi season show.

[00:53:09] I mean, I think this mystery will be wrapped up, but they'll still be like characters in play and what happens next sort of thing. Yeah. The kind of cliffhanger you said you like. Yeah. Yeah. Like what what adventure can these people go on next? I'm good with that.

[00:53:22] Yeah. OK, well let's dip into a little quick trailer based speculation. And so for anyone who doesn't want to hear that, I put the notes in the timestamps.

[00:53:34] You can just skip ahead to we're going to talk about after that the feedback and then talk a little bit more about other types of force users. So see you on the other side.

[00:53:44] So you said you were saying that like maybe they hit Kelnocka before he could see and reacted. So we did see in the trailer that this Sith, maybe not a Sith throws their lightsaber. It looks like a different instance, like not into a hut like this.

[00:54:04] It just like through the woods, but maybe something like that happened. Right. OK. Speaking of lightsabers people have used as so we also know we're still going to I think we're going to see Vernestra use her light whip.

[00:54:19] And because that was featured in the trailer and it looked like it was in this wood.

[00:54:23] So I guess maybe that that means Vernestra is going to show up here as well, although it seems unlikely she's in the one in the mask because we see her without the mask doing the light whip in the trailer. OK.

[00:54:35] And we also heard that Leslie Headland wanted to do a special kind of lightsaber that the special effects department wasn't even sure was possible. And they talked about it and worked on it together. And so some things coming that we've never seen before. No idea what that is.

[00:54:54] Yeah, that's I'm excited. I mean, I know I can't say what comes later, but there is a device that exists at this time that I'm excited about that been shown later in the timeline. And I wonder what's harder to do than that.

[00:55:10] Wait, what's the device that exists at this time? The darksaber. Oh, oh, we've already talked about the darksaber. It exists. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I always want the darksaber. I think that's the coolest effect they've ever done with a lightsaber.

[00:55:24] Although I don't think they've nailed it in live action, I think it looks much better in animation. Yeah, it does look really cool in animation. But it must be something else because they've already done that. So it's great.

[00:55:35] But then I was wondering, is it like could have I don't know, like an ultraviolet or I don't know. Or just a different form. I don't know. The word on the street is the next episode is the one that people will be talking about.

[00:55:49] And it seems the people have analyzed the frames and stuff seem to think that episode seven is going to be a flashback from the Jedi perspective. For me, I would think it would be episode six. But for some reason, people are saying seven again.

[00:56:05] This is all just speculation in this section. So we'll see how it turns out. Yeah, I'm OK with with any of that. I'm OK with either one. That's fine. Yeah, we know we're going to definitely get a flashback for sure.

[00:56:18] And I think next week probably what most people want is to pick up where we left off this week. And I think that's what's going to happen. Right. Shall we get into the feedback? Yeah, definitely. All right. So we have just we have a longer email from Marilyn.

[00:56:36] We have a short bit of feedback and then the little extra four floor section. So, John, do you want to take the email from Marilyn? Sure. Marilyn, our favorite Tolkien scholar, writes in and says, Hello, Alicia, John and David. Shame to David he's not here.

[00:56:51] Quite the packed episode number three. Oh, this is about episode three, I guess. Right. I like how many people are pointing out that we have seen all of this from OSHA's POV.

[00:57:00] I really hope that they're going to do follow ups very soon for both May and for the Jedi. I definitely see ritual crossover vibes in the Ascension, right? With feminist spirituality slash witchcraft and pagan practices. I'll be happy to discuss this in greater detail in a pod sometime.

[00:57:17] But I have a few more viewings first. What I would really like is to hear from someone familiar with the Yoruba spiritual slash religious tradition or one of the other African tribal nations.

[00:57:30] I know bits and pieces borrowed by contemporary witchcraft practitioners, but I'd like to see and hear genuine detail from someone familiar with the original African practice if they're willing to share that with us. Are you familiar with this, Alicia? Yes, I am.

[00:57:45] And I actually I did approach a friend who is watching the show and she said she didn't necessarily see anything like that. I would say for people who are more interested in learning about this, there is a Netflix movie called Jagan Jagan, which was really popular in Nigeria.

[00:58:05] And yeah, it kind of it does dive a bit into this and even more so.

[00:58:11] I think it's actually the better movie, but maybe because it's also a slightly more feminist movie is Mami Wata from last year, which yeah does talk a bit more about the practices of witchcraft. All right. Very cool. Thanks for those recommendations. You hear that, Marilyn? Marilyn continues.

[00:58:33] And I'm still wondering if they're calling this witchcraft because it is a woman only practice. I can think of a couple male masculine witches, not warlocks. The word means Oathbreaker and so is not generally used.

[00:58:48] Of my acquaintance, who would be who would not be very happy with that? Yeah, to be honest, in Star Wars lore we have never heard men referred to as witches, maybe sorcerers or something like that.

[00:59:01] But indeed in the real world, people don't realize that for instance in Iceland when the witch craze was going on, Iceland and some other countries I think in like North Eastern Europe where there were more men killed for witchcraft than women.

[00:59:16] So it's not a gendered word the way people normally use it. But and I think Star Wars does use it in a gendered way. Yeah, I think I think that's probably right. Yeah, no, I'm familiar with the modern witchcraft practices of men are witches too.

[00:59:32] It's not Harry Potter. They're not wizards. Right. So I'm going to summarize this next part because there's some stuff for later in the timeline. But essentially we have Marilyn pointing out that the Jedi Order is full of attachments like master and Padawan and attachment to the force even.

[00:59:51] And so it's a bit hypocritical for them to just be like, oh well no attachments ever. Right. Right. I mean, but this is Marilyn hates that we keep comparing this to the Catholic Church.

[01:00:03] But I can't help but think that it is the same thing that's asked of priests. You know, your only attachment is to God is to you know, you're married to Jesus to them, to the nuns and you must have no other attachments beyond that. And is that realistic?

[01:00:20] And how well does that always go? Right. I mean, I can ask the question. I've yet to hear the Jedi point of view. Why are the Jedi trained to avoid attachments? What is the function and purpose of this?

[01:00:33] I mean, to me, that would be that losing the attachments or the fear of losing the attachment pulls you to the dark side. Right. Exactly. We see that later. I'm not going to go with that.

[01:00:48] Well, there's a lot of examples in the High Republic books, especially in the third phase of romantic attachments that may or may not go wrong. Even in phase two, you have romantic attachments going on.

[01:01:01] But yeah, I fact there's a line in phase two that really makes me laugh is right after Marta Rowe and Kev Moe kiss in public. Kev Boe's master goes, Oh, indeed. Sit down, Padawan and let's discuss attachments. And then the chapter and it makes me laugh so much.

[01:01:25] It's like the birds and the bees. Yep. Yep. Marilyn continues. I also think that love and attachment are two different things. Osha loves May. May is attached to Osha. Even if she wants to control her, May needs Osha to be a certain way.

[01:01:40] And so she is attached and that will most definitely bring her and many others suffering. Mm hmm. Yeah, there is this weird blanket approach and we know that there are characters who get exceptions on the attachment seal at certain points. Right.

[01:01:58] Well, they kind of make their own exceptions and because of people's attachments to those characters, they allow it. Oh, I thought I thought there was an officially sanctioned attachment in the prequel era. No, a secret one. No, no, I let's just say it.

[01:02:19] Well, yeah, I can also bleep it. Oh, OK. OK. But is that an attack? I guess it's a child. OK. Yeah. And romantic relationships. I mean, it's always the rules apply until they don't. Right. So Marilyn says, Don't read this part if it's too personal for you.

[01:02:42] It's fine.

[01:02:43] I was really fascinated to hear David and John contrast their views on how children are treated here and observe that John, the parent of a three year old and a one year old, was strongly against children being taken away from their parents at the age of four,

[01:02:54] whereas David, the parent of an eight year old child, was speaking about the importance of allowing children to make their own choices.

[01:03:00] It seems that ages and stages of one's own offspring are an important part of where you land on these topics, not to mention the individual personalities and abilities of the children themselves.

[01:03:12] My view on that is I love to give my daughter choices, my three year old, my one year old, he doesn't get choices yet. But I love to give my three year old choices on things. As long as they're not permanent decisions, right?

[01:03:29] As long as I can still keep an eye on her and make sure that she's protected. And that's fine. Like, do you want to go play with this or that? Do you want to eat this or that? Do you want to wear this or that? That's fine.

[01:03:41] Totally fine. I think the question is what's the scope of those choices? There's a reason that we don't allow drinking or we don't allow tattoos or piercings for certain ages. You know, actually, piercings are kind of loosey goosey.

[01:03:53] But the point is we have all kinds of laws, you know, owning a gun at certain ages, right? We have all kinds of laws designed to take away choices from youth that could be permanent decisions that could be mistakes for them.

[01:04:06] And, you know, the fact that a youth, unless it's for a necessity, can't be forced to honor a contract. There's all kinds of things with that. And so, well, I agree with some autonomy because that's important to practice before you're let loose at 18.

[01:04:24] I don't think that I would ever support, you know, someone taking the kid away from me. Yeah. But I wonder, I mean, because a lot of parents do send their children to boarding school starting at a fairly young age, maybe not four, but. Right.

[01:04:42] So I wonder, I guess it would depend on the parents in the entire situation. Right. Right. I guess so. Yeah. Some, you know, in within this this galaxy, too, some parents would sell children into slavery because they thought they had no other means.

[01:05:00] So for that, in that case, the Jedi is a much better option. Yeah. And Marilyn says, you know, Mother Anisei is better than Mother Coral at listening to what Osha's saying.

[01:05:11] But she also says leaving to train as a Jedi is not necessarily a permanent decision because Osha left the order. I don't agree with that because one, I don't think the witches would be very happy taking Osha back after being trained as Jedi.

[01:05:29] It's kind of like, you know, the elves in Tolkien who go off and get captured by Morgoth and then come back and they're suspect. Right.

[01:05:37] But at the same time, I don't know if these witches are even going to stay on this planet because the Jedi know where they are and they don't like that. So will she even be able to find them again?

[01:05:46] So I do think that specifically in this situation, definitely a permanent decision in my view. Yeah. Yeah, we don't hear much about Jedi going back to their parents.

[01:05:57] And I think this is about them being separated at such a young age that they form an identity away from that. And it's funny, the cases that I can think of where that happens in the ages to come,

[01:06:10] it's often someone who ends up being susceptible to the dark side because of those attachments. Right. And Marilyn finishes this part of her email and says, Do I remember correctly that the Jedi have just barely managed to overcome a group of violent non-traditional to them force users?

[01:06:29] The Niel or something? They're not really force users. They're like super pirates. Oh, they're super pirates. See, I'm still on the path there. Right. Yeah. Interesting. I thought that there was a splinter group that had force use in it.

[01:06:45] Well, I mean, the path does splinter and it kind of mostly becomes the Niel. But I was just saying that other splinters might have done other things. OK, fair enough. For episode four. Oh, actually these are more comments on episode three. Marilyn did have a few other notes.

[01:07:07] The Bunti tree looked very Tolkien-esque. The Ascension is a lot to lay upon two children. So, Marilyn, we agree that laying these responsibilities on children may be not OK. Yeah.

[01:07:21] And Marilyn had really hoped that in the following episode from this week, we'd learn more about other people's perspectives on what happened when Osho was rescued and May disappeared with all of the force users around.

[01:07:33] I'm wondering why it all turned out the way it appears to have done. Once again, we're being teased. Sol will tell us after the current adventure with the mask wearers over. Yeah. OK. Goodbye, Sol. Goodbye, Sol. But we'll enjoy seeing your perspective in the next flashback. Yep.

[01:07:51] John M., after episode three, wrote in and said, So I think all the witches were linked, the power of many compels you, when whatever killed them happened. That would explain the collective scream. May, who is an actual member of the coven, probably feels their death through the force.

[01:08:08] Osha, who didn't finish the initiation, didn't feel it. So May got twisted by that experience and left. Mother Coral and May head off to find revenge. Hmm. I mean, I think May does not know Mother Coral is alive if she is, which I think she probably is.

[01:08:25] Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. Well, since people and there's still been a lot of chatter in the Discord about last week's episode, people are just really fascinated by the witches and these other force users. And I saw a couple.

[01:08:40] I've been spending some more time on threads recently, by the way. There's actually really good conversation around both the acolyte and Doctor Who there. And someone named Darth Veritas posted this, which drove me down a lore hole that I wanted to share with you all,

[01:08:56] because I know Marilyn definitely and other people will be interested in all these different names for the force. So Darth Veritas said, The schnazberries taste like schnazberries. So to explain what those things are, these are all canon, by the way. Everything in that list is in canon.

[01:09:39] So the Chiss is first of all, the Chiss who call it the sight. Chiss is Thrawn's species. So Thrawn is a blue skinned character will meet in the next age.

[01:09:49] And we've talked about the Chiss in basically every era overview so far because they're off doing the real thing. They're off doing their own thing in the unknown regions. And the Chiss are very rarely force sensitive.

[01:10:01] But when it does happen, it manifests primarily as telepathy, which they call second sight or precognition, which they call third sight. And those who have this are usually female and they generally grow out of it as they get older. So basically it's young girls.

[01:10:18] And they use these girls as navigators on ships because the unknown regions are difficult to navigate through. And these navigators are called in the so that Chun language is the language of the Chiss in their language. They're called Ozili Esehimbo, which translates to skywalkers. Oh, yeah, very interesting.

[01:10:43] So also from Chiss space are the Pathfinders of the Chaos, which are force sensitive navigators in the Navigators Guild. The Navigators Guild is all different species in the unknown regions, including the Chiss.

[01:10:54] And that's not to be confused with the path of the open hand and blah, blah, blah, and all that stuff that's going on in the main galaxy. Also from the Thrawn books in the unknown regions are the Magis, which call it the Beyond.

[01:11:06] Magis is actually a title of and is an autocratic force sensitive leader of a people from a planet called Sunrise that are bound to do her bidding. Now we get a couple of these from the list are from the legends of Luke Skywalker, young readers novel.

[01:11:22] And that includes the Mistweavers who have the Book of Luminous Mist. And so the Mistweavers are an ancient mystical order that use the force to make glowing imperishable letters and abstract paintings.

[01:11:34] And they also developed the art of and this sounds a little like it's overlapping with Anasea's coven. They developed the art of spinning strings of the force into silken strands.

[01:11:46] And one character that encountered them describes self healing barriers made from these strands as rubbery and resilient and a frozen waterfall. And master Mistweavers at one point use this to cocoon themselves when they find themselves trapped inside of an exocortha, one of their space slugs.

[01:12:08] So I that's a very the legends of Luke Skywalker is like a gold mine for these little random new lore bits. So it's definitely canon though. The New York. OK. So from the same book are the Lulans who called this the force, the tide.

[01:12:26] And so these are humans native to an aquatic planet, so Lul, which is called the delus. So that's why they call the tide.

[01:12:33] And I have to add to this, we've already talked previously about the Fallanasi who called the who called the force the white current and dark tide. And then the Mustafarians call it life current.

[01:12:43] So we talked about in the High Republic overview episode that the planet Mustafar was ruined by an inventor trying to bring her husband back from the dead. Another recurring theme in Star Wars. And so these insectoid sentient species developed there and some of them are force sensitive.

[01:13:01] We also talked previously about the Zephonians and they have these sages who are force users. We mentioned them in the overviews. They're linked to the Jedi games and to Dathomir and the witches there and the unknown regions.

[01:13:14] And the Lasat, the most famous lasat will meet later in the timeline Zeb. But these are like humanoid monkey tigers. And they use the word Ashla for the force, which you've already talked about. Ashla comes from the light side of the force, the light moon of Tython.

[01:13:31] And we've mentioned previously also the sorcerers of Tundu called the force unity and the High Republic overview app.

[01:13:37] And I have to add to this, there's a sentient cephalopod species which actually did show up in an episode of Young Jedi Adventures when they were on Bracca, the scrapping planet. And they're called the Diagana and they call the force it. Oh, that's not very nice.

[01:13:57] Well, it's just it. I mean, why would you need to name it? It's it. It exists. Yeah. So yeah, so lots of different force users out there.

[01:14:08] F7 Super Serial on threads also said, I've seen a lot of criticism about, oh my God, the witches aren't Dathomiri and that's simply absurd. The Jedi and Sith are certainly the force traditions throwing the biggest weight around the galaxy.

[01:14:20] But diving into the EU, the expanded universe legends, basically, there's a ton of which of cult witchlike traditions doing their thing. Some quieter than others through the centuries. The aforementioned Fala Nasi, the Gishens Shah, the prophets of the dark sage, the Ang Ti, the sorcerers of Tund.

[01:14:40] Need I go on? So to name the three that these three are from legends, the ones that we haven't discussed already. There is the Gishens Shah are an order of force adepts known for their survival skills and their abilities in telekinesis.

[01:14:58] And they live on a disc blade on the planet of Yonabar in wild space. So wild space like off the edge of the map. And they basically developed their force powers to survive on their harsh planet.

[01:15:15] And they were all about independence and they were estranged from the Jedi. So basically they knew all about the Jedi order stuff, but they're like, no, we don't like your dogma. We're going to do our own thing.

[01:15:30] And this is from one of the Wizards of the Coast tabletop RPGs. I do like Wizards of the Coast. I do like Wizards of the Coast. I like the things that they make. Yeah, exactly. Right? Yeah, no, no, we're not supporting, you know, behind the scenes bullshit.

[01:15:47] Prophets of the Dark Side are also called the secret order of the emperor. There's a book called a young readers book called Prophets of the Dark Side, but they're also just like all over legends books.

[01:15:57] They're an ancient dark side cult from the planet of Dromund Kaas in the outer rim, which was once the capital of the reconstituted Sith Empire in the Old Republic. So we talked about Darth Millennial in the Old Republic episode and he's basically the one who founded them.

[01:16:13] And they're later scattered by Darth Sidious, who we'll talk about the next stage. And then finally, the Ang Ti, which are also referenced in canon in the Rise of Skywalker visual dictionary. They basically so way finders are in canon are hyperspace navigation tech that's powered by the force

[01:16:34] and created based on like this Jedi and Sith studies of pergol brain activities, the space whales who travel through hyperspace. That's cool. And so Ang Ti are like living way finders.

[01:16:48] And they live in this cathol rift region of space where it's very difficult to navigate region of space. So they develop this ability, force based ability to navigate through the region and they're like really cool design. They're like mammals, but with bone plating all over them.

[01:17:09] And they like to live as recluses and they will get violent to anyone who comes near, especially slavers. But yeah, they believe that the force has neither a light nor dark side, but it's full of many colors like a rainbow.

[01:17:24] Which makes me think of the Nightsister Green and this new Covens Purple. That's pretty cool though. Yeah, I like that. Can I ask you something? Is is Darth Millennial that you mentioned? Is that the one that destroyed chain restaurants and napkins? Oh God, no straws.

[01:17:47] All right, all right. Nobody is pretty emo. Bob and I were making fun of him a bit. That's pretty funny. Yeah, I had to get one stupid quip in before the end of the episode. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, so we are at the end of the episode.

[01:18:05] So just what's coming? I'll run through real quick on here. Obviously, we're going to keep doing the weekly breakdowns. Watch out for that midseason subscriber chat about how these events link up with later in the timeline.

[01:18:19] And you can check that out on the Canon Padawan timeline feed on Supercast. You'll find that link in the show notes where you also get early and ad free access to all episodes.

[01:18:28] And of course, you'll have these same benefits if you are a Lorehound subscriber on the Lorehounds subscription feed. So you'll find those notes in the Lorehounds link tree in episode notes as well.

[01:18:39] And on Wolf Shift Dust, watch out for later this week, the interview with Glenn Mazzara, co-showrunner of Beacon 23. And there will be coming shortly after that, the second shift breakdown in the book club. What else is going on on Lorehounds and the rest?

[01:18:55] So much. I guested with Radioactive Ramblings. I was on there talking about the boys with them for about a half hour at the beginning of their episode. So check that out. They are also covering this week, Fallout Lore episode 4, The Master.

[01:19:10] And they're doing All Knowing's Lore Corner, Timeline of the Lands Between. As far as other affiliates, probably Harrod is doing Hero at Large this week as part of their Felonies and Fugazi season.

[01:19:25] And Marilyn will be back with more Rings and Rituals next week, covering the finale of season one of Rings of Power, Aloeid. For us, we have House of the Dragon. It's really just, it's Hot Lore Summer, House of the Dragon season.

[01:19:38] And really, really good first episode. We had a long and thorough breakdown. You and I, Alicia, are doing Doctor Who. We did season one, episode eight, The Legend of Ruby Sunday.

[01:19:51] And that was a lot of fun. I think if you're having fun with the acolyte, you'll have fun with Doctor Who. Yeah, by the way, my sister and brother-in-law have caught up and they're going to give us a voicemail for the finale.

[01:20:02] Oh great. That's awesome. I like hearing the new Whovians. The Newvians? Yeah. New Newvians. All right. And then Silmarillion Stories. I'm going to have that out this weekend with Maester Anthony and his guest, who is a surprise. Oh, and you're doing an MCU episode, right?

[01:20:23] Oh, that's right. Yes. Also coming out later this week is, yeah, I have a big editing stack waiting for me as soon as I hang up here. Yeah, so John and I, we did an MCUniverse episode where we're talking through Marvel News, we're talking through X-Men comics,

[01:20:38] and we power ranked all of the Fox Marvel movies. Awesome. Awesome. I'm looking forward to that because I want to hear John's thoughts on X-Men 97.

[01:20:49] On X-Men, yeah. And yeah, we'll see you all, we'll see you in the subscriber feed for that special episode where we're going to dive into the tale of Darth Plagueis the Wise and a bunch of other things, including the World Between Worlds, because that's definitely relevant here.

[01:21:07] And then we'll see you next week. And in the meantime, remember, peace is a lie. This summer, we enter a new era of Star Wars. You mean the dawn of the Star Wars canon timeline podcast?

[01:21:42] Yeah, yeah, sure. That too. But I was obviously talking about the accolade. We've got to cover that on the lorehounds. Oh, but the Star Wars canon timeline podcast is exactly at that point in the timeline,

[01:21:53] the end of the High Republic, 100 years before the prequel trilogy. We've got to cover it there. Why not both? Okay, deal. It's the first live action Star War outside the Skywalker saga. Nobody can miss this.

[01:22:09] Listeners, kick off your hot lore summer weekends with scene by scene breakdowns of the acolyte found in both the Star Wars canon timeline podcast and the lorehounds mother feed. And the lorehounds Star Wars feed.

[01:22:21] Wherever you like to listen a couple of days after each new episode is released.