The acolyte’s silly rock fire in episode 3 is a perfect symbol for the bigger issues

The acolyteThe third episode of the film raised many more questions than it answered. For example: what about that Force Cult, how were Mae and Osha born, why are the Jedi here to begin with, why is the dialogue so bad, and what actually happened in that fire? But the most important question is: how on earth did all that stone catch fire?

Of course, Star Wars is a series full of deep and complex lore, so here are our best attempts at explaining exactly how a mountain caught fire The acolyte.

(Ed. remark: This post contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Acolyte episode 3.)

Before we go into the explanation, it is important that we first review the event in question. The fire in the mountain on Brendok is the inciting incident for everything else that happens The acolyte. It’s what separates Mae and Osha, and what gives them both their diametrically opposed views of the Jedi. So when we got the flashback in episode 3, it initially seemed like it would be a complex event, full of childhood misunderstandings and missed perspective. Perhaps from what Osha saw, it seemed like Mae had created the fire, while Mae saw it was some kind of Jedi accident, which led to her hatred.

Unfortunately, none of this happens in the episode. Instead, we see the child Mae clearly and emotionlessly say that she would rather kill her sister herself than see her leave, and then set the entire mountain temple on fire. While the events leading up to the fire are a pretty extreme disappointment — even if the show could use this inexplicable child-killer plot as a smokescreen for a later surprise — somehow it’s still the fire itself that seems the dumbest. Mae takes Osha’s sketchbook, illuminates the pages with a lamp, then throws it into the stone hallway… which immediately ignites as if it were made of dry wood. Here we have to meet the show well over halfway.

Theory 1: The theory of alternative materials

Maybe what looked like stone in the mountain was actually a different material? While we see most of the temple on Brendok The acolyte‘s third episode appears to have been carved directly into the mountain, perhaps the witches’ coven actually covered the inner tunnels of their home with highly flammable, non-stony material.

This is the dumbest and most despicable theory possible, but it’s also a bit of an outdated Star Wars explanation. Like lighting fires in space or the screams of TIE fighters, it’s something silly and fun that defies all explanations of Earth science, and that’s fine. Of course, this would be a little easier to digest if The acolyte took themselves a little less seriously, and if the fire in question didn’t leave so many of the people involved paralyzed by guilt, full of regret, determined to get revenge, or just plain dead. Silly problems are great for getting silly answers, but tragedies deserve something a little more thought out.

Theory 2: The theory of the hidden culprit

This theory revolves around the idea that what we saw in episode 3 was only part of the story. Sure, Mae made a childish, rash claim that she wanted to kill her sister, but the fire from her sketchbook should have simply died down, except another perpetrator used the Force to spread the flames.

The most likely outcome of a theory like this would be that someone from Mae and Osha’s coven fanned the flames in an attempt to get the girls out and blame it on the Jedi. The culprit here would likely be the Zabrak witch, who seemed to be having a power struggle with the twins’ mother. Perhaps she is stronger and more dangerous, as she appeared and simply decided that destroying the coven’s home and splitting up Mae and Osha would be the only way forward for the witches. She could even be the dark figure who trains Mae in the future and orders her to kill the Jedi who visited Brendok.

However, an even more exciting version of this theory is that all this destruction was always caused by the Jedi. Mae, despite her gruesome announcement that she was going to kill the only other child she had ever known, was largely blameless and was instead trapped and then left to die by a band of Jedi desperate to find a promising new recruit. . This would be truly shocking. Not quite in line with the dark edges lurking around the Jedi in the Star Wars canon (after all, how Doing are they getting all those young recruits?), but still braver and more interesting than almost anything we’ve seen of them on screen.

Image: Lucasfilm

Making the Jedi the true villains of the Brendok Fire would provide a meaningful indictment of the Jedi of the High Republic, an example of those who have chosen themselves to be judge, jury, and executioner for this extremist outlier cult. Just because they determined the cult was wrong, they slaughtered everyone there and tried to steal both children, but when even that proved too difficult, they simply took one and left the other to die.

Even despite what would be the show’s silly attempt at misdirection, and the often frustratingly wooden dialogue or sameness of characters, this reveal would be genuinely exciting. A real, bold take on a particular era in Jedi history that, at least in some sectors of the galaxy, was far darker than we ever thought possible.

Theory 3: Disney’s Star Wars Theory

The third theory is the simplest of them all: The acolyte is just a very unserious show, interested in saying something new about the Jedi, the Force or the Star Wars universe more broadly, but too concerned with appearances to get the details right – both in terms of storytelling and tradition. This theory suggests that there is no more going on than what we saw on screen: Mae lit a fire in an attempt to kill her sister; it became bigger than she thought and had far-reaching consequences that she blames on the Jedi, while avoiding her own part in it. With this theory, even if the Jedi did a few things wrong, it would still pan out, with most of them ending up being heroic and leaving everything basically in the same place it started.

Image: Lucasfilm

On paper, this theory would be a major disappointment. In practice, though, it feels like exactly what we’d expect from most modern Star Wars stories. These projects rarely have the guts to really shake up the franchise and introduce anything truly shocking, instead always returning the status quo at the end, or simply pushing for events where we already know the outcome.

Star Wars is firmly in an era of stagnation. So hoping for something fun, interesting, or daring to come out of a very silly-looking fire, even if it’s set in a completely new time period, is probably a bit more than we’d expect from the series at this point. Instead, it’s hard not to imagine that The acolyte‘s biggest moment yet is nothing more than stone that inexplicably caught fire because the plot required it.