Trust in the Process: THE FORCE & Lessons from The Acolyte

Get # We need to trust in the process, an important lesson learned in the quick sands of midi-chlorians: trust in the process. ‘[W]e need to trust in the process’: Trust in the Process

Light and dark, good and evil; the woes and ecstasy of being lovestruck, the heartbreak of loss and the longing to reconnect, and the intense need for answers to life’s most pressing questions. It is a cycle deeply embedded in the precepts of the Force, and hints at the season of uncertainty that is finally reaching its climactic conclusion on the stages of the galaxy. Those who believe that they alone can control their destiny, that destiny itself is merely what they seek to navigate, are doomed to fail, for their identity is tied to an immutable chain of providence that wends its way through time. In our cover story this week, we take a deep dive into the shadows of the past that are revealed in a seminal episode of ‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’, on Disney+. We explore its many layers, its rich narrative, and the Force that binds the galaxy.

I. THE SANDS OF TIME: A JOURNEY INTO THE PAST

Jumping back 16 years in the third episode of The Acolyte, the flashback doesn’t just plug a plot hole – it unlocks a casket of the past’s secrets and the present’s mysteries. Back to the moment when Osha and Mae begin their apprenticeship to a coven that rejects the ‘beige-coded’, binary view of the Force espoused by Trioculus and the Temple. But it is also a plot development that unites the two layers of the story, because it connects the origin of the mystery with the source of the problem.

II. WITCHES OF BRENDOK: THE FORCE REDEFINED

The most intriguing part of the episode has to be its introduction to the witches from Brendok. The Nightsisters from The Clone Wars will be familiar to long-time fans but the Brendok witches bring a strand all their own to the Force’s tapestry. Their insistence on referring to ‘Thread’, rather than ‘Force’ shouldn’t be dismissed as merely a matter of semantics, it’s a statement of the Force’s pluralism, seen through the eyes of those who harness its darker, ‘spooky’ sides.

III. CREATION AND DARKNESS: THE FORCE'S ETHICAL DILEMMA

The fact that these two were created without paternal participation and effectively in ignorance colours the Jedi moral code, which typically might seem quite black and white. Placing this character’s backstory up against Mace Windu’s narrative with Anakin Skywalker threads in another strand of discussion about the Force: not just its use but also its interpretation. And in doing so, it deepens the lore and points out that the Force isn’t consistently invested with (or even constrained by) standard morality, and that both characters and viewers are being asked to understand what it really is.

IV. THE MISSED MARKS: WHERE THE FORCE FALTERS

It falls flat. Even though it’s an ambitious story, the show’s execution of its climactic moments peters out, its supposed moment of high rite deflated by its hesitant enactment, its important action too quickly glossed over, its important spells hastily lingered upon, the show’s failure to commit unevenly weighed up. This, again, shows how even the best stories can stumble in their execution, how things can go awry, how traces of noise and fuzz can clutter story’s stream of intention, and perhaps even clutter interpretations.

V. THE JEDI'S FORCEFUL HAND: CONTROL AND POWER

The story also questions the very role of the Jedi in the galaxy by revealing their approach to Force-sensitive children as righteous – but also zealous – leading to a reassessment of the teachings of the Jedi as an institution. What is the value of training an army of Force-wielders when ultimately that army must belong to an authoritative organisation, continuously surveilling and overseeing its ‘students’, as well as the galaxy? A subtle critique of power and its exercise, rather than outrightly villainising it as the Sith do, that’s the lesson of the largest dual-sided narrative of the prequels.

VI. ACROSS THE STARS: REFLECTIONS ON LEGACY AND BELIEF

In its examination of the lingering Star Wars themes of legacy, belief, and what it means to know the Force, the story adds depth to the series’ mythology. With every step it takes into territory unknown, the Star Wars franchise enriches the ongoing conversation about the Force, encouraging viewers to look at it in new ways.

Understanding the Force

Fundamentally, it is also the Force, a pervasive, metaphysical, binding energy field that suffuses the Star Wars universe: it is ‘an energy field created by all life’, ‘surrounding’, ‘penetrating’, ‘binding’, ‘the whole galaxy’. It has ‘a dark side’, a side ‘associated with anger’, ‘fear’, ‘aggression’ and ‘hate’; and a ‘light side’, which is one of ‘peace’, ‘serenity’, ‘love’ and ‘benevolence’. The Force ‘gives a Jedi his power’. With it, he performs feats of ‘telekinesis’, ‘clairvoyance’, ‘precognition’ and ‘mind control’.

The Acolyte Season 1, Episode 3 is painted in colours that the cinematic universe never knew until now Like the later Star Wars films, The Acolyte reveals the enormous flexibility of the Star Wars mythology to challenge the status quo, redraw the existing paradigms, and invite us to look at the Force in new ways. Looking back in time to a different era and being confronted with this alternative requires us to confront the fallibility of our existing knowledge. It asks us to unpack and question what we believe we know about the Force: its essence, its contradictions, and its multitude of possibilities.

If the galaxy of Star Wars has anything to say about the Force, or life, it’s that definitions are never simple. Light and dark, creation and destruction, presence and absence can entail each other. That’s what makes the Force – like life – always fresh, newly imagined, and infinitely worth thinking about.