In many ways, The Acolyte is a groundbreaking Star Wars show. It takes place during the High Republic era, which has never been depicted in live-action before, and it also features a much darker tone than many other Star Wars stories. That tone only got darker in The Acolyte episode 5, when the Sith Lord massacred a group of Jedi on Khofar. For all the new ground it broke, however, The Acolyte also paid homage to one of Lucas’ original inspirations, and it did so with the new Sith Lord.
“The Stranger” Is A Classic Western Trope
The Acolyte episode 5 revealed the identity of the Sith Lord and unveiled that Qimir was just a pseudonym he was using to hide his true identity. Once he was unmasked, the Sith Lord revealed that he had no name, and he’s instead referred to as the Stranger. The Sith Lord’s title ties The Acolyte directly to one of Lucas’ inspirations: the Spaghetti Western. There’s a trope in Westerns so common that it can be seen in all corners of the genre. Several classic Westerns feature a mysterious main character like The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly‘s Man With No Name to the masked gunslinger in The Lone Ranger.
The Acolyte Inverts The Spaghetti Western
The Stranger serves as a clear reference to Westerns, but he also flips the common trope on its head. Generally, Westerns that follow the trope of having a mysterious stranger as their main character also paint that stranger as a hero. A core component of the trope is that the stranger wanders into a new town or situation, and changes them for the better. A Fistful of Dollars, for example, followed the Man With No Name as he stumbled upon a feud between two rival families, and by playing them both at the same time, he saved the town from their criminal exploits.
The Acolyte, however, firmly established that the Stranger was anything but heroic. He massacred seven Jedi, used dirty fighting tactics like a cortosis helmet and gauntlet and his new trick lightsaber, and aligned himself firmly with the dark side of the Force. None of the Westerns George Lucas used as inspiration ever had such an evil stranger, and The Acolyte has effectively inverted one of the most common Western plots in the entire genre. Instead of coming to solve problems and shake things up in a good way, Star Wars‘ new stranger caused problems, and he seems intent on shaking the Jedi to their core.
The Acolyte’s Opening Scene Even Sets This Up
The Stranger wasn’t The Acolyte‘s first time being inspired by Westerns, though. The show’s very first scene, when Mae Aniseya attacked Master Indara on Ueda, was extremely reminiscent of a classic cowboy action sequence. Mae, a stranger at that point in The Acolyte, walks into a (noodle) bar and a massive showdown ensues. At one point in their fight, when Mae and Indara were pointing their respective weapons at each other, a rogue tumbleweed and revolvers wouldn’t have felt out of place. Mae and Indara’s fight set up The Acolyte as a Western-inspired show, and the Stranger inverted it perfectly.
The Acolyte‘s subversion of the stranger trope from Westerns is also just the most recent example of the show subverting expectations. Right from the start, The Acolyte shocked audiences by killing off Indara, a character many expected to be a central figure in the show due to Carrie-Anne Moss’ casting. The Stranger’s relation to Westerns wasn’t even the only shock of The Acolyte episode 5, as he also killed off two other main characters in Jecki Lon and Yord Fandar. In that sense, the Stranger is carrying on The Acolyte‘s penchant for astonishing twists and turns.
The fact that the Stranger so effectively subverted the Western archetype of a heroic stranger has a few implications for the future of The Acolyte as well. He may not be a hero, but the Sith Lord could still carry out a major part of the stranger trope by using his mysterious status to shake things up. Like the Man With No Name did with the town in A Fistful of Dollars, the Stranger may fundamentally change the Jedi Order and the entire Star Wars galaxy. Based on how he’s subverted the Western trope, though, the Stranger likely won’t change The Acolyte for the better.
