Jedi News recently took part in a roundtable with The Acolyte’s showrunner Leslye Headland, and we asked her about the shocking choices made by Jedi Master Indara and Jedi Knight Sol in episode 7 of The Acolyte, “Choice”.
Jedi News: Indara gets advice from the Jedi Council on multiple occasions in the flashback scenes, so why did she turn her back on them and lie about the events on Brendok?
Headland: “I think it should be left up to interpretation, my personal opinion is that she sees this entire situation as a terrible, terrible tragedy and Sol’s insistence that he turn himself in at the expense of the one survivor of this. She believes it to be an incredibly selfish act. If this has all been for anything, let’s have it be for this little girl to grow up having achieved what she wanted to achieve, which I think is an incredibly passionate thing for a Jedi to decide even if it’s misguided.”
Jedi News: What about Sol’s decision to ignite his lightsaber when Aniseya turned into a cloud of black smoke, did he mistake the action for an attack or did he light his saber in error, killing Aniseya in front of Mae?
Headland: “Again, I think it’s really up to interpretation, I can say, my personal opinion, which is that I think that it’s just super messy. Each of the Jedi have their own blind spot in this episode, and Sol’s is definitely an emotional, spiritual blind spot. He just feels like, ‘This is my padawan, I’m Qui-Gon, this is my Anakin, this is the warrior I am meant to train.’ And so, the paternal protectionism gets kicked in.”
“And that’s a thing that, obviously is in media especially, is usually coded as something very, very good. But I think that can also be a dangerous thing, it’s not always coming out of what’s best for the child or the object of that protected. And it could be coming out of his own preconceived notions or his inflated sense of self as well, thinking, ‘I am the person who can help this child live up to their potential. I’m the person that can save this child from potential danger.’ So I think it’s a little bit of both. It comes from a very good place and it’s very natural, but at the same time, it’s not automatically good just because you feel it.”
We’ll be sharing the audio with Leslye Headland very soon. Stream The Acolyte on Disney+ now.
