Everyone knows that Supreme Leader Snoke died in the middle of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. But what this new fan theory presupposes is… maybe he didn’t? Yep, despite last being seen bisected, with his tongue lolling idiotically out of his deader-than-dead mouth, fans think they can see a way for everyone’s favorite Supreme Leader to make a dramatic return in Star Wars: Episode IX.
This theory rests on the idea that he was using Luke’s Force projection technique to make it only look like he was dead. Reddit user CarterVoorhees31, who came up with this, says that “it’s pretty clear to me that Snoke isn’t dead,” going on to argue that as the villain is “powerful as hell” he’d know in advance that Kylo Ren was going to betray him. Consequentially, he was projecting a vision of himself into his throne room from an unknown location, hoping that Ren would ‘kill’ him in order to cement his place in the Dark side.
Of course, this theory ignores the fact that Supreme Leader Snoke has fulfilled his narrative function by dying and that he was only ever a plot device in the much more interesting story of Kylo Ren. To put it simply, he ain’t coming back – and if he did it’d be literally the dumbest thing to happen in a Star Wars movie.
Having said that, I’m pretty sure Snoke will be popping up in comic, video game and television tie-ins in the future (the successor to Star Wars Rebels is rumored to be set between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, after all). So, if you absolutely can’t get enough of this purposefully two-dimensional plot device, you’re in luck.
In the meantime, we’ll be sitting here patiently waiting for fans to work through all the stages of the Kubler-Ross model of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. A month after Star Wars: The Last Jedi‘s release, we’re still at denial and anger, but maybe by the time Episode IX rolls around we’ll finally be somewhere near acceptance. We can only hope.
