After the first glimpses of The Acolyte, most Star Wars fans are feeling giddy. The series, set to premiere in June on Disney Plus, marks a departure from the franchise’s status quo in more ways than one. The project is helmed by an all-female team, features the IP’s first trans actor, and might even change the way we view the Dark Side of the Force.
Set 100 years before the events of The Phantom Menace during a period in which Sith are more myth than reality, the mysterious Sith antagonist is knocking Jedi off left and right. While we don’t have much information yet, one thing seems certain, The Acolyte’s red lightsaber-wielding baddie is about to pull off an Order 66 all on her own.
Who is the Sith in Star Wars: The Acolyte?
So far, we know very little about Amandla Stenberg’s character, Mae. Fans and news outlets alike have speculated that she was a Padawan of Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-Jae), but Disney is keeping it under wraps.
In an interview with Comicbook.com, Stenberg noted that her character is “attempting to respect the place she comes from” but is doing it in a world that “doesn’t placate her, doesn’t exist for her. And so she is struggling morally and ethically.” It’s a vague enough answer to keep the Disney watchdogs off of her back but could speak volumes about the ambiguity of good and evil that Disney is trying to expand upon.
We honestly don’t know if Mae is going to be categorized explicitly as a Sith. Many fans on social media have been quick to point out Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi’s iconic Phantom Menace line on the Sith’s millennium-long extinction in the wake of the trailer, and decry the media giant for breaking Star Wars canon. Others are less sure. Disney has been setting up new lore on who can be considered a Jedi. Ahsoka has teased the idea of Sabine Wren finding a place in the Jedi Order despite her lack of skill in the force, and fans of the sequel trilogy have yet to forgive Disney for what they see as stifling Finn’s Jedi potential.
Old lore from the High Republic days mentions a variety of Jedi, like the nomadic Wayseekers who acted independently from the Jedi council. There were also hermit Jedi who answered to no one but the force, fans have speculated that the Wookie Jedi shown in The Acolyte trailer, Master Kelnacca, falls into this category. The range of Jedi could mean that during the golden era of the Jedi, the rules were more lax, leading to a wider variety of force users.
To further obfuscate what good and bad mean in a galaxy that requires both for balance, Disney may be moving to do the same with the Dark Side. After all, if good can be a spectrum, why can’t bad?
All that to say that, though Mae is wielding a red lightsaber, we have no way of knowing exactly what she is up to – or what she is working towards – until the series drops on June 4. Despite knowing nothing about the red lightsaber-wielding assassin, she has certainly piqued fan interest – regardless of the haters.
Who Plays Mae in Star Wars: The Acolyte?
The morally ambiguous Star Wars newcomer is played by Amandla Stenberg. Her first movie role was in Colombiana as the child version of Zoë Saldaña’s Cataleya. That same year, she was tapped to play the child sacrifice, Rue in The Hunger Games.
It might be hard to recall now, but the actress is no stranger to random hate for the color of her skin. When The Hunger Games dropped in 2011, Stenberg was subjected to heinous commentary for her portrayal, simply because of her skin color. She starred in the emotional drama The Hate U Give (2018), Everything, Everything (2017), and starred in her first horror movie, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies in 2022.
The pointless backlash to Rue’s ethnicity seems to have informed Stenberg’s political activism. She was named “Feminist of the Year” in 2015. Won the NAACP Image Award, and in 2018, released a school project, “Don’t Cash Crop My Cornrows” admonishing Kylie Jenner for cultural appropriation. The video went viral and launched Stenberg as a “voice of a generation.” Most recently the actress joined with Artists4CeseFire to encourage President Joe Biden to call for a Ceasefire of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
We’ve seen firsthand how certain subsects of the Star Wars “fans” have reacted to people of color in the past. John Boyega, Moses Ingram, and Kelly Marie Tran were all subjected to online abuse after their appearances in the galaxy far, far away. Hopefully, Stenberg’s staunch activism and history with ridiculous haters will help her cope in the coming month.