The Star Wars fandom is a fraught, fervent place. Within the trendy age, on-line communities rallying round franchises are sometimes composed of quite a few splinter teams, and Star Wars is not any exception—it’s acquired far-right reactionaries, authentic trilogy boomers, millennial prequel loyalists, Gen Z animated collection lovers, and, after all, Reylos. It’s that final group—followers who ship characters Kylo Ren and Rey Skywalker of the sequel trilogy, and who are sometimes ladies or queer people—which have felt ostracized by different Star Wars followers within the years since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, and are simply now feeling justified because of The Acolyte.
Sparks undeniably flew between Kylo and Rey in The Final Jedi, solely to be briefly fanned after which snuffed out within the virtually universally panned sequel, leaving Reylos satisfied there was no love left within the Star Wars universe, and no love for them, both. However then got here The Acolyte, the newest Disney+ Star Wars collection, and its season finale—and with it, vindication for Reylos.
Former Jedi Padawan Osha (Amandla Stenberg) and darkish facet practitioner Qimir (Manny Jacinto) find yourself collectively, holding fingers, staring out on the horizon. Romance (and particularly the type of enemies-to-lovers romance that fanfic writers love) is again on the cantina menu, so I spoke to a number of self-proclaimed Reylos by way of electronic mail to learn the way The Acolyte speaks on to them.
The rise and fall of Reylos
“The 2 holding fingers trying off into the sundown, fairly than ending up alone. I feel for lots of Reylos, that’s actually therapeutic,” fantasy creator Alex Kennington tells me by way of electronic mail. “It’s very nice to see [The Acolyte showrunner] Leslye Headland not shying away from the romance in interviews when it appeared like through the sequel trilogy the creators tried to be extra imprecise and that solely fueled the web backlash.”
For a lot of Reylos, the sequel trilogy’s failure to middle the burgeoning romance between Kylo and Rey pointed to a franchise-wide reluctance to cater to the extra female facet of the fandom. Whereas the prequels put Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala’s love at their middle, the conclusion to the sequel trilogy shied away from a full-blown romance, selecting as a substitute to give attention to Rey’s newly revealed connection to Emperor Palpatine, regardless that we realized Kylo and Rey are a “dyad,” a duo that shares the same spark of the Pressure. The 2 share a single kiss close to the top of TRoS, instantly after which Kylo dies.
“[The Rise of Skywalker] was in all probability the one time I’ve seen two characters kiss on display after which seen followers as a substitute of claiming, ‘oh okay…it was meant to be romantic,’ you had folks going, ‘oh it was a platonic kiss.’ The time after TRoS was actually wild,” creator Ria Parisi defined by way of electronic mail. “The unhealthy [part of their relationship] got here from the ultimate execution and unlucky backlash. It’s very disappointing and unhappy to arrange two characters who’re alleged to be one half of one another after which depart one in every of them alone.”
“The place Reylo suffered essentially the most was within the disconnect of concepts throughout the three movies,” content material creator Sawyer Markham wrote, referencing how the primary and final movies have been made by J.J. Abrams whereas the center was completed by Rian Johnson, a choice many really feel led to weird tonal shifts all through the trilogy. And when the Reylos took to the web to lament what they felt was a squandered on-screen romance, they confronted widespread backlash. It’s essential to notice that, like all corners of Star Wars fandom, there was a sect of Reylos who exhibited some pretty virulent racism, swapping Kylo in for John Boyega’s Finn in fan artwork and fan-fic. However a lot of the anti-Reylo backlash felt rooted extra in old-school misogyny than anything.
“I feel any on-line fandom or fandom subsect that’s largely made up of people that aren’t cishet white males is inevitably handled badly. Reylos liked and linked with The Final Jedi particularly, while one other small however very loud a part of the fandom didn’t,” author and director Laurie Kirwan-Ashman advised me by way of electronic mail. “This coincided with the Star Wars fandom being infiltrated by the far-right off the again of Comicsgate, which then was a YouTube tradition wars money-making grift that has created its personal poisonous cult.”
Within the years since The Final Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, Disney’s Star Wars tales have principally prevented romance, however when Headland took the helm for The Acolyte, she made it clear that she wasn’t going to draw back from longing glances and grazing fingers.
Enemies to lovers, for actual this time
In stark distinction to some other official Star Wars media, The Acolyte wears its ship on its sleeve. “We went from Kylo taking off his shirt and folks not getting it was meant to be the arrange for a romantic relationship to this present saying, ‘High-quality you didn’t get it with that? We’ll make [Qimir] absolutely nude’,” stated Kennington. “And seeing the followers come collectively once more in a method I haven’t seen since proper after The Final Jedi, it simply feels wonderful.”
Not solely did the collection unabashedly lean into Manny Jacinto’s intercourse enchantment, giving us what will be the first Star Wars character who’s canonically bare on-screen, but it surely subverted typical collection tropes—Osha, raised by the Jedi, turns to the darkish facet, drawn there by her connection to Qimir. It’s the type of romance plot Reylos have been dreaming of for years. “I learn an interview that Leslye Headland did the place she mentioned how previous characters talked about being seduced by the Darkish Aspect and the way we’d by no means really seen that onscreen so she determined to present it to us—and he or she did!” creator Sariah Wilson stated over electronic mail.
“I nonetheless should type of pinch myself, like, am I actually seeing a Star Wars present the place a younger lady abandons the institutional ‘We Have All The Solutions’ membership in favor of one thing extra nuanced and complicated, and is widely known within the narrative for it, and will get to carry fingers with the man she had a reference to and take a look at the sundown?” Carrie, an early childhood skilled, questioned.
And it’s not simply concerning the broad strokes of a corruption courtship, it’s the way by which that courtship is portrayed, with the type of mushy, sensual femininity that we virtually by no means see in Star Wars. “It’s so slick, it’s so intentional, it’s so sizzling, it’s the whole lot Star Wars might have been for the final seven years if the (overblown) response (from a loud minority of affirmative followers joined by proper wing grifters) to The Final Jedi didn’t spook the higher-ups so badly,” stated comedian artist Para Caspari.
In The Acolyte episode 6, Jacinto’s Qimir gives a not-so-subtle thesis for the “Oshamir” romance: “Beneath the floor of consciousness are highly effective feelings—anger, concern, loss…want.” Qimir seduces Osha, displaying her that the Jedi method is draconian and extreme, and regardless that she resists him at first, as soon as she realizes the errors the Jedi made and the way they resulted within the demise of her mom, she sees that there’s way more nuance than they’d like her to imagine. And so, she chooses Qimir, and the Darkish Aspect.
“On the floor degree, they’re clearly each extremely lovely folks however, as with Reylo, what has actually sparked a lot funding in them is their dynamic: the push/pull pressure, the best way they shock and problem one another, the roles they’re enjoying and what they provide for one another’s character improvement,” defined Kirwan-Ashman. “There was quite a lot of actually enjoyable sexual subtext in TLJ…but it surely’s such a pleasure to have or not it’s so explicitly explored in The Acolyte, and for the present to be so clearly focused on how seduction and want play into the broader themes.”
Vindicated, swear I knew all of it alongside
It’s unclear if The Acolyte will get a second season, due largely to the gargantuan value Disney incurred making it (Forbes estimates it at about $180M for the season) and preliminary scores that counsel it carried out poorly in comparison with different Star Wars reveals (so did Andor, by the best way). However proper now, Reylos are using excessive after the latest finale—dare I say, they’re feeling vindicated—largely as a result of Headland has been so open in discussing her imaginative and prescient for the collection, and the way Osha and Qimir’s dynamic is at its core.
“Leslye [Headland] wasn’t afraid to take dangers in establishing the romantic undertones for these characters, and when requested about it in interviews she confirmed that that was her intent, which is one thing that was markedly lacking from the Reylo period,” defined Markham. Somewhat than squabbling over subtext, Acolyte followers have concrete proof that it is a collection about romance, and about blurring the strains between good and evil—as many identified after the season finale, Jedi Grasp Sol (Lee Jung-jae) maintained a lie for over a decade, insisting that Osha’s sister Mae was the rationale why their whole witch coven perished. Qimir, however, provides Osha all the knowledge she wanted to make an knowledgeable choice, and house to ponder her future. By the top of the finale, she turns to him, hand outstretched, and chooses to coach alongside him. To Reylos, it is a revelation.
“That’s why I feel Acolyte is hitting such a chord with so many Reylo shippers: right here’s a posh younger lady who struggles together with her darkness in a really real-feeling method onscreen, who can’t keep her cognitive dissonance anymore, and who’s studying that anger and concern and sure, want, are all utterly high quality and regular feelings to really feel and to harness in life,” Carrie identified.
Caspari takes it a step additional, saying The Acolyte is “not simply vindication but it surely particularly appears like a response to the Sequels alongside the strains of my aforementioned criticisms. It appears like Headland saying, ‘that sucked, right here’s how I’d have completed it’.” She continued, “In fact, for those who’re a Reylo it feels such as you’re lastly free after being gaslit for a decade…of being advised by each antis and affirmative followers alike that we have been being bizarre, studying an excessive amount of into it, projecting our personal immoral fantasies, and many others. it means quite a bit.”
Oshamir can also be bittersweet for a lot of Reylos, who want they might have seen this type of romance play out on the large display. “In a technique it’s a win as a result of it appears like we’re lastly permitting for girls to be messy and complicated of their characterization,” identified Carrie. “However however there’s positively some bitterness as a result of if Osha and Qimir holding fingers and staring off into the sundown collectively was high quality, why couldn’t we’ve had something like that in TROS?”
“It additionally feels vindicating within the sense of being a present that features and represents individuals who have been traditionally marginalized, each by way of on-screen depiction in Star Wars and past,” stated Kirwin-Ashman. “The Acolyte is created by a lesbian and all the principle characters are performed by ladies, non-binary, queer folks and folks of colour.”
And although which may be what precipitated unhealthy actors to review-bomb it and reactionary Star Wars YouTubers to declare The Acolyte lifeless within the water, Reylos have a really completely different outlook. As Kirwin-Ashman identified, “it actually feels prefer it’s welcoming a brand new era of the fandom in addition to those that have liked Star Wars for a very long time however have typically felt up to now like Star Wars didn’t love them again.”