When Star Wars fans aren’t busy arguing about the possible parentage of Rey, they turn their attention to other questions. Like exactly who is this Supreme Leader Snoke guy? Snoke is one of the more curious characters of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with a history as shrouded in mystery as anybody. There have been numerous theories about who Snoke actually is, however, one of those theories has been taken down by a reliable source. Supreme Leader Snoke is not Darth Plagueis, Lucasfilm says so.
There are a collection of fairly entertaining, if not particularly likely, fan theories regarding Supreme Leader Snoke. Maybe he’s the Emperor, or Darth Vader, or Grand Moff Tarkin. Seriously, all of those are actual theories that we’ve covered here. One of the more interesting theories, however, is that Snoke is actually Darth Plagueis, the Dark Lord of the Sith who Palpatine speaks to Anakin about in Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith. It was said that he could prevent people from dying, so maybe he was able to keep himself alive. There’s even been some comparison of the music used in the two films, and it certainly has some similarities. As theories go, it’s not bad. However, Pablo Hidalgo who is the Creative Executive of the Lucasfilm Story Group has been engaging with some fans on Twitter and he’s very clear that this is not the case.
The Apprentice of Darth Plagueis was Darth Sidious, the Emperor himself. After learning everything that Plagueis had to teach him, he killed his master... because that’s how things work in the world of the Sith. It looks that any possibility that Plagueis is still alive was just dashed. This is Lucasfilm, and they’d know, wouldn’t they? It’s not all that surprising, to be honest. The Darth Sidious story was a brief aside during a film that many moviegoers don’t remember. The likelihood that they would use this as a key plot point is low. Overall, Star Wars: The Force Awakens ignored the prequels entirely. Only a brief cameo by Ewan McGregor’s voice keeps them from being completely forgotten.
Still, this could be some intentional misdirection, right? Maybe Darth Sidious only thinks he killed Darth Plagueis. There’s got to be some wiggle room here.
Ok, so it looks like the Darth Plagueis theory is dead in the water. So where do we throw our support now? Did Darth Sidious actually survive the Death Star explosion? C’mon guys, we can’t have no theory at all. Who do you think Supreme Leader Snoke really is? Do you think we’ll get an answer in Star Wars: Episode VIII?
