Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Episodes 1 & 2 of The Acolyte.
The first episodes ofThe Acolyteare finally here, and, with them, a whole new bunch of awesome Star Wars characters for us to get to know. This includesthe internet’s current favorite, Jedi Knight Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett), who questions Osha Aniseya (Amandla Stenberg) about the murder of Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) and later joins Master Sol’s (Lee Jung-jae) team to investigate the whole affair. What made people fall in love with Yord, however, isn’t his good looks, but his general behavior, whichstands out from what we’re used to seeing in Jedi. So let’s see what the Yord Horde are all about.
The Acolyte
The Acolyte is a mystery-thriller that will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era. A former Padawan reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes, but the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated.
InEpisode 1, we first meet Yord with his Padawan Tasi Lowa (Thara Schöön) when they board the Trade Federation starshiplooking for Osha. When the Neimoidian captain fails to tell Yord where Osha is, he stretches his hand to read the captain’s mind, his face practically screaming “I don’t have time for this.” Then, in Osha’s quarters, he talks to her with a forced formality, even though they had been friends for years.Yord’s first impression isn’t the bestand even gives us thewrongimpression of him, but he redeems himself throughout the episode by simply being himself.
Master Sol tells his Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) that they are going to need backup, and she immediately makes a face when she learns it’s Yord. “He’s… Yord,” she says. When they enter their ship, they catch Yord off his guard while steaming his Jedi robes - shirtless. We have never seen any Jedi doing this, but it’s the first glimpse into who he really is:someone who tries hard to look good. The whole mission, he is opposed to letting Osha free or join the investigation. He is always speaking with a matter-of-fact tone, is the first to draw his lightsaber, and devises plans that are too complex to obtain simple results. Even the steaming of his robes symbolizes how he is always trying to look his best, even though he has just arrived from a field mission and is about to embark on another one.
All this makes Yord come across as a bit of a jerk, and he does seem to have this side to him at times. When Master Sol opts to follow Jecki’s plan instead of Yord’s to capture Qimir (Manny Jacinto) in Olega, Yord’s reaction is priceless, like he can’t believe someone chose a Padawan’s idea over his. It happens, butpeople who take themselves too seriously usually have a harder time dealing with disagreement. This is related to feelings of pride, and those are usually associated with the Dark Side of the Force, but it can hardly be said that Yord is in any danger of falling. He may be annoying, but his shirtless scene shows that he is also kind of a dork, and Jecki’s reaction implies he even has a slight reputation for both. He’s more like an eccentric co-worker who wants to show off to his boss.
Yord Isn’t the Only Jedi in ‘The Acolyte’ Who Takes Himself Too Seriously
“For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic.” That’s the very first description we ever get about the Jedi, from Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) inStar Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. Guarding peace and justice is one heck of a job, andwould definitely inflate the ego of anyone who takes such a title. As if that weren’t enough, it also comes with abilities that could very well be considered supernatural, placing the Jedi a step above the average citizen in the galaxy.
Yord isn’t the first time we have seen someone think too much of themselves in the Jedi Orderof old. InStar Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) himself slips not once, but twice: he clearly thinksJar-Jar Binks(Ahmed Best) is beneath them, and, later, makes that clear by telling Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) in Tatooine that he senses they “have picked up another pathetic life form” when talking about young Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd). Qui-Gon also has his share of contempt for Jar-Jar, by the way, despite being a student ofthe Living Force. Not to mentionMace Windu(Samuel L. Jackson), owner of the greatest ego to ever grace the Jedi Order, and his constant disdain for Anakin all throughout the Prequel Trilogy.
So this isn’t exclusive to Yord at all, but rather something common in the Jedi Order at that period. Even though there isliterally a centurybetweenThe AcolyteandThe Phantom Menace, they are both set within a sort of transition period between the end ofthe High Republicand the Clone Wars. In the meantime, the Jedi were indeed the ones keeping peace and justice in the galaxy, and had just defeated their greatest threat in living memory in the Nihil crisis.This status can get to someone’s head, and Jedi are regular beings who are definitely prone to this.
Yord’s Behavior in ‘The Acolyte’ Humanizes the Jedi in a New Way
The Jedi are definitely the most complex organization inStar Wars. In the Original Trilogy, they come across as righteous and wise, while the Prequels have shown thatthey played just as big a partin the rise of the Galactic Empire as the Sith. One of the things that makesStar Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jediso controversial is exactly how Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) embraces the Jedi Order’s troubled past and how, in the end, he understands that it’s not the Jedi’s fault. This is because, even though people talk about “the Jedi” as one homogeneous thing,the Order itself is still made of beings who are not perfectand have faults just like anyone else in the galaxy.
This idea of the Jedi having to be perfect comes mostly from the movies, where storylines are much bigger and more urgent than inThe Acolyte, and demand swift and decisive action for everything to move forward. The Jedi in the movies do have to shoulder a lot more weight,which is why they will also inevitably come across asmore serious and stern— and sometimes dull, too.The Acolytetakes the Jedi in a completely different direction. It may be that the plot evolves into a huge threat to the galaxy, but that’s unlikely, otherwise, we would have heard about it in the movies. So we’re seeing the Order and its members from a much lower perspective, the everyday Jedi who have to deal with mundane things and have normal aspirations.
Jedi have a responsibility to set an example, solve conflict, guard peace and justice, and whatnot, but not to be perfect. In that sense, Yord is nothing out of the ordinary, since there are countless people like him everywhere in both our own world and the galaxy far, far away. He has his faults and wants to show up to his superiors, but who doesn’t? He hassupernatural abilitiesthat allow him to deal with certain issues more quickly, so why not?His behavior humanizes the Jedi in a way that the movies just can’twithout him necessarily seeming like a bad person. It’s a refreshing take on the Jedi, because no one is perfect. Maybe if Yord didn’t try so hard, he could be — at least according to the Yord Horde, probably.
The first two episodes ofThe Acolyteare available on Disney+. New episodes air weekly on Wednesdays.
