The leader of the First Order and Kylo Ren's master is one of Star Wars: The Force Awakens' biggest mysteries. Where did Supreme Leader Snoke he come from? Who (or what) is he? And what role will he play in future Star Wars films?
We know almost nothing about the character outside his brief appearance in The Force Awakens, but that hasn't stopped fans from putting together some convincing theories as to the character's origins and identity.
We did our own analysis at some of the possibilities last week, and thanks to reader comments and some more digging, a fairly compelling argument can be made that Snoke isn't actually a new character at all, but rather the new form of a villain already established in Star Wars canon. Read on for more.
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There is only one Sith named in the entirety of the Star Wars film saga that never actually appeared on screen: Darth Plagueis. You can hear his name mentioned briefly in Revenge of the Sith, as Palpatine tells Anakin about the power of the dark side. He tells the young Jedi the story of Darth Plagueis "the wise" a Sith so powerful that he could control death itself, having discovered the secret of immortality through using the dark side of the force. It's heavily implied that Palpatine was Plagueis apprentice, eventually murdering his master in his sleep before putting into motion his grand scheme of overthrowing the Republic.
As we've detailed before, Supreme Leader Snoke is in all likelihood an ancient Sith, possibly a resurrected Darth Plageuis himself. New evidence only makes the idea even more convincing. Via our own readers and the folks at Heroic Hollywood, if you listened closely to the music that played during Snoke's scenes in The Force Awakens you may have heard something eerily familiar.
That's because the track "Snoke" from the official The Force Awakens soundtrack sounds almost identical to the track "Palpatine's Teachings" from the Revenge of the Sith soundtrack, the same track that plays as Palpatine tells Anakin about Darth Plageuis.
Coincidence? There's more. As revealed in The Force Awakens novelization, Snoke has had apprentices before Kylo Ren, and was alive working behind the scenes during the events of the original trilogy. It's also stated that Snoke knew Darth Vader was Luke's father, and he seems particularly interested in the Skywalker bloodline.
For the character to have an interest in the Skywalker family makes perfect sense if we consider Plageuis' backstory (albeit his now non-canon one). In the expanded universe novel Darth Plageuis, it's stated by Palpatine that he believes Anakin was actually created by Plageuis himself during one of the Sith lord's experiments. This, the story goes, is why Anakin has no biological father and is unusually strong in the force.
From these new pieces of information, we can speculate that Snoke, a.k.a. Plageuis, survived, and over the course of the original trilogy recovered in strength, watching from the sidelines as his apprentice conquered the galaxy. All the while he waited for the perfect moment to strike. This is where Kylo Ren, also known as Ben Solo, and the son of Han and Leia, enters the picture. Ben was one of Luke's new Jedi pupils. Snoke knew Luke, having redeemed his father and resisted Palpatine's influence, couldn't be turned to the dark side. But the young and vulnerable Ben? That was another story entirely. Snoke used Ben to destroy Luke's new Jedi order before it had even begun, ensuring the First Order could rise to power out of sight from the New Republic.
One major question still remaining is why would the character change his name? Why not simply remain Darth Plageuis? After all, few people in the galaxy would have heard the name before. There are a number of possibilities. After bringing himself back to life with the force after his murder at the hands of his apprentice, Plageuis may have wished to stay low, taking on a brand new identity as he slowly but surely recovered. The other, more obvious, explanation is that director J.J. Abrams simply didn't want to spill the beans about the Sith lord's identity in the first film of the new trilogy, much as he's done with Rey.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Andy Serkis (who plays the CGI Snoke in the film) says the character is "strangely vulnerable."
"Supreme Leader Snoke is quite an enigmatic character, and strangely vulnerable at the same time as being quite powerful," Serkis says. "Obviously he has a huge agenda. He has suffered a lot of damage. As I said, there is a strange vulnerability to him, which belies his true agenda, I suppose."
One obvious reason for the character being vulnerable and having "suffered a lot of damage" is that the character might have died once already, only to return to life. This would also explain his malformed appearance. Though Serkis goes on to call Snoke a brand new character, he does offer up the following tidbit of information.
"He's aware of what's gone on, in the respect that he has been around and is aware of prior events. I think it'd be fair to say that he is aware of the past to a great degree."
He is aware of the past to a great degree. That certainly sounds like Darth Plageuis. Who better to understand the birth of the Empire and the following events than the character who helped plot the Republic's fall, only to be murdered by his ambitious pupil?
Numerous fans have pointed out that Snoke can't be Darth Plageuis, simply because Plageuis is a Muun, an alien race that have a distinct visual appearance that doesn't match that of Snoke. This potential hole in the "Snoke is Plageuis" theory isn't as large as it sounds. If Snoke is a resurrected Plageuis, he would look far different from what he looked like in his first life. The other, more obvious, way to discount this incosistency is that it isn't actually an inconsistency at all. Since so much of Darth Plageuis' backstory is no longer canon, the character no longer has to be a Muun. Since we don't ever see Plageuis in the other films and no point of his race is made, the creators of this new era of Star Wars are free to create any look for the character they wish.
The character's origins, his ties to the Skywalker family and Emperor Palpatine, it all makes perfect sense that Snoke is none other than Darth Plageuis. This new evidence certainly seems to seal the deal. At this point, we would be more surprised if Supreme Leader Snoke wasn't Darth Plageuis resurrected, but we suppose we'll have to wait until 2017 to find out for certain.
