The Acolyte Just Casually Dropped a Huge Lore Twist We Didn’t See Coming

Star Wars: The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland has confirmed a fact about the show that would have become apparent had it not been cancelled.

Originally airing in summer 2024, The Acolyte was a show that explored the earlier parts of the Star Wars timeline, being set around a century before the original trilogy.

Being set at the earliest point in the Star Wars timeline that we’ve seen on-screen so far certainly raises a lot of questions with regards to lore and storytelling, and the fact the show never got any subsequent seasons only makes that worse.

As revealed in the book The Art of the Acolyte, which is releasing next week, showrunner Leslye Headland speaks a bit more about the concept behind Qimir, stating that he was originally going to be the first Knight of Ren.

“It was in the design of the character, as well as knowing that we were going to introduce Darth Plagueis, who has to end up with Palpatine as his apprentice,” Headland reveals.

“Following the Rule of Two – a precept that limited the Sith to just two at any given time, a master and an apprentice – one way to keep it going is if the Stranger is the first knight of Ren, part of a Sith-adjacent culture that we know eventually survives.”

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Star Wars: The Acolyte Had Big Plans For Qimir That Were Never Realised

Naturally, some Star Wars fans had opinions on this, with much criticism directed at the Sith’s “Rule of Two”–-with many commenting that the concept is limiting as a storytelling technique.

“We all need to collectively forget the ‘rule of 2’,” writes one fan on X (formerly Twitter). “It is straight up more limiting than it is cool. Canon should expand the world, not limit it and force massive creative decisions based on a single line of dialogue from a movie 25 yrs old.”

“There was a good series in this thing just waiting to break out,” reads another comment. “Some editing might have fixed the huge plot holes and given us some characters who weren't complete cyphers.”

The Art of the Acolyte is out on 3 February, 2026. It was originally scheduled for release on 7 October, 2025 but was then pushed back to 13 January, 2026, and then again to its current February release date.