This star Wars fandom is a tense, passionate place. These days, online communities around franchises often consist of numerous splinter groups, and star Wars is no exception — it has far-right reactionaries, original trilogy boomers, prequel-loving millennials, animated series fans from Gen Z, and, of course, Reylos. It’s that last group — fans who connect with the sequel trilogy’s characters of Kylo Ren and Rey Skywalker, who are often women or queer — who feel left out by others star Wars fans in years since 2019 The Rise of Skywalkerand only now do they feel justified thanks to THe is an acolyte.
Sparks were definitely flying between Kylo and Rey The Last Jedionly to be briefly ignored and then smothered in an almost universally panned sequel, leaving Reylos convinced there was no love lost in this film star Wars universe and no love for them. But then came Acolytethe newest Disney+ star Wars series and season finale, and with it, an excuse for Reylos.
Former Jedi Padawan Osha (Amandla Stenberg) and obscure side practitioner Qimir (Manny Jacinto) end up together, holding hands and staring at the horizon. Romance (specifically, the kind of enemies-to-lovers romance that fanfiction writers love) is back on the cantina menu, so I spoke to a few self-proclaimed Reylos via email to find out how Acolyte addresses them directly.
The Rise and Fall of Reylos
For many Reylos, the sequel trilogy’s failure to focus on the budding romance between Kylo and Rey was indicative of the series’ reluctance to address the more feminine side of the fandom. While the prequels centered on the love between Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala, the conclusion of the sequel trilogy eschewed a full-blown romance, choosing instead to focus on Rey’s recently revealed relationship with Emperor Palpatine, despite learning that Kylo and Rey are a “dyad,” a duo who share a similar Force spark. The two kiss at the end TROSthen Kylo dies.
“Reylo suffered the most from a lack of cohesion of ideas across the three films,” content creator Sawyer Markham wrote, referring to the fact that the first and last films were written by JJ Abrams and the middle one by Rian Johnson, which many felt led to some bizarre tonal shifts throughout the trilogy. And when Reylo took to the internet to bemoan what they saw as a wasted on-screen romance, they were met with widespread backlash. It’s critical to note that, like all corners of star Wars fandom, there was a sect called the Reylos that were pretty viciously racist, swapping Kylo for John Boyega’s Finn in fan art and fanfics. But most of the backlash against Reylo seemed to be rooted more in old-school misogyny than anything else.
“I think any online fandom or subset of a fandom that is largely made up of people who are not cishet white males is inevitably treated badly. Reylos loved and connected with The Last Jedi in particular, while another small but very vocal part of the fandom did not,” writer and director Laurie Kirwan-Ashman told me in an email. “It coincided with star Wars a fandom that was infiltrated by the far-right in the wake of Comicsgate, which then morphed into a YouTube money-making culture war and spawned its own toxic cult.”
In the years since The Last Jedi AND The Rise of SkywalkerDisney star Wars stories mostly avoided romance, but when Headland took over Acolyteshe made it clear that she had no intention of avoiding longing glances and gentle gestures.
Enemies became lovers, this time for real
The series not only unabashedly leaned towards Manny Jacinto’s Sex Appealgiving us what could be a first star Wars a character who is canonically naked on screen but subverts the series’ typical patterns — Osha, raised by a Jedi, turns to the obscure side, drawn there by her connection to Qimir. It’s the kind of romance the Reylos have dreamed of for years. “I read an interview Leslye Headland did where she talked about how previous characters had talked about being seduced by the dark side and how we’d never seen that on screen before, so she decided to give it to us — and she did!” writer Sariah Wilson said in an email.
“I still have to pinch myself to see if I’m really seeing it star Wars “To show a young woman who leaves the institutional, ‘We have all the answers’ club for something more nuanced and complex, and is celebrated in the narrative for that, and gets to hold the hand of a guy she’s been in a relationship with and watch the sunset?” Carrie, an early childhood professional, wondered.
And it’s not just the broad outlines of the corrupt courtship, but the way in which that courtship is presented, with a kind of delicate, sensual femininity that we almost never see in star Wars“It’s so clever, so purposeful, so heatedthat’s all star Wars this could have happened over the last seven years if the (over)reaction (of a vocal minority of fans supporting the decision, joined by right-wing crooks) to The Last Jedi “It didn’t scare my superiors that much,” comic book creator Para Caspari said.
IN Acolyte episode 6Qimir Jacinto offers a not-so-subtle thesis for the romance novel Oshamir: “Beneath the surface of consciousness lie powerful emotions—anger, fear, loss…lust.” Qimir seduces Osha, showing her that the Jedi way is draconian and harsh, and while she initially resists him, when she realizes the mistakes the Jedi have made and how they led to her mother’s death, she sees that there is much more nuance than they would have her believe. And so she chooses Qimir and the Dark Side.
“On the surface, they’re obviously incredibly beautiful people, but like Reylo, what really got me interested was the dynamic: the push/pull, the way they surprise and challenge each other, the roles they play, and what they offer each other in terms of character development,” Kirwan-Ashman explained. “There were a lot of really fun sexual undertones there. TLJ…but it’s such a joy to have it explored so clearly in Acolyteand that the show is so clearly interested in how seduction and desire fit into larger themes.”
Justified, I swear I knew it from the start
It is not clear whether Acolyte will receive a second season, largely due to the enormous costs incurred by Disney in its production (Forbes I estimate it around $180 million per season) and initial ratings suggesting it performed poorly compared to other star Wars shows (same as Andor(by the way.) But now the Reylos are riding a wave after the recent finale — dare I say they feel vindicated — largely because Headland has been so open about her vision for the series and how the Osha-Qimir dynamic is at the core of it.
“That’s why I think that Acolyte “it hits a nerve with a lot of Reylo fans: here’s a complex young woman who struggles with her darkness in a very real way on screen, who can no longer sustain cognitive dissonance, and who learns that anger, fear, and even desire are completely okay and normal emotions to feel and use in life,” Carrie emphasized.
Caspari goes a step further, saying: Acolyte “it’s not just an excuse, but it specifically feels like a response to Sequels in the vein of my aforementioned criticism. It’s like Headland saying, ‘this sucks, here’s how I’d do it.'” He continued, “Of course, if you’re Reylo, you finally feel free after a decade of being gaslighted… after being told by both naysayers and diehard fans that we’re weird, reading too much into it, projecting our own immoral fantasies, etc. that means a lot.”
Oshamir is also bittersweet for many Reylo who would like to see this kind of romance on the substantial screen. “On one hand, it’s a victory because it feels like we’re finally allowing women to be messy and complex in their characterizations,” Carrie noted. “But on the other hand, there’s definitely a little bitterness because if Osha and Qimir holding hands and staring into the sunset together was okay, why couldn’t we have something like that in TROS?”
“It also feels fulfilling because it’s a show that includes and represents people who have been historically marginalized, both in terms of on-screen representation, star Wars and beyond,” Kirwan-Ashman said. “Acolyte is created by a lesbian, and all the main characters are played by women, non-binary people, queer people, and people of color.”
And while that may have been the reason why bad actors criticized and reacted to the book star Wars YouTubers to announce Acolyte dead in the water, the Reylos have a completely different perspective. As Kirwin-Ashman noted, “it really feels like it’s welcoming a new generation of fans, as well as those who loved star Wars for a long time, but in the past I often felt like star Wars “he did not reciprocate their love.”
