As the weeks pass by and The Force Awakens slowly drifts into the rear view mirror, it’s time to look into the many mysteries surrounding the film.
This post will investigate the unexplained and unknown circumstances regarding the leader of The First Order, Supreme Leader Snoke.
For starters, there’s not much on him.
He is a powerful leader who is the Master of Kylo Ren, formally known as Ben Solo.
The little more I can tell you about this figure is strictly taken from the movie and the novel.
Besides those depictions of this figure, he virtually does not exist.
We know he observed the rise and fall of The Galactic Empire.
We also know that Snoke had several apprentices before he zoned in on the Skywalker family.
As for his species or his origins, they are unknown.
Now for my opinion.
The character of Supreme Leader Snoke is unequivocally brilliant.
But with the tinge of unknown that he represents, this creature brings a whole new element of fascination and intrigue.
It’s time for me to address what many many people have been wondering…
Is Supreme Leader Snoke the former Master and thought dead Darth Plagueis?
Well, I don’t know.
But I will consider the facts.
There is very little to base anything off of.
All theories regarding Plaugeis is a shot in the dark.
In April 2014, Disney announced that all material besides the movies and The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels television series is no longer canon…
Future novels after that date will also be considered canon.
Now I just want to say I am highly disappointed with this move by Disney and I’m still very unhappy with it to this day…
But that’s another story for another time.
What this does however is it makes it impossible to understand if Snoke is Plagueis or not.
Now I should clarify something.
Disney reserved the right to pick and choose certain pieces from material before April 2014 to be canon.
It’s just the general idea that unless told otherwise, it is not canon.
Understand this, we have a bit of a loophole around this however.
Since all the movies are canon then we are certain that Darth Plagueis was indeed killed by Sidious….
Or so we think.
Within James Luceno’s novelization of Darth Plagueis, he goes about telling the life story of the master of Darth Sidious.
Now at the time of this novel’s completion (2012) it was consistent with Episode III.
What that means is this book, the ONLY book describing the mysterious Darth Plagueis could in fact be true and thus canon.
I believe this for two reasons.
- There is so little information on Plagueis that it doesn’t make sense for them to just completely scrap the only written material about him.
- Since the Episode III is along the same lines as the Plagueis’ novel, his details should remain the same. At least the important ones such as his death, his abilities, his characteristics etc.
For this post, I’m going to act as if the novel “Darth Plagueis” IS complete canon.
Because I think it is and should be.
So I’ll ask this again.
Is Supreme Leader Snoke Darth Plagueis?
Why Snoke is and isn’t Plagueis
Darth Plagueis was one of the most powerful wielders of the Dark Side the Galaxy has ever seen.
His talents and focus were surrounding his never ending pursuit of eternal life.
Within the novel of “Darth Plagueis”, he is shown to have an ability to influence the midi-chlorians to preserve life.
What if Sidious did kill Plagueis…or so he thought.
Wouldn’t it be plausible for Plagueis to somehow be able to save himself due to his incredible and unique force powers?
Absolutely.
Here’s the problem.
Someone as powerful as Darth Sidious would have definitely discovered this.
There’s no way he would not have known, felt, seen or whatever you want to say regarding his Master.
But here’s another idea.
What if somehow someway, Plagueis was awoken when Sidious was killed?
Now don’t ask me how but I think there is some truth to this.
If you look at Snoke, he looks as if he is an animated corpse.
Well what if he is?
It would fit the storyline.
Something else that is fairly significant to Snoke being Plagueis is the massive facial scarring on the right side of his face.
Within the Darth Plagueis novel, he survives an assassination attempt.
He however does sustain severe injuries, one of these injuries being a slit throat.
Supreme Leader Snoke’s facial structure is absolutely consistent with this depiction…
What’s more, Darth Plagueis was widely known to be seen only through holovids as opposed to being present in person near the end of his life.
Notice how in The Force Awakens Snoke is strictly a hologram…another similarity.
Finally, the last similarity between these two iconic figures is Star Wars history.
It is two likely and similar between Snoke and Plagueis that they are somehow not the same person.
Also, where did this sudden leader of the Dark Side, the remnants of the Empire and controller of the Skywalker line come from?
Way too alike for it not to be him…
So why is Snoke not Plagueis?
One of the main reasons is the picture below.
The figure on the right was the InterGalactic Banking Clan’s Chairman, San Hill.
He was in charge of the IGBC’s finances throughout The Clone Wars.
The significance of this picture being that San Hill is of the Muun species, the same as Darth Plagueis.
If Snoke was indeed Plagueis, he would look more consistent to Hill.
Now there could be a bit of deception here however.
For starters, this picture of Snoke is a bit lifelike.
It might be too hard to compare this particular picture with another Muun but for argument purposes it is clear that these two are not of the same species.
Now the picture taken directly from TFA earlier in the post of Snoke looks a lot more similar to San Hill but it is still far from certain.
Nonetheless, unless JJ Abrams decided to reinvent the Muun race’s appearance, Snoke is not Plagueis.
Conclusion
To be honest, I really don’t know what I think.
But I will say this.
I think Snoke will end up being Darth Plagueis just for the fact that he’s far too alike with Plagueis for him not to be.
Other than that, I really can’t say if he is him or not.
I guess this will be determined later, much later.
-Sith Pacify out