In 1999’s The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn meets a young Anakin and senses great potential in him. But others are sceptical; sensing darkness. This new theory claims that Qui-Gon saw the darkness too – he just had a different plan for how it would all plan out, if he had not died at the end of that first film.
In a post that has been 96% Upvoted on Reddit, Star Wars fan GuhRilLiluh wrote: “Qui-Gon learned the truth about the Dark Side that Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, and even Yoda never realized.
“To be clear, Qui-Gon Jinn is still responsible for taking the risk of recruiting and training Anakin Skywalker, setting him on his path to becoming Darth Vader.
“But in a new one-shot comic book revealing Qui-Gon’s crisis of faith long before Episode 1, the Jedi Master’s doubts and true intentions are finally explained.
“Qui-Gon didn’t fail to notice the Dark Side boiling up inside of Anakin Skywalker: he believed that darkness was exactly what was needed to bring balance to The Force. Showing once and for all that Anakin could have brought peace to the galaxy… if Qui-Gon Jinn had trained him.”
They add: “The Force explained by the Jedi, you’ve heard it already: light side good, dark side evil and terrible. But for all their talk of “balance” the Jedi Order of the Star Wars movies had grown rigid in their prejudice.
“And in the pages of Star Wars: Age of Republic: Qui-Gon Jinn, the Jedi’s crisis of faith long before The Phantom Menace is finally shown. Not to overstate it, but Qui-Gon seems to realize what no other member of the Jedi Council is noticing: that they have lost their vision.
“And to get his back, he leaps blindly into hyperspace with only The Force to guide him, and accepts the lesson it has to teach him.
“On an alien world teaming with both life and deadly, ‘dark’ growth, Qui-Gon communes with The Force. Sensing both the life-giving Force and the darkness to balance it, he awakens from his vision to see that the darkness has been driven back. Light triumphed over it, returning true ‘balance, but through a means beyond conflict.’
“The lesson sticks, and Qui-Gon returns to the Order keeping this knowledge to himself.
“The Jedi believe the Dark Side to be resisted by any means necessary… but only in the face of darkness can light restore the balance. A principle that clearly occupies Qui-Gon’s mind when discovering a small slave boy on a planet called Tatooine.”
This, of course, means big things for Phantom Menace.
“[When] Qui-Gon confirms that he believes Anakin Skywalker is the One prophesied to “bring balance to The Force,” he and the Jedi Council are imagining two different victories,” the Redditor went on.
“For the Council, it means The Force has produced a champion to vanquish the darkness, leaving only the light.
“While Qui-Gon’s encounter with The Force has shown ‘balance’ to be the acceptance of darkness, so that light might overcome it. The Council senses the potential for the Dark Side in Anakin, and views it as a threat.
“Qui-Gon would have sensed the same, but understand Anakin’s potential for darkness was the entire point of The Force’s lesson (and by extension, the prophecy).
“If Qui-Gon had lived to train Anakin himself, that lesson would almost certainly have proven true. Because by that point, even Qui-Gon had come to realize what Anakin eventually would: that the Jedi had lost their way.”
The theory has scored with thousands of readers on Reddit, ahead of a rumoured return for Anakin in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Read it in full, along with the fan responses, here.
