‘Star War: The Last Jedi’: It’s Possible SPOILER Isn’t Really Dead

The latest film in the Star Wars saga was loaded with shocking moments, but there’s one particular death that has driven many fans into debate.

Despite being shrouded in mystery, one character in Star Wars: The Last Jedi departed the series without revealing any answers about his enigmatic history, but new material from Lucasfilm is starting to raise questions about their so called demise.

Warning: Spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi below.

At the end of the second act in the new Star Wars movie, Supreme Leader Snoke has captured Rey and orders his apprentice Kylo Ren to strike her down with his lightsaber. Instead, Kylo kills Snoke, cutting him in half with Rey’s lightsaber.

And while dead does mostly mean dead in the Star Wars galaxy, there’s still a small sliver of possibility that Snoke is still alive.

In the Star Wars: The Last Jedi – The Visual Dictionary by Pablo Hidalgo, the entry for Snoke is littered with teases and hints of the character’s history and power set. The text confirms the absence of Sith in the universe, though that doesn’t mean there is balance in the Force.

“Snoke is powerful in the dark side of the Force, but he is no Sith. That thousand-year lineage stretching from Darth Bane to the last Sith Lord, Darth Vader, was undone when Vader died destroying his mentor, Darth Sidious. The fulfillment of an ancient prophecy foretold the end of the Sith, but it never predicted the end of darkness.”

The text doesn’t explicitly tease Snoke’s survival after being killed by Kylo — in fact, it more so hints at Snoke’s rise to prominence after the Empire’s fall. But the former Supreme Leader’s survival has also been foreshadowed in the Star Wars animated series, where Darth Maul was alive and not-so well.

After being cut in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Phantom Menace, fans assumed Maul was dead until he was shown with mechanical spider-like legs in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The character went on to be a major antagonist in that series and in Star Wars Rebels, only recently meeting his end at the hands of his rival Kenobi.

If Maul can survive the lightsaber blow AND the fall, who’s to say Snoke isn’t capable of doing the same?

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is now playing in theaters everywhere.