Star Wars: Who is Supreme Leader Snoke?

In the two years since audiences first saw Supreme Leader Snoke on the big screen in The Force Awakens, audiences have been desperate to discover any piece of information about the character that they can. With The Last Jedi now in theaters, we have many more answers, but they’re far from what we had expected.

***WARNING: Major spoilers below for The Last Jedi***

Audiences saw that Snoke commanded not just the First Order in The Force Awakens, but that he also manipulated Kylo Ren, forcing him to carry out any mission he so desired.

In The Last Jedi, Snoke revealed that all those years of barking orders at Kylo and undermining him would ultimately be his undoing, with all of the taunting and abuse causing Kylo Ren to kill his former master.

Throughout the course of the new film, audiences don’t learn much about Snoke, nor does the villain get much screen time. We see him early on in the film using his Force abilities on Hux, much like we saw Vader use his Force powers to choke members of the Empire.

Later in the film, when Kylo brings Rey as his prisoner to the Supreme Leader, Snoke continues to use his Force abilities on her, much like what we saw demonstrated by the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.

Many theories have swirled around the internet about who Snoke’s true identity could was, ranging from the Emperor himself to Mace Windu to the very first Jedi. Potentially, all of these theories are just as valid as any other, but given the sudden decimation of the Supreme Leader, his true identity is ultimately irrelevant to his story, as he most likely won’t be featured in future films.

Of course, in the world of Star Wars, it’s hard to say a character can be completely dead, as we’ve seen many characters make surprising returns. In The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul was cut in half and fell down a chasm, but that didn’t stop him from developing mechanical legs and reappearing in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels.

Interestingly, Snoke died in a manner similar to Maul, so there’s a minute chance he could survive, but with the last shot of him in this film being his bisected body laying with its eyes open, we don’t see a bacta tank anywhere in his future.

As many members of the cast and crew have tried to warn us, Snoke’s true identity is irrelevant to the events of The Last Jedi and, seemingly, will remain irrelevant for Episode IX. However, given the variety of different comics and novels exploring different characters in the universe, there’s always a possibility Snoke will get a storyline that chronicles his journey to becoming the Supreme Leader.

The Last Jedi is in theaters now.