Ever since episode 3, “Destiney” of Star Wars the Acolyte aired, fans have debated the series’s insinuations and suggestions about previous Force concepts of the Force Dyad and the Chosen One.
In the episode, it is revealed that Mother Aniseya used her mastery of the Force to create her and Mother Koril’s twin daughters, Mae and Osha (formally named Mae-Ho and Verosha).
The twin girls have no father, and there is no reason to disbelieve Aniseya’s words to Sol. Mother Koril carried them, and the children visibly resemble their creator, Mother Aniseya.
Of course, some fans were outraged at this, believing that this makes Anakin Skywalker, a child also with no canonical father, no longer unique as the Chosen One. I disagree with this: the main idea of the Prophecy of the Chosen One is that he shall bring balance to the Force. That he will have no father, is one sign of him, but not his main reason for existence.
Similarly, Mae and Osha speak of each in a rhyme that is definitely meant to evoke the Force Dyad:
“You’re with me and I’m with you.
Always one, but born as two.
As above sits the stars, And below lies the sea.
I give you, you.
And you give me, me.”
Mae and Osha from Star Wars: The Acolyte “Destiny”
We don’t yet know if Mae and Osha are truly a Force Dyad. But it is clear the series wants viewers to think about the concept.
So why do Mae and Osha exist? Why does Anakin Skywalker exist? Rey and Ben Solo? Mother Aniseya repeats that word we heard from Palpatine, “unnatural”. What does it mean in Star Wars for any conception to be unnatural, and does the Force even care?
Can any child’s existence be “unnatural”?
Anakin Skywalker and the Chosen One
The Phantom Menace makes it plain what the role of the Chosen One is.
“Only through sacrifice of many Jedi will the Order cleanse the sin done to the nameless. The danger of the past is not past, but sleeps in an egg. When the egg cracks, it will threaten the galaxy entire. When the Force itself sickens, past and future must split and combine. A Chosen One shall come, born of no father, and through him will ultimate balance in the Force be restored.“
This prophecy is made by an unnamed Jedi mystic, and lays bare what the Chosen One will do. According to canon, Anakin Skywalker is indeed the Chosen One. He destroys the Jedi, and then the Sith for a time and Balance is restored.
Lucasfilm has always been deliberately ambiguous on how Anakin came to be. In Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine insinuates to Anakin that he created him, but he is a liar, not even delivering on his promise to save Padme.
There is no indication that Palpatine even knows how create life as his Master did, or save anyone’s life. He struggles to save even his own.
Some fans falsely believe that an issue of the Darth Vader comic implies that Palpatine created him, but both the author Charles Soule and Matt Martin have stated that this is not the intent of the comic. Rather, it showcases Vader’s paranoia and fear of Palpatine’s involvement in his life.
So how was Anakin made? The most common interpretation is that the Force created Anakin by its own will. This explains why his midichlorian count is extremely high, and subsequently that of his children Luke and Leia, and grandson Ben.
Thus far, while Mae and Osha have their midichlorians tested by Sol and the other Jedi, none of them suggest or indicate that the sisters have a remarkably high midichlorian count beyond that of most Jedi.
The Brendok witches, using the Force did create the girls. But it is unlikely they are a “Chosen One”, as this is a singular prophecy regarding an ACTION of the One of bringing balance.
And it’s not the first time witches in Star Wars have created children. Dave Filoni’s wife, E. Anne Convery, wrote a short story titled “Bug” in which a witch creates a daughter, Yenna, made of clay and other materials.
The power of creation is clearly not beyond the grasp of witches. In fact, one wonders if the Sith has tried to varying degrees of success to strike up relationships with witches precisely to learn their prodigious powers.
If Palpatine was being truthful about his master Darth Plagueis learning how to create life, it would mean that such fatherless children aren’t even new. His Master may have learned techniques from witches. Anakin isn’t the Chosen One because he is fatherless, he is the Chosen One for what he will do.
The Force Dyad
The Force Dyad is a concept introduced in The Rise of Skywalker. Chris Terrio based concept from Joseph Campbell’s idea of mythological Divine Marriages. Rey and Ben are a Force Dyad. They are “two that are one”.
Unlike the Chosen One, we have no idea why the Force Dyad should exist. As with the Chosen One, it is mostly likely the Force itself that created the Dyad of Rey and Ben. But it’s purpose is unclear.
Aside from the novelization of TROS, the only other books that goes into detail on the Force Dyad, is the fantastic Secrets of the Sith, of which I write about here.
Unlike the Chosen One, it is primarily the Sith that are concerned with the Force Dyad. The Rule of Two is based on the “Doctrine of the Dyad”, though Master and Apprentice are certainly not an actual Dyad. We only know that the fabled duo has “the power of life itself”, and can cross space and time. We also know that unlike the Chosen One, the Dyad is not a singular entity.
Darth Sidious makes it plain in TROS that the Force Dyad has existed before, but in previous generations. This means that it cannot have existed in Palpatine’s own lifetime, as a few fans tried to assert with Obi-wan Kenobi and Anakin (I write why they can’t be a Dyad here).
However, it does mean that a Dyad has existed prior to the events of Palpatine’s birth. But does it mean Mae and Osha are? Again, it’s unclear. At the very least, I believe that the Mothers BELIEVE their daughters are a Force Dyad.
Does that mean they tried to create a Dyad on purpose? That a Dyad happened incidentally? Again, unclear. But it is clear that the narrative wants us to think of the Force Dyad when watching the twins.
Twins and Divine Couples are common in mythology in folklore. They are a way to tell stories of sacred opposite dualities. Some stories of twins are about siblings that fight, others that create. Mae is presented as Osha’s Jungian Shadow, which is common in stories of siblings.
But whether or not Mae and Osha represent magically created twins, or a true Dyad [and so far, none of them have done things that Rey and Ben can do], we are still in the dark as to why a Dyad exists.
Why did the Sith on Exegol extol and venerate the coming of the Dyad? The Secrets of the Sith, in-universe narrator believes it will usher in a new era of Sith power, which he naturally covets. But this still tells us little. Palpatine is not likely to be correct on his own interpretations.
What were Rey and Ben to do for the Galaxy? What does it mean if Ben is dead? If either Mae or Osha dies, and they are a Dyad in truth, what will it mean? Are there negative consequences for separating a Dyad?
Does the Force truly despise such “Unnatural” children?
It is repeatedly said that the Sith’s magic is “unnatural”. Palpatine proudly states it, Mother Aniseya laments that the witches’s feats are regarded as such. Aniseya loves her girls dearly, and to both mothers, how could such beautiful children be unnatural?
Would the Force hate such children? I can’t see where it would. And this is where things get interesting and strange, more abstract.
If the Force loves life, and can create a child of its own, on its own whim, as Anakin likely is, then does it truly hate the children created by witches? One thing that I think about: in much of the Legends and Canon to an extent, it’s implied that the Force itself prevents the direct cloning of Force Sensitive people.
This is interesting, as it implies that the Force can choose to stop something if it wants. If the Force despised the idea of mortals making life on it’s own, would it not simply prevent Mae and Osha from existing at all? Would it not leave Yenna as just mere dirt?
Obviously, creating children using the Force isn’t easy, but it can be done. And the Force doesn’t actually stop it. Which would imply the Force is simply indifferent to it, and only mortals fear and hate it.
I think too on how Palpatine has never resurrected anyone, has never created a Dyad, has been terrible at making a clone body to hold his enormously strong midichlorian rich-self. Supposedly, making a Force sensitive clone is difficult. Dathan did not have the Force.
Putting the midichlorians of a powerful Force user in a clone vessel, disfigures and mars, if not outright kills the clone. Snoke is alive, but not very well, we see vats of deformed clones in the Mandalorian.
And yet…
We know from the Bad Batch that it’s not impossible, because Nala Se herself discovered the way to it. Whether she meant to, or whether it was a happy accident, she made Omega, a clone girl who’s blood could hold the midichlorians of another.
And the only way Nala Se would know this is if she put Omega’s blood to the test, and found the girl could have a midichlorian count from another donor.
And the only reason Nala Se or anyone else would care at all, is if carrying your own or another’s high midichlorians means the clone body is now Force sensitive. Which means Omega is Force sensitive to some degree. Nala Se hides all of her research by destroying it.
But it means that Omega is yet another Divine, special child that should not exist. But she does. If the Force didn’t want her to happen, it could have prevented her from being created at all.
So what do these children mean?
For one, I don’t think the Force hates or judges the existence of these children. It may certainly prevent the proliferation of special children, made by the Force without fathers or Dyads being made often, but it doesn’t necessarily prevent them at all.
I’ve thought before how Anakin, Mae and Osha, and Omega are much loved children by their mothers. And I think of the many fairytales in which lonely mothers and fathers wish for children, invoking them. They are rewarded with peach children (Momotaro), tiny girls (Thumbelina), heroines red as blood and white as snow (too many of these heroines to count), or unintentionally cursed with a hedgehog son.
In other words, a longing parent, in folklore, can conjure or invoke their own mysterious, supernatural child. Did Anakin Skywalker simply exist because the Force wanted it? Or did Shmi Skywalker long day and night for a child, and the Force graciously provided.
Perhaps the Force understands Aniseya and Koril’s longing for children, and simply looked the other way. Perhaps Nala Se needed metaphorical straw spun into gold, and her next clone experiment became her daughter and the golden clone.
Nala Se and the witches all achieve things that Palpatine never truly does. Rey and Ben’s love and bond is not evil, Mae and Osha are as much children of the Galaxy as anyone else, Anakin has the capacity of good and evil, Omega is a heroine wanting to live her own life.
None of them are “unnatural”, regardless how how they are made.
