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5 Characters Who Might Go Dark Side in 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'

Fear is a path to the Dark side.

by Caitlin Busch
Lucasfilm

Who, if anybody, will turn to the Dark side of the Force in Star Wars: The Last Jedi? Marketing and fan predictions alike have swarmed the theory that someone will stray from the path of the Jedi in the upcoming second installment of Lucasfilm’s latest trilogy. While some of these theories are a little out there in a galaxy far, far away, all of them are possible. Because nothing is impossible in science fiction, right?

The Last Jedi is expected to pick up where Star Wars: The Force Awakens left off, with Luke Skywalker staring down Rey as she begs to be his protege. Luke, who’s gone full hermit and wants nothing to do with the Resistance or the First Order after the downfall of his new Jedi Academy — supposedly at the hands of his nephew and former apprentice Kylo Ren and the other Knights of Ren — is a bit grouchy about it.

But is he evil?

Here are five characters who might go Dark side in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

5. Luke Skywalker

Luke Skywalker, hero of the Rebellion, has been the main subject of Dark side rumors since the beginning. Will the farm boy-turned-Jedi master turn to the Dark side in The Last Jedi and belatedly follow in his father’s footsteps?

On November 6, Luke actor Mark Hamill supposedly cleared up any confusion about whether or not Luke will go Dark side, denying that Luke would ever do so. He might be losing his conviction and scared of the future, but that doesn’t mean he’ll completely turn.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped fans from continuing to guess that Hamill is straight-up lying and that Luke will back into the Dark side of the Force, holding up two middle fingers to Obi-Wan Kenobi’s ghost along the way.

Marketing for The Last Jedi has hinted, over and over, that Luke will be an aggressor of some sort. In posters, Luke has been shrouded in shadow and standing in the same spot villains, including Darth Vader, usually stand in for Star Wars posters. Half lit by red light, Luke’s looked pretty foreboding.

Likelihood of a Dark side switch: 2/5; Mark Hamill is a goof but he’s not a liar. And we should have some faith in our hero.

4. Rey

The newbie Jedi and lost child Rey is supposedly the hero of this latest Star Wars trilogy. What if she’s actually the villain? Fans have speculated that Rey, unimpressed by Luke’s reaction to her, will turn Dark side — and that Kylo Ren will run back to the Light to meet her and balance things out.

International Star Wars posters put Rey in the telltale “villain” spot rather than Luke, a move that got a lot of fans to speculate that Rey would be the one to go bad. And that’s not even to mention the editing on the first full-length Last Jedi trailer, which hinted that Rey would turn to Kylo Ren (and, thus, the Dark side) for guidance.

“I need someone to show me my place in all this,” Rey said in the trailer right before Kylo sticks his hand out. (Though, that editing is probably bogus.)

Likelihood of a Dark side switch: 3/5; It would be a pretty cool storyline to see Rey go Dark side, but considering how important Rey has been to so many little girls and women around the world, it doesn’t seem likely that Lucasfilm would mess with that.

3. Poe Dameron

An official Japanese translation of Poe’s character description in The Last Jedi, which was first translated and tossed around the internet back in October, really hinted at Poe getting a little too intense about the war effort. According to the translation, “both the First Order and the Resistance alike are starting to fear his dedication to the war effort” in The Last Jedi.

Anger and fear are paths to the Dark side. Poe, the best pilot in the Resistance, might just lean a little bit too much into his anger and give in.

Likelihood of a Dark side switch: 1/5; Poe is the prodigal son, and while he might get a bit intense in The Last Jedi, it feels very unlikely he’ll actually go full Dark side.

2. Porgs

Plenty of Star Wars fans have compared the porgs to Furbies — and we all know that Furbies are creepy devil spawn who are secretly out to get us. If porgs are similar to Gremlins, then their cuddly outsides hide a lizard-demon inside. We already know that porgs are food, so maybe the porgs will get sick of being at the bottom of the food chain, turn to the Dark side, rise up, and destroy everything.

Then everyone will be a porg.

Likelihood of a Dark side switch: 3/5; Porgs are evil, right? Right?

1. Jar Jar Binks

Hey, guys, maybe Jar Jar is Snoke. Yeah, that’s a joke, but Star Wars has done weirder things (like make Jar Jar Binks in the first place). Of course, this is assuming that Jar Jar is even in The Last Jedi and that he’s, y’know, alive. We last saw Jar Jar about 50 years ago in the Star Wars timeline and Gungans are considered ancient by about 65 years.

But maybe realizing that he was mostly in charge of handing control over to Palpatine and, thus, creating the Empire was too much for him. He fell, and the Dark side pulled him in.

Likelihood of a Dark side switch: 5/5; Obviously, this is the entire plot of The Last Jedi. Sorry about the spoilers.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi premieres in theaters on December 15.

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